The Saints aren’t your typical biker gang. Ricky downplays the differences, because he doesn’t want them to seem like justifications. Running a successful criminal operation means you do make choices, and some the Saints make may seem ethical, but it’s more about profit and self-protection. If you stick within certain lines of the law, you can skirt the notice of the law.

Within the club, the rules are equally strict, but again each one has a purpose. A biker gang is not a democracy. There’s a guy in charge, and he owns your ass, and that’s okay, because it’s a way of life that the guys in a gang understand. Give them democracy and they’d smell weakness, toss your ass overboard, and seize control for themselves.

Yet as progressive as Don was, equality for women didn’t rank high on his reform list, because the gang wanted it about as much as they wanted democracy, which was to say, not at all. This was one reason Ricky hadn’t been rushing me out for an evening at the clubhouse. If there was a drop of sexism in Ricky, I hadn’t seen it. He didn’t go out of his way to treat me as an equal, because to him, I just was. Now he had to ask me, for an evening, to accept an inferior role. I’d never seen Ricky so uncomfortable as when he had to lay out those expectations before our visit.

“It’s okay,” I said as we talked at his place. “I get it. You’re not asking me to dress in micro shorts and serve them beer before the wet T-shirt contest. The rules are simple enough. One, treat you with respect, which I hope I always do.”

“You do.”

“Two, don’t pay too much attention to other guys, because it could be taken the wrong way. Wallace and CJ will be there, and when you’re gone, they’re in charge of me, so I’m to focus on them. No one will misinterpret, because you put them in charge of me.”

He exhaled. “That sounds so bad.”

“Let me rephrase, then. In your absence, they will be my genteel hosts. So those are the rules. Respect you. Don’t pay too much attention to other men. Act like I think you’re brilliant, gorgeous, charming, and I’m crazy about you. All of which is easy to do because it’s true. And you’re especially gorgeous when you blush.”

He chuckled. “Thank you.”

“What matters is how you treat me, and there are no issues there. As for putting up with culturally ingrained sexism, you do remember where I grew up, right? You want equal rights? Don’t go to the biker club or the country club. Now, if you can excuse me for twenty minutes . . .” I lifted a shopping bag. “I brought wardrobe.”

He grinned. “Micro shorts and a white T-shirt?”