“I want closure,” I returned, at this point mostly lying in order to save face.
“You want me.”
Whoosh.
There went my breath.
Tack waited but I didn’t reply.
Then Tack stopped waiting.
“You know how I got my name?”
“Does it matter that I don’t want to know?”
There it was. Another lie. I totally wanted to know. I’d been curious since he gave it to me.
“No,” he answered.
Figured.
I glared at him.
“Sharp as a tack,” he stated.
I blinked.
Then I found my mouth asking, “Pardon?”
“That’s what my Dad said about me. Sharp as a tack. Said it so much, they started callin’ me that. Tack.”
“Fascinating,” I muttered sarcastically though the sarcasm was all for show. It actually was fascinating. And it was also true, regrettably.
“Clue in, Red. What I’m tellin’ you is that you are not pullin’ shit over on me. I’m a biker but I’m not an idiot. You entered this game, you knew it was a game and you made the decision, conscious or unconscious, to play it with me. And you’re playin’ it with me. I won’t allow you to throw in the towel, babe. We’re seein’ where this goes because we both want that. And we want that because what we got is hot and parts of it are sweet and parts of it are wild and parts of it are frustrating as all f**kin’ hell but all of it is alive.”
God, he was so annoying when he was right.
“You hurt me,” I reminded him and damn, his face got soft, his eyes flashed with remorse and both looked really good.
“Yeah,” he whispered.
“I’d had a really bad day and you hurt me.”
His hand at my jaw tensed and he kept whispering when he said, “I’ll probably do it again, Red, because I’m a man and any man can be a dick. But I won’t do it like that, not again. I know you got soft under that attitude and I’ll have a mind to that.”
“I don’t trust that to be true.”
“Then you’ll have to wait it out while I prove it to you.”
“I don’t have to do anything, Tack.”
The pads of his fingers pressed into my skin, his eyes changed and the way they changed, I could do nothing but stare.
Not remorse.
Not intensity.
Determination.