Why wouldn’t I just float away? Life is almost too good, but I’m trying to trust it and trust that I deserve it.
It’s not always easy.
“What is that?” Lara’s head pops up from the cookies she’s scooping onto a tray. “Is that,” her eyebrows pull together and she doesn’t finish the question before she turns toward me and grimaces.
That’s when I hear it too. The pipes. The roar.
“Uh-oh,” Lara singsongs while looking at me like it was nice knowing me. “Did you mess up again?”
“I left a note,” I insist, but now that the words are leaving my mouth, I realize I might have messed up.
“Oh, sweet simple child,” she shakes her head and makes a tsking sound. “Your biker is going to be pissed,” she hisses the word teasingly.
All I can do is stick my tongue out at her as the roar of Turner’s bike gets louder and then stops before he starts pounding on the back door. I point at it and then at her while nodding in its direction.
“Yeah,” she scoffs, “no fucking way.”
Then she shocks the hell out of me by stopping what she’s doing, putting the cookie dough in one of the fridges and heading toward the door leading upstairs. Just as she touches the handle, there’s more pounding on the back door and I can’t help but look at it like it’s about to burst open at any second.
“Good luck with that.” Lara throws over her shoulder as she slides into the stairwell, “Don’t fuck in my kitchen.”
I groan and shuffle over to the back door, grumbling with every step, “I would never fuck in your kitchen. That’s not sanitary.”
When I swing open the door, I’m met with a vision I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. Turner is standing in the doorway, his shoulders taking up almost all of the space. He’s huffing and puffing, blowing every breath out through his nose like an animal ready to charge. His hands are clenching and unclenching into fists at his sides.
Before I can say anything, his arms are around me and he’s crushing me against his chest. He kisses me with an urgency borne of fear, of what we have endured together, of my past. And I melt for him.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble against his lips, “I should have woken you up. I left the note, but I didn’t think,” I start to explain.
He cuts off anything else I might say by kissing me even harder and scattering every thought, beyond him, to the winds. I moan into his mouth and his hand grips me even tighter. And fuck, his hands are everywhere.
I manage to pull back just enough to pant, “Lara told me not to fuck in her kitchen.”
The chuckle that comes out of Turner is rough and deep. It sends a shiver down my spine.
“I was worried when I woke up alone,” his voice is strained. “I saw the note, but,” he pauses and takes a deep breath like he’s trying to get himself under control—I’m not sure it works though—before holding me in place with the intensity of his stare, “don’t ever do that again. Always wake me up, Angel. Always. Promise,” he demands.
My arms wind around his neck and I tip up on my toes to nip at the underside of his jaw. “Promise,” I breathe out against his skin, and he lets out a low grunt of approval or warning.
I’m not sure which and I don’t really fucking care.
If I could, I would climb my man like a tree right now. But now is not the time or the place.
“I can’t lose you, Graycie,” Turner’s voice sounds like velvet and gravel. “I love you too damn much to lose you and, when I woke up, I could barely think. Help me out here, yeah?”
I’m doing my best fucking impression of a statue while replaying his words because him telling me he loves me is a record scratch moment if I’ve ever experienced one.
“You love me?” My question comes out as a squeak.
His eyes soften as he looks down at me, the gray looking like deep, calming seas instead of an impending storm. “I have loved you since the moment you walked out the back door of the clubhouse. You took ownership of me in that moment, Graycie-girl, you just didn’t know it.” His words turn playful, “I definitely knew before you blurted it out and tried to take it back.”
I gasp and clutch at him even tighter, needing to be closer while also being incredibly embarrassed. I did do that. The words were right, and so were the feelings. I was just scared.
“I love you, Turner, so fucking much,” the words come easily because the way I feel about him is pure, good, and solid. It is my compass, the guide for the rest of my life.
And I know he feels exactly the same way about me. Because he’s shown me. Every day, every time he’s shown up, and especially when he stayed and became my sword just as much as my shield.
He kisses me again, but this time, it’s soft and sweet. Well, as soft and sweet as we can be, but it turns heated quickly andI swear I hear Lara yell through the ceiling about not fucking in her kitchen. But it might be my imagination.
