Page 83 of Smooth Sailing

Nothing.

The world wasn’t totally fucked. Heinous shit didn’t happen to good people. You didn’t have to sweat and bleed and beg for any scrap you got.

No.

The world was Diana’s balcony, her soft body against his, her hand in his hair, the open promise of who she was and what she could offer more than enough to give a man motivation to climb mountains.

As that thought bolted through him, Hugger broke the kiss, but not his hold, tucking her cheek against his chest.

It was then, in his mind’s eye, he saw his Chaos brother, Joker’s head come out from behind the hood of a car and the look on his face when he saw his old lady Carissa walking into a bay at Ride.

He saw Shy’s expression when his gaze landed on Tab when he walked in that hospital room where their kid was in a bed with a really bad flu.

He saw Georgie giving Dutch shit, and Dutch’s eyes lighting up, because he loved it.

He saw Tack where he’d seen Tack maybe hundreds of times, ass resting on the edge of Tyra’s desk in her office at Ride. He didn’t need to be there for work. He was just there because his woman was.

A kaleidoscope of the same from Lanie and Hop, Millie and High, Hound and Keely, Jag and Archie, Rosalie and Snap, Rush and Rebel churned through his brain, and fuck, he’d been slow on the uptake.

It had been there all along.

Right in front of his face, all around him.

All along.

What his ma wanted for him.

What Big Petey and Rush had been offering him.

Even if it was all over that FFO barbeque that introduced him to the life he could have, it was what he’d never grasped, intellectually or emotionally.

“Um…” Diana hummed against his chest.

He let her head go but wrapped that arm around her to join his other.

She tipped her head back.

Her lips were bruised, there was pink in her cheeks…

Christ.

Amazing.

“So that was a really, kinda…uh, important kiss. Yeah?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

He felt her body sag against his with relief.

Yeah, she was as into him as he was her.

“So maybe we should get some things clear,” she suggested.

“Di—”

“I’m into you.”

There it was.

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