Tate
“Tate! You better put me down right now,” Hadley seethed.
I stalked toward Kellan’s car, beeped open the locks, and started regretting my split second decision to make Hadley listen to me.
She wailed on my back and kicked her legs, trying to knock me in the junk the whole way.
“I’m gonna put you down, and you have to promise that you’ll talk to me.”
“Oh, you better believe I’ve got a few choice words for you. Do you know you just made a complete fool of me in front of my boss?”
“Rick didn’t even see.”
She smacked my back and kicked her leg. “Not Rick, you ass! The guy who owns the whole club! They were the bikers who were right next to you!”
Oh shit. I hadn’t realized Rick didn’t own the club. From the way Hadley talked about him, he seemed like the owner to me. “Sorry, sweetheart.”
“Sorry isn’t going to keep me from getting fired,” she hissed. “Now, put me down!”
“No. If I have to talk to you like this, then I will. I know as soon as I put you down, you’re going to run.”
“Damn straight I’m going to run! You just cavemaned me out of the club, and you’re standing here acting like I’m not supposed to be the least bit pissed off.”
“I need to talk to you, Hadley, and you won’t answer the phone when I call.”
“It was only fair since Ryker wasn’t talking to me.”
Wait, what? “Why the hell wasn’t Ryker talking to you?”
“Because I’m a shit aunt who lies to her nephew and doesn’t tell him important things.”
“That’s a load of shit.”
She stopped struggling to get out of my arms and relaxed over my shoulder. “It’s not, Tate. He was right. I should have told him about you and me.”
“I’m gonna put you down, sweetheart. Please don’t run.” She didn’t say anything, just hung over my shoulder.
I slid her down my body and kept my arms wrapped around her.
“Hi,” she mumbled sadly when her feet were on the ground.
“I think we’re past hi.”
She shrugged and rested her head on my shoulder.
Well, this was a change of pace.
“I still want to kick your ass, Tate. I just remembered you’re a ninja, though, so I’m going to have to figure out a way to take you down.”
I buried my face in her hair and deeply inhaled her flowery scent. “Come to the studio, sweetheart. I’ll let you try on the mat.”
“Is the mat to protect me or you?” she mumbled.
“More than likely you,” I chuckled.
“I fucked up, Tate.”
I leaned back and threaded my fingers through her hair, and then gently tilted her head back to look at me. “We both did, sweetheart.”
“Ryker was so mad at me that he barely said ten words to me for three weeks.”
“He still not talking to you?”
Her eyes shone up at me, and she slightly shook her head. “He finally talked to me before work. More like broke down, but he at least talked to me.”
“And how did that go?”
“Did I ever tell you about Jeri?”
“That his mom?”
“Yeah,“ she whispered. Her eyes filled with tears, and she face-dived into my chest.
“Don’t cry,” I whispered.
She sobbed uncontrollably and held onto me like I was the only thing that mattered. “I loved her so much, but she hurt Ryker and me before she died,” she whispered.
“What happened?”
She wiped her nose on my shirt and wrapped her arms around my neck. She tilted her head back to look at me. “Jeri knew she was sick for over a year before she told Ryker or me. She had ovarian cancer and kept it to herself until the doctor told her she only had weeks left to live. Four weeks after she told Ryker and me, she died.”
My heart broke as I heard the pain in voice. “Damn, baby, I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too,” she whispered. “She said she didn’t tell us because she didn’t want to spend whatever time she had left with us sad and depressed. She wanted to watch Ryker do karate and just spend as much time as she could with us.”
“That doesn’t sound like she was trying to hurt you, sweetheart.”
Hadley shook her head. “But it did. It did because I didn’t know when she called me to go shopping with her and I told her I was too tired to go, that she was trying to spend time with me before she died.” Hadley’s voice cracked. “Ryker was mad at me because I was doing the same thing his mom had done.”
“Hadley, you have to see that they aren’t the same. You or I weren’t dying. You wanted to be sure that we were going to work before you brought in everything that could tear us apart.”
“No, that’s not true, Tate. I was selfish. What would it have hurt for Ryker to know about us? I wasn’t protecting him from anything. I was so stupid. All along, I thought I was making the right decision, but in the end, all I was doing was setting him up to be hurt when he found out.”
“Dammit, Hadley.” I pushed her against Kellan’s car and leaned in. “You can’t beat yourself up for this. You’re not always going to make the right decision. That’s all part of being a parent. You’re constantly trying to do the right thing, but every now and then, you’re not going to because, at the end of the day, you’re human.”
She pressed her forehead against mine and sighed. “Do you have any idea how badly I wanted to answer the phone when you called?” she whispered.
“Probably as much as I wanted to get in my truck and come over to shake some sense into you.”
“I’m sorry I was an idiot,” she mumbled.
I wrapped my arms around her and crushed her against my body. “I fucking missed you, Hadley.”
“Eh mas ew ta.”
I leaned back and looked down at her. “You mind repeating that for me, sweetheart. I don’t speak Latin.”
She smacked me on the shoulder and rolled her eyes. “I said I missed you too, ass.”
“Oh, of course, that’s what you said,” I laughed. I brushed her hair out of her eyes and watched as she licked her lips. “You think I can kiss you now?”
“I don’t know what you’re waiting for.”
“So sassy,” I mumbled.
“You like it,” she whispered against my lips, as I leaned down.
“You better fucking believe it.” I took her mouth in a hot, deep kiss, and showed her everything she had been missing the past three weeks.
“Mm,” she mumbled against my lips. “I guess you really like me.”
“Pretty sure I’m way past like, sweetheart.” My hands slid down her back, over her ass, and I gripped her thighs. “Wrap your legs around me,” I ordered as I lifted her up.
Her legs circled my waist, and she rolled her hips into me. “What comes after like?” she asked coyly. “Really like?”
My lips slid down her neck, the urge to taste every inch of her driving me insane. “Love, sweetheart. I fucking love you, and there isn’t a damn thing you can say to make me change my mind.”
She gasped, and her fingers delving into my hair. She tugged my head back and looked into my eyes. “I don’t think I deserve that.”
*********
Hadley
My heart was beating wildly, and I didn’t know what to do. Did I deserve this man who loved me and didn’t care that I was a bit crazy and I had a sixteen-year-old to take care of? I didn’t know what I had done to get this.
“Why wouldn’t you deserve it?”
Aw damn. Now I was going to have to tell him all of the reasons why I sucked. “Um, well, I have Ryker to take care of.”
“I’m not supposed to love you because you took your nephew in to raise when your sister died?” He shook his head and pressed a kiss to my lips. “Try again.”
“Ah, well, there’s the whole fact that I’m a waitress at a strip club thing.”
He shook his head. “You doing anything you can to keep a roof over your head is not something to look down on.”
“I snore. A lot.”
“So do I. Two snorers cancel each other out.” His lips touched mine again.
Humph. “If you hadn’t shown up tonight, I was um…well…I had talked to Rick an—”
He pressed a finger to my lips. “I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear it. If I hadn’t come tonight, and you had taken that stage, I still would have loved you, Hadley.” He sighed and shook his head. “I mean, I would have had to beat the shit out of every guy who saw you naked, but I would have gotten over it eventually.”
He pressed another kiss to my lips.
“I still might have to. I need to get my car fixed. Ah! There’s another one. I have a piece of junk car that doesn’t run and is making me have to start stripping to get it running.”
He laughed and pressed a kiss to my neck. “It’s pretty cute how you keep mentioning stripping like it’s not making me pissed off thinking about other men beside me seeing you naked.”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” I reminded him.
“And it won’t. Ever,” he informed me. “I’m paying to get your damn car fixed, Hadley, and you can’t stop me.”
“I won’t give you the keys.” He would have to pry them out of my cold, dead hand.
“Not even five minutes after I get you back you’re already throwing sass at me,” he chided.
“If you would just listen to me, and let me do what I need to do to get my car fixed, I wouldn’t have to throw sass at you.”
He nuzzled my neck, and I rolled my head to the side to give him better access. “You remember the last time we did things your way?” he asked. “I spent three weeks without you, and Ryker was pissed off at you. Maybe this time, you can just listen to me for once.”
I rolled my eyes. Maybe Tate paying to get my car fixed was a better idea than stripping. Hell, who was I kidding. Anything was better than stripping. “I’m kind of stubborn, baby.”
“So I’ve noticed,” he whispered in my ear.
“I still think I should get the chance to kick your ass. I mean, after all, you did toss me over your shoulder like some Neanderthal. I was waiting for you to beat your chest and say ‘this woman mine.’”
“She is mine, though.” His lips glided up my neck and found my bottom lip which he nipped between his teeth. “My woman,” he grunted.
“Definitely your woman,” I whispered.
Definitely.
*********