Wild Like the Wind (Page 56)

“That would have meant I’d have to subdue you, which would no doubt turn into angry sex, which would turn into makeup sex and I woulda learned a lot quicker all you had on under that robe was panties.”

“Women don’t normally put bras on after they have a bubble bath.”

That surprised him. “You take bubble baths?”

“Is that shocking?”

“You’re a biker babe.”

“There’s one operative word to that, ‘babe,’ and many of us like bubble baths.”

“Just to say, it had not escaped me you’re a babe,” he remarked.

“Don’t try to sweet talk me after you’ve annoyed me.”

“How many cookies are left?” he asked.

“If you make the five second rule the fifteen minute rule, five and a half, but time is swiftly running out on that half.”

His body started shaking on mine.

It was glorious.

“Dutch and Jag cleaned you out,” he noted.

“They haven’t stopped producing chocolate chips, Shep.”

He grinned. “My babe’s got a smart ass.”

His babe.

Hound’s babe.

Was that finally me?

I wasn’t going to ask for confirmation.

If I did, this bubble might burst and I’d be back where I was and that didn’t stand contemplating.

Instead, I declared, “So we’ve come to the understanding that if I’m pissed, I should pounce so we can have angry sex and your woman has a smart ass. Now, are you going to keep me pinned to the kitchen table all night?”

“Maybe.”

“My bed is a lot more comfortable.”

Something drifted across his face.

“He’s never been there with me,” I told him quietly. “The bed isn’t the same. The room isn’t even the same. No one has been there with me.”

“We got shit we gotta get past,” he muttered.

Boy, did we.

I nodded but shared, “I’m not feeling taking this slow.”

He looked deep in my eyes and rumbled, “Agreed.”

“So I need to text Bev about Jag and then we need to break the seal on my bed, and tomorrow, if Jag shows for breakfast, we’ll make it official. At least with the boys.”

“He won’t. Boys got plans for him. He’ll also miss a day of school, Keekee.”

Shit.

Okay.

He was nineteen, almost twenty, and I’d cut the apron strings (kind of).

This was his choice.

He’d make it up.

“Right. So, family dinner as soon as we can plan. Make it official for both boys at the same time,” I said.

He considered this for about three seconds.

Then he nodded that he again agreed.

I scored my thumbnail lightly through the thick stubble on his cheek and reminded him, “I want this. You want this. We’ll make this happen. We just gotta be more out there and look after each other along the way.”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“Let me up, baby. I need to text Bev.”

“She goin’ through with the wedding?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Fuck,” he replied.

With that he slid out and pulled me to my feet.

He yanked his jeans up but didn’t do them up.

He bent and tagged my panties from the floor, and as I was lifting my hand to take them, my breath stuck in my throat when he dropped to a knee in front of me.

He held them out.

I stood unmoving.

He tipped his head back. “Step in, Keekee.”

Shepherd “Hound” Ironside, kneeling at my feet.

He’d been there figuratively for years.

Now he was right there, for me.

I put a hand on his shoulder and stepped into my panties.

He slid them up gently, coming up with them, settling them on my hips and then smoothing my robe over them.

He put his lips to mine. “Text Bev. Got beer?”

“Yeah, honey.”

He pressed those lips to mine.

Then, doing up his jeans, he went to my fridge and got a beer.

Graham never used that fridge. Graham had never even been in the kitchen like it was now.

But Hound had, repeatedly.

He was in this with me.

He was in this with me.

And we were going to make this happen.

We were.

Even if it killed me.

Total Winner

Keely

I woke the next morning to Hound moving me to my belly.

I’d barely opened my eyes when he yanked my hips up so I was on my knees.

“Baby?” I called sleepily.

“Morning fuck,” he grunted.

That worked for me.

And it was good it did.

Because Hound didn’t hesitate to proceed with giving me just that.

“Okay, boys first, family meal as soon as. Then I’ll tell Bev.”

I was in the kitchen mainly putzing around, because Hound was making me breakfast.

He just started right up doing that after we came down.

I didn’t say anything.

The time to get into him losing Jean, and how he was coping with that, was not prior to breakfast after we’d made up in a way that meant we weren’t hiding in his apartment anymore and we were going to be putting it out there, to possibly volatile reactions.

I’d get into that when I had him lazy and sweet and in a good headspace so he could deal, probably when he was naked after I’d made him blow with my mouth.

“No Bev,” he declared.

I looked from preparing my travel mug of coffee to him standing at the stove beside me.

“What?” I asked.

“No Bev,” he said to the dual skillets he had going, eggs and, now without Jean and the nixing of pork, the addition of bacon. “She’s got a big mouth.”

“Uh, Hound, baby, she’s Bev. She’ll get this is big. She’ll be happy for us because she loves me, she loves you. She’s also Chaos.” Or she was, she was cutting ties and it might be time but still, once Chaos you never really stopped being that. “She’ll know to keep her mouth shut about this until we’ve dealt with the fallout.”

He turned just his head to me.

“No Bev, babe. Too risky.”

I turned my full body to him.

“Right, honey, we’ve had this conversation. The brothers will totally understand, after they get their heads around it, why we kept the beginning of us from them. Bev, on the other hand, will totally be pissed at me if she finds out those boys heard before she did. That I kept it from her. And she’d have reason. She is not gonna be a problem. She’s gonna be an ally. Someone I can talk to about it. Someone who’ll get it. But now you need to get what she means to me and that I simply cannot do that to her. Me saying she’ll be pissed is about her actually being hurt. If the tables were turned, I would be too.”

I got closer to him, slid a hand along his waist to his back and kept talking.

“She’s gearing up to take a huge step back from Chaos, and by that I mean move on from the Club. This guy might not make her happy but he loves her, spoils her, and he’s going to take care of her. And I think maybe she’s thinking that eventually all of that will make her happy. So she won’t slip up and share anything, because she’s not going to be keeping her finger on the pulse of Chaos in order to keep Boz a part of her life. She’s letting go.”

“He’s such a dumbfuck,” Hound muttered.

“Won’t get any argument from me,” I muttered back.