“I don’t like when he barks at Momma,” she retorted stubbornly, her shading suddenly growing a little more erratic with her temper.
I almost laughed at the display, because if Amaryllis had inherited his temper, then fuck, we were in for a fun ride.
She finished coloring, and her mouth pursed in a stubborn moue, then asked, “Why do you got so many tattoos?”
“Why’s your momma?” I countered.
“Hers are pretty. Yours are scary.”
Pretty? I’d seen all of Luce’s tats except for two, none of them were pretty. Still, beauty was subjective, I guessed.
“Mine are scary because I’m scary.”
She giggled. “You’re not scary.”
My lips twitched. Well, hell. Did I agree or disagree with her?
Lucie saved me. “He’s your daddy. He’ll never be scary to you, but to everyone else?” She shot me a look. “Everyone else has to be scared of him. That’s how he’ll keep us safe forever and ever.”
The trust inherent in that statement had my heart surging into my throat.
Fuck.
This woman slayed me.
Every single fucking time.
My grip on the Sharpie tightened to the point of pain, but I ignored it. Just took that moment to stare deeply into her eyes and fall for her all over again.
“Fuck,” I whispered to myself, but Amaryllis heard it and giggled. I cut her a surprised look, but she was back to doodling, back to coloring the cast. When I looked at what I’d drawn, what she was coloring around, I saw what I’d drafted on there. Saw what I’d been messing around creating.
The word: MINE.
❖
Lucie
Stalemate.
At least, that was how things seemed.
Wolfe hadn’t said a word to me in three days, but with Amaryllis, he was downright talkative.
Most of that conversation was one-sided though, because Amaryllis knew how to hold a grudge.
I’d taught her well, I thought with a smirk, watching Wolfe trying not to lose his patience when Amaryllis refused to talk to him, her focus on the TV.
Of course, I wanted them to have a relationship. I wouldn’t have brought her back to the MC if I hadn’t, but Wolfe had to learn that he couldn’t treat her or me like shit. We came as a package, and even though I wasn’t sure how or why, Amaryllis was very protective of me.
If she saw him hurting me, verbally or otherwise, she’d never forgive him.
I hadn’t anticipated her sulking, and although I was amused by it, I knew we’d all have to be careful where she was concerned.
She’d lost her daddy, Daddy Ryan, the one who’d changed her diapers, taught her the piano, and who’d been her book bud. It was no wonder she was scared of losing me.
When he gave up, patting her on the shoulder in farewell, he stalked over to me. I was reading—well, pretending to read—a magazine that had lost my interest the moment he’d stalked into the family room.
The sound of his boots, pathetically enough, always made me wet. Which was damn inconvenient. I knew his tread, knew it from the days of listening to him walk past my bedroom with some giggling slut he’d picked up at a clubhouse party.
His room had been next to mine—yeah, my father had sucked—and I’d heard him bouncing away in there with way too many women over the years. So I knew his tread, knew his gait, and knew whether he was drunk or sober.
The others, less so. Though they had their tells.
Flame had his lighter constantly on him, then Axe had a faint limp from a bad motorcycle crash so his gait was slightly staggered, but Dagger was impossible. His stealth was bewildering to behold.
“My office?” Wolfe hissed at me in a low whisper.
I carried on turning the pages of my magazine.
“Please?” he tacked on, the word more of a snarl than a request, when he pressed his hands to the armrests and loomed over me.
“What do we have to talk about?” I retorted, my focus on the magazine.
“How about that you’ve turned my daughter against me—”
That had fire sliding through my veins and I surged up, shoving him forward as I moved. “You did that yourself.”
Without waiting on him, I headed to his office. The place was quieter than it had been when I was a kid. I wasn’t sure why, considering Dorie had told me the numbers were the same. And when I’d asked about why it was so quiet, she’d just said that only twenty brothers lived in now. Still, quiet or not, and though everyone knew everyone’s business, this was not the kind of shit I wanted wafting around the common room.
I didn’t wait for his ‘approval’ to open the damn door. My dad hadn’t been into corporal punishment. He’d never touched me, hadn’t spanked me no matter the crazy shit I’d pulled. That teacher’s car I’d set fire to? He’d only laughed when the principal had told him. Yeah, that was the kind of influence I’d had as a kid. But if I’d have tried to enter his office without a knock?
He’d have slapped me.
Hard.
He’d only had to do it the once, though—back when I was seven—and I’d learned my lesson.
Respect came in different forms in a one-percenter MC, and each brother had their own code. Might not have seemed that way from the outside. Most people thought we were scum. Delinquents. Nothing more than trailer trash that had graduated from trailers to a clubhouse, but fuck those people.
There was more heart, more community, in this building than in the entire fucking town.
A brother got ill?
The MC handled the insurance.
A brother died?
The funeral was epic. The widow didn’t have to worry about how to pay, the club handled that shit, and held a massive wake to celebrate the deceased’s life.
And after? The club looked after the old lady until she was back on her feet, and would continue to check in with her until the day she moved on because that was how we rolled.
We were one huge family, and like any family, they were all nosy fuckers. Hence my sliding into Wolfe’s office to avoid some of the chatter I’d been at the center of since my return.
When I came in here, I wasn’t surprised to see Dagger with his shoulders hunched over a computer. Even though he’d come by his road name honestly, he’d always been great with figures. My father had been using him to cook the books for a long time, and seemed like shit hadn’t changed now that Wolfe was Prez.
Seeing me over his screen, he cocked a brow at me then sank back into the chair. It rocked as he grinned at me and when he pushed back slightly, I knew what that meant.
I thought nothing of rounding the desk and plunking myself on his lap. The second I did, I felt his boner and cocked a brow right back at him. “That’s not comfortable,” I complained.
“You’re damn straight it isn’t,” he retorted, reaching up to run his finger down my nose.
Ugh. Sometimes, these fuckers killed me with their affection.
“Where you been hiding?”
I blinked at him. “I don’t hide.”
“No?” His nose crinkled. “Well, I haven’t been able to find you.”
“Didn’t look hard then. I was with Ama.”
He banked the fire in his eyes, then he shot a look at Wolfe who’d slammed the door to the office closed.