“This is making me feel a little sick, Carson,” I told him the truth, my stomach beginning to roil with nausea.
He slid his hand up my back, to the side of my neck, the calluses catching on my skin, making it tingle in a way that was oddly soothing, probably because it was a part of him. Then he glided his fingers into my hair, and when he spoke again, his tone had gentled.
“Done now, baby, and I know I’m scarin’ you. It sucks I gotta do that. I can see you’re ready to fight, able to do it, got sass in you and fire, and you’re done with him. You make that clear. But I’m doin’ what I’m doin’ now ’cause I’m worried shit that’s been ugly is gonna get uglier. And you gotta toughen up, Carrie. ’Cause he doesn’t get what he wants and he doesn’t get the message this is a battle he should let go, he’s gonna come at you with all he’s got.”
“No,” I said softly. “He’s gonna come at you.”
That was the truth, and it made me feel worse.
“That, you don’t worry about,” Joker said.
“But,” my voice was pitched higher, “he’s got a lot of money and knows people in high—”
“You think anyone dicks with Chaos?”
I shut up because I had a feeling they didn’t. Or if they were stupid enough to try, they didn’t get very far.
I mean, all the guys were really nice to me because they were just plain really nice.
But still, each one of them was a little scary.
Including Joker.
“I’m Chaos. And, Butterfly, I claimed you, and you might not get this because we haven’t discussed it so I’ll make it clear now. Claimin’ you makes you Chaos too. The fight might get ugly, and you gotta be prepared for that. But the way you got your head sorted and the firepower you got at your back, you will never lose.”
“Ugh,” I muttered before shoving my face in the side of his neck, doing this because I had no reply. I knew he was right about the good but also about the bad.
I was glad I had him and his firepower, but I still wasn’t looking forward to whatever Aaron had up his sleeve.
Joker used his fingers in my hair to massage my scalp soothingly. Strangely, it did the trick. Even with all that we were discussing, just his fingers digging in firm but gentle were comforting.
So I relaxed against him.
“I might want to bronze that tire, but if I keep being a pain in your behind, you may wish it never existed,” I muttered against his skin.
“Look at me.”
My relaxed body instantly stiffened at the severity of his command.
It was not firm. It was beyond that. It was something I not only had never heard from him but I’d never heard at all.
It was meant to be obeyed.
Without question.
And I obeyed it.
Without question.
When he had my gaze through the shadows, his hand slid down, fingertips in my hair, palm to my ear, thumb digging into my cheekbone. It didn’t hurt, but it did convey a message.
The touch was an assertion. Another command. He said he’d claimed me, and that was a physical demonstration I knew in that instant I had to understand, do it completely and also without question.
I suddenly found it hard to breathe.
“I don’t know where this will lead,” he stated. “You and me and your boy. I know what we got. I know I like what we got. I know I wanna keep that strong and make it stronger. Shit happens. I hope like fuck it happens to us, we’ll fight through to the other side. But I know this and you gotta know it too: No matter what happens, I will never, not ever, not fuckin’ ever, Carissa, regret ridin’ down that shoulder to help you and your boy. It’s the best decision I ever made in my life, and I know that in a way I know I’ll feel that until the day I fuckin’ die.”
His thumb was still on my cheek so he felt the silent tear that fell from my eye and collided with it.
“You scared a’ that?” he asked harshly.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” I whispered huskily.
And it was. Excepting the first time I heard Travis cry, it absolutely was.
“Then you get me.” His voice was no longer harsh, but it was rough.
“I get you, sweetie.”
He pulled me down to kiss me.
That too was an assertion. Like his hand on me, his words to me, that moment in the dark in my bed, even with all we’d shared before, was the beginning and it was also an ending.
I was his, for certain, for sure, no matter what had gone before, it started right then.
I was Carson “Joker” Steele’s.
End of story.
He was mine too, but with a manly man biker, that was secondary. It went with the territory, hand in hand with him staking his claim.
This did not bother me. It didn’t trouble me. It didn’t annoy me.
It utterly thrilled me.
That might be wrong, but in that instant, for the first time in my life, I didn’t care if it was wrong. If it was wrong, I didn’t want to be right.
Joker shared all this with his mouth. He then broke the kiss, leaving me breathless, and tucked my face back into his neck.
“Now, baby, sleep,” he ordered thickly. “Even if you got the day off tomorrow, Travis’ll be up early and we got a day together with your boy in your new house. I don’t want you draggin’.”
I wanted to cry again. Cry with relief that life had brought this man to me. Cry with happiness that I’d made it through the thorny path that led away from him in high school but then led me right back.
I didn’t.
I snuggled closer, with my arm wrapped around him pulling him to me as I did, and I tipped my eyes over his throat to the red light lit on his nightstand. Where he’d put it. So, even though we slept cuddled, the baby monitor was still closer to him so he’d be sure to hear if Travis needed us.
Us.
Us.
That thought almost made me cry too.
But I didn’t.
Because it was done.
In that moment I knew it was finally over.
I’d lost Althea. I’d lost Mom. To deal with the pain and make sure I lost nothing else, I’d put blinders on, made my mistakes, and then my dream had died.
But now the loss was over.
The blinders were off.
And I had Travis.
Then I got Joker.
And he gave me Chaos.
So it was done.
I was done losing.
And in being done, eyes open, facing ahead, back straight, head in the game, I was ready to win.
Chapter Seventeen
A Biker Named Joker