“Yeah, but I was.”

“And you aren’t now. And you’re keeping the Club clean.”

“That shit bought me my house, Toots. The one you live in. It bought me my bed. The one you sleep in. You gotta know that.”

“Okay, now I know it.”

He stared at me again and kept at it.

“Clara, you’re fuckin’ a man like the man you used to be fuckin’.”

My body grew taut, and I snapped, “I am not.”

“Any day, any meet, the vote might not go my way, and we’re back in that.”

“The vote will always go your way,” I told him.

He shook his head. “No, babe, shit can happen, and that vote can swing.”

“It won’t.”

“Toots, it will. I swung it and it can swing right back.”

“You won’t let it and your boys won’t go there. Not unless you lead them there and you won’t do that.”

“You don’t understand the Club. Or maybe any Club.”

“No, but I know those men and I know you. When I walked into this building two months ago, I knew exactly who you were before I knew who you were. There are men and there are leaders of men. Your father was a leader and he taught you to be one too. I have not met another member of Aces who has what it takes to be a leader. You were able to take over this MC because you have what it takes to take over this MC. And your boys know that even better than me.”

“Toots—” he started, but I kept talking right over him.

“There might be conflict and the only thing that cuts through conflict is someone who isn’t conflicted. You know who you are, and you’ve always known who you were meant to be. You are not conflicted about your path or where you wanted to lead your Club. And others are drawn to a man with vision. Your members sense that and they’ll follow your vision.”

“Clara—”

I kept right on talking over him.

“Is that why Kristy and you split up? Because she liked the life that stuff could give her, and she knew you intended to cut it off?”

“Partially. Mostly it was that I didn’t used to have to work all that often, she had my attention when she wanted it, and I was around more often to take care of shit at home. And when I had to work, at the store, in the workshop, out on jobs, and I wasn’t home all the time, especially when it came to lookin’ after the kids so she couldn’t go off and do whatever it was she wanted to do, she wasn’t down with that.”

My eyes narrowed as I snapped, “What a bitch!”

“Babe—”

“So she was okay with the Club running drugs?”

“Can’t say I shared all the Club’s business with her, but she was okay drivin’ a Corvette to go meet her girls for lunch and then hitting the mall for a shopping spree. Bitch had so many clothes, I had to keep mine in Gear’s closet. What she was not okay with was me makin’ waves, not in the Club, not to her life. There was a spell, didn’t last long, but it was there, when money didn’t flow as steady as it had before. We had to tighten things up. She wasn’t a fan of that. She liked her life just as it was. Maybe, if some outside force had changed it, she would have learned how to deal. The fact that I had an active hand in changing it did not make her happy.”

“So she’s actually a weak, risk-fearing bitch that’s down with living it up on dirty money but who was not down with standing by her man not only as who he was, but who he wanted to be.”

Buck stared at me yet again.

This time, his lips twitched while he did it.

Then he said, “Somethin’ like that, yeah.”

“How on earth did you hook up with her anyway?” I snapped.

“Babe, she’s got a great ass,” he told me then added, “Or she did.”

I rolled my eyes then rolled them back to him to see he was full-on grinning. “Even so, a bitch is a bitch.”

“Clara, honey, I was nineteen, I just lost my dad, a year later I lost my mom and my sister. I cut my brother out of my life. I was away from my people. She had a great ass, she gave great head, I was young, stupid and my brain was in my dick half the time. And when she’s happy, gettin’ what she wants, she’s not a bitch. It’s only when she doesn’t get her way that she is.”

“Still,” I muttered, and he chuckled.

I looked down at him and felt the warmth from his body, sensed the power of it and realized, belatedly, that he’d been worried about what I would think about him and the life he’d led. And this was likely the reason he didn’t share it with me.

I wasn’t a risk taker. I made my moves cautiously, every step measured and filled with anxiety (until recently).

But I knew then—lying in Buck’s bed in Buck’s room in Buck’s MC’s hangout—that some risks were worth taking.

So I didn’t measure my next step, and I didn’t move cautiously.

I let go and prayed life would take me where I needed to be.

Doing this, I dropped my head and kissed his throat.

Leaving my lips there, I whispered, “Nothing you do, nothing you’ve done and nothing you’ll ever do will make me look at you differently.”

I felt his body turn to stone, but I still slid on top of it, running my lips down to his chest as his hands came up and sifted into my hair.

While this happened, I kept talking.

“I was as low as I could go with no way out, and you taught me to play pool, you gave me a hamburger, you made me laugh, and then you offered me a way out.”

“Baby,” he murmured, doing an ab curl, lifting us both up so I was straddling him and looking down at him.

His eyes were heated, but they closed when I pushed a hand between us and wrapped it around his cock.

“I know the kind of man you are, West Hardy,” I whispered, and his eyes opened. Blazing now, they locked on mine. “Or I know who you are to me.”

I stroked as I spoke and felt him harden in my hand. His hands glided along my skin and he dropped his head so his lips could do the same at my chest.

I kept stroking but slid the tip through the wetness between my legs, and I felt his growl against my skin as he cupped my breasts, the rough pads of his thumbs sliding across my nipples and that felt nice.

I wrapped my other arm around his shoulders and kept whispering, “And that man is my man, West.”

He tipped his head back and looked at me.

“You about to fuck your man, baby?”

“Oh yeah,” I whispered, grinning.

“Do me a favor, Toots.”

“Anything.”

One of his hands left my breast to cup the back of my head, bringing my lips to his.

“Do it hard,” he ordered low, then his mouth opened under mine, and as his tongue thrust between my lips, my hand between us moved away, and I impaled myself on his cock.

I commenced doing the favor he asked for, doing myself a favor in return.

It was after I’d come, and he’d come. I was holding tight with my arms around him. I was still seated on him, and he was still hard and seated deep inside me. His hands were at my hips but back, his fingers pressing into the flesh of my behind. My breaths were heavy against his neck where I’d shoved my face and I could feel his against mine.