“Yeah, babe.” His face was blank as if telling your girlfriend you owned a strip club was as normal as telling her you liked Vin Diesel movies.
“Just a strip club? Or does it specialize in happy endings?” My voice was dangerous.
“Don’t peddle pussy, babe, strictly stripping.” Cade’s voice had an edge, like he was almost finding my reaction amusing.
“How involved are you in the running of this club?” I asked, trying not to sound like a crazy jealous girlfriend. But I was feeling like taking a drive to this strip club and burning it to the ground.
Or at least checking it out.
Cade smirked, definitely finding this part of the conversation amusing.
“I check in every now and then, take care of the books and most of the security side of things.” His eyes were twinkling.
I didn’t say anything else, chewing all of this information over. So not only was my boyfriend selling weapons, he also “checked in” on a strip club. And looking like him, I bet he got a fair share of attention.
But I was focusing on the wrong bit of information. Owning a strip club wasn’t against the law, but selling guns on the black market sure as fuck was, those guns weren’t used for good deeds.
“Babe.” Cade’s voice brought me out of my head and I saw an almost worried look in his eyes. Strange, he always seemed so under control, but he seemed rattled.
“Give me a second.”
I didn’t move off him, I doubted he would’ve let me anyway, his arms were tight around me, bordering on painful, relaying some emotions he wouldn’t verbalize. He was scared of losing me.
I thought about the reality of what he did, aside from it potentially landing him in prison for a long time, it also put him in a huge amount of danger. I was already worried sick about Ian, now my mind would be constantly wondering if my boyfriend was going to be arrested or shot. He said he wanted to get out of the business, he sounded like he meant it and the look of disgust while he was explaining it convinced me.
But how long would that take? And I was sure not all of his brothers would be happy with that idea. Plus, you couldn’t just inform dangerous people, ‘Sorry, we don’t want to sell you guns anymore, don’t worry we won’t tell anyone about your illegal activities, as long as you keep us off your Christmas card list.’ I bit my lip. Shit! I really knew how to pick them.
Cade’s fingers softly brushed my mouth.
“Hard for me to concentrate on not claiming that mouth when you do that, baby,” Cade murmured.
I felt down to my bones that this was special. What we had, it was not something you threw away easily. We seemed to be moving at warp speed, which felt insane and right at the same time.
“You’re serious about getting rid of the guns?” I whispered.
“Never been more serious about anything in my life.” His hand circled my neck. “Well, until recently,” he added.
My heart leapt at the statement, but I needed to know. “How long will it take?”
Cade paused before answering. “Don’t know, babe, been working my angle for a while now, making progress. But this shit moves slow, it’s hard to get these men to see some different way of life when this is all they know.”
“Ballpark,” I demanded.
Cade sighed. “A year, at the most. Things are already in motion.”
I contemplated this. Would Cade and I be together in a year? My heart told me yes, my head didn’t know what to think.
“Planning on you being in my life for a while, Gwen. You will be around when the club turns legit,” he said firmly. “If you decide this doesn’t change anything, I want you, like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. I want to make sure every fucker in the world knows you’re my Old Lady, that no other asshole will touch you. I don’t want this shit with the club to taint you, to jeopardize us.”
“Old Lady?” I repeated quietly, knowing the meaning behind that term, the commitment it represented. He had said it before, but we never talked about it.
Cade brushed my hair back, his eyes never leaving mine. “Yeah, Gwen.”
Wow, I thought it took a lot for biker men to commit, and Cade was slotting me in long term like it was just natural. I wanted to be in there, but I didn’t know if I could accept what the club was doing. The club was a part of him, and he wouldn’t leave it if I couldn’t deal.
Could I handle this?
I could hardly handle a couple of days without Cade.
Could I stand living in this this town, no doubt seeing him everywhere if I couldn’t get right with this?
I was probably going to regret this decision, you’d think I’d know better with my past. But I didn’t.
“Those guns you sell, they kill people, innocent people,” I whispered.
Cade’s eyes were hard on me. “Don’t pull the trigger, babe, people get killed with or without guns.”
“Guns make it a heck of a lot easier when ending someone’s life only takes a second,” I argued softly.
Cade ran his hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. He roughly lifted me off him, jumping off the bed to pace the room. He turned back to me.
“Don’t think it doesn’t weigh on me, Gwen, what those guns do to people, whose hands I put them into. I think about it all the goddamned time. Fuck!” His voice ended on a yell, it was hard to watch, seeing this kind of emotion on my usually staunch man.
I didn’t say a word, conflicted emotions were stewing in the pit of my stomach.
“I may be involved in this shit now, baby, but I swear I’m going to get out. The club will never be squeaky clean, and I’m never going to put on a suit and chain myself to an office from nine to five. That’s not me. The club is in my blood, riding bikes, it’s in my blood.” His voice radiated passion, his expression fierce, eyes not leaving mine.
“The club may be in muddy waters now, but I’m going to make sure the way I earn a living, the way I provide for my family doesn’t involve me being shot at, or facing a long stay in the state penitentiary.”
I sat at the edge of the bed, taking all of this in. And shit, was this a lot to take in on a Monday morning after we had just made up and I was still nursing a hangover.
Cade knelt before me, hand at my neck. “Like I said, babe, this has been brewing for a while, but the moment I saw you, hands full of bags, all class, down to your fucking shoes. I knew.”
I looked at him intently. “Knew what?”
“That I had to get out of the guns, get out of that life, get away from the bitterness that I tasted on my tongue. So I could have sweet.”
Shit. What do you say to that? My forehead pressed against Cade’s.
“A year,” I whispered, that’s what I would wait.
Cade’s eyes flared in surprise, and his whole body seemed to relax.
“I can’t be in the dark about what you do in your life, Cade. I know there are Old Ladies that know nothing and like it that way. I also know it’s an all or nothing kind of gig.”
I had so many other things I wanted to say. What happened if he went to prison? What if he got killed? What kind of accessory did that make me? Knowing what the club did and doing nothing about it. A year was a long time to have to deal.
But the way Cade was looking at me now, what I felt when he touched me, when he spoke beautiful words in his gruff tone, I had to at least try, or I would be wondering for the rest of my life.