The second I heard their little meeting break up, I went dashing for my bedroom. I eased the door closed and ripped off my clothes, trying to get into the shower as quickly as possible. I turned the water on as hot as I could stand it and slipped inside. I was even impressed that the water fogged up the shower glass a bit.
But once I heard Tanner come into the room, he chuckled.
“Am I supposed to act like you weren’t listening to a word we were talking about?”
I sighed. “Just get in here so we can talk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He shed his clothes and stepped inside, and for a split second I drank him in. I placed my hands against his chest and let them slide down his rumbling muscles. My fingertips traced the outline of his abs. My palms slid against the lines that led straight to his massive, dangling dick.
Then, I walked into his embrace and let him surround me.
“What’s on your mind, gorgeous?” he murmured.
We both sank to the shower floor as the water beat against our tired bodies. And after crawling into his lap, I laid my head against his shoulder.
“You know that killing Chops, whoever he is, would just make the rest of that crew retaliate, right?”
He snickered. “Man, you were listening.”
“Tanner, I’m being serious.”
He held me close. “So am I. Those meetings aren’t for you to listen in on. They’re confidential.”
“You run with a crew; you don’t work for the FBI.”
“And yet some of the stuff we talk about could get you killed if you were taken by the wrong people.” I swallowed hard as he kissed my forehead. “See my point, beautiful?” he whispered.
I sighed. “I still don’t think that taking out Chops is the answer.”
“Well, you were outvoted, so.”
I peeked up at him. “Who is Chops anyway?”
When I gazed up into his face, I watched his eyes unfocus. It was as if he had been ripped back into a completely different world, and I knew enough about what my sister did for a living—and how it affected her—to know what was going on.
So, I perched onto my knees between his legs and cupped his cheeks.
“Wherever you are right now, Tanner, it isn’t real. Listen to my voice. Wherever you are right now, Tanner, it isn’t real. Listen to my voice.”
I repeated it over and over again until he eyes focused on me. And when they did, he crashed our lips together. He kissed me with such a passion and such a fervor that it robbed me of my breath, and I had to gasp for air the second he released my lips.
“Chops is the entire reason we are in this mess,” he murmured.
I cupped his cheeks and gazed deeply into his eyes. “What did he take from you?”
He sighed, looking more defeated than ever before. “Everything.”
As Tanner spoke, I settled in for the story. And what started out as him holding me quickly became a “me holding him” sort of scenario. I stroked my fingers through his wet hair as hot water slid along our grooves and crevices. Tanner get choked up with tears when he talked about Gage, and how he had been killed.
Hyde, and how he had been killed.
Chops, and how he had taken over the crew only to screw them over in the end with some absolute and utter bullshit.
And when he was done, he looked up into my face. “See why we’re gunning for him now? He took family from us, Summer. He killed our brothers, and he has no remorse for it.”
I tried to think of some way to get them out of this responsibility. “Could you turn over all the evidence you have to the police? Don’t they work with you or something?”
He closed his eyes. “All we have is circumstantial. Chops knows how to cover his tracks.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Exactly.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I guess you don’t really have a choice, then.”
He got up from his laid-back position and pulled me back into his lap. And I went effortlessly, relishing his strength as he wrapped his arms all around me and blanketed me away from the rest of the world.
“No, we don’t. We’ve exhausted every other choice we’ve got. And if we all want to get out of this alive—if I have any chance of creating a future with you and Chey—then this is our only option. This is what keeps you guys safe. This is what gives us our life back. This is what gives us a second chance, Summer. Can’t you see that?”
I looked up at him. “Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from.”
He kissed the tip of my nose. “Good, because there’s something I want to ask you.”
My heart stopped in my chest. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He grinned. “Nothing’s wrong. I just—”
Worry filled my gut. “You can ask me anything. Just spit it out.”
He sighed. “Okay. Here it goes: I never stopped loving you. I know you know that. But I don’t know if you know how much. I never stopped loving you, fully and completely. I never stopped hoping for a future for us. I never stopped dreaming of the day we’d find each other again and get a second chance at riding off into the sunset with one another. One day, I want to be your husband. I want to be Chey’s father. And I hope you feel the same way.”
I turned his words over in my head for a while before I spoke. “Can I ask you a question before I respond?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
I swallowed hard. “Do you at least understand why I didn’t try to track you down and tell you about Cheyenne?”
His eyes searched mine. “What?”
I pulled away from him and sat on the shower floor, cross-legged. “I need to know that you understand. I need to know that you get it. You might not agree with it and thinking about it still might piss you off. But I need to know that you get it. That you understand.”
He stared at me for a while before reaching out and taking my hands within him. “It does still anger me to think about. When I found out that I had a daughter, I was upset. And shocked. I wondered how in the hell you could keep her from me after all we had been through as teenagers.”
“But…?”
He scooted a bit closer to me. “But I get it. I understand the obstacles you faced and that you were just trying to look out for the last shred of family you had instead of hoping some idiot boy like me would come check on you to make sure you were all right.”
I swallowed hard. “Why didn’t you come to check on me, Tanner? I always wondered.”
He sighed so hard that his shoulders slumped. “I was a stupid, angry teenager, and I figured if you had stood me up then you didn’t deserve me coming around to check in on you.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
I released his hand before reaching up and cupping his cheek. “It’s okay, you know.”
His red eyes found mine. “No, it’s not. I should have come by to see you. I should have fought.”
“You were eighteen.”
“And you were my girl, Summer. That trumps everything.”
I giggled. “As a man now, sure. But not as an eighteen-year-old trying to figure out his pathway in life. No one expects an eighteen-year-old to make the wise decisions of a—”
“Hey now,” he said as he scolded me, “no use in bringing up our ages. I know I’m old.”
I barked with laughter. “We’re not old. We’re just not teenagers any longer.”
“Yeah, well, tell that to Snap and Crackle.”
I blinked. “Who’s Snap and Crackle?”
He chuckled. “My damn knees.”
I burst out laughing and he quickly followed suit. We laughed until we cried, then we laughed until our stomachs hurt so bad that we had to groan out sound just to force our lungs to take in air. It felt good to laugh like this again with him. It felt good to share cherished moments with the man I never stopped loving.
And now that we both understood one another, we could move forward.
“The answer to your question is ‘yes,’” I said through my panting.
That snapped Tanner’s eyes toward me. “Really?”
I finally settled my laughter down enough to look into his eyes. “Really, really. I want a future with you. I want you to be part of Chey’s life, as her father. I want us to have a second chance at the future we saw for ourselves as teenagers. Trust me, we’re on the right page with one another.”
And as he leaned forward, capturing my lips with his, I crawled into his lap as his girth grew against the folds of my pussy. I slithered my arms around his neck as my tongue lapped at the roof of his mouth. His arms cloaked my back, holding me close as the tip of his hardened dick breached my folds.
Before I lifted myself up and sank down onto his hearty, throbbing cock.
