My thighs tightened against his hips, his finger met his thumb at my nipple and rolled. I felt a rush of heat between my legs. The rush was so strong I moaned into his mouth and arched into his hand as my tongue tangled with his and my arms slid to lock around his shoulders.

“Dad! Tyra!” Tabby shouted. “Someone’s at the door!”

Tack’s fingers stopped rolling, his hand curled warm around my breast and his mouth broke from mine to growl, “No f**kin’ way.”

“Should I answer it?” Tabby called, sounding closer.

“Ye…” my voice broke, I cleared my throat and shouted, “Yeah, honey, go ahead. I’ll be right out.”

“Fuck,” Tack clipped and I opened my eyes to see his were drilling into mine. “We’re not done,” he announced.

“Um… I need to go see who’s at the door.”

His fingers tensed on my breast and he growled, “Yeah, but we’re not done.”

“Um…”

“You’ll see who’s at the door then we’re finishing.”

I bit my lip.

“With me?” he demanded to know.

I stopped biting my lip to mumble, “Uh…”

Suddenly his thumb swept my sensitized nipple, my lips parted and my eyes drifted halfway shut.

“You’re with me,” he murmured, I snapped my eyes all the way open just in time to catch his grin.

Then his fingers were righting my bra, his hand was out of my top, his body was off mine and I was out of my bed and on my feet.

I wobbled slightly since my knees were not ready to take on my weight and Tack’s arm went around my belly. He pulled my back to the front of his body, partly to hold me steady and partly to march me to the door with his face in my neck, against which he ordered, “Be quick gettin’ rid of ‘em.”

“Tack –”

His arm around my belly gave me a squeeze and his teeth lightly nipped the skin at my neck.

My legs wobbled again.

“Quick,” he commanded on a low rumble.

“Okay,” I whispered.

He held me close but reached beyond me and opened my bedroom door.

Chapter Nine

I Can’t Keep Up

I walked connected to Tack with his arm around my middle all the way down the hall. I was freaking out and I didn’t want to like it but there was something about feeling his hard body and the power that naturally emanated from it surrounding me as we moved. He was not someone I felt safe with, at least this was what my mind told me, but my body felt something different.

I’d rather cut off my own arm than ever hurt you.

His words came to me, words I missed when he said them, and they filled my head so full, when we made it out of the hall into the living room, I had to blink my eyes to clear my mind.

Then I stared at Lanie’s fiancé Elliott standing in my living room with Rush and Tabby. The movie was on pause and there was no Lanie in sight.

Weird. Elliott never came over by himself.

“You know this guy?” Tack’s voice rumbled in my ear both audibly and physically.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Hey, Elliott,” I called, smiling at him.

“Hey, uh… Tyra,” Elliott replied, his eyes, for some bizarre reason, darting back and forth repeatedly from Tack to me.

Well, maybe it wasn’t bizarre. Tack was a badass biker who was holding me and Elliott knew me pretty well so he knew I wasn’t seeing a badass biker. He also probably got the lowdown from Lanie about Tack because I was pretty sure she told him everything. So he was probably surprised I was standing there in Tack’s arm with two teenagers in my living room that could not be mistaken as the fruit of anyone else’s loins but Tack’s.

Still, it was bizarre the way he was doing it because it didn’t seem like surprise or shock.

It seemed like fear.

Elliott was not tall, he was five foot seven and Lanie was five foot nine. Elliott had thinning blond hair and a receding hairline. Lanie had thick, lustrous, long dark hair akin to Tabby’s. Elliott had a paunch and a weak chin. Lanie was slim and svelte, a human hanger, no tits or ass, amazing bone structure, beautiful green eyes and she was pure elegance from top-to-toe. Lanie was a human goddess. Elliott was nowhere near a human god.

But Elliott was brilliant, a genius and not one of those socially awkward or arrogant geniuses. He was easy to talk to. He was funny. He was sweet. He was thoughtful. He was generous and he was kind. He never missed Lanie’s birthday and always bought her the perfect present, not always something expensive, but always something she wanted or something meaningful. Ditto with anniversaries. She said he made her laugh. She said he listened when she had a bad day. She said he held her when they slept. And she said she knew beyond any doubt she was the most important thing in the world to him. So Goddess Lanie saw beyond Elliott’s looks and he became the most important thing in the world to her.

They were a love match. Surprising to some, I was sure, but real. And because he made my best friend happy, I adored him.

“What’s up?” I asked, moving forward only to be tugged back, again bizarrely, into Tack’s body. This was bizarre not because he was holding me, which, I was getting, he intended to do whenever the hell he felt like it. No, it was bizarre how he was doing it.

In the hall, his natural badassness made me feel casually safe.

Right now, his tight hold and the feel of his hard body, statue-still and weirdly alert at my back, made me feel he was intentionally keeping me safe.

What on earth?

“Uh… I was wondering –” Elliott started.

“Is Lanie here?” I asked because I didn’t want Lanie there. I was a little panicked that she’d come storming in at any moment, see Tack, see his kids, see the evidence of fajitas and the movie and lose her mind.

Lanie might be pure elegance from top-to-toe but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be pure drama and when Lanie let it rip, watch out.

“No,” Eliott replied, his eyes went over my shoulder and up and he asked, “Can I uh… Kane… er, Mr. Allen, can I talk to you?”

I stared at Elliott wondering what he was on about and who he was talking to.

Elliott’s eyes flitted to me then back to Tack when he finished, “Alone.”

That was when my body went statute-still.

It stayed statue-still for approximately a nanosecond before I heard Tack say to Elliott, “Don’t move,” then he turned me around, let me go, grabbed my hand and I found myself tugged down the hall. Then I found myself in my room and the door was again closed.