Shepard

5 - I'm in love with you

Lynette

Thirty minutes later, all four of us, Shepard, Tate, Willow, and me, are sitting at the table, eating spaghetti. Nothing seems out of the ordinary on the outside, but I feel different after what happened the other night. My heart is beating a little faster with Shepard sitting opposite me, looking at me like he wants to eat me alive.

Trying to eat when all I can think about is Shepard fuckin.g me, his mouth on me, his big hands touching me, is bordering on impossible. I feel uncomfortable and want the damn night to be over already.

I kind of wish Shepard had told Willow that he couldn’t make it to dinner tonight. Deep down, I guess, I knew he’d come. Shepard would do anything for Willow, and I know he hates letting her down. Shepard hates seeing the disappointed look on her little face when he tells her he’s busy. However, things haven’t been the same since Shepard asked me to dance for him. I don’t know if he feels embarrassed by what he said when he was drunk, but he doesn’t need to be.

“Thank you for dinner,” I smile at Tate. Fourteen years old, voice broke, almost six feet tall, and already working out with his friend Haiden.

Haiden is Titus’s son, the club’s Sergeant-At-Arms. His wife, Hillary, is a friend of mine, one of my best. Their oldest son, Sam, is a prospect with the club, already going by his road name Hammer. I’ve always believed it to be in the stars that Tate and Haiden will also be part of the club as soon as they’re old enough. It’s in their blood.

I’m not sure if I had a son; I’d like the fact he’d want to be a biker. The things those men get up to. . . It would be every mother’s worst nightmare.

Not that I’d be able to stop my son from joining if he wanted to. Not that I’ll be lucky enough to have another child. I can’t even have a date without Shepard scaring them off with his death threats.

It annoys me sometimes. I’m a woman with needs. This dry spell has lasted, well, longer than it should have. Shepard obviously doesn’t think about that when he’s telling me the next time I say yes to a date, he’ll kill the guy for asking in the first place.

“You are most welcome,”

“Why don’t you and Dad go have a drink on the porch while Willow and I do the dishes?”

“Sounds like a plan, Son.”

What the hell is that look between my daughter and Tate?

They’ve planned something; I just don’t know what yet.

Nevertheless, with a glass of wine in my hand, I follow Shepard to the wrap-around porch and lean against the wood, breathing in the summer air.

“Think they’re trying to tell us something?”

“Yeah,” I chuckle. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

I drag my long fingernail down the condensation on my wine glass, and I hear Shepard set his bottled beer down on the wicker table across from us. I try not to look at his ass in those jeans when he bends slightly, but it’s hard not to when he’s so damn fine. Not many men have an ass that tight.

Am I just noticing these things about him because I’m horny?

“It’s time we stopped this, Lynette,”

“Excuse me?”

Stopped what?

Being friends?

Is that what he means?

Shepard takes my glass from my hand and places my drink next to his. I’m sweating in fear; I don’t know what the hell is about to happen. I don’t want Shepard to tell me we can no longer be friends.

What will that mean, exactly?

I won’t be able to work the bar?

I won’t be able to see Tate anymore?

Just the thought of being unable to see Tate has my nose burning with emotion. I love that boy; I can’t lose him.

Shepard grabs my upper arms, pulls me against him, and kisses me!

I’m so shocked for a moment that I’m standing here like a dumb idio.t!

I shake myself out of shock, moan a little, and open my mouth to let him in. Yeah, I could push him away, but as if I’m going to do that! I’ve always wanted to be with a strong man who puts his family first. A man who, when he holds me, makes me feel so safe. A loyal man who would both kill and die for me, for his family.

I slide my hand up to his big chest and over his cut. His hands cup my face, pulling me closer.

We kiss so wild and passionate that I mentally slap myself to remind myself that the kids are inside the house. I think it’s the fact they’re laughing from the doorway that finally has me pulling away.

“You owe me ten bucks, Will. Told you they’d be sucking face.”

I laugh and rest my forehead against Shepard’s chest. I am embarrassed that the kids have seen us like this.

“Fine, but let’s go inside so they can “suck face” some more.”

“God,” I groan as soon as the screen door slams. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

Shepard tilts my chin up with his fingertips. Our eyes lock, green on blue. He strokes my face, and I smile while leaning into his touch. “It’s time, Lynette.”

“For what?” I’m confused. If he didn’t want us to be friends anymore, there’s no way he’d be kissing and touching me like this.

“To stop pretending that we’re just friends.”

“We’re not friends?”

“Baby,” He laughs. “We’re more than friends. This,” He presses my palm against his chest, and I can feel his heart beating fast. “This belongs to you.”

My eyes widen.

Tears clog my throat.

Is he telling me that he loves me?

It can’t be.

“I meant what I said when I told you it should’ve been you.” His thumb strokes my cheek softly, and I’m melting. “If you weren’t sixteen and with that loser, I know we would have found our way to each other in the end. It would have been you that I would’ve been sharing my life with all these years.”

I swallow hard. I’m nervous, and what Shepard is saying to me is hard to believe.

“But you were with Celia. You had a four-year-old together.”

“And I would have stayed in his life. Hell, I would have taken him with me.”

This is crazy. If Shepard thinks like this, then he wouldn’t have had Nova, and that’s not something even I want to think about.

“Neither of us can ever regret what happened in the past; we got Will, Tate, and Nova from it. But that’s not to say we have to go one more day without each other.”

“But I have a date tonight,”

What the fuc.k did I say that for?

The fire in Shepard’s eyes is like hell itself.

“I mean. . . Um. Chuck asked me out, and I said I’d go.”

Chuck is a guy I work with during the day at the hardware store in town. Yeah, I work three jobs. The restaurant only employs me at the weekend now, and I have to make money for my daughter.

Shepard owns this house and doesn’t charge me rent, which I’ve always felt uncomfortable about. Shepard told me he’d rather have me live here where Willow is safe, where he can keep an eye on us, than have us try and find somewhere else.

There are still bills to pay and a little girl who needs new clothes and food on the table. It’s a struggle, but I manage.

Chuck had been badgering me for months to go on a date with him. I finally said yes when I shouldn’t have because I knew in my heart Shepard would never allow me to go. Chuck is what Shepard would call a fuckwad.

“Well, you best tell Chuck that my woman is unavailable from this day forward.”

“Your woman?”

I must be asleep. This is a dream, and I’ll wake up in my bed at any moment, and I’ll be aching for Shepard’s touch, wanting him, and realizing it will never come true.

“Tell me right now that you feel nothing for me, Lynette. Tell me, and I’ll walk away and let you go on your little date with Chuck.”

“I can’t tell you that I feel nothing for you,” I swallow back my emotions.

I’m a strong woman who goes after what I want and holds on tight when it is eventually mine. But this is different. I’ve never shown what I felt for Shepard in the past because he was my friend’s old man, and they had children together. Then, when she left, he needed support and help. He didn’t need me coming on to him, left, right, and center.

I take his big hands in mine, bring them to my lips, and kiss his big knuckles hard.

“Don’t you know why I let you dictate to me about whom I date? Don’t you know why I come running whenever you need me?”

Shepard smiles cheekily, which only serves to tell me he knows exactly why.

“It’s because you are everything to me. Whether you feel the same about me remains to be seen. I’m not a shy person. When the chance arises for me to get stuff off my chest, I will.”

“How do you feel about me, baby?”

I smile and tell him, “I’m in love with you, and that’s the truth.”

“Yeah?”

I nod while biting my lower lip to hide the smile on my face.

Shepard leans into me, his lips a hair’s breadth away from mine. I can smell his aftershave. I can smell the sweat on his skin in the Tennessee heat, and my head is spinning with it.

“I’m in love with you, too,”

Think. I. Might. Pass. Out!