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Lyra woke with fullawareness that she wasn’t alone in her bed. Opening her eyes, she turned her head and smiled. Zach lay on his side beside her, his arm across her belly. He seemed utterly relaxed, sleeping deeply and well.
The morning sun illuminated the canopy curtains and turned her bed into a cheery fairyland. It had been a long time since she’d closed the curtains; she’d forgotten how cozy it was, how safe it felt, to seal herself in for the night. Now, feeling all that, and perfectly rested and content, she was in no hurry to leave this nest they’d made. She lay right where she was and studied the man sleeping beside her.
He was so fucking hot. From the moment she’d first seen him, she’d been drawn to his handsome face, his intensely blue eyes, his dark hair and beard, his suntanned complexion. Her appreciation had grown as she’d gotten to know him and understood that those good looks were the wrapping around a lively intellect, a thoughtful personality, and an occasionally droll wit. Through the weeks of their time apart, she’dthoughtshe’d also gotten a pretty good understanding of his extremely excellent body; however, having him actually with her, naked in her bed, making her feel things no man had made her feel before—things she hadn’t madeherselffeel before—no, she hadn’t evenbegunto grasp the totality of his hotness. Just ... wow.
It was more than his physical form, more than his skill in bed. He was smart and curious, a good listener and talker both. It was his kindness, and his affection, and the complete attention he paid her, without being obsessive. He was a steady presence, demanding little, giving more than he took.
Yep, so far, Zach Jessup was still perfect. Especially if he decided to stay in Laughlin permanently.
But he hadn’t made that decision yet, so Lyra knew she had to be careful. She wanted to be with him even if it was only temporary, but she had to preserve at least a corner of her heart so she wouldn’t be totally destroyed if he went back to Tulsa. The only home he’d ever known.
That thought chilled her coziness a bit, and she began to think of getting up. Then she heard a door open outside her room, and the jingle of Brutus’s tags, and she knew Pop was awake. Deciding she wanted to talk to him before Zach was moving around, she eased carefully out from under his protective arm and worked herself out of bed without making the mattress move too much.
Zach barely stirred. He simply rolled forward a bit, shifting to his belly, and settled into his deep sleep again.
Their clothes were tossed willy-nilly around her room. She slipped back into the pajama bottoms and tank she’d been wearing last night, and found a hair tie to get her hair out of the way. Then she gathered up his clothes, folding them and setting them on the dresser beside the bed. His boots, she set in front of the dresser, pushing the toes beneath. Like Pop, Zach wore the kind of boots with the leather bridle-looking thingie at the ankle. Engineer boots, she thought they were called. These were Harley brand and had lug soles. They had some wear, but he clearly took care of them.
His kutte was on the floor, too. Pop had told enough stories of his MC days that she knew MCers revered that hunk of leather. Pop still had his old kutte, with all its patches, and he kept it on a twenty-dollar cedar suit hanger, in a garment bag. He still polished the thing, more than twenty years after the demise of his club.
Lyra picked Zach’s up, intending to hang it over the back of her desk chair. While it was in her hands, though, she studied all its patches, feeling nostalgic for the days she’d sat on the bed with Pop while he explained what each of his patches meant—the club patch, the Nevada rocker, the patch that identified him as Vice President, the one that identified him as Big Ben, and the one right beneath it that said simply ‘Soul Reaper.’
When Lyra was a little girl sitting on her daddy’s lap, hearing stories about the life he’d once had, she hadn’t understood what those words meant, and when she’d asked, she’d been satisfied with his explanation that that patch was given to the men who’d done the hardest work the club had.
When she got older, she understood what he’d really been saying. When she was an adult, she’d asked him outright, and he’d confirmed.
That patch meant he’d killed someone in the service of his club.
Now, studying Zach’s kutte—the club patch, the Oklahoma rocker, the patch with his name (no road name, simply ‘Zach’), Lyra focused on the one just below that. It read ‘Righteous Fist.’
Was that like her father’s ‘Soul Reaper’ patch? Did it mean the same thing? And if so, how did she feel about Zach having killed someone?
Well, if she was okay with her father having done it, she supposed she was okay with Zach, too. She could apply the same filter: they were men who did what they had to do for the people they valued—their clubs, their families, their loved ones.
The man she was getting to know intimately well—the man she was rapidly and hopelessly falling for—had shown her repeatedly that he was a good man. More than that, he was levelheaded. It didn’t tax her conscience to believe that if he’d killed someone, that person had needed killing. Already she trusted him that far.
Pressing the kutte to her face, she breathed deeply and took in the alluring mingle of scents that defined him: leather and desert, road and motorcycle, and under it all, man. Then she hung the kutte carefully on the back of her desk chair and tiptoed from her room.
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~oOo~
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Brutus was at his foodbowl and Pop was at the table, the morning paper spread out before him and his coffee steaming at his side. Lyra couldn’t smell the caramel he liked in his coffee, but she wasn’t surprised. Pop had never mastered the making of coffee. Nobody liked the soupy swill he came up with, not even him, so he usually waited for her or Reed to make a full pot, and when he was up first and couldn’t wait, he used the one-cup filter holder and endured the result. They did not do the coffee pods in the Haddon household.
Before she started a proper pot, she went to the table and kissed the top of her father’s head. “Morning, papa bear.”
A moderate thrum of nerves vibrated against her spine this morning. Last night was the first time she’d ever had a boy spend the night, and she knew she and Zach—okay, she—had gotten pretty loud once or twice. They had Pop’s permission, but Lyra knew her father. He was, no doubt, wrestling his true nature, the nature that wanted to lock Lyra in a garret and tear Zach limb from limb, and he probably had not spent a relaxing night.
But despite his likely inner turmoil, he simply lifted a hand and set it on her head, holding her to him in a kind of hug, and said, “Morning, baby bear.”
“Where’s Reed?”
“He took the fellas over to the rental last night, and they partied there enough he didn’t want to ride home. I ‘spect he crashed on the sofa.”
One of Reed’s friends-with-benefits was a real estate agent. Patrick had helped Reed and Pop find a decent, furnished, four-bedroom house for rent in a middle-class subdivision just west of the Strip, a base for the Bulls here to set up their new charter. It wasn’t terribly far from Mom’s place, actually.
Lyra couldn’t help but worry about Reed and his plan to join the Bulls. The thought to tell Zach about his orientation had rolled through her head a few times, but she’d never been truly tempted to say anything. It was not her information to share, and the very last thing she’d ever do on this earth would be to out Reed. That was his to do if and when he chose. But she worried for him and wished she could talk to their father about it.
