Toni finally stopped trying to get his hands off her waist. He wasn’t holding her tightly, and if she had stopped to think about it, she would have realized that. Instead, she kept trying to move his wrists, which her hand didn’t even fit around. He was definitely going to need to show her better ways of removing someone’s hands from her body.
“Wait, you’re not breaking up with me?”
Ranger tried, and failed, to keep the amusement out of his voice. “Nope, but I’m pretty sure you’re trying to break up with me.”
“I’m not!” she said hastily, immediately moving forward again on his lap. “I’m not. I thought… I just assumed…”
“Toni, you said it yourself. I’m in recovery. I’m only a hundred and twenty-five days sober. This was my second meeting today. Both yesterday and today have been…” Ranger’s jaw ticked. “Bad days.”
“Because of me?” she asked.
“Because ofme,” he corrected sternly. “Toni, you’re the one thing that’s holding me together right now. I don’t feel worthy of being here with you, but I can’t seem to let you go.”
She stared down at him in the dark, settling herself over his groin again. “How long… I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but you can.” Then she seemed to change her mind and sat up straighter. “No, actually, youdoneed to tell me. If we’re actually contemplating something beyond sex between us, then you need to tell me. You know so much about me. You know what I did last night, and I have no doubt that your tech guy looked me up because you knew my name is ‘Antonia’, instead of ‘Antoinette’or even ‘Tonya’. You know so much, and I knownothingabout you. Hell, I only just learned your name is ‘Liam’, but I don’t know your last name or anything else about you. I don’t even know if you dye your hair like that or if it’s natural, though I’m assuming natural because of your eyes. We’ve had sex three times and you’ve never taken off your pants. Do you realize that? I’ve never even seen you fully naked! Hell, I’ve never seen your dick! But you knoweverythingabout me.”
Ranger swallowed hard. He knew he could make a joke about her long rambling complaints. Six months ago, he would have. The dick joke wasright there, and she’d set it up for him perfectly.
But none of this was a joking matter. There was nothing funny about his story or the answers he owed her.
“Heroin,” he said flatly. “I’m addicted to heroin, and I will tell you everything because Iamserious about wanting there to be an us, Toni. But it’s not an easy conversation, nor is it one that I’ve actually shared in its entirety before. Others know some, but the only person who knows all is my sister—because she was there. I do want to tell you everything, but not here.” He gestured around them to the borrowed cage they were in. “Will you come with me?”
Toni nodded, but also asked, “Where?”
“Back to Mount Grove. I can call someone to come with us if you want.”
Her face scrunched in confusion. “Why would I want that?”
“In case you want to leave, but you don’t want it to be with me.”
But Toni shook her head. “If this conversation is as heavy as you say it is going to be, then I don’t want an audience. I’ll hear you out, and then you need to listen to what I still have to tell you. And at the end, if webothstill want there to be an us, we’ll make that decision then.”
Ranger leaned up, bringing her face down to his. He took her lips, hard and fast, pouring everything he could say into the kiss. “Thank you for being so brave. If you want to stop at any time, just say the word, and I’ll bring you anywhere you want to go.”
Toni nodded. “Am I following you?”
“We’ll take my bike. I’ll have a couple prospects come to get Sophia’s cage for her.”
Toni’s cheeks darkened in the dim light. “You can’t have them come get her car! It reeks of sex! I have to clean it, sanitize it! Maybe even buy her a gift basket or something.”
Ranger chuckled. “Trust me, by now, the entire club knows what we were doing. Specs isn’t known for his secret-keeping skills.”
Toni groaned, dropping her head down onto his chest. “Just great. Now the whole club thinks I’m a total slut?—”
Before Toni got to finish her sentence, Ranger grabbed her by her hair and pulled her back up. She didn’t fight the movement, and he’d never pull hard enough to actually hurt her. But feel the bite of it? Absolutely, because he wanted her toneverforget his words.
“Don’t you fuckingeversay that about yourself,” he growled into her face. “Not as a joke and certainly not sincerely. I won’t stand for it. You are beautiful, and I can’t keep my fucking hands off you, Antonia. I am inaweof you. No one, not even you, has the right to call you that. And ifanyonedares, I will end them. Do you understand me?”
Toni’s breath was short and choppy. “I just meant that they’ll know we’ve had sex, and I don’t know how they’ll take that. It’ll be embarrassing to face them.”
“Only ifyoufeel ashamed by what we’ve done. Do you?” He held her gaze, waiting for her answer.
“No,” she whispered.
“Then hold your head high, Antonia, and know that you are beyond incredible.” He tipped his head towards the door to his left. “Let’s get going. I’ll stall if given the chance, and I respect you too much to do so.”
* * *
Toni sat uprighton the back of Ranger’s bike as he stopped next to the sidewalk. Her skirt was slit up the side by his knife so it wasn’t so tight against her legs. He promised to buy her a new one, but Toni wasn’t going to hold him to it. Men said things all the time that they didn’t mean.
