This was true. Still.

“Um…”

“And Buster likes you.”

“She’s friendly,” I reminded him. “I think she’d probably like anyone.”

“She is and she does and that’s why I don’t like leavin’ her alone. She prefers company.”

“You’re out of town a lot, who looked after her before?”

“Krystal.”

This surprised me so much I had to take a moment to let the thought of Krystal coming up and taking care of a dainty cat as a favor to a friend sink in. She didn’t seem like a friendly-favor-doing type of person or a taking-care-of-a-dainty-cat type of person either.

“Babe, I gotta get the fax, get packed and get on the road. You stayin’ here or what?”

“I think –” I started hesitantly and he rolled me to my back again and pinned me to the bed with his big body.

Then he pulled out the big guns.

He did this by murmuring, “Peace of mind.”

“I’ll stay,” I agreed instantly

His head dropped but moved to the side and he flicked my ear with his nose.

Then he said in my ear, “That’s my good girl.”

And I was. I was his good girl. Even though this seemed like a big step, a step that was too big and too soon, a step that was too big that also didn’t say “I’m a cool and hard to get biker babe” but said “I’m your good girl and you’ve already got me”.

I was such an idiot.

His head came up and his mouth touched mine. Then he exited the bed.

I curled into myself and watched his shadow as he moved around. Then I listened as he took a shower. Then he came back, got dressed and I lifted up to sitting cross-legged in the bed. Buster joined me, sitting on her booty in my lap and since she was there, I gave her scratches. In that position, Buster and I watched as he packed mostly in the dark (he turned the light on in the walk-in closet and it partially shone in the bedroom). Buster knew the packing drill and I got the impression she wasn’t a big fan. Then again, neither was I. Tate was going away for an unspecified period of time again and I was back to texts.

He turned the closet light out and came back into the bedroom. I heard the zip go on his bag that was sitting on the bed and watched his hand curl around the handle. My hand shot out and my fingers curled around his wrist.

“Tate,” I called.

“Yeah, baby,” he answered.

“Does this happen a lot?”

“It’s my job, Laurie.”

“No, I mean, phone calls in the middle of the night.”

He paused. Then he answered, “A lot, no. Sometimes, yeah.”

Without my mind willing my body to do it, I pulled on his arm as Buster daintily hopped off my lap. I was wearing a shelf bra camisole and undies. I’d replaced these after cleaning up in the bathroom after we’d made love before going to sleep.

When I got to my knees in front of him, my other hand flattened on his abs as my hand around his wrist tugged harder to bring him down to me. My hand at his abs slid up his chest to curl around his neck when he bent at the waist to get close. My hold at his wrist disengaged when both his arms wrapped around me.

I tilted my head back and his face got close.

“Please be careful, honey,” I whispered and before he could answer my arms tightened around his neck, I flattened by body against his and I kissed him hard.

He crushed me to him with one arm, the other hand going into my hair, fisting and holding my mouth to his far longer than I’d intended.

He broke the kiss but didn’t let me go nor did his mouth move very far away.

“I’ll take care of Buster,” I promised.

“Thanks, Ace,” he murmured. “Don’t get into trouble when I’m gone,” he warned.

“I’m a good girl,” I reminded him.

When his mouth hit mine I could tell it was smiling.

“Yeah,” he said and that one word also held his smile.

Then his fist in my hair tipped my head down, he kissed the hair at the top, let me go and he was gone.

Chapter Sixteen

Once We Were Brothers

It was three days after Tate left to hunt a possibly armed, definitely dangerous fugitive.

Which was five days after the incident with Wood in Tate’s living room.

It was mid-morning and I was sitting out on his deck drinking coffee, my feet up on a lower railing, taking a break from what had become an ongoing three day job of doing laundry and cleaning Tate’s house.

I’d struggled with this decision. Cleaning his house was an intimacy he had not invited. Then again, he’d asked me to stay in it and I could (somewhat) ignore the state of it when Tate was there and most of the time we were eating or having sex. I couldn’t ignore the state of it when I was staying there.

I was contemplating the trees that surrounded the house as my mind considered the fact that I might have taken things a bit too far. I hadn’t only picked up his bedroom, done his laundry and thoroughly cleaned out his kitchen including a complete clear out and wipe down of the fridge and a full scouring of his baked on, burnt on oven that clearly hadn’t been cleaned since the dawn of time. I’d also vacuumed and dusted the entire house, cleaned all the bathrooms, carried his boots in the mudroom to the closet in his bedroom, tidied his coats in the mudroom, organized his clothes in the walk-in closet and cleared the dining room table, stacking his mail (without looking too much at it) on the kitchen counter (magazine piles, opened mail piles, unopened mail piles).

I’d also stripped his bed and noticed his sheets were old and, if not threadbare, they were getting there.

There were also no other sheets to replace them that I could find but I didn’t look hard. The two bedrooms upstairs had their doors closed and I kept them like that. I found, on the ground level, the backstairs led into a big open space with a bunch of weight equipment in it and then there was a hall off which there were three rooms and a bathroom. The bathroom door was open (so I cleaned it) and another room was open. This was obviously Tate’s office with desk, computer, printer, fax machine, three filing cabinets and a variety of files and paperwork (not in the filing cabinets) that were not only unorganized but looked in danger of forming a paper avalanche. I didn’t tidy his office because he probably knew where everything was and I didn’t know what anything was so I couldn’t organize it properly not knowing. The other two doors downstairs were not opened.