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KAT

“You come here often?”

Steam swirled around me, and a thick fog filled the bathroom of my tiny apartment. I swiped at the misted glass and tried to keep the smile from my face when I spied Tally leaning back against the bathroom counter, one leg kicked over the other and his arms folded across his chest.

Watching me.

The smug grin on his face made me shake my head.

“I actually don’t remember the last time I came right here,” I teased, stepping back into the scorching hot water so the soap suds I’d just lathered across my skin trickled down over my breasts, stomach and legs before disappearing down the drain.

It felt absolutely divine after a long night on my feet. I’d dealt with a frat boy who couldn’t handle his liquor—he’d vomited on the stage while I was dancing—and a bachelor party who tried to pay me to fuck the groom-to-be.

Nothing I hadn’t seen during the three years I’d been stripping at X-Rated, but still not the most relaxing night I’d ever had.

The shower door suddenly swung open, and I gasped at the rush of cold air.

“Well, I think we should change that,” Tally said, his shirt already discarded and his jeans quickly following. He kicked his clothes to the side and stepped into the square glass cubicle, pulling the door shut behind him. I pressed my back against the wall to make room for his large body. Tally’s six-foot frame and broad shoulders took up the small space.

The water hit his chest, dripping down over a set of perfectly carved abs. I couldn’t help but reach for them, tracing them with my fingertips as his fingers curled around the back of my neck and pulled me in a little closer. “How’d you get in here?” I whispered, his lips brushing over mine.

Torturing me.

“Soph let me in,” he murmured as his other hand traced my waist, moving down over the curve of my hip.

My body tingled in anticipation, and my heart kicked into the next gear, pounding harder and faster. But it always did when Tally got close. “She really shouldn’t do that.”

Sophie was my roommate.

She worked from home and looked after my four-year-old, Dylan, when I did late shifts.

I worked for the Brothers by Blood MC in Huntsville, Alabama. Tally was a club member from a chapter a few hours away in Troy.

His hands curved around the underside of my ass, and he lifted me off the floor, pressing my back to the cold shower wall. I followed his lead and wrapped my legs around his waist and my hands around his neck. I twisted my fingers in the long bits of hair at the base of his head. “I think, at this point, you should probably just give me a key,” he teased, not missing a damn beat. He lined up the head of his cock with my opening and pressed his hips forward.

I laid my head back, and my eyes fell closed as he filled me. “Dammit,” I cursed breathlessly, tightening my legs around him and forcing his length deep inside me. Water continued to rain down on us, and I knew I would have to turn it to cold soon because that addictive high was building in my gut.

He chuckled, leaning in and pressing a line of kisses under my ear and along my jaw line as he fucked me, the rhythm slow and steady but building with every thrust. He drove a little deeper, hitting the spot I fucking loved, and made me gasp.

“Oh yeah, there it fucking is.” He growled, burying his face in my neck. “Hold on fucking tight.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on for the ride as he pounded into me hard and fast.

“Oh! Yes,” I rasped, my orgasm hitting me like a damn freight train—out of nowhere. “Shit, Tally!”

“Fuck yeah. Your pussy is squeezing the life out of my dick,” he groaned, driving deep into me one last time and holding there, filling me with cum as I rode wave after wave of my orgasm, my body shaking.

The way he knew my body so damn well was infuriating at times.

Tally had a smart mouth, and he liked to run it. He drove me crazy with bad jokes and an attitude that bordered on confident and occasionally crossed into cocky. Maybe I was jealous of how he lived life by the seat of his pants while I was constantly trying to find my feet. When my life felt like utter chaos—Tally always seemed to find the funny side of even the direst situations.

But the part that drove me the most insane was that he was also exactly what I needed during those times. He had become the person who could pull me out of those dark holes and put a smile on my face when all I wanted to do was bury it in the sand and forget about the world.

How was I supposed to keep things with him casual when he had become so fucking important?

He and I had been doing this dance for years.

We fucked whenever he was in town. I never really knew when he would stop by unless one of the boys from the club mentioned that Tally was in town. He’d do his business then come by X-Rated or my apartment to see me—like tonight.

He never slept over.

That was our rule—he had to be out by sunrise.

Dylan may have only been two when this started, but I wanted to make sure he wasn’t confused by seeing someone else sleeping beside me when he came into my room at the ass crack of dawn. Especially because, at the time, I was sure it would never become anything serious.

And after more than a year, it still wasn’t.

But there was one difference.

I wished it was.

“You okay?” he questioned after he’d finally helped me back to my feet and quickly rinsed himself off. He grabbed a towel and scrubbed his wet skin, his eyebrow raised. “You seem quiet.”

I turned away and continued to wash and clean away the traces of him.

Tell him.

Tell him about the letter.

I couldn’t.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said instead. “Just was a long ass night.”

The sounds of him pulling his clothes on twisted my gut even tighter. He would leave any minute, and I was standing in the damn shower fighting the urge to be honest with him in the hope that it would change things.

That maybe it would make him realize that he wants something more than we had.

“You know you can come to me for anything, right?” The joking was gone, his tone more serious than before and laced with concern.

Tell him!

“I—”

“Shit, Kit needs me at the clubhouse,” Tally cursed. A few seconds later, he pulled the shower door open again. “I gotta go, gorgeous. I’m heading home in the morning, so I’ll see you next time I’m up, probably in a few weeks.”

He pressed a kiss to my lips, not just a peck, but a kiss that I felt in my soul, his tongue swiped across my lips, seeking entrance. His hand cradled my jaw, and I leaned in, savoring every second before he finally pulled back, grinning. “See you later, gorgeous,” he said as he backed out of the bathroom.

Then he was gone.

The tears were instant—as if summoned by the click of the door as it closed behind him—and they didn’t stop when I shut the water off and wrapped my towel around me, water still dripping from my body as I stepped into my bedroom.

“You didn’t tell him.” Sophie sat in the middle of my bed, shaking her head and holding the letter in her hand—the acceptance letter to Jacksonville University in Florida.

I had planned to see Tally the next day and tell him I was starting my nursing career and the first step was moving to Jacksonville.

The second part of the plan had been to tell him that I’d fallen for him—hard—and hope he had fallen for me too. Or at least hope he would ask me to stay, start a real relationship, and see where things went between us. The plan had been easy to construct in theory. I’d convinced myself that a few hours together once every month or two was enough to build something on. But the way he’d come in and out that night, as if it were as easy as floating on a breeze, was the slap in the face I needed.

I let out an unsteady laugh, sending a new wave of tears streaking down my cheeks. “He was here for less than twenty minutes, Soph,” I told her, shaking my head. “He got his dick wet, and he left. That’s all this is.”

She threw her hands in the air. “You didn’t even give him the chance to consider anything more than that. Maybe knowing you’re leaving would be the thing that made him realize he wanted more than just this.”

“Or maybe it’s better this way,” I countered, swiping at the tears and trying to find myself again. “Maybe it’s better that I don’t know how he would have reacted.”

Maybe wondering ‘what if’ would be easier than hearing ‘no.’

Or maybe, I’d regret this forever.

“Well, I guess we need a distraction,” Soph finally said, pulling me from my sad haze. She got up, walked to my wardrobe, and threw the doors open. “Let’s play ‘cleaning out the stripper’s closet because she’s about to become a respectable member of society.’ ”

I couldn’t help but laugh, even though my chest felt like it was being torn in two.

“First up, the crotchless chaps.”