Chapter 19
Bacon snaps me awake. There is no way I could sleep through that tantalizing scent.
When I sit up, there’s a delicious tenderness along the inside of my thighs. Whisker burns there and other places. Deep inside, I’m achy too.
It really happened.
This isn’t a weird dream.
I’m in Tobias’s room. He’s cooking, wearing a pair of low slung jeans that show off a very masculine, beef-cake ass.
I stare until he glances at me over his shoulder.
“Getting an eye full?”
“Why yes, I am. Can you blame me?”
He goes back to cooking. I keep on staring. This time I enjoy viewing the gazillion muscles in his back. Surveying the ink that makes up a story-board of dark, violent tattoos. And the scars. Lots of them.
“I have nothing to wear,” I announce after remembering how I got here.
“Yeah, you do,” he says, without turning around.
“Nope. That dress is going behind glass. Survived jail and got taken off by a big, growly biker. That’s what’s going on the little plaque on the front of the case.”
Leaving the stove, he walks to the dresser. He picks a black t-shirt up from the top of the neatly folded clothing and throws it at my head.
The devil. I grin and hold it up to read the graphic on the front, which says, “If I Wanted Your Opinion, I’d Beat It Out of You.”
Classic.
He’s back to cooking as I climb off the bed and pull it over my head. The clean scent wraps around me. His detergent. A hint of soap. Sunshine, like it got line dried. All of it threaded into the cotton.
The thing hangs off me. Down past the tops of my thighs, sleeves to my elbows, neck hanging a little off one shoulder.
I’m speechless.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I thought so.”
The man has made me feel feminine ever since he put his hand on my thigh when I was sitting on his bike.
I love the feeling.
Smiling, I excuse myself to the bathroom where I try to get a stranglehold on my emotions.
I’m not an emotional person. I’m an accountant. I do logic and numbers and tidy balance sheets. There’s no room in that kind life for… this.
The huge feeling that’s bubbling inside of me like champagne has no place in my world.
But I’m not going to let that ruin today.
While he’s out there cooking, looking like temptation in jeans, I do my business, splash my face, brush my teeth with a new unopened tooth-brush he’s set on the counter for me. Then I let myself really look in the mirror for the first time.
Good god.
Who is this woman?
I’ve got a beard rash, hickeys, knots in my hair and I’m wearing a shirt that says, If I Wanted Your Opinion, I’d Beat It Out of You.
This can’t be my life.
“Hurry up, breakfast is on!” Ace calls.
I have a feeling if I don’t return, he’s the kind of man who would kick in the door, so I whip my hair back into a knot.
“Don’t turn into a chicken now,” he yells.
Oh man.
I open the door and stride out with my eyes narrowed into two lasers.
He grins at me, says, “Gotcha.”
With an eye roll, I prance over to the bar and climb on my stool. Yes, it’s been claimed for however long I’m here.
“What’s cooking Chef Biker Boy?”
“Boy?” he rumbles, glancing pointedly down at my body. “No boy would leave you walking like that.”
Lord. My face flames and I have to clear my throat. “You do have a point. A rather blunt, thick one.”
He slides a plate in front of me. It’s stacked with food. Bacon and pancakes. Fresh berries, and whip cream.
I stare in shock. Finally I look up. “Did you make the whipped cream?”
He gives me a look that threatens violence for even suggesting he would take a shortcut.
“Okay. Okay!” I say, grinning. “Point taken. Ace doesn’t do storebought.”
He settles onto the stool beside me, a wave clean soap-scent washing over me.
Sometime while I slept, he showered. His hair is just about dry, his beard is freshly trimmed.
My legs tremble at the memory of him down there. Oh my god.
I clear my throat and attack the pancakes.
He starts talking. In sentences. “I’m sending Rio out for clothes so write down whatever you need in a list.”
I look up at him with a piece of bacon in my hand.
He continues, looking into my eyes as he says, “Sizes, brands, all of it. Write it down. He’s got a truck.”
“Tobias, I’m not going to have a… a biker go and buy me underwear.”
“You want to go yourself, we can go. But I’d rather keep you locked away with me until we sort this threat out.”
The strip of bacon trembles in my fingers. “I need quite a lot.”
The math is adding up in my head. I need everything if I can’t go home. Then there’s the other problem. The cost of the lawyer I’m not paying for yet, and I’ve been suspended from my job.
“I see you doing math,” he says softly.
“I’m paying for everything. Obviously. But it might take me a bit to round up the money because they may have frozen my accounts.”
I nearly gag over that last part, because the thought of having my careful financial world crumble makes me sick.
Ace, however, is scowling at me. In the short time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him look like this. He’s offended.
“Woman,” he growls. “When you’re with me, you don’t pay for anything.”
I scoff. “Stop. You do not pay my way. That’s a very nice sentiment and it’s also insane.”
I put the bacon down and turn to face him. “I paid for everything in my adult life. I paid my own way through school. Not once did I let a man even buy me a coffee.”
“I know.”
“I am perfectly capable of… well, usually capable of paying for myself.”
“I know you are.” He puts both hands on my bare knees. The callouses send electrical zings up my spine. Wearing a very serious expression, he says, “That’s not what this is about.”
“This isn’t a good idea. You don’t owe me anything. Well maybe a little since you are the one who put the cash in my hand, but?—”
He cuts me off. “I can tell you’ve been taking care of yourself your whole life. And now I’m going to. That’s it. You can argue yourself blue. It won’t change this.”
He slides a pad of paper and a pen onto the counter beside my plate. “Eat. Write down your list when you finish.”
God, this man. I don’t know how to feel about him.
Taking my time I enjoy my breakfast and mull this over in my head. It’s a feast fit for royalty. When I’m done, I write the list. As I do, something occurs to me.
“Tobias. Who posted my bail?”
He doesn’t answer, but his fork pauses halfway to his mouth like he’s thinking.
“Seventy-five thousand dollars is a lot,” I say, cringing.
He takes a bite, chews. Swallows. Finally says, “The club did.”
“The club.”
“Prez signed off,” he replies.
I don’t understand the club or the man.
He consumes a massive amount of food as I sit next to him in his shirt. I’m still in shock to think I’m here, sitting in a compound with guns in the towers. I’m also not a virgin any more. And this man says he’s paying for whatever I need.
My math brain takes over and it’s not good. This is adding up fast. Seventy-five thousand for the bond. God knows what for Reingold. And fifty thousand dollars sitting in a police evidence locker, with my fingerprints all over it.
“I owe you a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars minimum and that’s before the lawyer,” I say with a wobbly voice.
He takes another bite. Chews. The tight muscles in his jaw working and working. When he’s done swallowing he says,
“No, you don’t. It’s taken care of.”