At the “beautiful,” my fingers clenched into his skin and my eyes went to his.
“No bullshit, baby,” he whispered the second he got my gaze. “I am absolutely, one hundred percent not missin’ what’s goin’ on.”
It was then I suddenly wanted to cry because I’d just been made love to, had my first orgasm, and was still connected to a man I liked a lot, a lot, a lot in a way I knew I was falling in love.
“This is kinda crazy,” I whispered back.
“This is all kinds of crazy,” he agreed. “Crazy good. And we’d both be fools, we don’t roll with it.”
He was right. I knew it down deep.
I slid my hands up so they were both cupped, one over the other, at the back of his neck.
“I really liked that,” I told him softly. “What we just did.”
He dipped his face closer and gave me a hint more of his weight, replying quietly, “Got that when you came for me, darlin’.”
“Does our second date involve more of that?” I asked, and watched his eyes begin to shine.
“Definitely.”
“Good,” I whispered.
More shining from his eyes before I lost that shine because I closed mine, seeing as he was kissing me.
In the end, our first date involved more of that.
I got home late.
I knew my parents worried even though they didn’t say a word.
But Logan and I had plans to go out the next night.
So I was walking on air.
CHAPTER THREE
Thank You
Millie
Present day, two and a half weeks later...
I STOOD IN front of my bathroom mirror wearing my undies and bra and holding the handle of a large hand mirror.
I turned and lifted my free hand to my neck. Sweeping aside my hair and holding it at my opposite shoulder, I raised the mirror and looked.
I forced my eyes to stay open even when I wanted to squeeze them shut.
Unless I looked, I didn’t see. And my hair was long enough that it was rare I caught a glimpse.
And if by chance I caught a glimpse, I’d pretend I didn’t.
Now I was looking.
And there it was, as it would be since it was a tattoo.
Well done, the artist a master, not faded at all.
Then again, it was all in black.
Squat words that scrolled long in a beautiful, flowing script: Only him...
And I knew the second part of that tat started on Logan’s hip bone and ran across his hip, in bold scripted black underlined with a flourish of barbed wire:...?only her.
The words and memories burned through me as I dropped my hair, turned, set the mirror on the counter, and moved toward the walk-in closet in the bathroom.
It was time to get dressed and go.
It was time to find Logan.
It was time for him to know.
*??*??*
I stood removed, watching and feeling shock at all the changes I saw.
There was a blazing campfire like days gone by. Also as in years past, one of the brothers had hauled logs in his truck to the field so they were positioned around the fire. And there were tents dotted around with the requisite bikes.
But the tents were bigger, more expensive.
And there was not one but three tricked out RVs parked facing the campfire and two deluxe travel trailers set up as well.
When I knew Chaos, they did well and this well didn’t entirely come from their custom car and bike garage and the automotive supply shop they ran but other not-as-legal enterprises.
Clearly, things had gotten even better and I knew part of that was Ride becoming outlandishly successful, something you couldn’t miss even if you tried since everyone in Denver knew about it.
I just wondered if the other part also kept going.
We’d never had RVs.
Or, I should say, they never had.
I was no longer someone who could refer to Chaos as “we” and they were sticklers about that kind of thing, so I knew I shouldn’t even think that way.
I stayed removed and watching, seeing brothers I knew. Even though they’d aged, I recognized them immediately. Boz, Hound, Big Petey. There were brothers missing, including Arlo, Dog, Brick, Hop, Black, Chew, Crank, and, most surprisingly, Tack, who was one of the more intense members of Chaos, but he seemed more Chaos than the average brother and considering they were all in—blood, guts, and glory—that was saying something.
Logan had been wary of Tack, telling me when I’d asked, “Good man, good brother. But Tack’s got ideas and the way shit is, my best bet is to lay low, see if he decides to play ’em out, and if he does, how.”
Logan had not shared these “ideas” with me. That was brother business and he’d gently but definitely, firmly shared that brother business was not my business.
I was okay with that. My man was far from stupid and I knew the brothers that made up the brotherhood by then, so I knew why he was in it.
And I trusted him.
The last was the bottom line, really.
In the end, I’d needed a lot of trust.
But it had never wavered.
Not once.
Though, he didn’t know that because I didn’t share that.
I’d shared the opposite.
I set those thoughts aside and studied the rest of the Chaos crew. There were more than a few younger guys I didn’t know, some of them with women I also (obviously) didn’t know.
This shouldn’t have been surprising, even though it was. The Club recruited and did it regularly. When I was with Logan, they were looking into opening another auto supply shop in Fort Collins and only brothers were involved in that (or anything to do with Chaos).
However, the sheer number of new, younger men shocked me. They outnumbered the members I knew and that made Chaos—something that was so familiar to me, once a part of my life with me being a part of their family—unfamiliar and that caused a pang of hurt I knew was not my right to feel.
Though, one of the girls I suspected I knew except when I knew her she was a whole lot younger.
Tabitha Allen. Tack’s daughter.
Like she had back then, she looked just like her dad, except female. She was just as beautiful as he had been handsome. And she was clearly with one of the brothers, a tall, lanky, good-looking one who was also very with her.
But no Tack.