The moonlight made the trees and terraced plants silver.

“You don’t burden a good woman with that shit, baby. You find out, you’ll know. You get a shot at her, you hook her deep, then you lay that shit on her.”

I closed my eyes and the silver hillside turned to black.

“Let’s have this and not f**k it up. We’ll talk about Wood later. Yeah?”

I opened my eyes and stared at the plants and flowers, unruly, unkempt, but I knew not planted by Tate’s hands.

“You don’t get this because you don’t know Wood. I know Wood. Trust me, you knew Wood, you’d get it and you’d know you don’t owe him shit.”

I felt my lip tremble.

“The thing you gotta know before you climb back on the back of his bike is that Tate Jackson is trash too.”

I turned my head and looked at the six-seater dining room table.

Did a bachelor own a six-seater dining room table? I didn’t think so. Tate didn’t exactly strike me as a man who held dinner parties.

Maybe he played poker. Tate struck me as a man who might throw poker parties.

My eyes went back to the plants.

“In my life, three women have been on the back of my bike. One was his sister, who f**ked up my life. One was his ex, who f**ked up my life. Now it’s you, who’s been in his bed.”

I stared at the plants knowing it just by looking at them.

Neeta had lived there, or Bethany or, if not lived, then one of them was around long enough to put their stamp on it. Two women who f**ked up his life.

Now, me.

His “type”.

The type to f**k up his life?

Really, what was a man like Tatum Jackson doing with me? Mini-skirt wearing, hotel assignation-exciting Neeta, yes. Crazy Bethany, I didn’t know. Me, I didn’t get.

In fact, what was handsome, gentle-talking Wood doing with me?

My mind moved to that morning in the forecourt of the garage.

“You’re on my bike,” Tate had growled to me.

“She’s in the ‘Stang,” Wood had growled at Tate.

They were fighting over me because that was what they did. No matter what Tate said, it was not because of me.

I considered this.

Not being mean or anything but there wasn’t a lot of female talent in Carnal. The best of the lot was Krystal and she was with Bubba, and also Wendy, but she was with Tyler and too young for Wood or Tate.

I’d been around awhile, I’d seen what was available in Carnal and for men like that, I was pretty much it unless they wanted to go the Jonelle somewhat-skanky route and there was a lot of that, even though some of them were very nice, they were still somewhat-skanky which was probably why they weren’t taken like, say, Krystal or Wendy or the rest of the cool-as-heck biker babes I’d met at the bar or in town and I knew were taken. And, clearly, neither of those men went for that.

I moved fully into the seat of the couch and curled up under the blanket, tugging it high over my shoulder and pulling my knees in my chest. Without any toss pillows, I used the armrest for my head. My temple throbbed but I ignored it as searched for it, trying to call it up, to hear the whisper because I needed it.

“Sweet dreams, baby.”

The memory of Tate saying that to me came, my eyelids drooped and I fell asleep.

* * * * *

I woke up when the blanket disappeared and my body was moved. My eyes opened as my body kept moving.

The sun was up but it was low, very early dawn, barely enough light to see.

I was cradled in Tate’s arms.

“Tate?” I whispered, my hand moving to his chest, my arm that was dangling curling around his shoulders.

“Quiet,” he growled.

Uh-oh.

“Tate,” I whispered again.

“Shut it, Ace,” he growled again.

I lifted my head to look at his angry, set profile and decided to stay silent at least until my brain fully came awake.

He took me to his bed and put me in it, following me in, yanking up the covers in an annoyed way and then pulling me under his body. Or, I should say, he pinned me under his body. I was on my back, he was mostly on me, his heavy thigh thrown over both of mine, his arm holding me tight about the waist, his face against my hair at the side of my head, his weight weighing me into the bed.

“Um…” I started.

He cut me off. “You curl into me.”

“Sorry?” I asked.

“My back,” he replied.

“Um…” I paused then repeated, “Sorry?”

“You curl into my goddamned back, Lauren,” he ground out and his arm around my waist gave me a rough squeeze.

“I was… uh…”

“Pissed,” he finished for me. “You can go to bed pissed just as long as you don’t wake up that way,” he informed me like this was a rule written in blood somewhere that all men and women must abide by under threat of certain torture although he seemed to have done just that. “You do not get up in the middle of the f**kin’ night and crawl outta my bed to go be pissed somewhere else.”

“I… um…” I took in a breath, “didn’t actually do that. I couldn’t sleep and I was restless, so –”

“You don’t do that either,” he declared.

“What?”

“You can’t sleep, you can’t sleep here. You don’t go somewhere else.”

“But I don’t want to wake you.”

“You wake me, I f**k you or we talk until you get back to sleep. You don’t sneak outta the goddamned bed –”

“I didn’t sneak,” I interrupted him quietly.

He ignored me. “You sleep here or you lie here not sleepin’.”

“Are you…” I hesitated and started again, “are you angry I didn’t want to disturb you?”

“You’re quick, babe,” he muttered sarcastically and gave my waist another rough squeeze.

“Tate –”

“Three weeks, after f**kin’ you, knowin’ what you taste like, what you feel like, the sounds you make when you come, three weeks I’m on the road and all I got is a couple minutes of your voice on the phone every night. Fuckin’ you, that’s all I can think about, like a teenager, at night in the dark, it’s the only thing in my goddamned head. So I jack off, hopin’ to cut through it, but nothin’ compares to you.” I stopped breathing at this admission and he kept talking, “Then I know you can’t sleep so I can’t f**kin’ sleep wonderin’ if you’re sleepin’. That shit’s whacked and I come home, f**kin’ beside myself it’s over. First night you’re in my house, you sneak outta my bed and sleep on the couch. What the f**k is that?”