Tally’s eyes widened, and she snapped her head toward Stella. His girl had a surprised look on her face too, and although she knew he cared about her, no doubt hearing him say he loved her was a shock. He knew he had always loved her, but he had just been too fucking deep in his own shit to let those emotions out.
Tally made an angry sound and tightened her hand on the strap of her purse. “If you want that—” She narrowed her eyes at Stella. “—then your loss.” Without saying anything else, she turned and headed for the front door. Tally went to pass Stella, but his girl refused to move for her. They stared at each other for several seconds, and Stella had more of a curious expression on her face than one of being threatened.
Tally gave a mixture of a laugh and snort. When Stella was clearly not going to move out of the way, Tally walked around her with a huff. If Tally thought Stella was some pushover bimbo, she was clearly getting an eye-opening. That had him chuckling harder, because his woman was tough as nails and all his.
Once Tally was out of the shop, there was a second of silence that passed between the three of them. They glanced at one another.
“Wow.” Stella glanced out the front door. “What a bitch.” There was surprise on her face when she turned to them again. “I take it she was one of yours, Cadeon?” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him, yet there was no jealousy or anger but more disbelief in her expression.
Naggie started laughing, and he glanced over at her, but she had her gaze on Stella. “Girl, that wasn’t one of his, but a hanger who wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Naggie said and wiped the tears from her eyes as her laughter died down. “I like your spunk though.” She looked at Cadeon. “I’d love to stay and experience more of your crazy-ass life”—she glanced at Stella—“no offense”—she looked back at Cadeon again—“but I’m out of here. I should have kicked that skinny bitch’s ass.” She turned and grabbed her purse and without waiting for him to reply showed herself out.
Stella shook her head and turned to look out the window, but Cadeon could hear the soft laughter coming from her. “She called me a fat bitch.”
“Baby—”
Stella started chuckling and shook her head. “You would have thought she could come up with something not so high-schoolish.” She started laughing again, harder this time. “It might have hurt my feelings if I didn’t love the way I look.”
Cadeon grinned and walked over to her until there was hardly any space separating them. “And I fucking love your body too.” He moved his hands along her curvy sides and felt his cock harden instantly, as it always did whenever he was in her presence.
She stared up at him, but there was this question in her eyes.
“Yeah, baby, I really fucking meant it when I said I love you.” He cupped her cheek and leaned down to kiss her. “I think I’ve always loved you, even from that first time I saw you walk into the clubhouse when I was giving your old man some ink. But I buried that shit deep, and I know it was because I was afraid of how it made me feel.”
“This whole situation feels surreal.” She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his chest.
“Yeah, it sure as hell does, but doesn’t it feel good and perfect?”
She opened her eyes and leaned back enough that she could look into his. “Yeah, it really does. We should have had sex three years ago, and all this time wouldn’t have been wasted.” He heard the teasing note in her voice, and then she grinned.
“Baby, it wasn’t the sex that made me finally realize I didn’t want anyone else but you. It was the closeness of being with you, the way you touched me and spoke to me, and the fact that my dumb, stubborn ass finally realized I couldn’t stand to be away from you.” He rubbed his thumb along the lush mound of her bottom lip. “Does it scare you that everything is moving quickly?”
It took her a moment to answer. “Everything isn’t moving quickly, Cadeon. In fact, it seems like it’s taken years to get to this point.”
He grinned and chuckled softly. Yeah, literally and figuratively. But he was going to make up for that, and he was going to use the rest of his life to show her how much she meant to him.EpilogueOne month laterThe music in the clubhouse was loud and vicious. Her father and Booshie were at the bar speaking with Cadeon. She told the guys not to bother him about ink just because he was at the clubhouse. He didn’t work constantly, but the guys seemed to think that whenever they saw Cadeon, it was tattoo discussion time.