“This works with us, you’re gonna have to put up with that.”

“Put up with what?”

“I’m gonna hafta be on top of the business. I’m gonna hafta be on top of everything that has to do with the Club. A brother’s got a beef, I’m gonna need to get involved. We got four other charters, we’re the mother charter, they fuck up, got a question, a dispute, that’ll be on me too. And we’re growin’. We’re thinkin’ Pueblo, Durango, Telluride, Aspen, Steamboat Springs. Not all at once, but all of that eventually. That’s not just new stores and garages. Brothers run those shops. That’s new recruits and new charters.”

“And?” she asked when he quit talking.

“That’s a lot of responsibility, baby.”

“Is your father just going to hand you the books and say ‘have at it,’ then go grab a Big Mac?”

His lips twitched. “No.”

“So, I don’t see the problem.”

She didn’t see the problem.

“Come here,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to her full lips.

“I’m not starting anything before pizza gets here. I’m hungry too and I’m a chick. We don’t consider cold pizza a delicacy like dudes do.”

“Babe, I said come here.”

She gave him a look.

“You know, it’s a serious bummer you’re still hot when you’re being bossy,” she groused.

But she came there.

He wrapped his arms around her, twisted her back so it was to his lap, bent over her and took her mouth.

It got hot and heavy and stayed that way until his phone rang.

He broke their kiss and kept their positions even as he reached behind him to get his phone out of his back pocket.

He didn’t know the number.

The way shit was swirling, he still took the call.

“Yeah?”

“Sir, this is your pizza delivery. I’m at, um . . . a hippie garden gnome in a tie-dyed shirt holding a sign that says, Keep on the grass, but I think I’m lost.”

He looked at Rebel. “Do all paths in Essence’s jungle lead to your cottage?”

“Not even close.”

“Gnome that says keep on the grass,” he told her.

“He hooked a left when he should have gone straight on.” She started to push up. “I’ll get him.”

He twisted her and planted her in the seat. “I’ll find him.”

He pushed up and moved to the door with her calling behind him, “You’ve got ten minutes then I’m sending up a flare.”

He grinned, lifting his hand behind him and walked out to find the pizza guy.

She had beer, plates, napkins, forks, knives, a tub of fresh grated parmesan cheese and a shaker of crushed pepper on her futuristic coffee table when he returned.

He dumped the pizza on the table and unceremoniously ripped open the bag of mozzarella sticks sitting on the top.

“Moz sticks,” she breathed. “You weren’t for real, now you’re the man of my dreams.”

This she gave him before she tore open the top of the little tub of marinara, tossed it to the glass and grabbed a stick.

Rush sat his ass down.

Rebel slid to the floor in front of the coffee table, apparently the better to be more in line with the food as she shoveled it in, and she handed him a beer.

Rush lifted the bottle to take a swig.

“So, apparently Benito is free-wheeling. Sixx caught him on tape takin’ it at both ends from two working men,” she shared.

Rush choked on his beer.

Rebel looked up at him. “You okay?”

“What?” he wheezed out.

“I thought he was a bigot,” she thankfully told him instead of repeating herself. Then she unfortunately went on, “But it seems I was wrong. Who’s your daddy will never be the same.”

Any appetite Rush had, and he’d been starving, vanished.

“You’re shitting me,” he said.

She shook her head at him, biting into a marinara-covered mozzarella stick.

Holy fuck.

She chewed, swallowed, then totally double dipped, stating, “They assure me I don’t have to worry about him anymore. He’s leaving town.”

“That’s the word,” Rush confirmed, and it went without saying he was glad for that just for it to finally be done, but also he didn’t have to dick with the complication that Valenzuela wanted down his girl’s pants.

Though him taking it at both ends . . .

Maybe Rush had been wrong about that.

She grinned up at him, the rest of her stick held up in front of her. “One down.”

He looked at the food on the table but didn’t move. “Yeah.”

“Why aren’t you eating?” she asked.

He turned his attention to her. “Babe.”

She giggled and reached for another stick. “I know. He’s so creepy, it’s gross. Though Mad says the two guys sent in were hot.”

“Can we stop talking about this?”

She turned back to him and grinned a closed-lip grin to hide the food she’d shoved in her mouth.

Then she garbled, “Sure.”

Rush took another pull of beer to wash the sick taste down his throat.

It helped.

“I don’t wanna go to Phoenix.”

This was quieter, her eyes aimed at the table, half a stick held up in the air.

He bent to her, putting his hand on her back. “Rebel, baby, look at me.”

She twisted to face him, and he kept his hand on her back when she did.

“I want this,” she whispered. “I want you on my couch and I want you rescuing the pizza guy, and I want you to get to know Essence better and I want you to spend time with Amy when she’s not receiving another emotional blow, and I want to play with Playboy even if he tries to undress me and I want to go shopping with Tyra because she has cool clothes and I just want more of,” she tossed out a hand, “this.”

He noted that she did not say she wanted to get back to her work or her life.

She wanted more of everything to do with him.

That felt fucking good.

And she was not alone.

“I do too,” he replied quietly.

“I can’t have that in Phoenix.”

“We got a week to see how things go.”

She shook her head. “Mad and D aren’t good for long without Molly. The Benito thing is done. Sixx is gonna leave. They won’t be having any fun. We need to send them home.”

He put his beer down, grabbed a stick, dunked it and sat back.

“Rush,” she called.

He took a bite and looked down at her.

After he swallowed, he shared, “Priority for me is I want you safe.”

“I know. But Essence is feeling bad she’s taking the Chaos boys’ time, and I think it messes with her belly dancing mojo to have someone hanging around. She still sees all three of her three children’s fathers. They just don’t live together because she doesn’t want to be tied down. I don’t get how it works, but in hippie-chick world, it works. She loves people, she just likes her alone time. So she told me she’s having security systems put in at the house and out here.”

“That’s something, sweetheart, it’s just not enough.”

She got a stubborn look, but she didn’t say anything.

She turned, slid the sticks off the pizza box and flipped it open, no delay with digging in.

She tore off a bite, chewed, swallowed and mumbled, “I can hang out with Tyra at the office. Do filing or something. Film the guys. A build. I’ve been thinking about it, looked you guys up on Google today, there’s a lot there. It’s all cool. Now I’ve got something forming in my head.”

“What?”

She turned her attention to him. “A documentary. About your builds. The garage. The store. The communal way you run all of that and how simpatico it is. Tyra and Tab were sharing stories at dinner. How Hop was in a band before the Club. How Joker used to watch the brothers when he was younger, wanting to be Chaos for years before he was old enough to be a prospect. How the Club descended from selling grass into deep shit but then cleaning up. It’s really extraordinary.”