Darn, he was right.

And I’d hurt him.

I’d hurt him by accusing him of cheating on me.

Worse, saying I was okay with that. Okay with him giving away pieces of himself that belonged to me.

They belonged to me.

If he said that to me, if he told me, even in the beginning, he was okay with me playing the field, giving myself to someone else, that would have gutted me.

Definitely now.

Yeah.

Darn.

He was right.

I pulled in my lips, bit them, and pushed my cheek against his hand to look away as the tears stung my eyes.

“Baby, look at me,” he whispered.

“No.”

“Clara, honey, fuckin’ look at me.”

I shook my head and inhaled sharply through my nose to control the tears.

Then I felt his mouth at my ear.

“You’re not reading me again,” he whispered there.

I let my lips go and clenched my teeth.

He went on, “You think I’d get that pissed if I didn’t love you too?”

At his words, my eyes instantly unfocused and my body went statue still.

His arm around me got even tighter and his lips moved to the skin of my neck where he said, “Clara, I love you.”

I remained statue still.

His hand at my jaw tensed. “Toots, baby, please, for fuck’s sake, look at me.”

My head turned, his lifted, and I looked at him.

“You love me?” I whispered.

His thumb swept my cheekbone.

“Yeah,” he whispered back.

“When?” I asked.

“What?”

“When did you know you loved me?”

His thumb moved to sweep my bottom lip when he replied, “When you were pullin’ back Tatie’s hair when she was pukin’ in the toilet.”

Seriously?

“That’s gross,” I declared.

He grinned a small grin. “Babe, you were lookin’ after my girl even after she’d been a bitch to you.” His head dropped, he touched his mouth to mine before lifting it again and saying quietly, “You look after everyone. Savin’ Jimbo a cupcake and chattin’ with Gear on the deck and doin’ somethin’ with Tatie’s space so she feels at home when she’s at home and makin’ Minnie feel important by listenin’ to her babble about her biker babe shit. But only I get to look after you.”

Oh dear.

That felt nice.

It felt nicer, how much he paid attention.

I closed my eyes and whispered, “West.”

“Get on the back of my bike, babe.”

I opened my eyes and noted quietly, “You have a really, really foul temper, Buck. It comes out physically and it comes out verbally, and I get understanding a person and how they react to things, adjusting your behavior when you can and letting them be who they are. But I cannot live with the worry I’m going to do something and you’re going to strike, poisoning me or us with your anger.”

“Then I’ll get a lock on it.”

I was again blinking rapidly.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“You’re right. I let loose and it isn’t cool. Think you get from what you saw of her, the scar I got that’s a constant reminder, that Kristy, when she blows, she’s worse than me. A lot worse. Grab a knife and carve your anger into someone worse. I learned through years with her, you’re backed against a wall in a relationship, a family is at stake, you fight fire with fire, babe. You are not that. You are not Kristy. I haven’t had a long-term situation since her. And I’ve never had a long-term situation without her. And then I got one and I didn’t adjust. I was asking you to adjust, and I didn’t do it. Now, I’ll do it.”

He'd mentioned just last night that he’d been nineteen when he met her.

Still, really, a boy.

And all he knew was her.

And now…me.

I wanted to believe what he said.

I really, really did.

However.

“Easy as that?” I asked quietly.

“No. Figure I’ll fuck up again. But you gotta know, a man gets his head straight real fuckin’ fast when his woman gets the look on her face I planted on yours and she runs away from him, disappearing in the night. I gave you the worst in me, and right after I did, you told me nothin’ I could do would ever make you look at me differently. And not an hour passed, and I did somethin’ ugly that made you look at me differently.”

Yes.

He really paid attention.

“That tat I got?” he asked.

“What?” I asked back when he said no more.

“That tat I got, Clara. The one that says, ‘never again?’”

I nodded.

“That is about never letting a woman treat me like shit like Kristy did. Dragging our kids down with it. Imploding our family because she wants what she wants and nothin’ else matters. Now it’s also about never forgetting that look on your face, baby. Watchin’ your hair fly as you ran away from me. I will never…”

Abruptly, he shook his head before he dipped his face closer to mine.

And when he spoke again, his voice was low and coarse.

“Ever, darlin’, forget that. And I’ll never make you feel that way again. Thinking about it now, feels like I got a knife in my gut, but this time, it was me that drove it there.”

I didn’t want him to feel that.

In fact, I wanted to take that feeling away.

All that he was feeling because he wasn’t hiding any of it.

And it meant the world to have it, a precious gift, even if it was difficult watching him experience it.

But we still had something to go over.

“And if I stand in your way, will—?”

“Honey, I see somethin’ else happenin’ here. I keep tellin’ you to read me, and straight up, you gotta learn to do that. But I also gotta use my words. I’ll start now. If you did not think that day and the time after I was not runnin’ scared, you need to pay a fuckuva lot more attention.”

Running scared?

Buck?

“Wh-what?” I stammered.

“You were distant from me all day because I marked you, and I spent all day tryin’ to figure out how I could make you trust me again. Talked to Ink about it. Chap. You’re at home with my baby girl and my son, you and my boy lookin’ out for Tatie after what happened to her. I was out tryin’ to figure out how I could erase what I did to you. I get home, you’re on the phone, you let me kiss your nose, then you don’t even come out and say hey. You go right to bed with my girl.”

That day…

After Tatie was hurt.

He was…

“You were out…talking to the guys…about how to—?”

His eyes got a look I’d seen in them only once before.

When he’d seen the bruise on my shoulder.

Anguish.

Oh my God.

“Clara, I marked you. Think about it. Think about bein’ so out-of-your-brain pissed, you did something that hurt me.”

I flinched.

“Yeah,” he grunted.

“You talked to Ink and Chap about it?” I asked softly.

“Mistake. I told him, Ink was so pissed at me, I thought he’d throw down. And Chap was so disappointed in me, I thought he’d kick my ass out of his house. But he didn’t. He sat me down and said I had to do my time. I had to sort my shit and do my time. I had to remind you why you were there, get my shit straight so it never happened again and do my time.”