Motorcycle Man (Dream Man #4)(135)

I closed my eyes.

Second sweetest touch he’d given me. Definitely.

I opened my eyes when Tack stepped away and adjusted his jeans. I turned to the basin and twisted on the taps to clean up.

All was right in the world and I knew this when Tack wandered out of the bathroom bossing, “Hurry up, babe. Takin’ the time to f**k you means we’re runnin’ late.”

My eyes to the reflection in the mirror of the door he disappeared through, I rolled them.

Then I cleaned up.

Back in my panties, I reached to my moisturizer but stopped.

We had pale yellow tile in our bathroom rimmed with thin tiles of white. I’d dumped Tack’s old, mismatched towels and added new, thick emerald green ones. They were hanging on the towel rack.

My eyes moved.

My moisturizer and toner bottles were the deep hued color of moss. My toothbrush was bright pink, Tack’s was electric blue. There was a little bowl by the tap where I tossed my jewelry when I was washing my hands or preparing for bed. It was ceramic painted in glossy sunshine yellow and grass green. My eyes went to the mirror. My undies were cherry red lace.

I grinned at myself in the mirror.

I lived in color, every day, and my life was vibrant.

I rubbed in moisturizer hoping our baby got his or her Dad’s sapphire blue eyes.

But I’d settle if they were my green.

* * * * *

Sitting on top of a picnic table outside the Compound in the warm, late June Colorado sun having a moment of alone time, I heard the clickety-clack of high-heeled shoes and my eyes turned to see Elvira bearing down on me.

And when they did, my lips curved into a smile.

Only Elvira would wear to a barbeque at a biker stronghold a tight, butter yellow, cle**age-baring, halter top dress with a pair of bronze sandals that were so f**k-me, even as a girl I would describe them as that.

She looked like she was about to step out to a trendy eatery not about to bite into a grilled brat.

With a grace borne of practice, she climbed up and sat her ass down beside me at the picnic table whereupon she announced, “Trouble’s a-brewin’.”

I felt my eyebrows draw together at this very strange yet totally Elvira opening. “Pardon?”

Her head tipped in the direction of something and my eyes moved there.

I saw Shy, now a full member of the Club, being Shy. That was to say he had on a pair of faded jeans that fit him all too well, a tight black t-shirt that also fit him all too well, his dark hair was a sexy mess, his mirrored shades were shoved on the top of his head and he was openly flirting with a young, attractive biker babe.

He was smiling at her and his smile was wicked.

She was also smiling at him and her smile was come hither.

Shy was clearly going to get him some. And from copious experience witnessing Shy in action my guess was, he was going to get that some and soon. Hell, just that week I’d seen him charm a woman who was buying wiper fluid in Ride into his bed in the Compound and he’d done it in ten point seven five minutes. I knew this because Hop and I had timed it.

Not a surprise and also not a rarity, not by a long shot. Thus I didn’t know what trouble was “a-brewin’” until I started to look away and my eyes caught on Tabby.

Oh boy.

She was standing about ten feet away. She was also looking at Shy and the way she was looking was like her entire world just came to an end.

This was not good.

Tabby had pulled her shit together. This didn’t mean she didn’t come home drunk once, as in drunk and puking all over the entryway. And this didn’t mean Tack didn’t lose his mind when she did and she didn’t get a lecture. But she was a teenager. That shit happened. Tack knew it and busted her chops but he didn’t go overboard.

Mostly, she was Tabby, sweet, cute, smart, charming. She and her Dad were tight. She and her brother were tight. And she and I were tight. She got good grades. She came home (mostly) by curfew. She dated boys of an appropriate age who only slightly scared the crap out of me seeing as they were all good-looking and players-in-training but were also totally into her. And it helped Tab’s Dad was a badass and he more than slightly scared the crap out of Tabby’s boyfriends.

But this wasn’t good. Not only because Tabby was seventeen and Shy, at twenty-two, was out of her league for at least another year but also because Shy was Shy. He was a dawg. He racked ‘em up and nailed them down so fast, if it could be recorded as a world record, it would.

And he was a brother. It was not as if Tack wasn’t aware of all this.

On this thought my eyes slid to my old man to see he was, indeed, aware of all this. All of it. I knew this because his face didn’t look happy and it didn’t look that way even though his eyes were covered by his own mirrored shades and those shades were pointed in the direction of Tabby and Shy. Tack had Mitch, Dog and Gwen’s father Bax standing close to him talking but I knew he wasn’t involved in the conversation.

His mind was on his girl. And his brother, the dawg.

Crap.

“’Cause ‘a Gwen then ‘cause ‘a you, I been to my fair share of these boys’ jamborees and it hasn’t escaped my notice that boy is fine,” Elvira stated at my side. “He’s rough, he’s young, he makes me feel like a cougar but that don’t mean that boy ain’t fine. So fine, a girl could convince herself she don’t mind he’s a player. ‘Love ‘em, leave ‘em’ could be tattooed across his chest and a girl could convince herself she don’t care just so she could see the weapon he’s packin’ in those faded jeans. May have been some time since you bitch-slapped your way to kicking that motherf*cker’s ass, girlfriend, but I think your girl there has tastes that run toward heartbreak. And it looks like this is not lost your man and he’s not takin’ to it too good.”