Sundays were the one day I didn’t bother setting an alarm. My boutique was closed, I had no obligations with others, and had nothing I needed to do. For me, it was a day of resupplying my mind and body with rest.

Someone banging on my door stirred me from my sleep. I glanced at the clock. An eight o’ clock in the morning invasion could only come from two walks of life.

The police, or Jennifer.

With some reluctance, I tossed the blankets to the side and rolled off the edge of the bed. After glancing in the mirror, I pulled my matted hair into a ponytail and walked into the living room.

The knocking continued, so rapidly that it eliminated the police from being the culprit. I meandered to the door and yanked it open.

Dressed in sweats, slippers, and a hoodie, Jennifer slid past me and shuffled toward the kitchen. She looked like she just got out of bed.

“Seriously?” she said over her shoulder. “You haven’t had coffee yet?”

I turned to face her. “I was asleep.”

She dropped a pod into the machine and grabbed a cup from the cupboard. “He just dropped you off?”

“Huh?”

“It was like, I don’t know, ten after eleven or something. He pulled up, you got off the bike, and then he just left. What happened? Was he a douche?”

“No.” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “He was awesome.”

She shot me a look of disbelief. “So awesome that you didn’t invite him in?”

I opened the cupboard and grabbed a cup. “We had a great time.”

“Is he a weirdo?”

“No. He was nice.”

She pulled the hood off her head and glared. “But you guys didn’t fuck?”

“No. We didn’t.”

She opened the fridge and grabbed the cream. “He didn’t want to?”

“He did want to. I said no.”

She slammed the carton of cream down beside her coffee and faced me. “What is wrong with you?” she screeched.

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” I said in a regretful tone. “Kind of.”

“You’ll never see him again.”

“He’s coming over tonight.”

Her eyes shot wide. “What?”

I pushed her aside and set my cup under the machine’s spigot. “He’s coming over for dinner.”

“Thank God all’s not lost.” She exhaled a long breath and then lifted her cup. “You better get on that dick like a rat on cheese, though.”

“Oh?” I widened my eyes in false wonder. “Should I?”

“If you don’t, it’ll be the last you see of him,” she said with a nod. “He’s giving you a second chance. If you don’t take it, he’ll be gone.”

“According to who?”

She sipped her coffee, and then shrugged. “SOA.”

“Your stupid biker show?”

“It’s not stupid. It’s informative.” She shuffled to the kitchen table and sat down. “Bikers don’t linger long. They’re free spirits. If you don’t give it up, he’ll find someone who will.”

I finished making my coffee, and then joined her at the table. Egging Jennifer on was one of my all-time favorite things to do.

“Maybe I’ll give him a blowie tonight.”

She gave me a long open-mouthed stare.

“What?” I asked.

“That’s your plan? A blowie?”

I nodded. “Maybe. If he’s lucky.”

She laughed hysterically. Upon catching her breath, she gave me a crazy-eyed look. “Are you in high school? Blow jobs are like an appetizer for a meal. They’re supposed to lead up to something better. They’re not the ‘main event’.”

“I guess that depends on who’s giving them.”

“I know how to suck a dick, believe me.” She scoffed. “And, I’ve never sucked one that didn’t lead to sex.”

“You’re abnormal.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“I’m perfectly normal.”

“You’ve told me stories about having sex with ten different guys over the course of one summer.”

She shrugged dismissively. “So.”

“That’s not normal.”

“It was at my high school,” she said snidely. “Not everyone goes to a private school.”

“Attending a private school has nothing to do with it.”

She gazed down her nose at me. “Private schools lead girls to believe that blowjobs are a replacement for sex, and they’re not.”

I chuckled. “So, if I want to keep him around, I should ride his dick?”

She looked at me like I was insane. “I didn’t say that. You should ride his dick because riding dicks is much better than not riding dicks. If you don’t hop on it quick, he’ll ride off into the sunset, never to be seen again.”

I had no idea if she was right or wrong. Bikers, in general, were free-spirited. It didn’t mean Cash would be incapable of commitment. I feared if I had sex with him that I might not see him again.

“I’m too old to be screwing random guys,” I said. “I want a relationship.”

“He’s thirty, Kimberly. He’s not going to want to be in a relationship. A thirty-year-old man wants a twenty-year-old girl.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe that.”

“I may be wrong.” She raised both brows. “Even if I am, he’s still a biker. He doesn’t want a relationship. He’ll fuck you, and then he’ll push you away. It’s what they do. You better get that dick while you can.”

One of my employees had been in a relationship with a biker for a long time. I hadn’t heard her mention him for a while and wondered if he was still around, or if he’d pushed Tisha away.

I hoped Jennifer was wrong. I stared back at her, wondering if, for once, she was right.

* * *

After wiping his plate clean with the corner of his bread, he poked the last remaining piece into his mouth and leaned away from the table. “You’re not a chef, or anything, are you?”

What he was wearing resembled what he’d worn the other three times that I’d seen him: Jeans, a tee shirt, and boots. The gray shirt was free of any logos or sayings, and clung to his body tightly, leaving nothing to the imagination.

The fitted shirt, when combined with his whisker-free jaw and tight-fitting jeans, made him look less rugged, but no less harmful. He had an unmistakable presence about him that warned anyone with an ounce of common sense to turn the other direction.

I wondered if that, at least in part, was one of the things that drew me to him. I peeled my eyes away from his handsome face and met his gaze. “No. I’m not a chef.”

“Maybe you should be. Woman, you can cook.” He patted his flattened hands against his stomach. “I can’t believe you made that bread from scratch.”

“Bread is as simple as it gets,” I said. “Sugar, salt, flower, and yeast. That’s it.”

“It tasted more complicated than that.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Well, that was as fine of a meal as I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve eaten from California to Connecticut, and from Seattle to Sarasota.”

Hearing a man pay such a compliment to my cooking made me swell with confidence. I’d spent my adult life cooking for someone who expected everything and appreciated absolutely nothing. The change was welcomed.

Beaming with pride, I flashed a smile. “Thank you.”

He gave a slight nod. “I was taught to give credit where credit is due.”

“I’m glad you liked it.”

“So, if you’re not a chef, what do you do for a living?”

“I sell awesome shoes to women who want to wear something fashionable, yet affordable.”

He grinned. “Shoes, huh?”

“I’ve got a little boutique in Old Town.”

“Must be successful at it. Old Town is pricey when it comes to rent.”

It surprised me that he knew how overpriced the area was. I rolled my eyes let out a breath of frustration. “It is, but I love the location. I basically break even every month. If it was somewhere affordable, I’d make money. I doubt that it’d be as successful, though.”

His brows knitted together. “How do you get by?”

“I’ve got a little nest egg my parents left me,” I admitted. “I live off the interest.”

“Must be a hell of a nest egg to live off the interest,”

A twinge of regret poked at me for mentioning my inheritance. I wasn’t embarrassed about living off it, but it certainly wasn’t a source of pride, either. Furthermore, I rarely mentioned it to anyone, and telling Cash about it seemed rather premature.

“I live modestly,” I said. Hoping to change the subject, I arched a curious eyebrow. “What do you do?”

“I manage car washes.”

It wasn’t at all what I expected. “I bet that’s a pretty stress-free gig.”

“It is. Keep the chemicals filled, make sure the pumps aren’t leaking, and keep the mud traps cleaned on a regular basis. We use the best soaps and waxes there are, so the customers stay pretty happy.”

“Do you have partners?”

His eyes thinned a little. “Why would you ask that?”

“You said ‘we’.” I shrugged. “I just guessed that meant there were others involved.”

“There’s five of us. Well, six, really. If you include the asshole that owns the corporation.”

“That’s why I work for myself,” I said. “I don’t have to worry about having an asshole boss.”

“Bosses suck.”

I chuckled. “Bosses and cars.”

“Agreed.” He stood and reached for my plate. “I don’t know which one is worse.”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

His eyes darted around the kitchen. “You don’t have a maid, do you?”

“No.”

“Well, this shit ain’t gonna pick itself up,” he said.

I wondered if he was attempting to earn a blowjob, or if I was seeing Cash in his natural state.

“Let me help you,” I offered.

“Stay where you are,” he growled. “I mean it. You cooked it, I’ll clean it up. I’ve got this.”

I did as he asked, and watched admiringly as he rinsed the dishes, loaded the dishwasher, and wiped the countertops down. In my twenty years of marriage, my husband didn’t do the dishes once. Further convinced that it was Marvin who was the oddity, I smiled as Cash returned to the table and sat down.

“Are you trying to earn a blowjob?”

“I told you I wasn’t going to mention it, and I won’t.”

He hadn’t said a word about it, which I found impressive. “You’ve held up your end of the promise. You haven’t mentioned it. But, did you clean up the dishes because you hoped it’d get you one step closer to a blowjob?”

“I cleaned up the dishes because it was the right thing to do. I might look like a thug, but I was raised by a good woman. Just don’t cross me. I’m that ‘best friend worst nightmare’ guy.”

I wrinkled my nose. “The what?”

“I’m either a person’s best friend, or their worst nightmare.” He reached for his glass of wine, took a drink, and winced at the taste. His mouth twisted into a smirk. “I’m not going to try to convince you I’m a good guy, because I’m not. I’m an asshole. What you’re seeing is an abnormality. With most women, if you weren’t giving up the pussy on that first night, I’d have been long gone.”

I felt an odd sense of honor that he chose to stick around. I was intrigued as to why. “Why are you here?”

“I think it was the discussion about history. Never met a chick that talked about that. You’re different.”

“It might be my age,” I admitted. “I’m not going to sit and giggle while you flex your biceps. Is that what you’re used to?”

He grinned. “Kind of.”

“Flex your bicep,” I said jokingly.

He looked at his empty wine glass and then at me. His eyes were smiling. “Maybe later.”

While he glanced around the room, I admired him. Despite Jennifer’s early comments to the contrary, he was a big man. Be it that he was a hard-core biker, or that he simply possessed a certain aura about him, he was unmistakably masculine.

So much so that it was scary.

His worst enemy comment piqued my curiosity to a point that I had to ask. “What’s the worst thing you’ve done to someone who’s crossed you?”

His gaze dropped to the center of the table. “You don’t want to know.”

“I do.”

He shook his head. “I won’t tell you.”

“Why?”

His gaze met mine. “There’s some things that shouldn’t be talked about.”

“I just want to know.”

“I don’t know you well enough to tell you.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

I wasn’t appalled, but the remark was far from flattering. “Why not?”

“Why should I?” he asked. “You haven’t earned it.”

I considered his response. I hadn’t earned it. But. I hadn’t given him a reason not to, either.

He looked me in the eyes. “Do you trust me?”

“I do.”

“Well.” He pursed his lips and looked away. “You shouldn’t.”

“Are you trustworthy?”

“I am. But, you don’t know that about me.” His expression turned to serious. “You shouldn’t trust people until they earn your trust. People aren’t always as they seem.”

He was right about that. “Point taken,” I said.

“I stabbed my knife through a guy’s hand once,” he said without an ounce of emotion. “Pinned it to a wooden picnic table. That’s probably the fifth or sixth worst thing I’ve done to someone who’s crossed me,”

“Oh my God,” I gasped. “What did he do to deserve that?”

“He stole the tips off my exhaust pipes.”

It seemed a bit extreme. If someone took the mufflers off my car, I’d laugh about it the entire time I was on the phone with the police. The look on his face, however, told me this was no laughing matter to him.

“So, you stabbed his hand to a picnic table?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Wow. Were they expensive?”

“Doesn’t matter if they were worth five bucks or five grand,” he snapped. “He was a fuckin’ thief. Not much worse than that, in my book.”

I wondered if Jennifer was right. If Cash was simply trying to push me away. If that was the case, I was going to buck him every step of the way. It would take more than stories about makeshift crucifixions of exhaust pipe thieves to get me to turn and run.

“How long ago was your last relationship?” I asked.

“Easy one to answer,” he said. “Never.”

“You’ve never been in a relationship?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a short one?” I asked. “One that failed?”

“Nope. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been on some dates.” He lowered his gaze for a few seconds, and then looked up. “Kind of. Not really ‘dates’, but, you know. I’ve taken a few chicks out over the years, but I’ve never stuck with it long enough to call it a ‘relationship’.”

I gave him a puzzled look. “Why?”

“No one ever gave me a reason to stick around,” he said. “I know it’s not what you’re looking to hear, but women are all the same. I’ve been with my fair share of them, and other than the way they look, they’re all the same. So far, I haven’t met one that has enough redeeming qualities to cause me to want to stay for longer than a few minutes.”

I had many redeeming qualities. I simply didn’t know if I had qualities that he would see as redeeming. I did know that there were three ways to get to a man’s heart, and I’d already offered him one.

So, I stood, lowered myself onto my knees, and offered him the second one.