They’d been sitting opposite each other in the booth, and Duke moved to her side of the table, slid beside her, and kissed her forehead. “Something else is going through your head, Gen. Talk to me.”
“You’ve been in the MC a while now, counting your time in Atlanta, and you’ve had charges against you twice in Georgia but have always been found not guilty. I know there’s a possibility you can get in trouble you can’t get out of, and I made the decision long ago to love who you are, and take the risk I won’t have you in my life for a while if you…”
She trailed off and he finished her sentence. “If I go to jail?”
Gen looked down as she nodded, and when he didn’t say anything, she looked up and said, “I thought I was happy, before I started seeing you. My life was exactly as I’d planned it, and it was… satisfactory. Now that I’ve had true happiness though, now that I have someone to come home to, someone to hold me in my sleep, and the most awesome sex ever… living without you would be hard, but I don’t want to change you. So, I’m taking the risk. I love you, all of you, even the parts I don’t completely approve of.”
“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve the kind of love you give me, Beautiful, but I’ll never do anything to damage the trust you’ve given me.”
Duke opened up, let her feel and smell what he did, and she took in the ocean smells and the approaching storm, as well as the love he had in his heart for her. She leaned into him, opened up so he could sense what she was feeling, and the feedback loop was tenfold as they each reacted to what the other felt.
Gen remembered how he’d refused to leave her house those first nights, but hadn’t broken his word about pushing her for sex. She knew he’d always fight for them, never give up on her, and she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, she could trust him.
As she looked out at the ocean and saw the rainclouds moving away and dissipating, the sun peeking through in places, Gen was certain that, together, they’d weather whatever storm life threw at them.
The End