“I’m sure my tune will change when I have a family of my own. Can’t exactly put you and the two-point-five kids on the back of my bike.”
A laugh. “Already thinking of things like that, huh?”
“We aren’t exactly using protection, now are we?”
She doesn’t question me further. She hops off the bed and heads for the shower, and I’m tempted to follow her in there, but I got shit to do. If I go there with her, no one’s gonna get clean and I’m going to be terribly late.
I take my turn, and come out to her wearing the shirt I was wearing last night. It’s sexy as hell and seeing it makes me hard again. Edge will understand if I’m late, but I gotta take care of business — especially now that I have this angel to take care of too. Besides, the sooner I go, the sooner I can come home to her. “You’re dressed I see, you want some coffee?”
“Coffee sounds lovely.”
We head out to the kitchen and get our cups, and I provide her with plenty of cream and sugar packets to go with her coffee, but she takes it black. As if I could fall in love with her any more. We take our cups to the back porch of the club, a gorgeous fenced area where some of the members let their dogs run about.
“Wow,” she says as she sits down in one of the straw chairs. “I wouldn’t expect this back here.”
“This is our home, Baylee. Business in the front, but uh... I guess it’s not ‘party in the back’ since we party up front too, but it’s home back here.”
“I’ve been living in a tiny apartment with my father forever. We barely even have a back porch. It’s like, a foot square of concrete and a guard rail.”
“I’ve been in places like that. It’s rough.”
“This is lovely, though,” she says, sipping her coffee.
“I figured until I got a family to call my own, this is a wonderful place to live. Got my brothers, got community. And I also got you now, babe.”
She chuckles.
“When I have my own family, I’m gonna get a home of my own with my savings,” I tell her. “The whole American Dream spiel. Home with a white picket fence and all that jazz.”
“You have savings? Must be nice.”
“What do you do, Baylee? Do you work?”
She nods. “I cook and clean for my father and uncle. I work part-time at a shitty little diner. Or I did. I’m never doing the former again, and the latter was just so I could have any money at all. Not a career or anything.”
Life is tough here. I know the town is small and lacking in opportunity. It’s probably why her father and uncle had so much sway over her. “Okay, what do you want to do? If you could do anything your heart desired?”
She sighs. “I’m not sure what I want. My plan was to save enough money to get out of this town, but beyond that? I was never sure.”
“There’s gotta be a dream in that head of yours. Your eyes shine too bright for there not to be.”
She nods. “All I know is that I’d love to have a garden at some point. One like my grandma and I used to have. To grow some tomatoes and make the best spaghetti sauce for those I love.”
I cackle. “I’d love to try some of that. I think we can make that happen. Here, even. Get you your own plot of land... until we get a place of our own and you have even more space.”
I smile at her, and she smiles back. We haven’t even known one another for twenty-four hours yet and we are already madly in love with one another. The stars have aligned for me, and it’s about damn time. I enjoy my time with her, sipping coffee, an arm over her shoulder, knowing that it can’t last forever, but I’m going to relish it all the same.
The back door to the club opens and another pair came out. It’s Edge, tall with a shaggy beard, and there’s a young blonde beside him. She looks familiar, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s one of the girls we pulled from the auction last night. She had similar ideas about clothes as Baylee — she’s wearing one of Edge’s t-shirts. It’s a good look, and a sexy one too. Looks better on my girl, though, if you ask me.
“I see I’m not the only one who didn’t sleep alone last night,” I say as he sits down, coffee in hand.
“Tara’s very grateful for us showing up last night,” he says. “I keep telling her I was just doing what was right. Finding her was a bonus.”
“Isn’t like that,” Tara says. “I like you, Edge. You are a bit rough but you know how to treat a girl. I’ve figured that out good and quick.”