Chapter Seventeen

 

 

 

 

Tessa couldn’t help the grimace that twisted her face as she looked at Buck. He was holding her feet rubbing along her bare arch and watching her silently, his look expectant. Damn, she didn’t want to tell him about the compound. People judged what they didn’t understand and she knew that the whole state knew about the compound and the rumors ran rampant. It was the main reason she hadn’t told anyone where she was from. Not because she was embarrassed of her family but because she hated narrow-mindedness and some of the rumors were just ridiculous.

One had her father as a cult leader who ate his own children, which was beyond absurd. She didn’t want to tell him because the thought of Buck believing any of those things about her family made her sad. Her family was a bit odd but considering his was made up of more than a thousand men who were a bit off themselves, who were they to judge.

“It’s the compound out on route 60,” she muttered, waiting.

“You mean that doomsday place we sell guns to?” he asked, looking a little surprised, his hands pausing in their caresses.

Tessa was a little surprised herself. She turned to glare at her father, demanding, “You bought guns from bikers! What the hell, pappy?”

“Now bean. You know that some of our weapons aren’t exactly easy to get and sometimes that means working outside the law to get them. It’s not like we are planning to attack anyone or use them to take over a country or anything.” Her father looked a little sheepish as he dumped the glass he’d cleaned up into a trash bin he’d made Jim go get after Jim had finally stopped whining about his nose. Jim could be such a baby. Tessa glared at her father for another moment before she turned her glare on Buck, shaking her foot to get him to start rubbing again.

“Why would you sell guns to a group most people think are trying to start a militia to take over the state?” Tessa asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Good question, bean. Well boy?” Her father was grinning slyly thinking he’d shoved the blame off on Buck but she wasn’t finished with him yet either.

“You’re not off the hook, pappy.” She was gratified to see her father’s wince.

“We don’t judge. The money comes through, we sell, end of story. You’re actually from that place? What was that like?” Buck asked, now staring from her to her family and back again, making her laugh a little. What was it like? To her, a prison, but saying that to him now would break her father’s heart and she wouldn’t do that, so she shrugged.

“She didn’t like it,” Jim muttered, earning a glare from her. If he hurt her pappy by being an ass she would do more than bloody his damned nose.

“She has hated it since she was ten. The rest of my girls were okay living behind the fences but not my lil’ bean. Nope, she was always an explorer. Doesn’t surprise me that she ran away but it did hurt a little when she didn’t tell me she was leaving,” her father surprised her by saying, sounding a little hurt on the last part, making her feel like an asshole.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, pappy. I just couldn’t stay there anymore and once I’d decided to leave I didn’t want anyone to try to talk me out of it,” Tessa muttered, looking sadly at her dad and hoping he would understand why she’d left without telling him.

“I understand that you didn’t want us to try and stop you but you could have told us where you were going. We just want to be sure that you’re safe and have everything you need.”

“She has everything she needs,” Buck grunted, his hands gripping her foot rather than massaging it as he had been.

“Boy, you don’t get to decide that. Trust me, if she wants to leave she will—we aren’t afraid of you or your little biker club. We know how to handle anything you throw at us so believe me when I say don’t ever try to keep her against her will because all it would take to have all the fires of hell raining down on your head is a phone call.” Her father wore a grim expression, his eyes cold.

Tessa rolled her eyes because she was sure it would make her uncle’s, cousin’s and father’s year to have to follow through on that threat. She couldn’t decide who she wanted to be mad at because they both deserved her anger; her father for his threat and Buck for his annoying habit of assuming he knew what was best for her.

“I think that perhaps you both need to accept that neither of you have any say in what I do and move on,” Tessa snapped, pulling her feet out of Buck’s grasp. “Pappy, I’m obviously okay. You knew before you left to look for me that I would be so don’t try playing the just checking card with me. I know better. You came here to try and convince me to come back.”

Diego grimaced a little and nodded because he knew that she wasn’t stupid enough to believe him if he tried to deny his reasons for showing up in the middle of the night. Buck was watching her when she turned to look at him, his gaze speculating, and she wondered what he was thinking.

“Why are you living with a biker?” Jim asked, making her head swivel to scowl at him instead because who she lived with was none of his damned business.

“Not a bad question, girl,” her uncle grunted.

“First, I’m not living with him, he’s living with me, and second, it’s not any of your damned business.” Tessa ran a hand over her face trying to rein in her temper before she choked her only sensible cousin.

“Wow, that was kind of mean,” Jim muttered, looking hurt.

Tessa didn’t care. He wasn’t allowed to question her like that. She was an adult, not a five-year-old. She twisted on the couch planning to stand up and head into the kitchen, but Buck’s hand on her upper thigh stopped her making her look at him.

“Not till I’m sure there’s no more glass on the floor, duchess. What do you need?” Buck asked her, leaning forward to brush a stray hair out of her eyes. His eyes held an intensely protective glow that annoyed her a bit. She only allowed his control because it wasn’t smart to stomp around in bare feet with shards of glass on the floor. Otherwise she’d have told him were to stick his protectiveness. 

“I need to get away from all this testosterone, it’s starting to make me sick to my stomach,” Tessa muttered, glaring at him darkly.

“I’ll take you to the kitchen, duchess. You can make your nightly hot cocoa to calm your nerves.” Buck stood, his thick arms bulging sexily as he scooped her up and carried her to the door of the kitchen before setting her down gently, his hands lingering on her waist. He leaned forward and placed a claiming kiss on her parted lips that left her a little breathless before stepping back.

“I’ll get the vacuum for your father,” Buck muttered, moving down the hall, ignoring her dad’s grumbled statement that he wasn’t the fucking maid. Shaking her head at his ridiculousness, she caught her father’s eye.

“We will talk about those guns when I get back, pappy.” She spun after seeing his glower turn into a worried frown because he knew that she was going to give him a long lecture over his irresponsible behavior. Her beloved grandmother wasn’t here to do it so it fell to her to take the men in her family to task for their insane ideas. If the police raided them again he’d be in trouble for illegal guns. Reaching up into the cabinet, which was newly painted since Buck had his buddies over last weekend, she grabbed her hot cocoa and measured out her cup. 

 

Buck felt like he was going to come out of his skin. He’d gotten Tessa’s patch this morning and planned to give it to her in an hour when she got off work. He just couldn’t predict how she would react. Would she be flattered or would she think it was another way for him to try and control her. Over the past week, she’d opened up a bit about her life at the compound-o-crazy. Yeah, some of the shit she’d told him was insane. Drill sergeants hadn’t been as cruel as her family. When she had explained that her training had started when she was only five he’d almost lost his shit. He knew she loved them but subjecting children to some of those ‘drills’ seemed cruel even to him.

He watched Tessa lean over the table across the room from his table. His cock stirred prompting him to go to her but he resisted. Tonight wasn’t the night to take her against the wall in the stockroom. He needed to keep his head. Giving her his patch was important. She needed to know it wasn’t a whim and that meant not fucking her senseless right before they left, he lectured his randy cock.

Tessa looked up and smiled at him, an almost dreamy look on her face for a minute making him question his resolve to wait till he could fuck her properly tonight. Damn, he loved sinking inside her wet pussy. His cock twitched seconding that thought. His hands gripped the bottle of beer he’d been drinking and he might have forgotten all about his plan if Dice hadn’t sat down across from him.

“Hey, Choke needs us to come over in the morning. Something about a job we need to work on the computer. He will need both of us for this one. Not sure but he says that the Dicks are chomping at the bit for this one but he wants us to get it first. Might end up being a little risky, this job.” Dice raised his hand signaling Amber to bring him a beer.

“Okay. Is it going to be like the last time when they bought the goods out from under us and we had to raid their compound?” Buck asked, his eyes still tracking his woman even as he spoke to Dice.

“I fucking hope not. That was a shitty night and we lost two of our men,” Dice muttered, taking the beer from Amber when she neared their table with it. Buck glanced at him remembering the shared anger at how that operation had gone down but neither of them could have prevented what happened that night. Still feeling his nerves acting up, he shifted in the seat feeling like a pansy-assed idiot.

“Tonight’s the night, huh?” Dice asked grinning.

Buck ignored the look on his face, not wanting to give in to the need to tell him to fuck off because he knew it was what Dice wanted. His friend was trying to fuck with him over his need to own one little spitfire but he didn’t care. They could fucking kiss his ass because being with Tessa was worth every bit of ribbing he got. He finally understood why his brothers had patched women. It was because they couldn’t stand the thought of them getting away.

Buck knew he was dooming her to a dangerous life but he wasn’t sure he cared anymore. She was his and that was just that. Now he just had to convince her of that so she’d wear his patch and he could relax knowing he owned her and no one in their right mind would ever lay a hand on her because he’d have every right to kill them for it. Not that he wouldn’t have killed them for touching her before he patched her, because he would, but now the club would stand behind him when he did, giving her another layer of protection.