“Fuck no. You’re a moaner.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. Loud.”

Oh God.

“Really?”

“It’s good. Really fuckin’ good when my mouth is on you or my dick’s inside you. When it ain’t good is when Tabby and Rush are down the hall.”

“I can see this,” I whispered, sliding my hands back up, fingers and palms flat, taking in all I could get, my touch light.

“And it’d be good, you stop touchin’ me.”

“I like touching you,” I said softly.

“I like it too, baby, but it ain’t helpin’ my fight to stop gettin’ hard.”

My hands stopped and I advised, “Then you might want to stop whispering against my lips, Tack, because that’s turning me on.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm hmm.”

“Doesn’t take much for you, does it, darlin’?”

With the others, it did.

But not with him.

I didn’t share that.

Instead I said, “It’s the goatee.”

“Bullshit, it’s me.”

He totally had me figured out.

“Well, it is your goatee.”

That was when I felt his lips smile against my mouth.

Then, alas, he lifted his lips from mine and stated, “Right, been a good night, Red. I learned somethin’ gets up your ass, you don’t delay and with only a little coaxing, you ask me about it. I learned you think I’m hot. I learned you can be cute when you’re turned on. And it’s a definite that I’m never shavin’ off this goatee.” I grinned at him through the dark but he concluded with, “Not that I was goin’ to anyway.”

“Well I’m glad you’ve declared that as a definite,” I told him with humor vibrating in my voice. “Brings me relief.”

“Babe, you’re still bein’ cute.”

“Oh. Right. I’ll stop doing that right away.”

“Christ, still fuckin’ cute,” he muttered and his thumb did another sweep and grazed the curve of my breast causing another shiver at the same time my nipples got hard.

Time for a subject change.

“When something gets up my ass, I don’t delay in asking you about it?”

“Nope.”

“What was up my ass?”

“You cottoned onto the fact the kids didn’t blink I had a woman in my house. That crawled up your ass. You sat on it for about fifteen minutes. Only a little pressure from me, you put it out there.”

“Oh.”

“Before you ask and so you don’t have to think about it, I like that too. Definitely.”

“Good,” I whispered, giving him a squeeze with my arms.

“Fuck me, now she’s bein’ sweet.”

I laughed softly and offered, “You want me to get pissed and maybe throw a rant?”

“No, ‘cause that makes me hard too.”

“What doesn’t make you hard?”

“Comes to you, not much.”

Oh boy.

That was nice.

“Honey,” I whispered.

“Fuck, baby,” he growled, pressing his hips into me, “seriously, stop being sweet.”

“Maybe we should go to sleep. I can’t be anything unconscious.”

“Yeah you can. You go back to cute.”

I blinked up at him and asked, “Pardon?”

“You go back to cute. You got these times when you press close and you make noises.”

“I make…” I paused, “noises?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you saying I snore?”

“No. I’m sayin’ you make noises.”

“What kind of noises?”

Tack didn’t respond for a moment then he asked, “You don’t know you make ‘em?”

“No.”

“No other man told you about them?”

“No.”

“Fuck, how many men have you had?”

“Tack,” I steered him back to target, “noises?”

“In your throat. Like little moans. They’re cute.”

Oh God.

“They’re also hot.”

Well, that wasn’t so bad.

Tack went on. “They sound like you sound when I’m buildin’ it.”

“Building what?”

“Buildin’ you up to coming.”

“Great,” I muttered. “I don’t know whether to be mortified or turned on.”

“How about just bein’ you. It isn’t mortifying ‘cause it’s cute, it’s sweet and it’s hot. But it don’t matter since there’s nothing you can do about it anyway.”

This was good advice so I decided to take it.

“Though,” he continued, “when you do it pressin’ up against me, it wakes me up, I hear it, you’re close, I don’t know whether to lie there and enjoy it or wake you up and fuck you.”

At that moment, I would have advised him to choose the latter.

Instead, I suggested, “Go with your gut.”

“Gut tells me to fuck you.”

“Like I said.”

Tack threw his head back and burst out laughing and I grinned through the dark at him while he did it. My arms around him, holding his big, shaking body close and really liking the sound and feel of his humor all around me.

When he was mostly done, but still chuckling, he dropped his head and took my mouth in a hot, sweet, wet, long kiss that left me slightly breathless and holding him even closer.

“All right, Red, time for some shuteye,” he muttered when he released my mouth.

“Okay, honey.”

“Three.”

“Pardon?”

“Three honeys.”

He was counting.

“Now you’re being sweet,” I whispered.

“You gonna fall apart on me?”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Good,” he said softly then dipped his head again and touched his mouth to mine before he rolled, taking me with him and settling us with me tucked into his side. “Now sleep.”

“Your wish is my command.”

“Attitude,” he muttered.

“What do you expect? You just ordered me to go to sleep.”

“You wanna watch TV with the kids?”

“No.”

“So what’s with the sass?”

“It’s me.”

“It is,” he sighed. “Fuck me.”

“You said you like it,” I reminded him.

“Gotta shut up to sleep, Tyra,” he noted.

“Apparently I don’t since I make noises while sleeping.”

“Fuck,” he murmured.

“All right, all right. I’ll shut up and sleep.”

“’Preciate it, baby.”

I snuggled closer. Tack’s arm around my waist tightened while I did so and only relaxed after I did.

Then I studied the planes of his chest in the dark, the darker marks of his tats until my eyelids drooped and I fell asleep.

Tack woke me in the dead of night, hand between my legs, lips to mine and I could feel I was already wet. I knew this because I was totally turned on.

The second my eyes opened, he whispered, “Goin’ with my gut, baby.”

I smiled against his mouth.

Tack kissed the smile from my lips.

Then he fucked me.

Then he let me go back to sleep tucked to his side.

He fucked me again in his shower the next morning. Apparently, the shower drowned out my moans. It didn’t matter anyway, the kids weren’t up.

Then we got ready, he put me on the back of his bike and took me to work.

More soap opera from the boys at work before it was quitting time and I could go home and gussy up.

This brought me to now. Sitting in Club in a little haltertop dress that was clingy, had a short skirt, serious cleavage and was the color of aquamarines. I wore it with spike-heeled, strappy, silver sandals. I also wore it with lots of chunky, kickass silver jewelry, three times as much makeup than I normally wore on my face and my hair out to there.

And I was sitting with Gwen, Mara, Tess Lucas (Mitch’s partner’s wife) and Elvira. Our posse also included Gwen’s friends Camille and Tracy and Mara’s friend LaTanya. And last there was a woman with loads of strawberry blonde curls who looked like a fairy princess. Her name was Sadie Chavez. I drunkenly didn’t remember how she factored into the group but I did know she was semi-famous in Denver though I didn’t remember how.

I watched the women laugh, fuzzily noticed that Elvira wasn’t laughing but scowling and that Gwen was the first person to quit laughing and she did it with her eyes on me.

“So, Tack has kids?” she asked when the laughter died down.

“Yeah, two. Rush is seventeen, nearly eighteen. Tabby just turned sixteen,” I answered.

“I didn’t know Tack had kids,” she muttered and I lifted my cosmo to take a sip in order to hide my drunken elation that Gwen didn’t know Tack had kids. And I felt this elation as any woman would, sitting and drinking with a woman her man had feelings for with those feelings once including the fact he thought she had staying power.

Being hooked up with Hawk, Gwen wasn’t competition, this was true. What she was was a stunning, tall, curvy blonde wearing a fabulous little black dress, even more fabulous shoes and having a great sense of humor. Until I knew her better, she was going to be the stunning, tall, curvy blonde with excellent fashion sense for whom my man had feelings. Me not only knowing Tack had kids but meeting them and spending time with them meant I had one up on her.

“Seventeen and sixteen,” LaTanya said, surprised, then looked at me. “How old is he?”

“Forty-one,” Gwen answered and I instantly took a shot to the heart.

First, because she knew how old Tack was and I didn’t. That took away my one up.

Second, because Tack was forty-one.

Forty-one.

Ohmigod!

“Forty-one!” I shrieked, calculating it, the time it would take to make sure all was good, the length of an appropriate engagement, the time we’d want to have just him and me and coming up with a very bad figure while all eyes turned to me.

“Yeah, forty-one,” Gwen stated then asked, “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five,” I replied and I was. Thirty-five. Tack was forty-one, had two grown kids and my calculations put him at at least forty-three, maybe forty-four depending on when his birthday was when, if all worked out, we could start a family.

Oh… my… God!

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God!” I cried, slamming my drink down and covering my face with my hands.

This was a disaster!

“Thinkin’ this is when the night turns bad.” I heard Elvira mutter but I wasn’t really listening. I was freaking out, despairing and shaking my head behind my hands.

“Tyra, are you all right?” I heard Sadie ask and I brought my hands down sharply, slammed them on the table and exclaimed, “No!”

“Why?” Camille asked, watching me closely.

“Because this screws with my dream. I didn’t think he was forty-one. He doesn’t look forty-one. He looks thirty-six, tops!” I was close to yelling and I noticed now Gwen was looking at me closely too and it wasn’t hard to read, even inebriated, she didn’t like what she saw. “How can he be forty-one and look thirty-six? He drinks beer. He shoots tequila. He eats more pork in one meal than most people have in a week. He rides motorcycles in the sun without a helmet. And he lives wild. That isn’t possible!”

“Uh, forty-one isn’t exactly old. And he’s hot,” Gwen remarked.

“I know he’s hot. I’m intimately acquainted with all the ways he’s hot,” I returned.

“No, no, no,” Elvira chanted, hand up, palm toward me, “don’t go back there, girl. We already had the pleasure discussion and I might look recovered but, the shit you shared, I’m not.”

“So, I don’t get it, what’s the problem?” Tracy asked the second Elvira quit talking and I rocked my ass in my tall stool, making it wobble but getting closer to the table, settling in and I started to count it down.

“It’s supposed to happen like this,” I lifted a hand and grabbed my other index finger, “I find my dream man. No one else would do. I promised myself that. Dream man or nothing. No settling. So I didn’t. I would have preferred to meet him ten years ago. I didn’t. I met him at a party at Ride two and a half weeks ago. I didn’t know this because he was fantastic in bed and gave me so many orgasms, I lost count –”

“What’d I say about pleasure discussion?” Elvira asked sharply, interrupting me, eyes narrowed. But I was on a mission, ignored her and kept right on talking.

“I knew it because he was funny. I knew it because he made me laugh. He made me feel beautiful. He made me forget about all the worries and shit in life and just have fun. Be alive. Then he was a jerk and I mean… bad. Then we fought, like, a lot. Then we had a drama that involved kidnapping and neither of us responded to that well but even though it sucked and hurt something awful, it was good in the end because I exposed my soft spot and Tack promised he’d handle me with more care. Now he’s hot, great in bed, gentle and unbelievably sweet, all this proving he’s the one. He’s my dream man.”