Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Hattie Lynn
The first thing I registered when I woke up was the warmth at my back.
The second was the heavy tattooed arm draped over my waist, holding me against a wall of solid muscle like I might disappear if he loosened his grip.
Weston.
I tipped my head back, taking him in. He was still asleep, his thick dark hair a rumpled mess against the pillow, his jaw shadowed with morning stubble, those ridiculously long lashes fanned out over his cheeks.
God, he was even more handsome like this. Sleep-soft and unguarded. All those hard edges he wore like armor were gone.
He was mine.
The words floated through my mind, and I waited for the panic to come. The doubt. The little voice that had spent eight years telling me to protect my heart at all costs.
It never showed.
Instead, I just felt... peace. Like I’d finally stopped running, and my soul had caught up to my body.
I couldn’t help myself. I reached up and traced my fingertip along the line of his jaw, feeling the rasp of stubble against my skin.
“Mornin’, Songbird,” he whispered roughly, his voice still thick with sleep.
“Morning,” I whispered.
His eyes cracked open, and a lazy smile spread across his face.
“You’re really here,” he rasped, like he couldn’t believe it. “I was half convinced I dreamed the whole damn thing.”
“Nope.” I wiggled closer. “I’m really here.”
“Thank fuck.” He rolled, caging me under his big body, careful to keep his weight on his good arm as he kissed me.
It wasn’t a polite good-morning peck, either. It was deep and slow and thorough, like he had all the time in the world and planned on using every second of it.
By the time he pulled back, I was breathless.
“I missed you,” he murmured against my lips. “Missed waking up next to you. I could get used to this real fast.”
I melted into the mattress like butter.
“Me too,” I admitted, running my hands up the warm skin of his back.
He dipped his head, kissing along my jaw, down the column of my throat, and I was just starting to think we might not leave this bed until noon when my stomach let out a growl loud enough to wake the dead.
Weston froze.
Then his whole body started shaking with laughter.
“Oh my god.” I slapped my hands over my face, mortified. “Don’t you dare.”
“Baby,” he chuckled, prying my hands away from my face. “That was the sexiest little belly growl I’ve ever heard.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” He pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose, then rolled off me and climbed out of bed in all his naked glory. “Come on. I gotta feed my woman before she gnaws my arm off.”
My woman.
I bit my lip to keep from grinning like an absolute fool.
Taking his hand, I let him pull me out of bed so we could handle our morning business before I stole one of his t-shirts and a pair of his boxers and followed him down the hallway to the kitchen of my dreams.
The kitchen I’d described to him a hundred times while we lay in the bed of his old truck, staring up at the stars and planning a future I thought had died years ago.
He’d built it anyway.
“You gonna stand there all day, or are you gonna help?” he asked, pulling open the freezer.
“Depends on what you’re making.”
He turned around, holding up a yellow box, and my heart did a somersault right there in my chest.
Eggo waffles.
“You remembered,” I chirped.
He shrugged like it was nothing, but I saw the tips of his ears go pink. “You used to eat these things by the case.”
I had. My personal chef in Nashville made me Belgian waffles from scratch with fresh berries and homemade whipped cream, and I would have traded every single one of them for an Eggo with too much butter and syrup.
“Coffee,” I announced, needing to do something before I burst into tears over toaster waffles like a crazy person. “Where do you keep the good stuff?”
“Cabinet over the pot.”
I got the coffee going while he dropped waffles into the toaster, and the whole thing was so domestic that my chest ached. This was what I’d always dreamed of. Not awards or the sold-out arenas, or my face on magazine covers.
This.
My man in a sexy pair of gray sweatpants making me Eggos in the kitchen we’d dreamed up together when we were kids.
Strong hands closed around my waist, and before I could squeak, Weston lifted me clean off my feet and deposited me on the island like I weighed nothing at all. Then he wedged himself between my thighs and rested his hands on my hips.
“Hi,” I giggled.
“Hi.” He stole a kiss. Then another. “You look good in my shirt.”
I glanced down at the Marlins tee that barely covered my ass. “I do look pretty good in it, huh?”
“Can’t argue with that.” His hands slid up under the hem, his calloused palms warm against my ribs, and I was seriously reconsidering the whole breakfast thing when the toaster popped.
He smirked at whatever he saw on my face. “Easy, killer. Food first.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“It was written all over your face.”
I’m sure it was. Who could blame me, though? Weston Basham was a sexy beast.
Weston grabbed a couple of paper plates from the cabinet and started dropping hot waffles onto them.
That was when my phone rang.
I leaned over and snagged it off the counter, glancing at the screen. Rodney Storm. My drummer.
“Hey, Rod,” I answered, hooking my heels behind Weston’s thighs so he couldn’t wander far. “What’s up?”
“Hattie! Hey. Hey, hi.” his voice came through, quick and bright. “Sorry, is this a bad time?”
“Nope. Just having breakfast. What’s going on?”
“So, funny story. I’m actually in your neck of the woods.”
I blinked. “You’re in Odin?”
Across the island, Weston went still. He didn’t look up from the butter he was spreading, but I felt his attention shift to the phone in my hand.
“Yeah! Crazy, right?” Rodney laughed. “My cousin lives over in Panama, and with the tour on break, I figured I’d come visit. Then I saw online that you were spotted around here, and I thought—hell, small world. Want to grab lunch?”
“You saw online that I’m here?” A little worm of unease wiggled through my belly. So much for laying low.
“Some fan account posted a picture. You were at a gas station or something.” He said easy breezy. “So? Lunch? My treat. At that little diner?”
I chewed my lip. Rodney had been my drummer for four years. He was steady, professional, always on time, never any drama. If I was being honest, we weren’t super close—he was quiet, kept to himself mostly—but he was part of my crew. My road family.
“Sure,” I finally said. “The diner on Main Street sounds great. One o’clock work?”
“Perfect. See you then, Hattie.”
I ended the call and looked up at Weston, who was watching me with his brows pulled together and the butter knife in his hand, looking like he was contemplating using it for something other than slathering yummy goodness on our Eggos.
“Who’s Rodney?” he grumbled.
“My drummer. He’s in town, well in Panama actually, visiting his family and wants to grab lunch.”
“Are you gonna go?”
“Uh. Yeah.” I plucked a waffle off my plate and took a bite. “He’s my drummer. We’re friends.”
He grunted.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Did you just grunt at me?”
“Babe.” He set the knife down and planted his hands on the island on either side of my hips, boxing me in.
“You just told me last night that some sick fuck is sending you threatening messages. He knows your phone number. He knows where you live. Do you really think it’s safe to be out and about on a lunch date? ”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a date.”
“That’s not the part I have a problem with.”
“Weston.” I framed his face with my hands, waffle and all. “Rodney has been my drummer for four years. He’s driven me to the airport. He’s held my hair back when I got food poisoning in Tulsa. He is the least threatening human being on the planet. He wears cardigans, honey.”
“Ted Bundy was charming, too.”
“Oh my god.” I dropped my forehead against his chest, laughing. “Are you jealous?”
He grunted.
“Honey,” I smiled softly. “You’re insane.”
“I’m not,” he rumbled, his hand coming up to cradle the back of my head. “I just got you back, and there’s a target on your back, baby. Until Cyber figures out who’s painting it, I don’t like the idea of you being out of my sight.”
And there was that fierce protectiveness that used to make sixteen-year-old me swoon.
Twenty-seven-year-old me was swooning a little too, honestly, but I’d spent eight years handling my own life, and I wasn’t about to let a stalker—or an overprotective biker—shrink my world down to nothing.
“It’s a public diner in broad daylight,” I said gently. “In the middle of town. Where everybody knows everybody. I’ll be fine.”
His jaw worked.
I could see the war brewing behind his eyes—the part of him that wanted to lock me in a tower fighting the part of him that remembered what happened last time he made a decision for me.
Thankfully, the second part won out.
“One hour,” he sighed. “And you keep your phone on you.”
“Yes, sir.” I saluted him with my half-eaten Eggo.
His eyes darkened. “Oh, Songbird. Keep calling me sir, and you won’t be making it to lunch at all.”
Heat flooded my cheeks and a few other places as I shoved my waffle in his mouth to shut him up.
The Pretty Kitties Gentleman’s Club looked a lot different at eleven in the morning than I imagined it did at eleven at night.
The parking lot was mostly empty, and the only sounds inside were the low thump of music from the main room and the clink of glasses being restocked behind the bar.
Weston had to do payroll—apparently getting shot didn’t excuse a man from paperwork—so I’d tagged along rather than sit at the farmhouse alone. He’d been pretty clear about the alone part not happening.
We walked through the front doors, his hand warm on the small of my back, and I stopped dead.
There were dancers on the stage. Rehearsing, I guess, because the room was empty except for the staff.