But I’m still skeptical. Can’t help it. I’ve been burned too many times to not be.
“You’re serious?” I ask as I try to school my features so I don’t look like a crazy person.
She nods and sniffles again. “Maybe it’s because I am so naive, but I feel like our paths crossed for a bigger purpose than just you constantly protecting me when I do things that require it, and it’s why I can’t pretend to be with you when I really want to just be with you for real. I haven’t had anything real before and I’d be short-changing myself to settle for something fake. I’m done settling for less than a real chance at love and forever or believing I don’t deserve to have them.” Theo chews her lip and pushes her glasses back up her nose. “It’s ok if you were just doing your duty, Zak, but I don’t want to be a job for you and if that’s all I was, all I have been, then you should probably just go and never come back.”
“Can’t,” I grunt with a shake of my head while I try like hell not to smile.
Theo’s shoulders sag, her head drops back on her neck as she sighs long and loud. “Didn’t anything I just said make sense? I just wanted you to know so you didn’t think I said no for any other reason, but I thought it was pretty cut and dry.”
“It was.”
“So, you understand that you can leave? That you’re not obligated to stay?”
“Yes.”
Her glasses slide all the way to the tip of her nose as she lifts her head and looks at me. “Are you just being stubborn or...”
Three long strides have me all up in her space, has Theo jumping a little before she tenses as I take her face in my hands. “I’m stubborn as fuck, honey, but that’s not why I’m staying.”
“N-no?”
“No.”
“Then why, why are you staying?”
I dip my head and rub my nose against hers. “Because that little speech of yours was the straw that broke the camel’s back.” My lips barely ghost over hers then press a little firmer. “I’ve been trying to stay away because being with me in any capacity at all isn’t good for you, but I’ll be damned if I can keep fighting myself on how badly I want to be with you all the fucking time.” A soft kiss and a sweet sigh from this beautiful woman. “I’m no good for you, Blondie, and you’ll see that one day, but until then I’m going to protect you for no other reason than the hard fucking truth that you aremine. You are mine, same as I’m yours, and I can promise you we are as real as it fucking gets.”
And I seal that fucking promise with a kiss because it is the god’s honest truth. Until Theo decides she doesn’t want to keep me anymore, probably long after that too, I’ll belong to this woman in the realest of ways, and I will be damned straight to hell if I don’t do everything in my power to keep her safe and make sure she knows that she is mine every step of the way.
CHAPTEREIGHT
THEO
“I am freaking out!”I screech into my phone as I run around my bedroom naked as a jaybird. “Big time freaking out here!”
Summer laughs—the bitch. “It’s gonna be fine, babe. You’re making this into a bigger thing than it needs to be.”
“So says you!” I scowl at my phone that’s sitting in the middle of my bed then dive back into my closet and start ripping things off hangers. “You’ve got to be kidding me, right? You can’t tell me that I’m overreacting right now. Do you have any idea how terrified I am?”
“Of what? It’s a wedding, Theo. You aren’t walking into the clubhouse to disarm a bomb or something.”
“Yes I am!” Sort of. “Today is important. Yeah, it’s a wedding but it’s also like some kind of test. Do you have any idea what kind of pressure I’m facing? Any clue what it means to be a biker’s old lady?”
Summer sighs and I can practically hear her eyes roll. “I told you not to Google that shit.”
“You knew I would!”
“Which is why I told you not to.”
“How could I not? This is totally foreign to me. I feel like I’m getting dropped in the middle of the Congo or something, without a weapon or an interpreter. I am going to fuck this up so bad.”
“Theo,” Summer almost yells. “This is going to be fine. Jackal said they don’t follow the old school MC laws anymore so I’m sure their old ladies don’t have to act like submissive little idiots. And since you are anything but submissive or an idiot all of the sudden, you’re going to rock this.”
“All of the sudden?” My voice hits a pitch it never has before. “What the hell does that mean?”
She chuckles. “I just meant that ever since you met Zak you’ve been anything but submissive or an idiot. You can’t really argue that you weren’t both of those things to a degree while you were with Tony.”
I roll my eyes and keep destroying my closet. “Yeah ok, but this ismewe’re talking about. I’m bound to say the wrong thing, and even if I manage to keep my verbal diarrhea at bay, there is no way my nerves won’t make me do something stupid and klutzy.”
