Page 208 of Smooth Sailing

He chuckled (he knew it was awesome, then again, how loud I was and how hard I came couldn’t be missed).

I lifted my head so I could watch his humor, and made the mammoth effort to move my hand so I could sift my fingers through his beard as he experienced it.

“I could look at you for days,” I whispered. “Especially when you’re happy.”

“Di,” he whispered back, scooching down in bed and turning to me so we were face to face.

“I don’t want to scare you, but in a theme for our day, you should know, I like you. I really, really like you,” I confessed.

“That’s good, ’cause I feel the same.”

I relaxed into him. “Thank God.”

He smiled gently at me. “Thought I made that pretty plain.”

“Nice to have the words.”

“So noted,” he murmured, then came in for a peck of our lips.

“I think it’s time we had our chat,” I said.

“Yeah, about that.”

Uh-oh.

I wasn’t sure that was a good beginning.

“When we know you’re safe, I need to go back to Denver. Work some shit out with the brothers,” Hugger declared.

Oh boy.

“What shit?” I asked cautiously.

He was quiet for a spell, then he pulled me closer.

“My father was a Chaos brother.”

“Oh,” I breathed, because I wasn’t expecting that. He loved those guys, and they loved him, but no mention until then of his father being one of them.

“He did some nasty shit. Seriously nasty, to the Club, to a bunch of other people. It takes a lot, once you’re in, for your brothers to turn on you. They all hate him, Di. And there’s a lot to hate. He did them so dirty, anytime I think about it, it turns my stomach. He was an absolute waste of space along with being a total piece of shit.”

I hated this for him.

“Harlan.”

“I never really knew him. Only met him once. Just knew of him.”

“How did you know all of that then?”

“I asked Ma. She put it off until I was older, after he came to me, tried to get in there with me, mostly so he could use me, probably so he could use me against Chaos. She told me so I’d know and wouldn’t buy his bullshit. And so you know, he did her dirty too. It was back in the day when the Club had lost its way. Mom was in their stable. This guy, he conned her. Sweet-talked her. Told her he loved her. Told her he was gonna get her out of the life, marry her, give her a house, kids. She fell for it. She fell for him. If he hadn’t done that, she’d never have let him have her ungloved so they’d make me.”

“Oh God,” I groaned, hating that his mother got her heart broken through a betrayal like that.

“Yeah. He was full of it. He just wanted freebies.”

I pushed closer. “God, Harlan. What a…” I didn’t know what to call the man because that was such a down and dirty shitty thing to do, I didn’t think there was a word for it.

“Yeah, not many words strong enough to describe what a complete dick he was.”

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