And, somehow, in all of that, love had blossomed for most of the parties involved.
Lo and I had the talk I promised her back in the cabin. And after I had that talk with her, I had it with Summer, then even eventually, I had it with Alex.
We had all forged together in friendship, all of us involved with dangerous men, involved in the kind of lifestyle average women could never understand. We were all wildly different: Lo was strong, but soft and romantic; Summer was sweet with an undercurrent of steel and a ticking biological clock; Alex was a little reclusive, hard to get to know at first, but headstrong and sometimes a riot. I was, well, me. But we were all badass bitches who had been through some shit in our lives and came out stronger for it. This was evidenced by our unwillingness to let our pasts steal from us our futures.
Futures we got to have with some of the most interesting men the world had to offer.
EPILOGUE
Janie
3 Months-
"Woman..."
"What?" I asked innocently, my back to him allowing me to smile without being seen.
"The truck?"
"What about the truck?" I asked, pushing clothes into the washing machine and reaching for the heavy duty, super-sudsy laundry detergent. I knew exactly what about the truck. See, it was February and three nights ago, the sky had dropped a foot of snow on the ground. And we were out of clothes. And he put the god damn laundry room in a shed in the woods. Like only a man would do. Seriously.
"See the paint?"
Oh, I saw the paint alright. I may or may not have sideswiped a tree or two driving in the woods in a truck that was hard to drive on dry pavement for someone as short as me, let alone slippery, snowy forest floor. Hell, he was lucky it wasn't stuck in a tree in all honesty.
"Yeah, I guess it needs some touching up. There's a nice shop in town that will... omph." My breath rushed out of me as his front shoved into my back, pushing my front into the washing machine.
"Woman..." he growled again.
In my defense, I didn't know he was one of those guys about his damn truck. I didn't constantly find him out washing and waxing it. He never made even a grunt of distaste at me eating in it or getting in with dirty shoes. I didn't think he really gave a shit about it. He wasn't an appearances kind of guy. Apparently he cared about the paint though.
"We needed clothes, Wolf," I insisted as his hands planted on either side of the machine, his back arching over me, completely caging me in.
"Like you naked."
Yeah, well, I liked him naked too, but that was beside the point. "What if we need to leave the house?"
"Don't."
"But what if we did."
"Christ."
"What?"
"You'd argue over the sun rising."
I felt my lips curl up. "And then bitch about it going down at night," I agreed.
His hand left the machine and moved up to move the hair off the side of my neck. He leaned down and planted a kiss there, making my breath catch in my chest. "Next time, tell me."
"Why?"
"I'll drive."
"I'm perfectly capable of..."
"Woman," he laughed, his body shaking around mine and I did kind of see his point. I had just sideswiped his car a few times.
"Or you could just do the laundry."
"I cook."
"Yeah but cooking takes like half an hour. I'm stuck in this shed for hours on laundry days."
"Ways to kill time," he suggested, his hand sliding down my belly and cupping me between my legs, demonstrating just how he liked to kill time.
"Well that only works if I put on the machine first," I moaned as his finger found my clit, as I tried to reach out for the knob on the machine.
"Fuck the laundry," he growled, grinding his hard cock against my ass, making my arm fall as I silently agreed. Fuck the laundry.
There were times when Wolf was surprisingly soft, gentle. There were times when I would wake up to his fingers gliding over my bare skin almost reverently, his eyes heavy-lidded, his cock hard, but he would go slow. His hands would tease me chastely until I felt like every inch of me was humming, then move over me and kiss every inch his hands had traced, spread my legs and eat me out slowly, the way you do a dessert that is too good to rush through. Then and only then, he would come over me and slide sweetly inside, his movements unhurried, like he was enjoying every small whimper, every arch of my back, every breath that gasped out of me.
This was not one of those times.
His hands grabbed my jeans and panties and yanked them down hard, not bothering to unfasten my pants. His knees pressed my legs open slightly as his hand pressed into the center of my back until I lowered down, putting my forearms on the machine to support myself. "Ass up," he demanded, squeezing my cheeks hard as I tipped my ass up for better access. His finger moved around my body and found my clit as he slammed inside, hard and deep.
It was in that second that I was really thankful Lo dragged me with her to the gyno to get on birth control. No more fumbling for condoms. No having to wait when my body was screaming for him to be inside me.
Wolf's hand moved up and grabbed the hair at the base of my neck, giving a gentle tug that sent off a rush of desire through my system.
It was one of the many things we learned that, despite what I'd been through, we could do without my mind going in a nasty direction. I wasn't miraculously 'cured'. Love and safety didn't fix everything. I still had things that would never be okay. Like toys. We'd tried. Wolf had taken me to a toy store and I had even been excited about the prospect, but when we walked in and some old, intimately familiar items were lined up on the shelves, I'd freaked and we had to leave. We never tried again. We didn't need them. What we had was more than enough.
So when his fingers curled into the hair at the nape of my neck and pulled harder, hard enough for my arms to leave the surface of the machine for a second, I felt nothing but the need growing deeper as his pace quickened, his finger pressed my clit hard.
But just when I thought sweet oblivion was going to crash through my system, I lost his cock. "No," I groaned, arching my ass up shamelessly.
"Want your ass," he said, leaning over me and biting into my earlobe.
It was another thing we had learned was okay after the first try or two.
"Okay," I groaned, keeping my ass tipped up as he slid his cock up toward my clit, rubbing against it for a moment before sliding back down my cleft and up toward my ass. He pressed in easy, letting me adjust until he pushed all the way in. His arm went around my chest, grabbing both of my breasts, pinching the nipples hard enough to bruise before pulling me back against his chest as he started thrusting, quick but gentle at first, until I started slamming my hips down with each thrust. His hand ran down my belly and found my clit, working it in a side to side motion, making the orgasm start to build again. His other hand went south, sliding underneath his other hand and gliding two fingers inside my pussy. Inside me, his fingers curled up and hit my G-spot.
That was new. He'd been in my ass before and he'd stroked over my clit until I had an orgasm that made me understand why some women preferred anal sex. But he'd never penetrated me in both places at once. I half expected to feel anxiety and maybe it had started to bud, but before it could blossom, I felt myself driven up so hard and fast that I was pretty sure I was going to explode.
"Come," he demanded as he thrust harder, faster, his fingers working my clit and G-spot simultaneously.
And just like that, I did. My pussy clenched hard as a wave I'd never experienced before crashed through my system, making every inch of my body feel electric, making every sense feel dull for a moment as the pleasure shot from my core and pressed outward and I finally understood the concept of a full-body orgasm.
Wolf pulled out, pressed me forward, and roared as he came, hot and wet, on my back.
"Fuck," he said a moment later, his hand squeezing my ass cheek.
Wolf chuckled, reaching around me and pulling one of his tees out of the wash. He rubbed it against my back, cleaning up his cum, before throwing it back in the machine, reaching for the knob, and turning it on.
"See?" I asked, turning and pulling my panties back up, needing to unbutton my jeans to pull them up as well. "Now what are we going to do for the next hour?"
Wolf chuckled, grabbing me and pulling me against his chest as his lips descended.
Well, then. That worked for me.
I'd happily kiss him till the end of time.
Janie
2.5 Years-
"Seriously, Lo, you can't have a third fucking shot," I said, shaking my head at her.
It was her wedding day.
I'd seen Lo in a lot of situations over the years. I'd seen her doing deals with bad guys in back alleys; I'd seen her with a gun in her hand, shooting her way out of a bad situation; I'd seen her going toe-to-toe with one of her men who disagreed with her. I'd seen her in every kind of sticky, tricky, dangerous situation imaginable. Not once, not ever had I seen her the kind of nervous she was sitting in her bridal suite in the hotel above the reception hall where she was going to marry Cash.
Summer and Amelia (Shooter's girl. Long story. Good one too. Manwhore to monogamous man) had fussed over her for hours, drying her hair, straightening it, doing her makeup then having to redo it when she insisted it was too much until they got her looking like her everyday self with a bit of extra eye makeup and sleeker hair. Her dress was understated, of course. No one who had ever met Lo would expect her to wear a full on princess or mermaid dress. Actually, it had taken everything Summer, Amelia, and Alex had it in them to convince her to wear a dress at all.
I had sided with Lo on the matter, but even I had to admit that she looked beautiful in the simple tea-length dress they had all chosen. It had a sweetheart neckline and a simple light pink lace over the bodice before the skirt swept outward. Her feet was where she drew the line. She wouldn't do high heels. She had on light pink ballet flats that matched her lace.
She had a hell of a time with her bridesmaids. Summer and Amelia wanted to wear dresses. Alex was cool with a dress, but insisted it couldn't be too short because with her long legs she would 'look like a streetwalker'. And me, well, there was no way she was getting me into a dress.
So, in the end, Summer and Amelia each had a dress- Summer's was something called "A-line"; Amelia's was something called a "sheath". Neither were terms that meant anything to me except to point out that they were different from each other because, apparently, certain styles fit certain figures better or some shit. Both were in the color of the pink on Lo's dress. Alex and I got to wear rompers in the same color, hers a little more loose-fitting with a flared leg and a tiny white belt in the center. Mine was straight legged and skin tight from bodice to ankle. It was, apparently, my punishment for throwing such a fit about not wearing a dress in the first place.
"Come on, we can all have one. For good luck," Lo said desperately.
"Don't try to drag us into your debauchery," Alex laughed. "And I'm sure our resident drug and alcohol counselor here would agree that alcohol isn't the answer," she added, waving a hand at Amelia who had been mostly silent, still really new to the girls club, but definitely a member. Any woman who could neuter Shooter was a badass bitch in all our estimations.
"I'm Swiss," Amelia said, holding up her hands.
"Just saying, you need to be able to walk a straight line. You know... the aisle," I insisted. "We all do."
"Stop being a bunch of pussies and have a shot with me," Lo declared, getting up and moving toward the sidebar. She was clearly on a mission and there was no stopping Lo when she got an idea in her head.
"I think she might be the only bride in history to say 'pussies' to her bridesmaids on her wedding day," Alex said, smiling.
And with that, we were handed shots, and like the good bridal party we were, we threw them back.
There was a soft knock on the door. "Everybody decent?" Shooter's voice called through the door and we found it opening before anyone could answer. "Damn," he said, shaking his head when he saw us all fully dressed. Then his gaze fell on Amelia and his dark green eyes went soft. "Oh, angel," he said, moving across to her and dropping down by her feet. He took her hand and kissed it dramatically, making Amelia almost wobble on her feet. They'd been together for several months, but apparently there was no way to build immunity to his kind of charm. "Beautiful," he told her quietly. "Anyway," he said as he linked his pinkie finger with hers, "things are about to start. I was sent to rally the troops."
Summer rushed across the room toward the propped up pack-and-play, reaching inside and pulling out the very pudgy, dark haired, gray eyed Ferryn in her pink dress and matching diaper cover and socks. I'd never given much thought to babies, but if you saw her without a little weird feeling in your empty uterus, you weren't human. It was hard to imagine a man like Reign with a baby, let alone a daughter, but from the second he saw her, saw himself and his wife in her, he had been putty. And she was an equally big fan of her father. Summer told me they chose the name Ferryn because it meant 'adventurous' and they figured that if there was anything her life was bound to be filled with, it was adventure.
"I'll take that," Shoot said, kissing Amelia's cheek and moving to take Ferryn out of Summer's arms. "Thank god you have a whole army of men around you, beautiful," he told her, holding her aloft as she smacked her lips at him, "because if you have one ounce of your mama's pretty when you get old enough, the boys will need to be beat off with sticks."
"If Reign has his way, she's never going to date," Summer said, rolling her eyes.
"Smart dad. Ain't a good one of us men out there," he said with a wink as he walked toward the door, Ferryn situated on his hip.
"Anyone ever stop to consider that there literally isn't a bad man in that bunch out there?" Lo asked, looking around us, her eyes looking the tiniest bit glassy from the booze. "I mean... we've all had such shitty experiences with men in our lives and here we are, surrounded by the best of the bunch."
"And every last one of them is a criminal," Summer agreed.
Alex laughed. "So are most of us."
"And we're the best bitches around," I agreed, feeling all gushy inside. "Okay, enough of this sappy shit. Let's get you married," I said, snagging Lo's wrist as I passed and we all fanned out into the hallway.
I watched from the side of the doorway as the women walked out, Summer first, her eyes on Reign. His eyes were on her too, a sweet smile on his face. Alex was out next. Breaker wasn't a groomsman, standing in was Repo instead. But her eyes found his in the crowd and there was no mistaking the heat behind his as he watched her. Amelia was out next. Shooter had handed off Ferryn to Vin, one of the older Henchmen, and took his place beside Repo, his eyes on Amelia and the new love there was enough to make Amelia fumble a step.
"You're up, honey," Lo reminded me.
I turned, giving her a small smile. "I know we don't do the girly shit, but Lo... I'm so happy for you." Her eyes welled up and I moved quickly into the doorway before she could get me blubbering too. I wasn't at the 'greeting-card-crying' stage yet, but I wasn't the dry-eyed stoic I had once been either.
My eyes instinctively sought Wolf, as they always did when I knew he was around. I'd never really been the kind of woman who paid much attention to things like how men dressed, but damn... he cleaned up nice. Shoulders like his were why suits were invented if you asked me. His eyes stayed on my face for a second before drifting downward, taking in my second-skin pink outfit. When his eyes made their way back to my face, they were heated.
I took my place across from Cash who caught my eye and winked. "Hey kid," he said before the Wedding March started and he turned to watch as Lo came into view. If I wasn't so close, I wouldn't have been able to hear his breath hiss ou
t of his mouth.
Lo's smile was infectious as she looked at her fiance. She did manage to walk a straight line and her bouquet fell to the floor because Cash took her hands before she could hand it off to me. It stayed there, between their feet, as they said their vows, not so much as glancing at anyone as they did so.
"You may now..."
The rest of those words were never heard because Cash reached out, grabbing Lo around the waist, and hauling her up around his waist, his mouth on hers before her toes were even off the ground. His hands moved down to her ass, her hands to the sides of his face, as he turned and walked down the aisle with her wrapped around him to the hoots and whistles of the audience.
"Crying?" Wolf asked, coming up by my side, taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipping my face up toward his.
"No, I'm not. Shut up," I objected, blinking away the wet that had pooled in my eyes. "They're really good together," I said when his arms slid around me.
"Yep."
"Know what?"
"No, what?"
"We're pretty good together."
"No," he said, shaking his head at me.
"No?" I asked feeling anger rise up in me, mixed with a crippling fear that made me almost feel sick.
"We're not good. We're fucking great."
I felt my smile spread. I wasn't sure he was aware of it, but more and more frequently, his sentences went beyond the five words his father trained and traumatized him into allotting himself his entire life. He still wasn't some sort of wordsmith, but he wasn't as hesitant to express himself with seven, eight, nine, hell... even ten words at times.
"You guys going to need a storage closet too?" Shooter asked as he passed us, arm shamelessly on Amelia's ass. She was desperately trying to discreetly swat it away and he was pretending to not notice.
Wolf (The Henchmen MC #3) Page 22
