Chapter 25
Three songsin and I was hooked. I was laughing, clapping, and having the time of my life.
And then I felt a pair of hands at my waist.
I tensed and nearly tripped.
“Didn’t think you had two left feet, Duchess.” His lips were close to my ear and his warm breath bathed my neck.
I immediately relaxed and then I shook off his hands. “You’re not supposed to be here.” I quickly got back into the rhythm of the dance, but when I looked around, I quickly realized that several of the Tarnished Angels were now at Spurs.
“Come to the bar with me, Duchess,” Bones urged.
With a sigh, I let him take my hand and we walked off the dance floor. “What happened to the bachelor party?”
“Viper wanted to check on Sutton, Smoke wanted to check on Logan, Boxer wanted to check on Doc, Torque wanted?—”
“I get the picture.” I discreetly glanced around, wondering if the two bikers I’d seen were still here, but it looked like they’d cleared out. “You wanted to check on me, too, didn’t you?”
Bones raked his eyes down my body, and I suddenly felt naked. “I’m liking the outfit, Duchess. Big hair. Very Miss Texas.”
“Hmm. What do you think? If I sing ‘Delta Dawn’, do you think I have a chance at winning the talent contest?”
He grasped my hip and pulled me close. “Can you sing?”
I looked at him through the sweep of my lashes. “No.”
Bones laughed. “Please tell me I didn’t miss you riding the mechanical bull.”
“You didn’t miss it.” I leaned forward, pressed my hand to his chest and whispered, “I know something else I can ride.”
“Yeah?”
“Save a horse, ride a biker.”
His laugh echoed off the walls. “I don’t think that’s how the saying goes.”
“You don’t want me to save a horse?” I shrugged. “All right. I won’t.”
Bones took a step closer to me. “Why do I have this vision of you right now straddling me, wearing nothing but your cowboy boots?”
“Because you’re filthy,” I said, breathless.
“You wanna get out of here?”
“We can’t leave. It’s a bachelorette party.”
“Look around, Duchess. My boys are convincing their women to give up the good fight and go home with them as we speak.”
I glanced around the dance floor. Bones was right. Smoke had Logan in his arms and he was whispering something in her ear. The other Old Ladies were in similar states with their men. All of them except for Rach and Darcy.
“No!” Darcy yelled from the edge of the dance floor closest to the bar. “This is bullshit! This was supposed to be a girls’ night! And now everyone is leaving!”
“Let’s go outside,” Rach said, trying to take Darcy’s hand. Darcy flung her arm back to prevent Rach from grabbing it, and when she did, she clocked a woman dancing near her right in the face.
“Ow!” the woman yelled as her hand went to her nose.
The guy next to her, her boyfriend no doubt, immediately jumped to her defense. “What the hell? Watch it!”
Darcy whirled and glared at him. “You fucking watch it!”
“Bones—”
“On it.” He pushed away from the bar and stalked to the floor and immediately placed himself in front of Darcy, but gave her his back so he could address the woman and her boyfriend.
In a few minutes, he’d diffused the situation entirely and offered to buy them a round of drinks. The couple wandered over to the end of the bar and waited, clearly shrugging off the moment.
My attention slid back to Bones, who was now speaking in low enough tones to Rach that I couldn’t hear him. Rach nodded and the two of them walked toward the exit with Darcy in tow.
Bones returned a few minutes later.
“You just broke up a potential bar fight,” I said in amazement.
He sighed. “Yeah.” He gestured to the bartender and pointed out the couple. Bones reached into his pocket for his wallet and pulled out a few bills. “Buy them a round, or two on me. The rest is yours.”
“Thanks.” The bartender took the cash and then left us to tend to the couple.
“So, what was that about?” I asked. “With Darcy, I mean?”
“How much did she have to drink tonight?”
I thought back over dinner. “She ordered a few rounds of drinks. And she did a few shots. Why?”
“Darcy lost her husband a few months ago,” he said softly. “And she’s not handling it well. She’s trying to find solace at the bottom of a bottle, which never works.”
“Oh, that’s really sad,” I murmured. “She was so quiet during dinner. I caught her staring off into space several times. Rach would ask her questions, and Darcy would answer flatly, but that was kind of it.”
“Rach gets it. Gets Darcy, I mean. She lost her husband too.”
My heart ached for them.
Darcy had mentioned that she was kid-free for the night, but I didn’t know how many she had. “Darcy has kids?”
“Two. A boy and a girl.”
I thought of losing my own father. How I was just starting to heal, three years later.
“There are things I’m ready to tell you,” I said quietly. “But not here. Not in a bar.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“Follow me home?”
He nodded again.
“Let me say goodbye to Sutton,” I said, looking around for her.
“Good luck finding her,” Bones drawled. “Knowing Viper, he picked her up and carried her over his shoulder out of here.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I was unable to hide my look of intrigue.
“You like that idea, don’t you?”
“What? No.” I shook my head. “Not in public anyway. In the privacy of my own home? Maybe…”
“I’ll remember that.” He kissed my forehead. “We can look for Sutton if you want.”
“My jacket is at the table. I need to get it.”
The table had been abandoned. It was clear the bachelorette party was over. No one else seemed that upset about it.
But Bones was right—I couldn’t locate Sutton.
“You’re leaving?” Logan asked as she and Smoke approached the table.
“Yeah. Aren’t you guys?” I queried.
Logan shook her head. “A few of us are going to stay. Smoke wants to watch me ride the bull.”
Smoke raised his arm and settled it over her shoulders. “I’ve got money on how long she’ll last.”
“If you see Sutton, please tell her goodbye for me,” I said. “I had a lot of fun.”
“It didn’t last very long,” Mia said as she came over with her husband in tow. “We can’t go anywhere without our husbands following us around like lost little puppies.” She looked up at her husband and flashed him a grin. “Am I right?”
“Sure, we can go with that,” the man said. He looked at me. “I’m Colt.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Okay, let’s not do the Texas goodbye,” Bones said. He shook Colt’s hand. “Later.”
I grabbed my jacket. “Oh. The bill.”
“Handled,” Mia said.
“Thanks.”
Bones grasped my hand and tugged me toward the door. I looked over my shoulder. Mia gave me a thumbs up and a wink.
With a laugh, I turned back around and followed Bones out into the night.
“You want something to drink?” I asked when we walked into the foyer of my house.
“No. I’m good.” He closed the door behind us. “Did you have fun tonight?”
“Yes.”
“You mad it didn’t get wild and crazy?”
“How do you know it didn’t? I might’ve been dancing on the bar before you got there,” I teased.
“I don’t think so.” He leaned against the front door and watched me. “But I caught your moves on the dance floor. You’re good.”
I shrugged. “It’s no ballroom dancing, but yeah. I’m okay.”
He raised his brows. “You ballroom dance?”
“Cotillions, remember? I can teach you to fox trot, or even waltz if you want.”
“Right.” He pushed away from the door and stalked toward me.
“Bones,” I began.
He leaned over and lifted me into the air and hoisted me over his shoulder. I squealed in surprise. “I didn’t mean you had to do this tonight,” I gasped.
“It’s all I’ve been thinking about.” He ascended the stairs, his hand settled below the curve of my butt.
My heart leapt with excitement.
“Did you bring a toothbrush?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He marched into my bedroom and flipped the light on. Bones brought me to the bed and gently dropped me. I bounced and then flopped back.
Bones looked at me as he slowly removed his leather cut.
“I care about your gums,” I babbled.
“Oral hygiene is important,” he agreed.
I nodded like an idiot.
He went to my walk-in closet and hung up his leather cut and then he sat down on the edge of the bed to take off his boots.
“I got carried away.” He smiled at me. “Otherwise, I would’ve taken them off downstairs.”
“I like that you got carried away,” I said.
“Take off your boots. Get comfortable, Duchess.”
I yanked off my boots and set them down on the other side of the bed. I debated on removing my tight jeans but decided against it.
Bones turned toward me. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“Okay, I’m ready to listen. To whatever it is you want to tell me.”
I was silent for a moment while I gathered my words and then I spoke. “My dad died three years ago—and my mother lost it. But not the crying and screaming and damning God kind of lost it. It was…” My hand went to my chest. “Inside. Like her heart was made of glass and it shattered into slivers too tiny to ever piece back together. After the funeral, she went to a resort.”
“A resort,” Bones repeated. “Like a spa or some shit?”
“Like Canyon Ranch but for…” I pointed to my head. “She came back from the resort and we didn’t talk about my father’s death again. My mother—she can’t handle bad things happening the way normal people do. So, I don’t tell her when bad things happen in my life. And up until someone trying to rob me at gunpoint, nothing bad has ever really happened in my life except my father’s death. What I’m trying to say is, nothing bad ever happens because I won’t let anything bad happen.”
“You shut the world out to protect yourself, and your mother.”
I nodded. “The world can’t hurt you if you’re not a part of it, you know?”
His hand snaked out and rested on my thigh. I covered his hand with mine.
“They were supposed to have forever, but forever was too damn short,” I murmured.
“It’s always too damn short. That’s life, Duchess. You live it to the fullest while you’ve got it and when your time comes, you go out with a fucking smile and no regrets. You want to have regrets?”
“No. I don’t want to have any regrets,” I admitted. “The night I met you, Charlie had dared me to talk to you because she didn’t think I would. She’s been trying to get me to come out of my shell for a while.”
“What made you talk to me? I mean, she dared you, but you didn’t have to take the dare. You could’ve sat at the bar and sipped your drink and turned your back. But you didn’t.”
“Because she didn’t think I’d do it. And for some reason I wanted to prove her wrong. Why were you going to approach me if given the chance?”
“Have you looked in a mirror?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m flattered.”
“No, you’re not. But that wasn’t all.” He paused. “It was your laugh that set you apart.”
“You heard my laugh?”
“Yeah. The way your face lights up, the way you throw your head back. You laugh with your whole body.” He shrugged like it was nothing.
But it was everything.
Because it meant he saw me.
Not the me I showed the world. But the me I had tried so desperately to hide from the world.
“I’m frigid.”
“Who the fuck told you that?” he demanded.
“No one.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “No woman thinks she’s frigid unless some asshole puts that idea in her head. So, who’s the asshole who said it?”
“My ex. Tyler. He’s the only man I’ve ever…”
“Been with?”
I nodded.
“All right.”
“All right?” I frowned.
“You’re not frigid. You know how I know?”
“How?”
“Because I’ve kissed you. Because I’ve woken up with you.” He lifted his hand to my face and held my chin between his fingers. “You need to hear me when I tell you, you’re not frigid. And when you’re ready, I’ll prove it to you.”
“You’ve been a saint.”
“No one has ever accused me of that before.”
“It wasn’t an accusation.” I laughed. “Do you have anywhere you have to be tomorrow?”
“Not until the afternoon. Why?”
“You want to see how I spend my time?” I asked.
“Yeah. I would.”
“It means waking up to an alarm.”
“I can handle that.”
A yawn escaped my mouth and I hastily covered it. “By the way, I bought you a coffee maker and some coffee. I don’t know if it’s any good.”
His eyes softened when they met mine. “It’s perfect.”