Page 73 of Loving Smoke

“Couldn’t have done it without you, brother.”

“Ahhh, fuck, you’re not gonna kiss me, are you?” Blood did some air boxing and of course I fake punched him, but in the end he was a true brother.

I jerked my head toward Diesel and Bolt on the other side of the room. “I think we got a pretty good crew.”

“Muy bien.”

“Nice to see your new señorita is teaching you more than just ‘fuck me now’ and ‘fuck me harder’.”

“You’re not gonna think you’re so funny when I’m speaking fluent Spanish.”

“You can’t speak fluent English, so I’m not too worried.”

Blood shoulder-butted me. “Blow me.”

“I’m surprised you don’t know that one too.”

Blood huffed out a deep laugh, then sobered. “Manny never comes out of the office. Hard to believe anybody can crunch numbers like him.”

“Never saw anybody like numbers like him. All that finessing the money is gonna come in handy when we start making steady shipments up to the States.”

I turned my head toward the bar and Blood followed my gaze. “Your woman’s got it all together too.”

“She likes people and she knows how to handle them. Fuckin’ amazing.”

“About time you told her that.”

Blood’s words rattled around in my head. My woman. That’s how all the guys referred to Marisol and I liked it. Now, I just had to put what I wanted to say to her into words. Not so easy for a guy who’s spent most of his life pushing his emotions down or just ignoring them.

After two hours of non-stop partying we were running low on tequila, so I eased under the bridge of the service bar and pulled the keys to the storeroom out of my pocket. Everybody came to Mexico to drink tequila and this party was no different.

For the first time in weeks, Smoke seemed truly relaxed, and I loved seeing him happy and having fun with the other guys instead of worrying about me or the club. Thankfully, my wound healed and he got the cast off his hand last week. The doctor said we both made complete recoveries which considering what went down, made it even more remarkable.

I released the lock on the storeroom door and a large body shadowed me, then growled in my ear, “Need some help?”

“Just trying to do my job, but some big biker is crowding my space.”

“Mmmmm, I like the sound of that.” Smoke nudged me into the storeroom and let the door ease closed behind us.

“You do realize we’re slammed with people three deep at the bar. Most of them waiting for tequila.”

“Let ‘em fuckin’ wait.” Smoke caged me in against the metal shelves holding the liquor. His broad hands skimmed my waist, then gripped my ass and lifted placing me on an empty counter off to the side. My pulse pounded in my ears in anticipation and my heart skittered faster. Reactions becoming all too familiar when I was in Smoke’s presence, but there were still issues to work out . . .

Issues I felt we should talk about. Issues I’d wished he’d open up about, but whenever I asked him about the meeting with my father, or anything regarding what happened at the villa, he would shut it down. He refused to talk about his emotions of that horrible day which left us with stilted conversation.

He nuzzled my neck and mumbled, “Now that you’re all healed up I can’t keep my hands off you.”

I’d had enough of him treating me like fragile glass about to crack at any moment. I wanted the tough guy, bad boy who’d stop at nothing when it came to sex. Being worshipped was great, just not all the time, and now that we were both fully recovered from our injuries, and alone in a small room . . . no time like the present—even if he would hate my timing.

“I think it’s time we have an actual conversation about what happened at the villa and about how we feel.”

He jerked away from me. “Now?”

“Even Manny and I discussed what happened, but you’ve put me off with one lame excuse after the other.”

He took a half-step back and glanced around the room, then zeroed in on me. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Fine. Then I’ll start. When Manny told me the truth about what my father did to my mother, I couldn’t believe it, but deep down I knew he was telling the truth, so I confronted my father. At first, he denied it, but then his ego got the best of him. I couldn’t believe the cavalier way he excused his murderous actions. Then he brought you into the picture and I became frantic with worry. If he murdered his own wife, he’d have no qualms about ending your life.” I shuddered and Smoke reached out to me but I held him off. I needed to get this all out.

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