Wolf (The Henchmen MC #3)

by Jessica Gadziala

  "Good," I nodded, turning off toward the compound.

  "Know we don't do this cheesy shit," Reign said when the silence stretched. "But when Summer was new in my life, you told me she was a good woman. For you, that was practically a fucking conversation so I figured now that you got yourself a woman, I should say something..."

  "So say it."

  Reign snorted. "I like her for you, Wolf. Someone told me a year ago that you'd end up with someone like her, or anyone at all, I'd have said they were crazy. But I could say the same thing about Cash and Lo."

  "Reign..." I laughed, rolling my eyes at him.

  "Fuck off. Ain't used to this sharing shit. What I'm saying is, she's good for you. And you're sure as fuck good for her. Tame her a little bit."

  "Janie? Tame?" I asked, smiling as I parked the truck. "Wouldn't want her tame," I added as we climbed out of the truck and crossed toward the front door.

  And I wouldn't want her tame. Did I like that she felt comfortable enough with me to show a softer side on occasion? Yes. But I didn't want her because of her potential to be something other than what she was. I liked the whole package. I liked the foot-in-mouth comments. I liked how she could fight over the most asinine little things with as much passion as the shit that really mattered. I liked that she was capable in everything she put her mind to, but was open to suggestions to get better. I liked that she was a shit cook but a fucking spectacular crime-scene cleaner. I liked that she obviously had no experience letting men in and that scared her and she was hesitant, but she didn't try to push me away either.

  It was a rare thing in life to find the person who complemented you, who was strong where you were weak, patient where you were restless, giving when you were all used up. That was what I had with Janie. It wasn't that one of us was always strong or patient or giving, it was that we both had it in us to pick up the slack the other had to put down.

  I was under no alpha-man delusions. She would fight me tooth and nail. She would rage and rant and spit and claw. There was no controlling her, no taming her. But there was nothing more beautiful that a wild animal. And there was nothing more heartbreaking than seeing one of those wild animals broken in a cage.

  "She needs to sleep," Repo said, eyes on me as I walked in. He was squished into the corner of the couch shirtless, Janie taking up all the space even with her tiny frame.

  "So do you," I said, nodding at him, taking in the red eyes and blue smudges beneath them. Like Janie, he could go the better part of a week without sleep at times due to some trauma he still hadn't felt comfortable sharing with any of us and maybe never would.

  He nodded, moving Janie's feet off of his legs, and standing. "Good to see you free," he said, nodding at me, then moving off toward his room.

  "Well, I'll leave you to it," Reign said, giving me a knowing smile. "But make sure you ask her what she came in here and declared to all of us when she got back from seeing the Grassis yesterday."

  "What'd she say?" I asked, moving toward the couch and crouching down beside her, brushing her hair out of her face.

  "That's for her to tell you, but make sure she does."

  With that, he was gone and we were alone.

  I should have done the right thing and left her there, sat down in the spot Repo abandoned and let her get the rest she obviously needed. But I needed to have her close, pulled up to my side, head on my chest. Being pretty fucking sure you'd never hold the woman you cared about again, yeah, that did things to you. I needed her.

  I reached out, slipping a hand under her knees and another around her shoulders, curling her into my chest then lifting her up. The jostling motion made her grumble in her sleep before her eyes snapped open at the motion as we moved toward my room.

  "This isn't my usual kind of dream," she mumbled, brows drawing together.

  "Not a dream."

  "God, even dream Wolf doesn't use complete sentences," she said on an eye roll.

  I felt myself chuckle, leaning down and kissing her hard and quick on the lips. Her eyes cleared of the sleep fog immediately, her mouth dropping open slightly as her entire body tried to jolt upright. "Wolf?"

  "You've been busy," I said, propping her up on my knee so I could free a hand to open the door. I carried her in and kicked it closed.

  "What? How?" Her mouth stayed open comically wide like she didn't know what to say.

  "Speechless? You?" I laughed, setting her down in the middle of the bed. "Miracle."

  "You can get back to being a smartass as soon as you tell me what the hell you are doing here."

  I kicked off my boots, reaching behind my back to pull off my shirt and tossing it aside. "You wanted me out."

  "Yeah..."

  "I'm out."

  "Yeah but..."

  "Collings," I supplied, reaching for my button and zip. Her eyes followed the motion and I watched as her eyes got almost instantly heavy. "Thinkin' 'bout something?" I teased, lips tipped up at one side.

  Her eyes shot up guiltily. "What? No! I mean... yeah. I was thinking about how Collings managed to..."

  I pushed my jeans down and stepped out of them. Her eyes drifted low again and I watched as she crossed her legs restlessly. "Still thinking about Collings?" I asked and when she looked up at me, she was smirking.

  "I don't know. He's got a little something something if you're into that kind of thing," she teased, leaning her head back to watch me as I climbed up the bed toward her.

  "Are you?"

  "Me? No. It seems I like big biker mountain men with beards and..." she gasped as I lowered down onto her body.

  "And?"

  "Um..." She wet her lips as my face dipped into her neck, kissing down toward the neck of my her tee. My hand moved up her belly and closed over her breast. Through the thin material, her nipple hardened against my palm and I rolled it between my fingers until her body started to writhe beneath me.

  "Um?" I prompted, biting into her earlobe.

  "I forgot what... oh god," she groaned as my hand left her breast and pressed hard against her pussy through her pajama pants. Pajama pants that had guns printed on them, I might add. Where the fuck she found something like that was completely beyond me, but they suited her.

  "Miss me?" I asked, tracing my lips down her jaw toward her mouth.

  "Y... yes," she gasped as my finger worked her clit in fast circles.

  "Missed you too," I said, moving my hand away but only so I could slip underneath her pants and panties and slide a finger deep inside her. "Especially watching your face when I..." I trailed off as my finger curled and stroked over her G-spot and her arms slapped down on my shoulders. "Like that," I nodded before ducking my chin and taking her lips, hard and fast and hungry.

  There was too much that needed to be communicated to do soft and tentative. Beneath me, her body was just as demanding as mine. Her hands moved across my chest, slid around toward my back, grabbed my ass, then slid back around toward my stomach and down. When her hand closed around my cock, my lips broke from hers on a ragged breath.

  When I lifted up to look down at her face, she had a look of feminine accomplishment. "I can't figure out why I still have all these clothes on, can you?" she asked in an innocent tone that was at once so unlike her, but at the same time, perfectly right.

  "Fuck no," I agreed, pulling my finger out of her, snagging her pants and panties at their waistbands and pulling them off in one rough tug. I was still getting her feet free when she knifed up and ripped off my her tee. "Fuck," I growled, sitting back on my heels for a second and looking down at her. Her dusky nipples were hard, her pale skin flushed, her thighs pressed tight together to try to ease the ache I had started to create there.

  There was always something beautiful about a naked woman looking up at you with need. But it was a whole different kind of beautiful to see that look on the face of a woman who would happily go through hell for you, on a woman who had.

  I wanted her too
bad; my balls felt like they were stuck in a vice; my cock was so hard it was painful.

  I sucked in a deep breath and lowered my head down toward her pushed together knees, biting one hard until they jerked open reflexively and I pushed my upper body between, biting down the inside of her thigh. Her other leg moved instinctively up and over my shoulder and my hand slid underneath to grab her ass as my mouth found her clit and sucked it hard.

  Her hips thrust up into me and with my free hand, I slipped two fingers inside her, stroking in a circular motion as my tongue stroked out over her clit. There was nothing shy or guarded about her responses to me right then, her breathing fast and shallow, moans following almost every gasp she took. Around my fingers, her pussy clenched tight. I moved upward, still finger fucking her wet pussy, but making the strokes unpredictable, slower, then faster, swirling, then straight, making her confused body scramble to grab hold to her budding orgasm again. I reached into the nightstand and got a condom, biting it open before pulling my fingers out of her, rolling on the condom, and lowering down on her body.

  "Legs around me," I told her and her legs closed tight around my lower back as I thrust hard and deep, filling her to the hilt on a growl. Her whimper filled my ears, flooded my system, drove me over the edge.

  I fucked her fast and deep, barely pulling my cock halfway out before slamming back in, needing her around me, needing her tight walls, her hot wet depths surrounding me, needing the surprised moan she let out every time I hit that deep spot. Her hips worked restlessly against me as I thrust, her pussy rubbing against the base of my cock, hitting her clit.

  "Come Janie," I demanded, my voice low and rough, feeling the urge to bury deep and come. "Come," I said again as I slammed forward. Her hips jerked and she cried out my name loudly as her pussy clenched my cock in endless waves. On a growl, I buried to the root and came hard, groaning her name in her ear.

  I collapsed onto her, holding up some of my weight on my forearms as I struggled to control my breathing. Beneath me, her body trembled slightly with aftershocks. I pressed upward, my nose rubbing hers for a second before I looked down at her. Her blue eyes were opened, fully focused on me and I smiled as I realized that just seconds after an orgasm, she was ready to talk.

  "Hold that thought," I laughed, pressing a kiss to her lips before making my way toward the bathroom. I disposed of the condom and washed my hands. I was reaching for the towel when I felt her forehead press into the center of my back. Slowly, as if trying not to scare me, or maybe herself, her arms moved up and around my stomach as her body pressed into me. "You okay?" I asked, unable to see her in the mirror, my body completely blocking her from view. I felt her nod against me then plant a kiss in the middle of my back. Her arms loosened and I turned in her hold, reaching down to frame her face. "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing."

  "It's never nothing," I said, stroking my thumb across her cheek.

  She huffed out a breath before her eyes found mine. "Fine. So I love you, okay?"

  As far as declarations went, it wasn't exactly romantic. But it was so Janie- abrupt, blunt, mildly confrontational. It was so her that it beat out any other way she could have possibly worded it.

  "Okay," I agreed, nodding, fighting to keep my lips from twitching.

  "Okay? Okay! That's how you respond to that?" she asked, brows drawing together. "I've never told anyone that before. Not in years. Not even Lo. And you just say okay?"

  "You done?"

  "Um, no. I'm not done. That was really..."

  "You're done," I said, grabbing the back of her neck and hauling her up onto her tiptoes as I leaned down and took her lips, soft, long. My tongue stroked over hers until all the tension left her body and she swayed on her feet, grabbing my arms to stay upright. Then and only then, I let her go, waiting for her eyes to drift open before telling her.

  "I love you too, Janie."

  Her eyes went liquid and she blinked frantically. One tear slipped out and she swatted it away before I could catch it. She was silent for a long minute before the light started dancing in her eyes.

  "You know what?"

  "What?"

  "That was actually a complete sentence!" she declared, smiling huge.

  I found myself smiling back.

  Not even a declaration of love could tame her.

  And that was just how I liked it.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Janie

  I'd like to say that Repo got his wish and we had an uneventful year, or even a month, or day. But the truth of the matter was, everyone was on edge for the better part of the next year. Internal Affairs swooped into Navesink Bank and tore every file apart. They glanced into every officer and detective's personal finances, looking for kickbacks that everyone knew were there. All the organizations stepped a little more hesitantly without their safety net to guarantee protection from incarceration.

  As predicted, a fair bit of blame fell onto Marcus' shoulders though he was completely innocent. Once IA discovered how deep the corruption went, what it would mean to have to reopen all the cases that had been closed involving half a dozen criminal organizations over a decade whilst simultaneously investigating all the officers, detectives, county clerks, judges, the district attorneys... yeah they decided a scapegoat was the way to go. They hung the weight of Lex's dirty work on Marcus' shoulders while laying off or relocating a third of the rest of the force.

  Collings kept his job largely in part to what I had offered up to him in exchange for Wolf's freedom, though he made it clear it was the first and only time he would ever make actual evidence disappear. He would go on letting the streets run themselves so long as innocent individuals didn't get wrapped up in it. He would give all of us the wide berth we needed to keep doing what we were doing. He also assured us his new new blood was like a twenty-seven year old version of himself- just doing what needed to be done, not getting personally invested in any of it, but also not taking bribes.

  As for Marcus, well, that wasn't something that was immediately clear. When he disappeared from the hospital, I had figured the Grassis had, well, fitted him with cement shoes or whatever-the-hell way the mob went about disposing of bodies. But when I ran into Luca and Matteo a few weeks after, they were asking me what I had heard about his whereabouts. So yeah, he was still a wild card. It didn't take a genius to know that made him a threat. But that threat was most likely directed toward the Grassis. And while they were nice enough people, I didn't really care what trouble they found themselves in so long as me and mine were left out of it. They could handle themselves. The Grassis had a foot in Navesink Bank before it was anything more than cherry fields and fishing villages. They weren't going anywhere. They certainly weren't going to get pushed out by some two-bit pimps.

  Six months almost to the date of the bombings, three old faces breezed back into town. Shooter re-inhabited his lavish apartment down the street from the compound, dropping by every weekend to grab Repo so the two of them could go out chasing skirts, always taking a few minutes to charm the socks off of Lo, Summer, and myself and rib the hell out of Cash, Reign, and Wolf for, first, not deserving us and, second, leaving all the 'fine young things' up for his and Repo's grabs.

  Breaker was never much one for hanging with The Henchmen, but he showed up one night, standing behind his woman, all six-foot-something of solid muscle, blond hair, and a beard to rival Wolf's.

  "She insisted on coming to see you," Breaker supplied in a way that suggested they went a couple rounds about it.

  Alex was tall and lanky, all legs and torso with deep brown hair that brushed her shoulders and big brown eyes that dominated her fine-boned face. She had a classic kind of beauty that contrasted her rough and tough looking man.

  "I insisted I come see her. I have no idea why you're here," Alex shot back. "I don't need a babysitter, you know."

  Behind her, Breaker gave me a smile. "I know, doll," he said in a patient tone. "But I figured I owed Jstorm
a thank you in person too. She saved all our asses that night and forced us into a Mexican vacation."

  "Where you threatened to beat up any guy who looked at me," Alex rolled her eyes.

  "Yeah well if you didn't wear a bathing suit that covered only point-zero-two percent of your body..."

  "We are not having that argument again."

  "Anyway, Janie," Breaker said, making no attempt to hide his smile, as if he maybe enjoyed Alex's wrath. "Thanks for the distraction so we could get out of there. It was pretty iffy there for a while. They had Shoot out in the shed and that Joshua kid was going to be taken out too."

  He was another wild card. As far as I could tell, he didn't turn state's evidence. After his hospital stay, he had never resurfaced.

  "He's in Chicago," Alex supplied.

  "What?"

  "Joshua. He's in Chicago trying to pretend like he didn't get his ass handed to him in Jersey. Got his hands in the Irish mob there. He'll never learn."

  "Does Lo have any idea how valuable you are?" I asked, thinking of the sleepless nights I spent trying to track his whereabouts and finding nothing. And I was the best hacker Hailstorm had.

  "She's freelance," Breaker answered for her, making Alex's eyes blaze.

  "Well maybe I am considering..." Alex trailed off when Breaker tagged her around the waist and leaned down to whisper something in her ear that made her cheeks blush and her mouth clamp shut. I would find out a few weeks later when she, me, Lo, and Summer were having a girls night, that he told her he liked her working from home because he could fuck her any time he wanted then. "Yeah, I'm, ah, freelance," she said, giving me a smile.

  A lot came from the storm of chaos that breezed through all of our lives in the course of a year. Reign found Summer who needed saving, prompting The Henchmen and Hailstorm to join forces. Summer helped me save Alex, Breaker, and Shooter. Cash helped Lo when her past came back to haunt her. Wolf rid me a demon from my past and, in turn, I got him off of the charge.