Page 61 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies
He has a blueprint voice even when he is trying to be kind. He slides another blanket over my shoulders with the efficiency of someone who has wrapped storm survivors and engines alike.
The note on the chalkboard reads loosens something in my chest.
Cruz meets my eyes over the baby’s downy head. “Hey,” he says softly, as if greeting me and not the panic. “You breathe. They breathe. We take turns.”
I sip. Cold water tastes like something I did not know I missed. My throat works. The room waits.
Roman stays where he is, the hearth painting one cheek in amber and leaving the other in shadow.
He does not move closer.
He does not look away.
His mouth is a line that would feel cruel if I did not know how he steadies entire rooms with silence.
The club’s rules are carved above the door.
No lies. No abandonment. No violence toward women or children.
My gaze flicks there and back to him. I am a rule breaker sitting under scripture, but I am not apologizing yet.
Gabe—the louder twin, a natural performer—squeaks a complaint.
Cruz shifts, murmurs nonsense in a voice warm as cinnamon, and the squeak becomes a sigh.
Luca refuses to be outdone and shoves his fist into his mouth like a man with a plan.
When he pulls it free there is a string of spit across his chin. I cannot watch that and feel sorry for myself.
“Come here,” I say, standing before I decide not to, blanket slipping off one shoulder.
I reach for Luca and Deacon transfers him to me with a care that says thank you without saying it.
His skin is warm from the vented air, his eyebrows knit like he is thinking about mortgage rates.
I tuck him into the crook of my elbow, feel the weight land in a place under my ribs I thought was cracked, and wipe that string from his chin with the corner of the blanket.
“There you are,” I tell him, because babies deserve to know when they have arrived. “Do not make that face at the men. It is disarming.”
A small sound that is almost a laugh moves through the room. Not from Roman.
From Cruz, because he finds joy even when he is mad at the world on my behalf, and from Deacon, whose mouth softens one degree when something is constructed well.
Roman’s eyes do a thing where they go darker and softer at the same time, which makes my breath snag, which makes me mad at myself, which makes me want to be funny.
“I did not hide them,” I say, to the room, to him, to the carved words above the door.
My voice comes out steady because if there is one talent I own besides sugar, it is performing triage with a smile. “I kept them safe while I figured out how to be brave.”
Roman does not nod.
He lets the sentence stand like a chair pulled out and waiting.
“Start with what you know,” he says. “Then tell us what you think. Leave what you fear until the end.”
Deacon’s eyebrows tip: approval for a structure with load-bearing order.
Cruz dips his head like he is saying grace.
