“Building what?”

“Buildin’ you up to coming.”

“Great,” I muttered. “I don’t know whether to be mortified or turned on.”

“How about just bein’ you. It isn’t mortifying ‘cause it’s cute, it’s sweet and it’s hot. But it don’t matter since there’s nothing you can do about it anyway.”

This was good advice so I decided to take it.

“Though,” he continued, “when you do it pressin’ up against me, it wakes me up, I hear it, you’re close, I don’t know whether to lie there and enjoy it or wake you up and f**k you.”

At that moment, I would have advised him to choose the latter.

Instead, I suggested, “Go with your gut.”

“Gut tells me to f**k you.”

“Like I said.”

Tack threw his head back and burst out laughing and I grinned through the dark at him while he did it. My arms around him, holding his big, shaking body close and really liking the sound and feel of his humor all around me.

When he was mostly done, but still chuckling, he dropped his head and took my mouth in a hot, sweet, wet, long kiss that left me slightly breathless and holding him even closer.

“All right, Red, time for some shuteye,” he muttered when he released my mouth.

“Okay, honey.”

“Three.”

“Pardon?”

“Three honeys.”

He was counting.

“Now you’re being sweet,” I whispered.

“You gonna fall apart on me?”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Good,” he said softly then dipped his head again and touched his mouth to mine before he rolled, taking me with him and settling us with me tucked into his side. “Now sleep.”

“Your wish is my command.”

“Attitude,” he muttered.

“What do you expect? You just ordered me to go to sleep.”

“You wanna watch TV with the kids?”

“No.”

“So what’s with the sass?”

“It’s me.”

“It is,” he sighed. “Fuck me.”

“You said you like it,” I reminded him.

“Gotta shut up to sleep, Tyra,” he noted.

“Apparently I don’t since I make noises while sleeping.”

“Fuck,” he murmured.

“All right, all right. I’ll shut up and sleep.”

“’Preciate it, baby.”

I snuggled closer. Tack’s arm around my waist tightened while I did so and only relaxed after I did.

Then I studied the planes of his chest in the dark, the darker marks of his tats until my eyelids drooped and I fell asleep.

Tack woke me in the dead of night, hand between my legs, lips to mine and I could feel I was already wet. I knew this because I was totally turned on.

The second my eyes opened, he whispered, “Goin’ with my gut, baby.”

I smiled against his mouth.

Tack kissed the smile from my lips.

Then he f**ked me.

Then he let me go back to sleep tucked to his side.

He f**ked me again in his shower the next morning. Apparently, the shower drowned out my moans. It didn’t matter anyway, the kids weren’t up.

Then we got ready, he put me on the back of his bike and took me to work.

More soap opera from the boys at work before it was quitting time and I could go home and gussy up.

This brought me to now. Sitting in Club in a little haltertop dress that was clingy, had a short skirt, serious cle**age and was the color of aquamarines. I wore it with spike-heeled, strappy, silver sandals. I also wore it with lots of chunky, kickass silver jewelry, three times as much makeup than I normally wore on my face and my hair out to there.

And I was sitting with Gwen, Mara, Tess Lucas (Mitch’s partner’s wife) and Elvira. Our posse also included Gwen’s friends Camille and Tracy and Mara’s friend LaTanya. And last there was a woman with loads of strawberry blonde curls who looked like a fairy princess. Her name was Sadie Chavez. I drunkenly didn’t remember how she factored into the group but I did know she was semi-famous in Denver though I didn’t remember how.

I watched the women laugh, fuzzily noticed that Elvira wasn’t laughing but scowling and that Gwen was the first person to quit laughing and she did it with her eyes on me.

“So, Tack has kids?” she asked when the laughter died down.

“Yeah, two. Rush is seventeen, nearly eighteen. Tabby just turned sixteen,” I answered.

“I didn’t know Tack had kids,” she muttered and I lifted my cosmo to take a sip in order to hide my drunken elation that Gwen didn’t know Tack had kids. And I felt this elation as any woman would, sitting and drinking with a woman her man had feelings for with those feelings once including the fact he thought she had staying power.

Being hooked up with Hawk, Gwen wasn’t competition, this was true. What she was was a stunning, tall, curvy blonde wearing a fabulous little black dress, even more fabulous shoes and having a great sense of humor. Until I knew her better, she was going to be the stunning, tall, curvy blonde with excellent fashion sense for whom my man had feelings. Me not only knowing Tack had kids but meeting them and spending time with them meant I had one up on her.

“Seventeen and sixteen,” LaTanya said, surprised, then looked at me. “How old is he?”

“Forty-one,” Gwen answered and I instantly took a shot to the heart.

First, because she knew how old Tack was and I didn’t. That took away my one up.

Second, because Tack was forty-one.

Forty-one.

Ohmigod!

“Forty-one!” I shrieked, calculating it, the time it would take to make sure all was good, the length of an appropriate engagement, the time we’d want to have just him and me and coming up with a very bad figure while all eyes turned to me.

“Yeah, forty-one,” Gwen stated then asked, “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five,” I replied and I was. Thirty-five. Tack was forty-one, had two grown kids and my calculations put him at at least forty-three, maybe forty-four depending on when his birthday was when, if all worked out, we could start a family.

Oh… my… God!

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God!” I cried, slamming my drink down and covering my face with my hands.

This was a disaster!

“Thinkin’ this is when the night turns bad.” I heard Elvira mutter but I wasn’t really listening. I was freaking out, despairing and shaking my head behind my hands.