My bad.

Once again, the wolf whistles across the bar start, which tends to happen every time you and Bishop take it slightly past PG in the bar area. It seems the guys are enjoying razzing their President.

You pull back from Bishop’s lips, giving him a shy smile, looking at him through your lashes - your best attempt at bedroom eyes. “Can we go upstairs?” You knew he had a whole apartment upstairs, you’d been there a couple times, mostly just walking with him as he grabbed something or waited on him to change so you could go somewhere else.

He looks down at you with his signature smirk on his face, “Yea, okay.”

He takes your hand and leads you to the back of the bar and down the hallway to the stairs leading up to his apartment. He stops you at the bottom of the stairs, pushing you up against the wall and sliding his hands up your neck to cup your cheeks. You think he is going to kiss you again, so you let your eyes slide close, but you pop them open again when he says, “Look at me.” His eyes stare deeply into yours as he continues, “Are you sure this is what you want?”

You reach up, wrapping your hands around his wrists, biting your bottom lip. You take a second, look back into his eyes, at their intensity. In that moment, you’ve never been so sure of another person in your life. The flames inside you explode, heating parts of your body you previously thought expired, warming your heart until you feel it could be glowing through your skin. Externally, you give him a small nod, trying to hide the excitement inside you.

Whatever he sees in your face must be good enough for him, because he lunges forward, pressing his lips to yours, plunging his tongue in your mouth to meet yours. You thought Bishop had been kissing you before? That had been nothing. The promise in this kiss had your toes curling, thankful you still had your hands wrapped around his wrists because it may have been the only thing holding you up. Too soon he pulls away, pressing his forehead to yours. “Once we go through those doors, you are in control. I want you to be comfortable. We can stop at any time for any reason, okay?”

“Just take me upstairs, please.”

Faster than what felt possible, you were in his bedroom, attached at the lips, separating only to shed clothes onto the floor. His room was sparse but clean. A bed, a nightstand, a dresser on the wall to the left and a window on the right, which let in just a bit of brightness from the security lights of the scrap yard.

Backing Bishop to the edge of the bed, you push him to sit down, following him as he slides back up to lay in the center of the bed. You take your time kissing down his neck and chest, enjoying the feel on your lips of places you had only touched with your hands over clothes. His hands roam whatever part of your body he can touch, not guiding you in anyway, just touching. When you get to the member between his legs, you wrap your hand around his base, testing the size of him. He was bigger even than you were expecting, adding a new understanding to the swagger and confidence he seemed to exude in every room he entered. Giving him a couple pumps, you then bend down taking him in your mouth, making sure you are using every ounce of salvia in your mouth to get him as wet as possible because its the only way you think he is going to fit.

“Fuck, querida, that feels amazing,” Bishop mutters into the darkness of the room. You hum lightly around him, enjoying as you feel him twitch against your tongue before releasing him with a wet pop and kissing your way back up his body. When you kiss him again, you swing your leg over him, using one hand behind you to line him up against your wet heat. When his tip slides against your entrance, he hands come to your hips, fingers gripping you tightly. He doesn’t pull you forward or push you back, so you start to slide back onto him, willing your body to accept his. He breaks out of the kiss, mouth opening wide, forehead wrinkling, but his eyes are still focused on you. You use the opportunity to sit up, settling yourself flush against his hips. You had taken all of him and you were proud of yourself. Moving only slightly, willing the slight burn in you to become pleasure, you let out a couple breathy moans. Quicker than you expected, your walls adapt to his size and you lift yourself slightly before lowering yourself onto him again. His hands don’t leave your hips, supporting you in your movements.

Soon you find a rhythm that works and the sounds from Bishop and yourself only encourage you. Your wetness can be heard over your moans and you can only imagine what you look like, head thrown back, back arched, riding the man underneath as he moans your name. A shift in your hips causes him to hit a new spot inside you and your eyes pop open at the sensation. Eyes darting to the movement at the side of the bed, you see yourself in the mirror over the dresser and practically freeze. The sex goddess you had in your mind had disappeared and it was just you staring back. You turn to look at Bishop but the damage has been done. The reflection in the mirror has the same effect as a bucket of water on a rolling campfire. You try to resume your pace, not wanting Bishop to catch on, hoping you can at least work him to his release, but he notices the change immediately.

He grips your hips tighter, pulling you to a stop on top of him, “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m fine,” you say, trying to grind your hips against him. You can feel your heart racing as your breaths start catching in your throat and you curse the tears as they start falling down your cheeks.

“Hermosa, no,” he says, letting go of your hips as you bring your hands up to cover your face. He sits up easily, wrapping his arms around you, lifting you off of him and rearranging you so you are lying against his chest next to him.

As the sobs start to shake your shoulders, he rubs soothing circles in your back, making shushing noises into your hair.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter out between sobs.

“Sweetheart, I need you to listen to me, right now.” His finger comes under your chin and he lifts your face until he can look in your tear filled eyes. “You never have to be sorry about something like this. I know there’s some shit you’re dealing with, and you’ll tell me when you're ready, but I don’t want you to ever do something like this if it makes you uncomfortable because you think it's something I expect from you.”

The idea that Bishop thinks this was his fault in any way has words tumbling from your lips faster than you can think them through. “It’s absolutely not you, I just let myself get lost in my own head in the past, and I didn’t mean -,” you pause, looking in Bishop’s eyes. You see no judgement. No anger, No disappointment. Just understanding and affection. You take a deep breath, willing your tears to stop. It was time.

“I want to tell you about my life before Santo Padre.”

Bishop doesn’t say anything, just presses a kiss to your forehead, before releasing your chin and tucking you under his, like he knows this is a conversation you won’t be able to have while looking at him.

“I was kinda engaged once.”

At that, you feel him still. You guys had discussed marriage at one visit at the bar and you had told him you never saw yourself getting married. It was just a piece of paper, right?

“My high school crush and I were friends, but he always seemed to have a girlfriend and never really interested in me that way. We were friends, which I was fine with. Then his girlfriend went off to college with everyone else. We had some financial stuff with my family come up and I couldn’t afford to go to college. So I stayed and worked. We got closer, I thought we were going to be together forever, ya know? Young love and all that bullshit.” You scoff, shaking your head at the memory of how naive you were at the time.

“Anyway, without saying anything to me, he talked to a recruiter and signed up for the military. In a matter of days, he packed up and left for boot camp, promising we would write each other as often as possible. And we did.”

Things had been great at first. The distance and the writing seemed to help solidify his feels for you. He told you for the first time that he loved you in a letter, which at the time you were foolish enough to think was romantic. He even talked about how you two should get married as soon as possible so that you could go with him when he was stationed. One morning, you woke to someone turning on your bedroom light at 4am. You looked up and saw him standing there in his fatigues. You jumped up immediately hugging him, your mom standing in the doorway with tears in her eyes. You always said she liked him more than you, and if you’d only known how right you were.

He left your side quickly, he had yet to see his own family, he said, but he would be back. You went back to bed, barely able to sleep. You got up, got ready and went to his mom’s house, only she said he wasn’t there and she hadn’t seen him since she had dropped him off at your house that morning.

Strange, you thought, but it had been early, maybe you had misremembered what he said.

Later, you would find out that same night he had stopped at two other girls houses. The whole week he was home between boot camp and leaving for his stationing, that early morning trip was the only time you saw him. Not a call, not a text, nothing. Your heart was broken, but you could heal, you thought. Until he was all your mom could talk about. How he was doing, what he was up to, when he was coming home. Apparently while he wasn’t answering your messages, he was messaging your mom. You and your mom weren’t very close to start with, but you thought she would have picked you over the boy who promised you everything then broke your heart.

The final straw was Christmas Day that year. You had your traditional holiday festivities in the morning, but your mom didn’t seem as eager to take down the tree after unwrapping presents as she usually was. You didn’t really think anything about it until she pulled you aside and asked if you could leave for a few hours. It was Christmas Day, where were you going to go? It was snowing outside and everywhere was closed.

She said she didn’t want you to make a scene when your ex showed up with his new wife.

“Wait,” Bishop interrupts you for the first time. “Not only had your mom invited your ex and his new wife to your family Christmas, she asked you to leave your home so things, what? Wouldn't be awkward?”

You nod against his chest, “Yep. She went on to say how amazing his wife was, so cute and small and beautiful and intelligent and just everything she ever hoped he would find in someone.”

“And what did you say to her?” Bishop asks, the anger evident in his voice.

“I mean, look at me, what was I going to say?”

“What does that mean?”

You sigh, “Look, I am realist, I know I’m not pretty, I work with what I’ve got, but I’m not ever going to be someone people think twice about.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bishop is mad now, leaning up to look down at you. “I haven’t been able to take my eyes off of you since you sat at my bar.”

“I can’t help it you have bad taste,” you say, avoiding his eyes. “Are you going to let me finish my story or not?”

“That conversation isn’t over, but you can finish your story.” He says, laying down again, pulling you back to his chest.

“So I asked my mom if she was really going to pick him over me, and she said that if he hadn't been so ashamed to be seen with me in public, that she could have had both of us so the fact she had to pick him over me was my own fault. I left her house that day and I haven’t been back,” you whisper into his chest.

“I spent the next five years sleeping with any man who even so much as looked at me, trying to convince myself that if all these men wanted me, I was worth wanting. Then one day, I realized I was out of control. I wasn’t enjoying myself. I was just letting these people use me, hoping I would feel...something about myself. I invaded marriages and relationships, ruining anything in my path, thinking that the greater the challenge, the more I was worth because of it. I realized I let them turn me into someone I didn’t want to be. I got the offer here in Santo Padre from one of my contacts at a previous job and never looked back. I started my life here, convinced I was fine on my own, I didn’t need family or friends until I met Y/BF/N. We just clicked, she had a shitty family, too, so we became each other’s family.” You take a breath, noticing sometime in your story, your tears have stopped. “Her trauma is a little fresher than mine, so while she’s going through her reckless phase, I am doing my best to watch out for her.”

“And that’s how you ended up at a bar of bikers you didn’t necessarily want to be at,” Bishop says, connecting the timeline to now. “You were looking out for your friend.”

“I was looking out for my family.”

You know that is something Bishop can relate to, and it may be why you gravitated to him so quickly. None of those men downstairs were related to him, but it doesn’t mean he loved them any less.

“So what happened a little bit ago that brought all of this up?”

You feel your cheeks start burning. You are naked with this man in bed after unloading the details of your past, and he was still here, rubbing soothing circles into your back. Why were you so nervous?

“I haven’t been with anyone in over five years,” you admit against his chest. “Between the pain of my past and pleasure of the present, I think I might have short circuited a bit when I saw us in the mirror.”

Bishop chuckles, which is what you were hoping for. You laugh as well, realizing that with your confessions, you feel lighter, almost giddy, a weight lifted off your shoulders. You slide your hand from his chest, down his taut lower belly, and wrap your fingers around him.

“Do you want to try again?”

He twitches against your palm, but he brings a hand to rest atop of yours. “We don’t have to do anything, we can just lay here, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know, and that’s exactly why I want to,” you say, pressing your lips to his.

You spend the rest of the night wrapped up in each other, Bishop slowing stroking your fire until it licked at the edges of his own. Your body reacting to his in ways you didn’t even know it could anymore. Once you had your fill of each other, he tucked you against his front, wrapping himself around you, drifting off to sleep quickly.

You stayed awake a bit longer and instead of wondering how soon it would end, you found yourself wondering what a future with Bishop would look like. You couldn’t wait to find out.

LAST CALL