She melted into his arms.
She knew he’d be down with marrying her that day.
“I wanna get hitched in Essence’s garden,” she whispered. “In the summer. When it’s green and full and pretty.”
“We can make that work,” he told her, though he had no idea how.
His brothers, their women, their kids, her brothers, their woman. It’d be a tight fit in that jungle if they wanted anyone to see them take their vows.
He just knew, if she wanted that, he’d make it work, somehow.
“So you love me?”
At her question, Rush focused on her beautiful face.
“No, I fucking love you.”
That face shone.
And she melted even deeper.
“I fucking love you too, Cole ‘Rush’ Allen,” she replied.
“That’s good, since you’re my old lady.”
Rebel giggled.
He loved that. He loved she could be vulnerable and badass and funny and smart and infinitely loving, and she didn’t laugh.
She giggled.
So she could also be girlie.
Serious, he just loved everything about her.
“We’ll get a ring today,” he murmured, “before we go up and visit Mom.”
“Okay,” she murmured back.
“Baby, you need to turn off the bacon.”
“Oh! Right!” she cried before she pulled out of his arms.
She turned off the bacon. Took the skillet off the burner and started to get busy finishing making his breakfast.
But he caught her hand, pulled her out of the kitchen, into her bedroom and they got busy another way.
When they got back to them, the biscuits were stone cold, and the bacon had sat in its grease for an hour and a half.
So she chucked it out and started fresh.
It took a while for him to sink his teeth in her egg and bacon cheesy buttermilk biscuit sandwiches.
But when he did, they were awesome.
Rebel Yell
Tyra
Two days later . . .
“What?” Rebel shrieked.
I stood at the top of the stairs outside my office that led into the garage and watched Rebel and Rush across the bays.
I heard Rush rumble something, but not what he said.
“But I can’t!” Rebel yelled.
I had a feeling she could.
Another rumble, and as it was happening, I felt him press up against my back, his chest to my shoulder blade, his hand lighting on my waist and gliding around to my belly.
In that position, me and my husband watched as Rebel, bouncing with excitement against Rush’s body, kissed him all over his face and neck.
“Just so you know, that’s how I felt when you gave me my baby,” I told Kane.
Done with the rain of kisses, Rush’s arms closed tight around his girl, he turned her, pressed her against the driver’s side door of the shiny indigo-blue ’Cuda he’d just given her, and the kissing got focused.
The boy done good. That princess-cut rock on her finger was even Elvira-approved.
“And just so you know,” Tack’s own rumble tumbled in my ear, “that’s how I felt when you got excited when I gave you your ’Stang.”
I twisted my neck to look at his face.
From the very first moment I saw him, I loved looking at Kane Allen.
After all these years, I wouldn’t have believed it if you told me, but I loved looking at him now more than ever.
Finally, my man was free.
And he’d given me goodness since the moment I’d let him in my heart. He’d given me a beautiful home and his beautiful children, and he’d helped me make two more. He’d kept me safe. He’d given me his love. And we’d had a ton of good times, heart-warming family holidays, loud raucous biker parties, truckloads of his amazing food, and astronomical amounts of great sex.
But in all our years together, seeing that in his face, in his eyes, I’d never been happier.
Not even when I had my boys.
That last was hard to admit.
But staring into my husband’s eyes as they were now, I had no choice to admit it.
Because it was true.
He put pressure at his hand at my belly and I was shifted, turned, then marched with Tack still at my back through the door into my office.
He shut it behind us. Flipped the blinds so they were closed. Then hit the lock on the door.
He turned me in his arms.
“You ready for me to soup up a new baby for you?” he offered.
Because he could.
He could now.
He could work in the garage, tinkering with a car, blowing time being close to me and doing something he loved to do.
Yes.
He could do just that.
Finally.
“You take my baby away from me, I’m not speaking to you for eternity,” I threatened.
He grinned.
Then he pulled me closer and he kissed me.
This got relatively hot and heavy until we heard an engine roar and a squeal of tires.
Only then did Kane raise his head and smile down at me, the crinkles by his beautiful blue eyes deep, the light in them dancing.
“That girl,” he murmured. “Perfect.”
He was right.
“Glad I passed that goodness of knowin’ how to spot the one, and then not dick around in winning her, to my son,” he finished.
I tipped my head to the side and reminded him, “You do remember you fucked me then kicked me out of your bed the first time we met, don’t you?”
“Doesn’t negate the fact you turned out to be perfect, ’round about the very next day, and I went all in to win,” he returned.
“You also know you’ll get laid without flowery compliments,” I went on.
He was still smiling as he shuffled me back to my desk.
“Think you’re the one gettin’ laid, Red.”
“Whatever,” I muttered.
He kept smiling even as he kissed me.
Then I got laid. On my desk. In my office.
That desk had seen some action.
God, I loved coming to work.
More, I loved my husband.
And he loved me.
Tack
The day after that . . .
His phone rang.
When he saw the caller, he really did not want to take the call.
But he had to take the call.
So he stopped walking across the forecourt and took the fucking call.
“Naomi,” he greeted.
“Thanks,” she spat.
Tack drew in a big breath.
“Rush’s girl is a bossy bitch,” she declared.
Now, wait a fucking minute.
“Naomi—”
“And she’s a pain in my ass.”
Christ.
He knew it.
He shouldn’t have taken this call.
“She’s it for him, isn’t she?” Naomi demanded to know.
“She’s it for him,” Tack confirmed shortly.
“Right,” she clipped. “Did you hear me?”
“Which part?” he asked.
“The gratitude part, Tack,” she bit out.
“I think so,” he sighed.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
Tack said nothing.
“Sat in that chair, he was ranting, said he was texting you, you were gonna come, didn’t think you’d do that,” she said tersely.
“Nao—”
“Didn’t want you to,” she whispered.
Tack closed his mouth.
“What would they have done without you?” she asked quietly.
Tack looked down at his boots.
“They would have mourned me, but they’d be lost without you,” she went on.
Tack closed his eyes and said nothing.
She cleared her throat and shared, “I met Playboy today.”
“I know,” he replied, opening his eyes and lifting his head.
“He’s a cute little fuck,” she muttered.
Tack decided to go back to silence hoping she’d get him, she’d know he’d heard her and got her, and this would be over.
Naomi joined him.
He was about to put an end to it when she spoke.
“Only gonna spout this shit once, and I figure I’m doin’ it because I’m tripped out on drugs, so listen up, motherfucker,” she said to start. “I fucked up. You were right. We had everything. Then I blew it. Was so pissed you were right, I kept blowing it. But I learned. Boy, did I learn. Now I know. Happy?”
“Not even a little bit,” he growled. “You are what you are and you’ve done what you’ve done, but we made two fuckin’ great kids and you’ll always be the woman who gave me that. So I don’t want you suffering. I absolutely do not want you beat to shit and violated. So right now, I’m not happy. But if you give our boy and girl something good, Naomi, I’ll be grateful. They miss you, even Tabitha. I hope you find it in you to put what happened behind you and earn your place back in their lives. I hope that like fuck, Naomi. For them and for you.”
This time she said nothing.
So he finished it.
“But I reckon you’re tough as nails. Always have been, so no way a strong woman like you is gonna let a useless piece of shit like Chew best you. Make that not happen, Naomi. Heal and then find a good life.”
With that, he hung up.
She didn’t call back.
Tack didn’t expect her to.
So he put that out of his mind and kept walking across the forecourt to get to the Compound to see who was around to share a beer with while he waited for his wife to decide she was done with work.
Beck
One week after that . . .
Beck tapped the fuck on his forehead with the end of the barrel of his gun.
His eyes opened, and the man went still in his bed.
If that was him, even with a gun in his face, the men standing at his back, the drug still coursing through his system, Beck would hope he’d at least go for his gun.
Not that his gun was there.
Man, Shaughnessy was something else.
Honeytrap. Slip a little mickey.