“You’re right, Red, I can only be me but I’ll tell you this then I’ll let you go and you can leave or you can stay in this bed with me. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. But I know now I gotta handle you with more care and what you gotta trust is that I can do that. I let you loose and you roll outta my bed, that’s tellin’ me you don’t trust me. But I’ll say it straight. You can trust me to handle you with care. Now, baby,” his arms went loose and his voice dipped low, “you decide.”

I rolled immediately to my back away from him then to my side. Pushing up to sitting, I threw my legs over the side of the bed. My feet hit the floor and I moved quickly to my panties. Snatching them up, I yanked them up my legs.

They were blue. Pale blue with delicate pale green lace. The color combination was striking. I thought that when I bought them. Now, even in the dark, their shades muted, I could still see the colors.

I settled them on my h*ps and stared at the wall opposite me, my hands lifting, my fingers sliding into the sides of my hair, nails scratching my scalp.

Colors, vibrant colors sifted through my brain. Tack’s sapphire blue eyes. Tabby’s matching ones. The bright, cherry red of the car he was working on. The purple of the flowers in the field that Celie and Nettie played in in The Color Purple. The embroidery at the back of Lanie’s robe.

Vibrant.

Tack had been in this room maybe half an hour, forty-five minutes tops and I’d had two orgasms, I’d made him laugh, I’d been angry, I’d been scared and I’d felt protected. Alive through every minute of it. Vibrantly alive.

I dropped my hands and wrapped my arms around my middle.

Oh God. Could I go back to black and white?

Then his words came back to me, not just the hurtful ones he just spoke, others. He lived in a different world and I had to fit into that world, he told me so himself. And, frankly, his world was more than a little scary. He asked me to trust him but he was who he was. He wasn’t seventeen and becoming a man. He was… I didn’t know how old but he sure as hell was not seventeen.

He was the man he was going to be. There was no more growing, no more learning. He was there.

I hadn’t known him long but I knew enough about him, about men, that I knew he would expect me to shift and change and be who he needed me to be. He’d expect it like all men expected it because women did that shit all the time. But he was who he was and I had to take him as he was, shift and change into his life and I had to make the decision now. Take him as he came and live in color but do it in his world, giving up my own. Or go back to black and white and hope my real dream man would come and color my world again.

I made my heartbreaking decision, dropped my hands from my hair, bent and grabbed my shorts, muttering, “I’ll call a taxi.”

I was pulling up my shorts while hearing movement in the bed. And I was just about to search for my shirt when two arms slid around me from behind, one at my ribs, one at my chest, both pulling my back into Tack’s hard, warm front.

I felt the tickle of Tack’s goatee on the skin of my neck where he murmured, “Baby, you aren’t makin’ the right decision.”

Feeling his arms around me, the tickle of his goatee, I had second thoughts.

But my mouth didn’t.

“I need to go.”

“Don’t f**k up, Tyra,” he warned and I pulled in breath.

Then I quietly told the shadowy wall, “You don’t know this because you didn’t ask but I jumped off a roller coaster, Tack, one that was out-of-control and jumping off that took me to Ride. I don’t need to get off one and jump right back onto another. I have to get off the roller coaster.”

His arms gave me a squeeze and his lips still at my neck moved. “Tell me about your roller coaster, darlin’.”

“Too late,” I whispered. “Too late to ask now, Tack.”

He was silent a moment then he whispered back, “Don’t do this, baby.”

“Let me go.” I was still whispering. “I need to go.”

He didn’t let me go. Not for long, breathtaking moments.

Then he did.

He let me go.

I felt tears clog my throat but I rushed through the dark room to tag my tee.

As I was pulling it over my head, I heard his gravelly voice say, “I’ll get one of the boys to take you home.”

There it was. It was done.

Done.

Oh God.

I yanked the tee down and, with difficulty, swallowed the tears that were threatening to choke me. Then I asked softly, “Can Lanie call me tomorrow?”

Tack’s voice was remote when he replied, “I’ll get her that word.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, watching him moving toward the door.

“One ‘a the boys will be in to get you,” he told me, striding out the door.

“Thank you,” I repeated quietly to the door.

But Tack was gone.

Chapter Sixteen

You Matter

It was afternoon the next day and I was sitting on my deck, Uncle Marsh at my side and he was telling me stories of growing up with my Mom in Ohio. Aunt Bette was sitting at the bar in my kitchen, her fingers flying over the keyboard of her super-slim laptop, taking care of business even though it was Saturday. Mostly, she was giving me and Uncle Marsh alone time. But from my experience, Aunt Bette shut down approximately thirty minutes before she conked out for the night. All other times she was on the go, working, scrap booking, shopping, serial communicating with family and friends and generally making everyone around her tired just by watching her.

She was, not surprisingly, none the worse for wear after being kidnapped. What was surprising was that she and Uncle Marsh were happy to let the kidnapping rest in Hawk Delgado’s hands with no police interference.

“Hawk knows what he’s doing,” Aunt Bette muttered then charged into my kitchen to set up her super-slim laptop.

Apparently, Aunt Bette had been briefed. Also apparently, she didn’t intend to fill me in.

I was happy to let it lie. I had other things on my mind.

When she and Uncle Marsh had shown that morning, I’d curtailed discussion of Tack by telling them straight off that things were over. I didn’t explain but they both knew me enough to take one look at my face and leave it alone. So they did.

As Tack promised, I got a call from Lanie who I found out was with Elliott. She was still freaked so I didn’t push her to share about her experience. I just listened as she told me that Chaos was helping them lay low and they were talking which meant working things out. This didn’t fill me with happy thoughts. Elliott might love my BFF but he also did stupid shit that got her kidnapped by the Russian freaking mob. However, I decided to throw my hissy fit later when my heart didn’t hurt so much and when Lanie wasn’t recovering from the drama to end all dramas.