I lifted my head and smiled down at him.
His eyes touched mine briefly before they dropped to my mouth. Then one of his hands left my bottom, went up my back and into my hair. He tipped my head down and then he was kissing me, a Tate out-of-mind, all-about-body kiss that tore straight through me in a good way.
I heard the catcalls and wolf whistles about two seconds after Tate released my mouth and started walking through the bar, holding me to him.
His head turned toward the bar as we got to its side.
“Laurie’s on break,” he said to a grinning Bubba.
“Guessed that,” Bubba replied as the catcalls and wolf whistles reached zenith and were joined by some very raunchy words of encouragement.
“I’d pay a five hundred percent tip for that,” I heard Twyla’s biker nemesis shout.
Tate and I ignored him. Tate was busy carrying me down the hall. I was busy kissing his neck and feeling his beard rough on my cheek. One of his hands left me as he unlocked the door and I lifted my head to flip the light switch on when we entered. The door closed behind us as I noticed Tate’s head tip back and then my mouth found his. We necked all the way across the office and my legs automatically accommodated a seating position, straddling him when he sat on the old, beat up couch that was situated diagonal across the middle of the big office, my lips never leaving his.
We kept making out for awhile stopping only when Tate pulled the string of my apron and we separated when he tugged it from between us and then we went back at it.
Finally, when his hands were roaming my skin under my t-shirt at the back and my hands were in his hair, his mouth disengaged from mine and his lips and beard trailed down my jaw to my neck as I shivered.
“Now that’s a welcome home,” he growled into my ear and I shivered again as I smiled against his hair. “Lot better than the last one, babe.”
That didn’t make me shiver. My head came up and my eyes went squinty when his head tipped back.
“How many times are you going to throw that in my face?” I asked when my squinty eyes caught his.
He grinned. “You strung out your grudge against me for nearly two weeks and I just said somethin’ stupid, so I figure I get at least a month of throwin’ that in your face since how you fucked up meant somethin’.”
I put my hands to his shoulders and tilted my head to the side. “And how long are you going to throw my grudge in my face?”
“Until I get that you get that it was stupid and don’t do it again.”
I pressed against his shoulders and leaned back. “Would you like me to perform an altogether different kind of welcome home? The kind where the ‘welcome’ part doesn’t factor into it?”
His grin turned into a smile, his hands flattened on my back and put pressure on, bringing me closer.
“No baby,” he murmured, one of his hands coming out of my t-shirt to slide into my hair and bring my face closer to his too. “I like the ‘welcome’ part the best.”
“Then maybe you’ll let that stuff go so we can move on,” I suggested but I didn’t mean it as a suggestion. I meant it as a delicately worded warning.
He was smiling again when his face disappeared in my neck. “I’ll let it go,” he agreed, “since Deke told me you kept yourself out of trouble.”
It was unfortunate he mentioned Deke.
Deke was kind of a new addition to my life, the “kind of” being that I didn’t know much about him, didn’t talk much to him, he rarely talked to me but he was around a lot.
Deke was a mountain of a man. Six foot eight and big. He made Bubba look like a slouch because Deke didn’t have a belly; Deke was solid from head to toe, solid as in solid.
Deke was also Tate’s friend. Deke also met me at the airport even though I’d arranged it with Wendy that she would meet me. When I walked out of the terminal, Deke came straight up to me and I knew he was of my new people just looking at him (the hint was the motorcycle boots and the leather vest with patches on it but the jeans, black t-shirt and multitude of tattoos helped).
His hazel eyes in his big, blond, ponytailed head looked right into mine as I stared up at him, mouth agape, and he asked, “You Tate’s old lady?”
I nodded.
“I’m Deke. Tate and me are tight. I’m also your ride,” he informed me then took my arm and marched me to the luggage carousel. Then, when I went for my bag, he thrust me aside, hefted up my bag, took my arm again and marched me to a dirty truck where he dumped my bag in the back and shoved me in the cab. Then off we went to Carnal.