Wild Ride (Wind Dragons MC #4.5)(21)

“So, you two are a thing now?” Rake asks, looking between us before landing on me. “This is who you’ve been dating? Fuck, Tia, I thought you’d have some f*ckin’ taste at least.”

“Rake . . .” Talon says in warning.

“What? She can do so much better than you, Talon.” He looks at me. “I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty f*ckin’ disappointed that this is who you’ve been seeing. Fuck. Anyone except him!”

I grit my teeth and glare at him. Sin studies the two of us, not saying anything, but I can see his mind working silently. Arrow, on the other hand, is staring at Talon like he can’t wait to punch him in the face again.

“Come on, Talon, let’s go,” I say, grabbing my bag. I didn’t want to sit here and listen to the three of them. What had started off as a good night was ending in shit, and there was no way to save it.

“Is this a serious thing?” Sin asks, focusing on me. “Tia?”

“Talk about putting me on the spot,” I mutter, sighing. “I really like him, and I’d appreciate it if you guys could please not be *s about it, because I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not a member of your MC, so you can’t act like this is a betrayal.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to them, Tia,” Talon says, taking my hand in his. “And the three of you can stop making her feel bad. If you want to talk about it, you take it up with me.”

Sin’s gaze moves to Talon. “We are allies, are we not?”

Talon nods, but then his eyes go to Rake. “At least some of us are.”

Rake’s lips tighten. “I haven’t killed you yet, Talon. You’re still alive and breathing, so that says a lot, don’t you think?”

“You couldn’t kill me if you tried,” Talon fires back, his eyes going dark. “You need to let your daddy issues go, Rake. Grow up.”

Rake slams his hand down on the table. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Rake,” Sin says, looking back at me. “Let’s let them be. We can talk about this another time, okay? Have a nice evening, Tia.”

He stands up, and the other two follow. Arrow lifts his chin as a good-bye to me, but Rake storms off without a word. What if Bailey was right? What if this did cause a strain in our relationship? The thought makes me sad, almost sick to my stomach. Would Rake try to make her stop being friends with me?

“Hey,” Talon says, turning my face to look at him. “Everything is gonna be okay. Don’t worry about them; they’ll come around. Come on, I’ll get you home.”

We leave the bar with the Wind Dragons watching us.

I knew this was going to happen, so I can’t exactly be surprised, yet experiencing it was something else. On the ride home, I think about everything and realize just how na?ve I’ve been. I can see that Talon respects the Wind Dragons, and that’s something to work with. What if they closed that gap between them? It wouldn’t happen overnight, but it could happen. There are no rules here, and no one says that they have to dislike each other just because they happen to wear different patches.

Sin said they’re allies, so they can’t get angry over this. They need to get over it. I need to be strong right now and fight for what I want. I can’t let Rake ruin my happiness. He found his, and he needs to let me have mine—by letting go of the hate he feels for Talon. And what did Talon mean by daddy issues? I make a mental note to ask him about that. When we come to a stop, Talon asks me to tell him what’s on my mind.

“I don’t know; all the shit Rake said sucked, but we knew it would happen. I think he’ll come around. This doesn’t really affect him, and he needs to get over it,” I say, wrapping my arms around Talon’s waist. “Bailey isn’t angry with me, and that’s all that matters to me.”

He kisses the top of my head. “I don’t like them talking to you like that, making you feel bad. It’s f*cked-up. I’m going to talk to them tomorrow.”

“And say what?” I ask. I have a hunch that “talking” will end up being with their fists instead of their mouths.

“I’ll handle it” is all he says, a determined look passing across his features. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

Rhett was having a sleepover at Bailey’s tonight, and tomorrow Cara was sleeping here. I unlock my front door, and Talon lifts me in his arms and carries me to my bedroom like a new bride.

“What’s all this for?” I ask, smiling as he lays me down on my blue sheets.

“I want you to forget about all that shit at the bar,” he says, removing my strappy heels and placing them on the floor. He starts to rub my feet, so I can’t help but tease.

“President of the Wild Men giving me a foot massage. I should take a photo.”

He grins and kisses the arch of my foot. “Everyone will think it’s photoshopped.”

He kisses up my ankles, and keeps going until he hits the top of my thigh. He peppers kisses up my inner thigh, then looks up at me. “I don’t want what happened tonight to f*ck up what we have. I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy as I’ve been in the last month, and I’ll kill those bastards if they try to take that away from me.”

I reach down and cup his cheek with my hand. “I’m not going anywhere, Talon.”