God, we’d just finished.

And it was good.

Really good.

And he was ready to go again.

After what he just said, so was I.

“Okay,” I whispered, touched my mouth to his, climbed off him, and one could say I did not take my time (at all) on my way to (and from) the bathroom.

I was in a sex haze that was quickly segueing into unconsciousness.

Both of us had made the effort, that was evidently taxing, to muffle each other’s noises so the kids wouldn’t hear should they be awake.

Still, I’d had three orgasms, two from Buck’s cock, one from his mouth.

So that was mostly why I was out of it and drifting to sleep.

“Apparently,” his voice rumbled from his lips and his chest, the last of which I heard beneath my ear where it was resting, “wouldn’t suck for you either, I knocked you up, the way you go at my dick when it’s ungloved.”

My eyes popped open.

Oh God.

We’d done it again!

Or…

I’d done it again because he’d definitely (both times) tried to work that in, and I hadn’t let him.

Was this subconscious?

Now that I’d seen that cute little baby boy with Buck’s brown eyes in my head, was I trying to get pregnant?

Oh God!

I needed to get smart.

And fast.

“Condoms from now on,” I told his muscled flesh.

“Right,” he said, his voice shaking (and other bits of him shaking too) with humor.

I lifted my head. “Buck—”

He cupped the side of my face.

“Worry about it when there’s somethin’ to worry about,” he reminded me.

“Condoms or no sex at all from now on,” I threatened.

“Whatever you say, Toots,” he murmured, still sounding amused.

Hells bells.

Well, one thing he was right about, there was nothing I could do about it now.

I settled back in, thinking possible pregnancy, when Buck and I were so new and my life was still a shambles, was for certain going to mess with my perfect track record of great sleep at Buck’s house.

I was wrong.

16

Happiness Is Pop-Tarts

“Ace in the Hole Home Improvement and Contracting, this is Clara, how can I help you?” I said into the phone, holding it to my ear with a shoulder hitched, my fingers sifting through files in the filing cabinet.

“Hola, querida,” Mrs. Jimenez replied, and I smiled just as I tensed.

I’d been working in the office at Ace for three weeks.

I started the Monday after my first weekend with Gear and Tatiana.

That day, I rode down on the back of Buck’s bike (and learned why biker babes wore bandanas on their hair—blowout disaster—so, while Buck searched for the “perfect helmet” (his words) for me, I’d unearthed some scarves and used those, one was Hermès, the others were Alexander McQueen and Prada, all I’d save for the new jobs I never got—these didn’t scream “Biker Babe!” but they kept my hair under control, and by the by, riding on the back of Buck’s bike with Buck was everything).

He took me into the office—the extremely messy office—and let me loose.

By letting me loose, I meant he didn’t give me a hint of instruction.

This was because, in his words, he didn’t know “shit” about the office.

The only clue he gave me was to find a man named Chap who’d show me around.

Though, he did not share where I might find said Chap.

What he did say was, “Chap’s always around somewhere…except when he’s not.”

Obviously, not at all helpful.

Chap was short for, I would learn later (from Chap, after I eventually found him), “Chaplain” which was his role in the Club.

Something else I’d learn later was that this meant, mostly, he was the resident sage who all the men took their “shit” (Buck’s and Chap’s word) to, or he was the voice of reason when there was dissension among the men.

And I found Chap was sage.

Though I figured, for the most part, this was his role simply because he was the oldest member of the MC.

Once Buck let me loose, sharing I needed to find Chap, he disappeared.

Me, in my jeans, librarian blouse (this particular one iris purple with pintucks up the front) and strappy, high-heeled, dark purple snakeskin sandals, searched for Chap.

But at that time, Chap was nowhere to be found.

This was, I would find out later, because Chap was on a not-unusual bender.

Therefore, Chap wouldn’t be found until I saw him stagger out of the Dive four days later while I was in the side lot where the warehouse was, beyond which the Dive sat. All of this, incidentally, was adjacent to their store in a one-through-four hit: their massive store, a small admin building where I worked that had my office and a well-kitted-out, air-conditioned break room, their big warehouse, and the Dive.

When I saw Chap, I’d been dealing with a delivery of home improvement stuff.

Or, more to the point, struggling to deal with a delivery since I had no idea what I was doing.

Since I’d started in the office, I approached every man I didn’t know, hoping they were Chap.

Therefore, I met most of the MC as well as the employees who worked at Ace, either in the shop as sales associates and resident advice-givers to customers, or those who went out on jobs—electricians, plumbers, painters, drywallers and the like.

Not all of them were members. Though all of them were rough and tumble. Even the women.

So, I approached Chap as he stumbled out of the Dive and found my man.

I could proudly say I hadn’t done badly in those four days.

In fact, in the end, I found it a blast.

I was hesitant at first, sorting through what appeared to be a mountain of paper debris and noting there didn’t seem to be a system. Instead, it seemed like whoever had taken care of the office made an art out of not having a system.

Then, on day three, I figured the system was going to be mine anyway, so I dug in and organized stuff how I wanted it.

And one could say I’d learned along this journey that a research librarian liked to dig into anything that involved paper, and those papers didn’t have to be contained in books or pages from Galileo’s diary.

It might make me crazy but setting that office to rights was the most fun outside of being in bed with Buck I’d had for over a year.

Chap, who had a straggly gray beard that nearly touched his chest, a shock of steel-gray, long, wiry hair that he didn’t bother pulling into a ponytail and a long, thin, almost gaunt body (which made me fight asking him to dinner), was, as mentioned, the most veteran member of the MC.

He also knew the office work.

He was gruff, and the first time I met him, seriously hungover. Thus, he made it clear he wasn’t a big fan of giving me time to explain the office work.

But he also realized if he didn’t, he might be pressed into doing the office work (he realized this when I explained it to him), so he gave me time.

By week two, I had it down.

I still didn’t know what half the inventory the shop stocked was. Ditto with what the men told me to order for the jobs.

But I just had to check the delivery notes against the orders, match up words and numbers, decipher what was stock for the store, and what was coming in for a contracting jobs, direct it to where it was supposed to go and sign off.