Ride Steady(83)

It really was amazing. I could see it framed. The car was probably going to be fabulous, but the sketch was a thing of beauty.

But suddenly, looking at it, something struck me. I cocked my head and kept looking, that something tugging at me.

“Just a car, babe,” Joker muttered before I could get a lock on that thing.

I looked again to him. “You’re very talented. I mean, really. If whoever eventually owns the car doesn’t own that sketch, you should frame it and sell it.”

That got me smoldering steel, a look I could read, a look that I lost when Joker got close, bent in, and touched his lips to mine.

They immediately dug in, pushing hard, scraping my bottom lip against my teeth because Travis got upset, screeched, and hit both our cheeks with his baby fists.

Joker broke away and I looked to Travis, noting, “He needs to roam free.”

“He can roam free in the office. It’s practically child-proof,” I heard Tyra say.

I turned in the direction of her voice to see her walking toward us. “Hey.”

“Hi, honey,” she said as she stopped close. She looked to Travis, lifting her hands. “Hey, cutie. You wanna wreak havoc in Auntie Ty-Ty’s office?”

Travis lifted his arms, launched his baby body her way, doing this shrieking.

That meant yes.

She caught him and said to Joker and me, “Take your time. We’ll be close.”

Without another word, on her sexy heels with her tight skirt and lovely blouse that didn’t seem to fit in with a garage, she strutted away, up some steps, and disappeared through a door with my baby.

“Got more sketches in my room.”

I looked back to Joker.

Sketches in his room.

I wanted to see sketches.

I more hoped that Tyra would look after my son for a half an hour while Joker took me to his room on the pretense of showing me sketches but in reality to make out with me.

“Awesome,” I whispered.

The whiskers around his mouth twitched as he threw an arm around my shoulders and guided me out of the bay, heading us toward the Compound.

*

Joker did not make out with me.

He showed me sketches.

He was right. Some were better than the one I saw, some not quite as astounding.

But they all were stunning.

*

I stood beside Travis’s crib, looking down at him, waiting for nothing.

And he was finally giving me nothing after an unusual hour where he had trouble falling asleep.

It might have been our busy day and the fact he’d had to nap in places that were unfamiliar that made him have trouble finding nighttime sleep.

It might have been that he clearly liked Joker and didn’t want to fall asleep when he had his new biker buddy around.

Whatever it was, he was down and I could finally join Joker in the living room.

I left my bedroom, swinging the door so it was open by a crack to drown out the light but I could still hear him if I needed to.

I moved into the living room, announcing in a hushed voice, “He’s down.”

“That took a while,” Joker noted.

“It did,” I agreed.

“That usual?” he asked as I rounded the couch.

“No… oh!” I cried out because I got close and Joker’s hands shot out and caught me at the hips.

I fell into him as he guided the fall, my bottom toward his lap.

It was a busy day but not an exhausting one. Still, I didn’t mind ending it by stretching out on top of Joker on my couch and watching TV.

However, I found in short order that I wasn’t going to stretch out on top of Joker and watch TV.

Joker was going to stretch out on top of me, and I had a feeling from the look in his eyes that, although the TV was on, we would not be watching it.

It was a feeling that made me happy.

When I was on my back in the couch and he was pressed the length of my side, I looked into his eyes, feeling the pulse beat hard in my neck.

“Hey,” he whispered.

Oh.

Wow.

“Hey,” I whispered back.

He curled his fingers around the side of my neck and slid them up to my jaw.

“You good?” he asked.

I swallowed. Then I nodded.

“Wanna be better?”

My belly did a somersault.

Oh yes. I definitely wanted to be better.

I pressed a hand to his chest and breathed, “Yes.”