“I’m not findin’ anything worth laughin’ about either,” Shy stated.

“That’s because you can’t see you two. Seriously, Park, I gotta say it. You’re totally fuckin’ cute together.”

I pressed my lips together in another effort not to lick my lip, pretty sure Shy would never want to be described as cute ever.

I was wrong.

“No shit? You just noticed that? Jesus, Lan,” Shy replied.

“No. Noticed it at your house but was more focused on your girl bein’ cute, hot, and in a sheet. Since she’s fully clothed now, it’s comin’ through more.”

This, again, was what I considered not a good response from Landon Cage, seeing as I didn’t suspect Shy would like it made clear his brother thought I was cute and hot and got distracted by me being in a sheet, and this time I was right.

“Are you shitting me?” Shy ground out.

“Can we drink coffee?” I jumped in. “I need caffeine. Then I need food. Then I need to make a few calls so I can figure out if I’ve got a home and a job. Watching you two badasses go head to head, albeit hot, is not helping me sort out my life. So if you’d get a move on from this, I’d appreciate it.”

Shy’s eyes quickly came down to me and I noted immediately his expression had changed from anger to soothing.

“Sugar, you’ll be good,” he assured me.

“Yeah, I will, but to be good, I need to make a few phone calls, so can we get on with our morning?” I fired back, and his lips twitched.

“We can get on with our morning,” he agreed.

“Awesome,” I muttered, rolling my eyes at Shy, but when they hit Landon, I smiled.

He smiled back.

“Travelin’man!” Tex the crazy coffee guy boomed. “Your drink is gettin’ cold. Get your ass over here and get it ’cause I’m not makin’ another one unless you pay for it.”

Shy gave me a squeeze then gave his brother a look that told him to behave the thirty seconds Shy would be gone, and he sauntered over to get the last coffee.

I gave Lan another smile and sat my booty back down on the couch.

Lan folded his long body into the armchair.

“Uh, Tab, just so you know,” he started. “That time it’s gonna take for you to prove you intend to go the distance with Park just got a lot fuckin’ shorter.”

His words hit me in a nice place. I sent another smile at him and even I knew it was huge.

And happy.

* * *

I looked up at Shy as Shy looked down at me.

We were in my bed. We were naked. I was on my back, one leg wrapped around Shy’s hip, one leg extended, pressed up against his torso, ankle to his shoulder. Shy’s hips were between mine, one hand gliding up my shin at his chest, one hand in the bed, his cock moving inside me.

“Gotta say, baby,” he murmured. “You’re beautiful always but you’re seriously fuckin’ beautiful when you’re takin’ me.”

God.

God.

I loved it when he said stuff like that while he was making love to me.

“Gotta say, darlin’,” I murmured back huskily. “You’re handsome always, but you’re seriously handsome when you’re giving it to me.”

His eyes, already hot, scorched into me even as his mouth curved and his hand moved down, down, down, until it curved around my thigh. His thumb found me as he whispered, “Let’s see how much more beautiful you can be.”

Then he pressed and circled. I moaned, my neck arched, my leg around him tensed, and his hips drove harder and faster between mine.

“Beauty, unbelievable,” he growled.

I tipped my half-mast eyes to him, his face darker, his eyes so hot I thought the bed would combust, and he was right.

Beauty, unbelievable.

Not me.

Him.

His thumb pressed deeper, circled faster as his hips pumped harder, and I whispered urgently, “Shy.”

“Come without me, honey. This time I wanna watch.”

Free to do as he asked, I did and it was spectacular.

It was only when I was coming down that his thumb left me. He rolled us so he was on his back, I was astride him, and both his hands framed my head, moving it so he could look at me.

“Take me there,” he ordered roughly. “I wanna watch you move on me.”

Without delay, wanting to give him what he wanted, I sat up and gave him what he wanted. Doing it slowly at first, then faster, harder, my hands moving on his chest, my eyes never leaving his face, my excitement building again as I watched what I was giving him build, then his hands at my hips yanked me down, kept me full of him, and he gave it to me.

As he felt his orgasm, I dropped to him, chest to chest, my fingers drifting over his skin, my mouth in his neck, my tongue darting out to taste.

He closed his arms around me and he kissed me on my forehead. His head righted, I shoved my face in his neck, and we lay there for a while, silently.

I didn’t know what Shy was thinking about, but I took that time to savor the last forty-five minutes. Then I took more time savoring my most favorite parts. Since all of the parts were savor-worthy, this took a while.

After that, my mind moved to my day, post coffee with two badass brothers.

The good news was, my apartment was mine again. They hadn’t even put in an ad, so they were happy for me to sign another lease.

The bad news was they expected me to sign a twelve-month lease. I was down with that, kind of. I needed someplace to stay at the present moment and, with my job in the air, I was kind of stuck staying where I was rather than apartment hunting and explaining how I’d pay rent if I didn’t have income. That said, I felt it might be time to move onto something a tad bit nicer, and if they’d switch to month-to-month and I got my employment sorted, I’d have the opportunity to do that in the not-too-distant future.

Shy wasn’t down with it, like, at all.

Although I’d asked Shy for time to get my stuff straightened out, which would give the brothers time to reconnect without my listening ear, Shy had refused to give it to me. This kinda freaked me out, because it pissed me off and I was confronted yet again, in less than twenty-four hours, with the balancing act I had to perform to be with a biker.

At least that was what I thought until Shy explained it to me.

“Waited for you for four years, Tabby, baby. Four. Spent a lot of that time thinkin’ I’d never have you. Now I got you, not even for a day, I’m not big on lettin’ you go. Give me that for now, yeah? Make your calls here.”

That was sweet as well as loving, so I gave him that.

We quickly hit another danger zone when he heard me talking on the phone about the lease.

I knew he didn’t like what he was hearing when he pulled my phone out of my hand, muttered into it, “She’ll call you back,” then his finger hit the screen and he looked at me.

Feeling pressure building in my head at this maneuver, I opened my mouth to, say, maybe, scream, but he beat me to speaking.

“A twelve-month lease is not gonna happen. Your place is okay but only okay,” he declared. “It’s too small, I’m not thrilled about the ’hood it’s in, and this works, babe, we’re movin’ on together and no way it’s big enough for us both. I’m not waitin’ out a twelve-month lease. I’m not puttin’ up with what I don’t want for twelve months. And I don’t want you in a place that’s not good enough for you for twelve months. So you are not stayin’ there for twelve months. Tell them month-to-month. If they flinch, they deal with me.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, but in order not to have words with him in front of his brother, I did as I was told. They flinched. Shy heard it, took the phone from me again, I glared at him then glared at his smiling brother who was privy to all this, seeing as we were back at Shy’s place, and then I listened to Shy try and reason with them.

This didn’t work so Shy said in the phone, “Right. You’ll be seein’ me in thirty minutes and I suggest you take that time to think real hard on that decision.”

Then he tossed my phone to me, muttered, “Be back,” and took off before I could say word one.

I stared at the door that closed behind him wondering how he would know how to find my landlord.

Then I stared at the door trying to convince myself that didn’t just happen.

Then, when I realized that did just happen, I tamped down the urge to throw something at the door.

Then I stabbed at my phone and called Shy.

I did this repeatedly.

He didn’t answer for forty-five minutes and when he did, his greeting was, “Got month-to-month, babe. Tell Lan to load you up in his truck. I’m makin’ steaks tonight at your place. Meet me at King Soopers on Colorado Boulevard.”

Then he hung up on me.

Yep. Hung. Up. On. Me!

Apparently he used his badass biker ways to find my landlord and strong-arm a month-to-month lease out of him. Although this was what I wanted, contradictorily, the way Shy made it come about (specifically my nonparticipation in that), didn’t make me happy.

Lan didn’t chime in until I was fuming in his truck. “Let him do what he’s gotta do.”

I kept my mouth set and my eyes out the side window.

“Tabby, seriously, listen to me,” Lan carried on. “He’s my big brother and a long time ago, he cast himself in the role of protector and he’s good at it. He was scary capable of taking shit and giving it, just as long as he saved me from havin’ to do either. He gets off on this crap. Let him do it.”

I didn’t like the sound of that but I let that part go. I’d talk to Shy about that later.

Instead, I turned to look at Lan. “He can’t go around threatening and intimidating everyone in my life to get me what I want or what he wants me to have.”

Lan grinned at me and replied jauntily, “Sure he can.”

I glared at him.

“Bet your dad does that shit,” Lan went on. Dad did, for me, Rush, Ty-Ty, any of his brothers, anyone he gave a crap about.

God.

I was screwed.

On the ride to King Soopers, I decided to let this go and fight another day. Today needed to be a good day for everybody and anyway, month-to-month worked for me and I doubted Shy stuck my landlord with a knife, so I decided that all’s well that ends without bloodshed.

We got groceries. We had steaks. We drank beer. Lan took off to crash at Shy’s place. I explained to Shy that while he was off terrorizing my landlord, I’d called the hospital and learned they’d already advertised my position so if I wanted it back, I had to apply for it.

His response was, “They’ll pick you, baby.”

Then he picked me, as in picked me up, and carried me to the bedroom.

Commence making love which led us to now.

I broke the silence with a soft, “You… in my bed.”

I closed my eyes when Shy tightened his arms around me and stayed that way, but he said nothing. Then again, the arm thing said it all.

“I’m glad your brother’s back,” I mumbled into his skin, and he gave me another squeeze.

“Me too.”

“It was cool how he surprised you,” I noted.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

I pulled in breath. Then I stated, “Just for the record, before you go off to play biker badass on something that affects me, I’d prefer it if we talked about that thing that affects me first. There were other ways to solve today’s problem. If we decided month-to-month was the way to go and they didn’t give it to me, I could have stayed with Dad and Tyra or Natalie until my life got back on track and I found a place I liked or, if we were there when that time came, we found a place we wanted.”

“My way was faster and less headache,” he replied.

Crap, he had a point.

I sighed.

His body shook, I knew he was silently laughing but I ignored that.

Then he murmured, “Slide off me, Tabby, but do it slow. I like it like that.”

That gave me a tingle, but instead of sliding off, I thought about why he needed me to, which was so he could go to the bathroom and deal with the condom.

“I’m on the pill,” I told him quietly.

His arms gave me another squeeze but this one felt reflexive, so I lifted up to look down at him.

Then I pulled in another breath and started carefully, “Before, were you—?”

He didn’t make me finish.

He quickly cut me off with another squeeze of his arms, the pressure not releasing, before he stated firmly, “Always.”

“So we can—?”

He again interrupted me to order gently, “Slide off, honey.”

I held his eyes a beat before I nodded then I slid off, slowly, watching his face as I did, which stated eloquently he liked the feel just as much as I did.