And I realized that despair I’d carried in my belly all my life was gone—gone completely—and my world was just as I wanted it to be.

There were issues. There were worries. And some of them were huge.

But life was life.

There always would be.

But my life. My real. My now. My world.

Was solid.

For the first time ever.

Because Buck made it that way.

Because Buck gave that to me.

I was about to tell him that, thank him for it, and lastly, and most importantly, tell him I loved him, when the door opened suddenly, crashing against the wall.

Buck’s head snapped up, and my neck twisted.

And I stared in shocked disbelief mixed with no small amount of embarrassment, despair, and last, anger, at Nails standing in the door.

26

I Like It Like That

“Get the fuck outta here,” Buck growled as I tensed to move away.

He didn’t let me.

The fingers of one of his hands dug into my hip, putting pressure on, keeping me where I was, sitting astride and filled with him.

But his other hand moved out and swept the sheet up to my waist and his torso pressed against mine even as his eyes skewered Nails.

She ignored his order and listed into the room.

“Wanna party, baby?” she slurred.

Oh no.

It was even worse than it seemed, and already, it was bad.

Heart-breakingly bad.

Mortifyingly bad.

Unbelievably bad.

This bad being Buck’s other woman walking in the second before I was going to confess my love for him.

And the thing making it worse, she was hammered.

“I said…get…the fuck…out.” Buck was still growling.

She slipped to the side, her feet crossing over to right herself, and her eyes were hazy, but still, she managed to glue them to Buck.

“She’s too straight, hunnnee,” she mumbled. “You wanna party, I’ll call Nonna. You like it like that. Nonna and me, we’ll give you a pah…” she leaned forward, “tee.”

She stumbled with her lean, her hand flying out and touching the bed.

My eyes narrowed on her hand on the bed.

Oh no.

Hell no.

No to her touching my man’s bed, not with me in it. I had to put up with knowing that stuff, I sure as hell didn’t have to put up with seeing it.

I jumped off Buck, taking the sheet with me. Standing at the side of the bed, I wrapped it around me and bent, snatching up my panties.

I felt Buck come out of bed with me and saw his jeans disappear from the floor.

“Woman,” he was still growling, “you turn your ass around and walk out, or I put you out, and you’re shitfaced, but I think you get me when I say, I gotta put you out, that means you…are…out.” He paused before finishing, “Permanently.”

I shimmied the undies up under the sheet, but my attention returned to see Buck buttoning his fly and noticing that Nails had straightened, but her torso was circling.

“You won’t put me out,” she whispered on a drunken, come-on smile.

“You don’t move to the door, you’ll see,” Buck warned low.

“Baby,” her lids hooded, and the word was an insinuation, one that wasn’t lost on me, “we both know you don’t wanna put me out.”

Oh God.

My stomach clutched as I bent and quickly gathered the rest of my clothes.

And Buck moved.

I didn’t watch to see what he did, not this time. I clasped my clothes to my chest and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door.

I was dressed and back in a now-empty room sitting on the side of the bed, my socks up, pulling on a boot when Buck stormed back in from wherever he’d taken Nails.

I glanced up at him, seeing he did whatever he did wearing only his jeans, then I looked back down at my boot and yanked up the zip.

“Babe—”

“No!” I cut him off, shaking my head and pulling on my other boot. “No, we’re not talking about this. This didn’t happen. You enjoy your party. Have fun. Do whatever it is you need to do. I just don’t want to know. I’m going back to your house.”

“She’s trashed and that made her stupid and now she’s no longer a problem,” Buck stated.

“Whatever. I ask no questions, you tell no lies. But part of what I get is not having to discuss this,” I muttered.

This was met with silence.

Then Buck asked, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

My head shot back, and I glared at him.

“Part of what I get is not having to discuss this,” I repeated.

His hands went to his hips. “I heard you, babe, and I still don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about.”

“I ask no questions, you tell no lies. I get it.” I stood and ignored his brows snapping together. “I get it now. Lies tear people apart. If you don’t have to lie, then that lie won’t tear us apart. So that went down. We ignore it. I go to your house and you do what you have to do. It didn’t happen. It doesn’t happen. It happens for you, but it never, never, Buck, it never happens for me. That’s what I get. You get what you get, but that’s what you give to me.”

I knew, but didn’t care, that the snake was uncoiling when he said, low and lethal, “Clara, I’ll ask you one more time and then I’ll find another way to get you to tell me what in the fuck you’re talkin’ about.”

“I know who she is,” I announced.

“Yeah, babe, you saw her ridin’ Gash. I know you know who she is.”

“Right,” I stated like that said it all because it gosh darned did!

“Right?” he asked like it didn’t.

“Don’t you stand there and lie to me, Buck.”

“Babe, I’m warnin’ you, this shit, it’s pissin’ me off, and I don’t even know what this shit is.”

That was another lie.

It wasn’t pissing him off.

One look and the sound of his voice, I knew, for some insane reason, he already was.

He was pissed at me after his other woman walked in when he was still inside me.

“I can’t believe you!” I shouted.

“What the fuck can’t you believe?” he fired back. “Not ten minutes ago, your pussy’s wrapped hot and tight around my cock and you’re holdin’ on like you’ll never let go, and now I got a whole other woman on my hands, babe, pullin’ fuckin’ multiple personality bullshit on me.”

“Oh no, you did not,” I whispered. But it wasn’t a whisper when I said, “Do not turn this on me!”

“Babe, for fuck’s sake, what the fuck are you talkin’ about?” he shouted, and he’d never shouted at me.

Not once.

Not ever.

And it snapped something in me.

I marched to him and shoved his chest then leaned into his face, in his space, up on my tiptoes.

“I was about to tell you I love you!” I yelled.

I watched his head jerk but kept right on ranting.

“Then your…whatever you call her…other woman, mistress, plaything, whatever,” I screeched the last word, “walks in. I know who she is to you, and I know I have to put up with it. I also know that you are supposed to hide that stuff from me. And now something beautiful has turned nasty and you’re making it worse by standing there lying to me.”