The party could be about anything or nothing. It could have a theme, like beer and brats with the old ladies bringing side dishes and desserts, or it could be a free-for-all, like delivered pizza and brothers riding out and bringing back half a dozen kegs.

Whatever it was, the word got out, and everyone they knew (and everyone who everyone they knew) came, got drunk, ate what was on offer, drank from a keg (or the endless supply of booze from behind the bar), listened to music inside and outside and got rowdy.

Buck and I had been out there for hours.

This time, it was about Chap’s “world-famous, double-trouble cheeseburgers,” which probably weren’t world famous, but I’d found they were exceptional. Meat smooshed with Worcestershire sauce, sprinkled with Lawry’s seasoning salt, grilled to perfection, and you had no choice but to have the double. Because one had a slice of melted cheddar and one had a slice of melted swiss.

The result was sublime.

I also found that partying with the Aces was brilliant.

I drank beer, ate a delicious burger, shot tequila, gabbed and laughed with everyone, because I knew practically everyone, and they knew me, and I played several games of pool very badly.

Sometimes I did this (though not the playing pool part, obviously) with Buck’s arm curled around my neck, my front pressed into his side, my arm around his waist, a beer in my other hand, one in his. We’d sip and chat and laugh.

Sometimes I was with the girls or the guys, but I’d find Buck, seeing him, tall, strong and handsome among his people—our people—looking both cool and hot, and that warmth would sweep through me.

Or I’d feel his eyes on me, usually when I was laughing. I’d turn my head to meet his gaze and I’d feel that sweet rush.

Eventually he found me, grabbed my hand and walked me into the Dive, through the common area where people were talking, laughing, drinking shots, smoking cigarettes (and other things), playing poker and pool, and even though I turned my eyes away, I saw folks making out and also making out, as in, two seconds away from full-on sexual relations.

In other words, Aces knew how to party, and like their namesake, everyone was flying high.

Buck had guided me to his room, closed the door and then took me to bed.

Now we were both naked, Buck on his back, me draped on top, the sheet down to our waists, our legs tangled with each other’s as well as the sheet, and I was happy.

I worried about Tia.

It gnawed at me, and I understood even more why Buck didn’t share.

Because it was always there, that undercurrent of fear.

Before, the hope I could hang on to was that she was in Seattle, safe and serving coffee drinks.

Now, Buck was right, there was hope, because we didn’t know where she was.

But it was harder to get a handle on because where she was (and I had to believe she still was), she was without her purse, phone, car, money and a goodly amount of her blood.

He’d wanted to shield me from that. And when he failed, not of his own doing, I completely understood why he’d tried.

I worried about the custody battle.

Tatie needed to get out of there, and things weren’t all that great for Gear either. It was so bad for Tatie, and Gear was protective, he didn’t talk much about what he was facing. But apparently, Kristy took the unhappy life she was leading out on both her kids.

And Knuckles was just a straight-up dirtbag.

But I had money in the bank.

No bill collectors breathing down my neck.

And a bottle of bubble bath in Buck’s bathroom (my first purchase that I made just to spoil me).

Also a soaking tub and now a new vanity. One Buck built himself. A bigger one with a double sink (no Swarovski crystal pulls, but who cared? the new vanity was fabulous and the addition of it made the entirety of the bathroom stupendous) because Buck said we couldn’t have a “kickass” tub without a “kickass” vanity.

“And anyway, babe,” he’d stated, “you got a lot of woman shit.”

I did, but not so much there wasn’t room to store it.

However, I read his meaning.

Now, I could expand.

And last but oh so not least…

I was in love.

I shifted up Buck’s body and looked down at his face.

God, he was handsome.

I lifted my hand and traced the lines coming out of his eyes, then down, my fingers gliding through his beard.

“Babe,” he muttered, and my attention moved from his beard to him.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“What’s in your head?” he asked back quietly.

I smiled and his gaze dropped to my mouth at the same time his fingers tensed on the cheek of my behind.

“I figured out one of the MC’s uses for women,” I informed him, and his focus cut back to my eyes.

“Yeah?”

My smile got bigger. “You boys have groupies.”

He smiled back. “You got that?”

I nodded, moved my face closer and whispered, “Lots of them.”

“There are some bitches who just like bikers,” he stated.

I tipped my head to the side, quietly laughing.

“This I can see,” I told him. “They also like free beer, pot, shots, world-famous, double-trouble cheeseburgers and getting them some. And, as far as I can tell, all those in equal measure.”

“Can’t live the life without knowin’ how to have a good time.”

“I see this too.”

He grinned, lifted his head, and touched his mouth to mine.

Keeping it there, he whispered, “Like you like this, Toots.”

“Me too,” I whispered back.

I pulled up a smidge and brushed the hair away that had fallen on his forehead, then slid my fingers into it at the side of his head. I moved more on top of him and I touched my lips to his.

Both his hands came up and pulled the sides of my hair back as he took my lip touch and turned it into a hot, heavy kiss, his knee cocking between my legs, his thigh moving up to rest against the heat of me, and I pressed my chest into his.

“Hot,” he muttered when his lips detached from mine.

I slid down and rested my cheek against his shoulder. His hand moved to draw random patterns on my behind. My hand came up and I traced the Gear on his pectoral.

“Do you have a tattoo for Tatiana?” I asked.

His answer was to lift his right arm. I shifted to look, and using his other hand, he pointed at a coil of barbed wire that started at his wrist and snaked through all the tattoos up his arm to end piercing the tail of the snake.

“That’s Tatie,” he stated then went back to his random patterns on my bottom.

I was surprised so I lifted my head. “Tatie is barbed wire?”

His eyes caught mine. “My girl binds me, keeps me straight, keeps me clean and keeps me loyal to the mission.”

The mission?

What mission?

“Sorry?” I whispered.

He studied me a moment.

Then he asked, “You good with the groupies?”

This question confused me, so I repeated, “Sorry?”

He stopped drawing with his fingers and cupped my behind.

“The groupies, babe. You good with that?”

Something about the way he was looking at me, his hand holding me, the feel of his body under mine, made me understand this was an important question.