Chapter 16
Knife woke with Tuesday snuggled into him at ten minutes after six, and he was pretty sure the cardinals were creating babies within twenty yards of the front of his house.
He hadn’t had nearly enough sleep, but no way was he going to manage more with his mind running a million miles a minute.
And so, he lay still with the woman of his dreams literally in his arms, and tried to figure out how the fuck they could make this work.
He decided to begin with a list of facts.
Fact number one: Tuesday Robinson had agreed to an intense twelve-hour scene without negotiation, and somewhere in those twelve hours, it’d become impossible to ignore the fact he was falling in love with her. No, that last part wasn’t true.
Fact number two: He’d fallen in love with Tuesday, and both the man and wolf wanted to keep her.
Fact number three: She’s part of the Chattanooga Pack.
Fact number four: An active RTMC member can’t be close enough to pack wolves to risk sharing even hints of the club’s many secrets.
Even Duke and his twin brother, the old alpha, had to be careful around each other.
Knife understood their relationship was part of why the pack and club get along as well as they do, but the two had to be careful about not sharing secrets back when Randall was still alive.
But that can’t work in a relationship where people live with each other, or even spend hours per week with each other.
And Knife isn’t a senior member. Even if the club might be willing to bend the rules, they weren’t likely to do so for him. But more than that, he didn’t want to ask them to. He understood the purpose of the rule and agreed with it.
So, how could he make this work? He didn’t want to leave the club, nor did he want her to leave the pack. That left them with finding a way to remain fuckbuddies without letting it go beyond.
She stirred when the sun fully rose, a small sound escaping her, and he went still, giving her the moment of waking without the weight of his attention.
He felt her register where she was, and sensed her taking inventory of what hurt. Probably most everything, after yesterday’s scene.
Under normal circumstances, his dick would be back inside her by now — he loved fucking all that soreness and pain, making use of his hard work from a scene all over again.
But they had too much to talk about before any more emotions were tossed into the mix.
Which meant the sooner she shifted, the better. What needed to be said felt like a weight between them. It couldn’t be rushed, but delaying it wasn’t a good idea, either.
“I know you’re hurting,” he told her. “Do you want me to feed your wolf, or would you rather do breakfast together as humans?”
Without answering, she rolled a little away from him — and then the shimmer and magic of the change burst into the room. A second later, amber eyes surrounded by thick fur blinked at him, and he scratched behind her ears without thinking about it.
She leaned into his hand with a soft, rumbling sound low in her chest, and he smiled and kept rubbing and scratching.
After maybe a minute, the wolf jumped off the bed, and mid-leap, the shimmer turned into a naked human woman standing beside his bed.
No more ponytail on top of her head. No more bruises or welts.
Every stripe, every rope mark, every bruise the Delrin had delivered deep into her muscles — gone. As if it hadn’t happened.
But it had, and they both knew it, and would have to talk about it.
Fuck.
“Morning,” she said, completely comfortable in her now-healed skin.
“Morning.” He got up before his dick went hard. “I know you’re starving. I can make most any breakfast food you want, but I’m thinking bacon and eggs, gravy and biscuits. Maybe some fried potatoes?”
“Sounds good.”
He was halfway down the stairs before he registered that he’d moved too fast. It was fine since he didn’t have to hide the fact he’s a wolf, but moving wolf-fast to make breakfast wasn’t normal.
He started the coffee first, and was pulling the ingredients for the biscuits out when she stepped into the kitchen wearing black leggings with a charcoal tee.
“I’ll cook the bacon,” she said, eyeing his naked cock. “Unless you’re a closet masochist?”
He grinned. “I have an apron, but you’re more than welcome to do the bacon.”
The two worked together comfortably. She made the gravy from the bacon grease, he scrambled the eggs when the biscuits were almost ready to come out of the oven. And they both stirred the potatoes as needed.
And damn, if that fucking dream didn’t keep layering itself over the morning. It couldn’t happen, so he didn’t know why it kept playing. Was his wolf doing it? Probably. The hardheaded fucker was determined they were keeping her.
Knife threw some steaks on the indoor grill, and they were ready to come off when she finished the gravy.
When they finally sat down to their small feast, he wasn’t sure how to get started.
She looked at him from across the table, took a sip of coffee, and said, “We should talk.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I intended for yesterday to be intense, but…”
“Right. Physical intensity was expected, but…” She blew out a breath. “I was blindsided by some of the emotional intensity.”
- - - ? - - -
Tuesday had done the math while she cried in his arms.
Her soul and her willpower are hers because she’s oathed to a good alpha, but the truth is, Kenny could overtake either at any time. He never had with her, but she’d seen him do it with others — to wolves who didn’t follow the rules, or who put the pack in danger.
And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, if the pack were in danger and she had information that would hurt their enemies and keep the pack safe, Kenny would command her to give it, and she’d have no choice in the matter.
Even if it meant Knife’s death or permanent imprisonment.
And she wasn’t lying to herself about what being part of a one-percenter club meant. Knife had smelled of the truth when he’d explained his nickname, but he undoubtedly had secrets. Probably things she wouldn’t approve of, and almost certainly things the justice system would frown on.
But in this moment, she didn’t fucking care.
She hadn’t the day before, either.
But math implies logic and science, and she was deep in the weeds of emotional math with this man, and had been since long before she’d driven through his gate yesterday, but it’d hit like a sledgehammer while he’d made fucking love to her, bringing her to orgasm after orgasm after denying her all damned day.
And now she was dealing with the space where emotional math and logical, practical math couldn’t possibly balance.
Because algebra is never going to work if you toss emotions into the equation.
He couldn’t be in a relationship with her, and she was in love with him.
And the only way around that was to figure out how to manage as much of a relationship as possible, which, based on what he’s said, meant he could fuck her, he just couldn’t go past fuckbuddies.
And if that was as good as it could get, she’d fight for it, because driving off the mountain and never coming back wasn’t an option.
He hadn’t seemed surprised when she told him she was blindsided by the emotions, so she kept going.
“I’ve been thinking about what this can be, and what it can’t.
” She kept her voice level, the same voice she used with clients when she was about to tell them something they needed to hear clearly, like why their menu full of hard-to-source ingredients was a terrible idea.
“My grandmother explained the rule about pack wolves and the MC. I understand why it exists. I didn’t know it when I agreed to yesterday, but I did when I drove through the gates.
I thought it would be fine, that we could manage it, but… ”
Something moved through his expression. Not surprise, but a kind of relief that looked almost like pain.
“So, an agreement,” she told him. “I won’t ask about your brothers or what the club does, and you don’t tell me anything.
I can know about your family, specifics about your day that have nothing to do with club business beyond annoying customers and huge orders, and anything else not related to the club or your brothers, but your job is not to tell me anything that could harm the club, and my job is to not ask, and to be okay with not knowing. ”
He was very still across the table. The stillness of an apex predator, but that was okay. It meant he was paying attention.
“Maybe we can have a standing date for every Monday I’m in town?” she asked, because she needed some feedback from him before she kept going.
A tiny nod, and then, “Okay.”
Too fast. Too easy.
She was about to tell him she needed more than a single-word answer, but he put his fork down and added, “So much of my life is tied up with my brothers, it means you’ll only get part of me. Can you live with that?”
The back of her throat tightened and her eyes burned, and she took a breath to get control because she’d already bawled in his arms. He seemed to think her tears the night before were a result of the long scene, and that was fine. He didn’t need to know why she’d cried.
It was a fair question, though, and deserved an honest answer. “Emotions are fickle things. Sitting here now, I’ll tell you I understand why we can’t jump in with both feet, so it’ll have to be enough — but I have no idea how I’ll feel about it three months from now.”
Okay, that last part wasn’t the absolute truth, because she knew she’d miss knowing the whole man, but it was her truth in that moment, because she desperately hoped this would be enough.
Another nod, and he said, “Standing arrangement. We’ll decide on when you’ll arrive based on your schedule, but I’m good with you arriving in time for breakfast and staying until breakfast Tuesday morning, if you have that much time.”
She smiled. “Yes, that works. And then the rest of the week, we can text and call. Keep up with each other. Friends do that.”
“Okay. No club secrets, not because I don’t trust you, but because of an established blood-bond you have no control over. I appreciate that you haven’t tried to make promises you can’t keep. Thank you for that. It makes me think maybe we can pull this off.”
His acknowledgment helped. This wasn’t his fault or her fault. It was just the facts of the matter. Fucking fate.
The weight of it settled over the table, and she lifted her fork, dipped some egg into the gravy, and took a bite.
Knife sliced off a bite of steak, slid it into his mouth, and her clit chose that moment to wake up and throb.
He scented it immediately and lifted a single eyebrow.
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, so your mouth made an impression. Just ignore my libido.”
Another grin, and then, “Never.”