Page 71 of Gonzo's Grudge
I set her down slow, boots finding wood. We didn’t rush. Big promises were like engines; you don’t redline them fresh off the rebuild. You idle, listen for a knock, then ease it into gear.
We spent the evening in various rooms doing many things that involved being naked including eating dinner without dressing because we couldn’t get enough of one another. Having her in my arms again, feeling her pussy clench around my dick as she came, it all calmed the chaos inside me. She was home. The morning of a new day was creeping in as she began to stir against me in the bed.
“Hungry?” I asked, because feeding someone is the only way I knew how to ask will you stay?
“Always.” Her smile nicked something in me and made it bleed in the best way.
I cooked like a man making offerings—eggs, bacon, skillet toast, coffee black enough to strip paint. She perched on the counter in one of my shirts, bare legs swinging, watching me like the stove flame mattered to her because it mattered to me.
“Rules,” she began, when I slid a plate to her.
“Hit me.” I had to admit, normally this wouldn’t sit right to be bossed around by a woman. With her, though, I wanted to have clear expectations because this was something good and not to mess up.
“No secrets means no secrets.” She wrinkled her nose. “I know that sounds dumb to say out loud. But I grew up with secrets obviously that destroy. If you’re going to keep something from me, you better be keeping it from me because you plan to keep me breathing, not because you’re trying to keep me pretty at your side. I know you can’t share everything about your world. The stuff that crosses lines I don’t want to be part of or know. But if something involves me, us, then I deserve to know and I expect that to come from you.”
“Pretty’s a losing battle because baby, you’re fucking gorgeous,” I replied. “Breathing, I can do because I’ve had a taste of not having you and I don’t want to live life without you again.”
She laughed about my pretty comment, then sobered. “And no sharing.”
“Shay’s done,” I said. “Everybody is. They were done when you climbed on the back of my bike the first time; I just hadn’t said it in a way the room could hear.”
Her chin tilted. “Say it in a way the room can hear.”
“I will,” I said.
She gave her attention to her plate and ate like she believed me.
After breakfast, I walked to the small safe behind the bookcase no one guesses a biker keeps. Pop put the habit in me—keep cash, keep papers, keep proof. I scrapped the idea of making it a ceremony. I just swung the shelf, spun the dial, and opened the heavy steel like a door into me.
“What is this?” she asked, curious, not scared.
“My head in metal,” I said. Inside, stacks of cash just in case; a few pistols I don’t leave in drawers; the envelope copy of everything Devyn had already filed; the old Pop photo GJ snuck in there after we lost him; a velvet bag with the only ring I’ve ever kept.
I pulled cash, two burners, and the envelope with our new door codes from Shanks. “Keys to the kingdom.” I handed her a small key on a split ring. “Safe. If I ain’t breathing and you need something in here, you don’t ask anyone. You come get it. You leave town with the cash and you don’t look back.”
She stared at the key a second too long, then closed her hand over it. “You think giving me a way out makes me more likely to use it?”
“It makes me sleep,” I shared, “my world can be ugly. I’ll do everything to shield you from that, but no secrets means laying shit out right.”
She tucked the key into the pocket of my shirt she’d stolen and buttoned the button. “Then it’s mine.”
I showed her the alarm panel by the back door. “Code is Pop’s birthday. Change it if the number starts to feel like a target.”
“I’ll remember.” Her fingers brushed mine at the keypad. Little contact. Big voltage.
“And here’s your drawer,” I said, opening the bottom one on the right of the dresser. “That’s where a toothbrush goes. Hair ties. A T-shirt I pretend isn’t mine anymore.”
She slid the drawer open and closed twice like she was testing if it would vanish if she blinked. “No woman’s ever had this drawer,” she stated. Not a question.
“No,” I said.
“Good.” She smiled. “I don’t like feeling second.”
We grinned like thieves.
I texted the club: Church. One hour. Full table.
Loco answered with a skull and a prayer hands—which, coming from him, is hilarious—and Burn with a thumbs-up that always means I’ll fucking be there, but it better be worth it. It was.
