Page 130 of Wife Number One

That warmed something inside me. “Then tell me something that’s not…rubbish.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “You can say shit.”

“I’d prefer not to. It’s bad enough you have me saying…other things.”

He leaned in, a wicked glint in his eye. “Like cock? I think you said you wanted to suck my cock earlier.”

I blushed pink but refused to be derailed into dirty talk. That was his safe zone. It was easy for him. Getting him to tell me something more than that he wanted to lick my pussy was the real challenge. “I did not, and we both know it.” I’d said I wanted him in my mouth and I would get down on my knees for him. But not that I wanted his cock. “Tell me something real.”

“Like what?”

The conversation I’d had with Hayley Jade earlier about the various jobs her dolls could have played in my mind. “When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

“A biker,” he replied. Except he said it so fast it was like it was the answer he’d been programmed with.

“You wanted to be like your dad?” I asked. “He was in the club too, right?”

Hawk nodded. “He was friends with War’s old man. I grew up with the club. Never wanted to be anything else.” He looked away. “Never had the chance.”

“Your family expected you to be a biker too.”

He shrugged. “Wasn’t even just my dad. It was War’s old man. The other members. My mom. The other women. It just is what it is. As soon as War and I were old enough to get a license, we were made prospects. I don’t remember anyone asking if we ever wanted to do anything else.”

I could relate to that. “Sounds a lot like the way I grew up. Nobody ever asked me if I wanted anything more either. Women don’t do anything in the commune, other than cook and clean and go to church and have babies. I had a vegetable garden. I did like planting seeds and watching them grow into food we could eat. But nobody ever asked me if I wanted anything more than a life inside the commune.”

Hawk watched me. “So what would you have been then? If those pricks had given you the chance?”

“I like helping people,” I replied. “So maybe I’d have been a schoolteacher or a nurse.” I sighed. “But you need an education to do those things. I don’t have that. Not an official one anyway.” We’d been homeschooled, but we’d never taken the SAT exams or had the opportunity to go to college.

Hawk let out a long breath. “Story of my life.” He watched me for a minute and then sat back in the booth. “I tried to get my GED a couple weeks ago.”

I widened my eyes at him. “Really? That’s fantastic.”

He shook his head. “I failed.”

He was so crestfallen I reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Okay, so you failed. You’ll try again.”

He moved his hand away quickly, screwing up his face and shaking his head. “Not a fucking chance.”

I frowned at him. “Why not?”

“What’s the point? If I can’t even get a fucking high school degree, there’s no way they’re going to let me into any sort of medical program.”

“You want to do something medical?” I was surprised, as it was so far from his current life of bikes and machines and all the illegal stuff I didn’t want to know about it. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

Years ago, when Rebel had first brought me to the club, I’d been a mess. I’d had a head laceration that had needed a hospital, but I’d been so traumatized I’d refused to go.

Even though I’d broken his nose, it was Hawk who had stitched my head up. It was him who’d fed me antibiotics and watched me for a fever and changed the dressings on my wounds.

“You’d be an incredible doctor,” I told him.

He shrugged. “I’m too old anyway. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“Does that go for me too?”

He looked at me sharply. “You can do whatever the hell you want.”

“Then why can’t you?”

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