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“Sorry,” I repeated, still fighting to slow my breathing. “When…” I cleared my throat, sucking in a long, deep breath and blowing it out before trying again. “When did you get back?”
He wasn’t falling for any of it.
“What happened?” he demanded, stepping up and brushing some stray hairs behind my ear. His hands were almost frozen from riding home, and he didn’t protest when I took both of them in my hands and pressed them against my flushed cheeks, the feeling like heaven. “Shay.”
“I saw Vince at the grocery store today,” I said quietly, meeting his gaze.
Bishop’s entire body tightened. The hands that had lazily cradled my face suddenly held it a little tighter, and his fingers wrapped around the back of my neck. “You okay? He say anything?”
I huffed out a laugh, and his hands fell away as I stepped back. “Oh yeah, he had a few words.”
“Did Boon step in?”
Oh dear. “No. He was outside.” When Bishop’s eyes widened, I continued to ramble, trying to save face. “He asked if I needed him with me inside, and I said no. That’s on me, honestly.”
“If I tell a prospect to shadow someone, I don’t care who it is. He shadows her every single move,” he said clearly.
“Bishop…”
“Don’t try and defend him, Shay.” He stepped back, brushing his fingers through his hair, and finally noticed the room full of grocery bags. “You still managed to get a lot of stuff. Didn’t let that bastard get to you?”
Other than just a few minutes ago, no. I’d actually come out of the interaction reasonably unscathed, though I was now worried something was coming.
“Yeah, I figured I’d cook for lunch tomorrow,” I announced with a wide smile. “I’ve heard the boys and Calli talk a few times about how Lucy used to cook from scratch for lunch, so I just wanted to—”
“Shay…” he started, leaning back against the table and folding his arms across his chest. “Sundays are a tradition, but I want you to feel free just doing your own thing. It doesn’t have to be exactly how Lucy did it.”
My eyebrows pinched together into a frown. “It should be.” I swallowed hard, continuing to lift things from the bag, some cold, some not, moving them to the freezer, refrigerator, and pantry. “Some things in this world should be adapted and changed to suit. Not something like that, though. It doesn’t feel right to take over something that means so much to everyone, which is why I decided to go back to how Lucy started it, with home cooking.”
“Why?” he questioned with a confused frown. I laid out some vegetables and a chopping board, ready to slice, dice, and prepare for the next morning’s workload. I could cook. It was one thing Mom and I did a lot of together. However, I wasn’t accustomed to cooking large meals because there were only the three of us. I wanted to get ahead and make sure I was ready. And I was in the right frame of mind to spend the next couple hours doing exactly that, too, until a couple of hands found my hips and a warm breath tickled across my neck. “Why do you want to do it this way so badly?”
Sucking in a deep breath, I turned in his arms. “Because I don’t want to take Lucy’s place, I want to honor it. I want to make sure that the traditions she started are kept and remembered. The longer we’re together, I’m sure we’ll make our own traditions and have things important to us, too, so there’s no need to change the ones that came before that.”
I hoped my rambling made sense. I didn’t want to upset anyone or disrespect anyone. It’d been a thought playing on my mind for a little while—a few weeks at least.
Things between Bishop and I were still confusing. At least the part where he originally said I was his Old Lady as a lie to protect me. We hadn’t discussed if that had changed to Old Lady status for real since we started sleeping together.
I didn’t want to make this situation any more stressful than it already was.
“With the risk of sounding like a complete bastard, I’ve had a lot of women try to take Lucy’s place.” He kept shaking his head, this look of wonder and awe on his face and in his eyes. “I’ve never had one want to recognize her for the amazing woman she was and the things she did for this club and our family. That takes a woman who is very secure in herself.”
“I don’t know about—”
His mouth covered mine, and suddenly, I was off my feet, Bishop lifting me onto the table and nestling himself between my spread thighs. He swept back my hair, twisting it in his fingers as our mouths collided in a deep, passionate kiss that had me forgetting everything.
Well, almost everything.
I pulled back for a breath. “Bishop, I need to start making this food…”
This time, his mouth found my neck. I slipped my hands inside his cut, wrapping my hands around his belt and pulling him hard against me, hoping that would keep me from melting off the edge of the table and onto the floor.
“The food can wait,” he growled against my lips. “Right now, I have to show my woman how much I fucking appreciate her.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
BISHOP
“Boon!” The anger in my voice made several men in the room jump, even though it wasn’t directed at them.
