“As usual, right up your own ass, Tack.”

“Jesus, honest to God, seriously? You need a favor, you drive here and give me shit and think you’re gonna get it? What’s the matter with you?”

“It took a lot for me to come here, Tack. And I walk into my office and have a flashback seein’ as you like to play around, you always liked to play around and you’re still f**kin’ playin’ around!”

Oh boy.

“Christ, you are f**ked up. Still singin’ that song?” Tack asked.

“Still lyin’ to me that you didn’t f**k everything that moved when you had my gold band on your finger?” she retorted.

“Twisted, totally twisted,” Tack muttered and finished with, “We’re done.”

“We are so not done.”

“We’re done,” Tack stated and I knew he meant it because suddenly he was in the office, the door was closed behind him and he locked it. Then his long legs took him across the office to the door to the garage and he locked that one too, all the while Naomi pounded on the front door shouting, “Open this goddamn door, motherfucker! We’re not done!”

Tack ignored this and walked to the window that faced the forecourt and with a rough, angry jerk he closed the blinds.

Then he turned to me.

That scene was so nasty, so intense and so unlike anything I’d ever seen or heard before

I couldn’t fight it back so I stared up at his angry face while biting my lip.

“You all right?” he, for some reason, asked me.

“Uh…” I answered because I could say no more but the answer was, no. I was not all right. Tack’s ex-wife was a bitch, she wanted my job, he had two kids and he may or may not have f**ked around on his wife. None of this I wanted to know but all of it was bouncing around in my brain in a way that I knew, no matter how studiously I did it, I wasn’t going to be able to avoid thinking about it.

“My ex is a bitch,” he stated the obvious.

“Um…” I replied, still unable to utter more.

“Your job is safe,” he informed me.

“Uh… okay,” I whispered, uncertain if I was happy about this fact or not.

That was when Tack shared even more stuff I did not want to know.

“She’s got this in her head, she’ll probably be back and she’ll probably do other shit to f**k with your head,” he told me. I stared up at him as my heart started beating harder and he went on, “She does, you tell me immediately. I’m not here, you phone me. Got that?”

“Um… okay.” I was still whispering.

“Give me your cell,” he ordered and, not thinking, wondering how that crazy woman was going to “fuck with my head”, I grabbed my cell from the desk and stretched my arm out toward him. He took two steps to me, slid my phone from my fingers, flipped it open, his thumb started moving over the number pad and I heard beeping.

“Uh… Tack?” I called.

“Yeah?” he asked, head bent to my phone, my phone still beeping.

“How will she… erm, f**k with me?”

He flipped my phone shut, tossed it on the desk and then he was bent to me, his hand wrapped around the back of my neck, bunching my hair and his face was an inch from mine.

“Don’t matter. Whatever she does, I’ll deal with it. You won’t. Got that?”

“But –”

“She calls, you hang up. She shows, you walk the f**k outta here, take your phone, go to my room in the Compound, lock yourself in and call me. Yeah?”

None of that sounded good except for the part about me calling him and him dealing with it. Therefore, I whispered, “Yeah.”

“Don’t be scared, Red. She’s a bitch but she’s stupid and I got your back.”

“Uh… okay,” I said yet again, not liking him having to have my back and now seriously wondering if I wanted to continue with employment at Ride Custom Cars and Bikes but for different reasons. Then I stared into his eyes, decided to change the subject and whispered, “You know my name.”

His face softened in a way I’d never seen before but I liked a lot. Too much. Way too much to be conducive to healthy, functional employer/employee relations and he replied quietly, “Yeah, baby.”

“How long have you known my name?”

“Since the first shot of tequila I handed to you when you gave it to me.”

“Why did you pretend you didn’t know my name?”

“Because, Red, I’m gonna f**k with your head too.”

Oh boy.

“Tack –”

“But you’ll like the way I do it.”

I wasn’t so sure about that.

“Tack –”

“Gotta go.”

“Tack –”

He interrupted me when his mouth hit mine for a hard, swift kiss that included his tongue touching my lips briefly in a way that made them tingle before he lifted his head.

My heart was beating wildly and my fingers were clutching the arms of my chair when his hand slid from my neck to my jaw, taking my hair with it and his thumb swept my cheek.

“Later, darlin’,” he whispered. Then he was gone and I blinked at the door when I heard the lock turn even though I no longer heard Naomi.

I closed my eyes tight for the second time that day and waited until my heart stopped beating hard and my lips stopped tingling before I opened them.

Then I whispered to the door, “Damn.”

Chapter Five

Fair Enough

It was Saturday night, twenty after six, and I was wondering what to have for dinner at the same time I was clicking through want ads on my laptop.

I’d just returned from yoga class with Lanie. I was still in my black roll top yoga pants and cornflower blue stretchy racerback yoga camisole with the deep gray racerback yoga bra under it. I was also in a mellow mood. Yoga did that to me. It made me feel energized but mellow and after the week I’d had, mellow was a good thing.

I’d only seen Tack once since his ex came to call, he kissed me and then disappeared. It was last night, Friday, when I heard the roar of bikes come into the forecourt of Ride. I was getting used to the roar of bikes but this wasn’t the roar I was used to. This wasn’t one or two bikes. This was a lot of them so I got out of my chair and looked out the window to see Tack leading six other bikes into Ride. Two of those bikes carried Dog and Brick, the two directly behind Tack. The rest of the guys I’d seen around but had not met. They parked beside the two bikes already outside the Compound, got off and entered the Compound. Ten minutes later, three more bikes roared in, two of these carrying the two men I’d seen Tack have the unhappy conversation with, they parked and into the Compound they went. None of them reappeared before I called it quits for the day and I was glad.