by Drew Elyse
“You know, I’m sensing a lot of judgment and it’s not very nice,” I replied.
Two days ago, I had worked my last shift at the Eugene library. It was kind of bittersweet to leave that place behind. It had been my first real job out of college. In a lot of ways, it felt like home.
Still, I knew I wouldn’t miss it much.
I had a couple interviews lined up for librarian positions and I was confident one of them would pan out, but that wasn’t what I took comfort in.
No, what mattered was today, I was moving to Hoffman.
Ace had spilled the beans that we were going to be house hunting. Max had been quick to add that she had been a vital part of the early stages of this endeavor and had already lined up a handful of showings. She’d been nagging me for a week about wanting to show me the listings, but I refused. Since there were already appointments set to see them in person, I was going to wait until I was at each to make any judgments.
If Max had done the stellar job she was insisting she had, I wanted to be able to have the experience of walking into my future home and falling in love with the real thing, not a handful of pictures.
Damien had been in the hospital for a few days for monitoring. Upon his release, he was taken into custody. His case was still being assessed, but he was already being charged with a host of things from assault for holding us at gunpoint to perjury. On top of the criminal investigation, he was likely going to be disbarred.
There was a part of me that wanted to feel bad for the Damien I used to know, but the nightmares I was battling from seeing him point a gun at Ace made that feeling dissipate fast.
Richard and his firm were working with a team of lawyers that represented the club to make sure Damien would go down for what he did. A trial would be coming, one Ace and I would have to testify in, but that was a bridge we would cross when we came to it.
Ace stayed with me in Eugene a few days after he was released from custody. It had been much harder for him to leave than it had for me to drive away from Hoffman. Although Damien—the cause of it all—was behind bars, Ace’s protective instincts had flared to an all-time high. It had taken days of convincing to get him to see the club needed him there, to deal with the fallout from Damien’s actions and cover the work at their ever-busy garage.
“Babe, I’m not going,” Ace had argued one afternoon, two days after the incident.
“They need you,” I’d insisted in turn.
“They can fucking do without me. You’re more important.”
I’d sighed at his bull headedness. “It will only be for a few days. I’ll be fine here on my own.”
He’d grabbed me, his eyes like fire—but not out of anger. After we both got some much-needed sleep upon his release, Ace had sunk into a pattern of instigating round after round of life affirming sex. I wanted to be strong and tell him to stop distracting us both, but I was so very weak when it came to him.
As he’d picked me up and carried me back to my bedroom, he’d told me, “If I go back, I can’t have my wife whenever I want her. No way in fuck I’m leaving.”
That had wrapped up the argument for that day. In the end, I wasn’t able to convince him. What did it was the unexpected resignation of one of their mechanics. There had already been a workload they were barely handling with Ace there, so being another man down was too much. He’d raged over the crappy luck, but he had eventually given in and returned to Hoffman.
In light of everything, it had been hard to still work my last week.
I hadn’t told Justine everything that had gone down, but I’d told her enough to explain why I’d had to miss a few days right after returning from vacation and giving my two weeks notice. I owed her at least that much. Based on what she knew, she’d given me the out. She’d told me I could use up the sick days I had left and leave early, no grudges. When I told her I would be there, she’d even insisted it wouldn’t impact her giving me a recommendation.
Ace had, of course, been on Team Move to Hoffman Right Away. With all that from Justine, he’d been beside himself when I told him I wouldn’t take her up on it. I’d stuck to my guns, and he’d very begrudgingly given in—though he felt no remorse about complaining about it for the whole of my last week.
I didn’t mind. I knew it came from a good place. He wanted me close. After two years apart and all the drama that had unfolded when we finally came back together, I couldn’t fault him for that. Actually, his toddler level attitude had felt pretty good when I was able to remember why he was being so obnoxious.
Having the time to prepare Chelsea—who had been given my position, as I’d expected—to take over had been the right thing, though. I was able to spend the last week making sure she felt fully confident in her new role, which made leaving a little easier.
Max had driven back down during my last shift to help me pack and grab some more things of her own. For now, she wasn’t officially moving to Hoffman. No, she was just shacking up with Ham while drawing on her trust fund to pay for an apartment four hours away. She hadn’t said it, but I got the impression she was buying time until they were ready to move in together rather than moving to town, then having to move again.
She was sitting on my couch now, surrounded by the last two half-packed boxes I was going to load into my car to bring with. Once those were ready, we’d both be getting on the road to return to our less-than-pleased-at-being-without-their-women bikers.
Well, the two of us and one little addition would be returning.
The kitten I’d brought home from the shelter that morning was currently climbing all over Max. She was a grey British shorthair and seemed to be the playful type.
I’d wanted a pet for years, but my apartment hadn’t allowed them, and I’d never find another place to rent as nice for the same rate. Now, no landlord meant freedom to get a fur baby.
I’d only gone online to look a little, see what I might want. At least, that was the story I was sticking with when Ace asked. I just happened to see the cutest kitten on the website for a local shelter and knew right away I had to have him.
“You know, I want to give you shit, but it’s not worth it. Ace won’t even be upset. You have him wrapped too tightly around your finger for that,” Max groused.
She was in a mood. She had been since she got back. I was attributing it to the fact that Ham had been giving her fantastic orgasms—which I had been forced to hear about in far too much detail—and now it had been days since she’d gotten one.
“You could be happy for me,” I pointed out.
“I can tell you right now I won’t be happy until I get to give my toast.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about that now unless you want to say it all to just me. We should get this done so we can get on the road. One of them will be calling again before long.”
I wasn’t wrong. By the time we were taping the last two boxes closed and preparing to bring them down to my car, Ham and Ace had each called asking if we were on the road yet, then complained when they found out we weren’t.
Once everything was loaded, including a secure kitten in her carrier in the passenger seat, Max and I were ready to get on the road.
“See you on the other side,” Max called as she got into her car.
I did the same, looking over to the carrier even though I couldn’t see my little buddy inside.
“Come along, Pond. It’s time to go home.”
“No. Not fucking happening,” I told Ember.
We were at the clubhouse. It was Sunday, which meant the garage was technically closed. After a crazy week where we’d all been pulling extra hours, most of the brothers were here relaxing.
I had gone in to get some work done that morning, managing to get my current project—an engine tune-up on a ‘58 Apache—finished, which meant keeping myself busy while I waited for Quinn to get her ass here and freeing myself up to keep her in bed all day tomorrow.
“Come on,” Ember bugged me. “We have to have a welcome home party! We have a part
y for every bullshit nothing event that happens around here.”
“You want to throw her a welcome home party, be my guest, but that is not going to be tonight.”
I wasn’t even sticking around the clubhouse much longer. I was meeting Quinn at home, and she would be there before long. Daz and Stone wouldn’t be there tonight, because my brothers were the shit. As soon as I got her in the door, my wife was going to be all mine.
Ember sighed dramatically and dropped back onto Jager’s chest from her perch on his knee. “Asshole,” she muttered.
She could bitch all she wanted, but I knew damn well if she went more than a couple days without seeing her man, the two of them wouldn’t surface for a while. And when they did, we’d all have to pretend we didn’t notice the marks from the cuffs and shit he used on her.
“A couple days,” I bargained, “then you can do whatever you want.”
“What about the bachelorette party?” the tricky woman asked. That had been her end game to the whole argument.
“Not fucking happening, pet,” Jager growled.
I raised one eyebrow at her to say I seconded his statement.
The sigh she gave that time was real. “Fine. Friday, we have a homecoming party here,” she declared.
“Pleasure doing business with you.”
She stuck her red-tipped middle finger up at me and I chuckled.
“When does she get back?” Ember asked.
I looked at my watch like I didn’t know what time it was. I’d been checking the fucking thing every ten minutes since Quinn finally sent the text saying she was on her way.
“Probably about forty-five minutes,” I told her.
“Antsy?” she teased.
I threw her gesture back at her. The woman was always busting my balls.
She was right, though. I wasn’t going to be able to sit around here much longer. Waiting at the farmhouse wasn’t going to be much better, but at least I wouldn’t have that “what if she gets here early” thought every ten seconds.
“Can I say something before you go?”
I didn’t know where she was going with that, but I nodded.
“I’m glad you got her back. You might not think it, but you deserve her. You always have.”
Damn. The woman knew how to hit the right spot, and not just when she was kicking the ass of some guy twice her size.
She knew I appreciated that, so I didn’t give her those words. Instead, I asked, “So, you aren’t disappointed I’m not gay?”
She laughed. “I mean, I would have felt pretty awesome if I’d been right.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Ham asked, walking in at my question.
“It’s a long story,” Ember explained.
Yeah, the story of how I had some fucking great women in my life.
It was nearly an hour later when Quinn’s car made it up the lane to the house. We were going to have to have a chat about her taking all damn day to get to me, but that would come later. My cock was already stirring in my pants just at her being back.
I stayed on the porch as she parked and got out. Only, she didn’t come right to me. She went around the car to the passenger door. If she thought for a damn minute we were unloading that car right now, she was mistaken.
Jogging over there to tell her just that and get her inside, I pulled up short when she lifted a big, plastic thing off the seat. It was a pet carrier, but Quinn damn sure didn’t have a pet a few days ago.
“Babe, what the hell is that?” I asked when she got to me.
She was smiling so fucking bright. If it were even a little smaller, I might have believed it was just excitement to see me. But this grin was too big by half. She was trying to win me over before she answered.
“Hi,” she greeted. “I missed you.”
I was going to have a lifetime of this. In other words, I was screwed.
I couldn’t have been fucking happier.
Closing the gap between us, I took my wife’s sweet mouth. She set the carrier down and pressed into me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I kept it under control for the moment, but all bets would be off once we were inside.
“I missed you too, little bird,” I told her when I pulled back. “Now, what the fuck is in that thing?”
She clapped her hands together in excitement before kneeling next to the carrier and opening it. A second later, she was standing with a small, grey mass in her hands.
A cat.
My wife just up and got a fucking cat.
“Her name is Amy Pond,” Quinn introduced. Then my cute dork of a wife looked down to her cat, and said, “This is your daddy.”
Christ.
She was so fucking happy standing there with the cat in her arms. I wanted to hand her shit about bringing it home without a word, but I couldn’t.
“So, we have a cat now?”
She read my question for the resignation it really was, and that smile beamed brighter.
“And look!” she exclaimed, shifting the small animal until she could hold it up facing me.
It didn’t take more than a second to see what she wanted me to. The kitten’s eyes were two different colors. One was blue, one brown. Just like my Quinn, only flipped.
Looking from one set of mismatched eyes to the other, I couldn’t help but grin. Reaching out, I took the small cat from her hands and held it in my arms. The little thing wasted no time snuggling in against my chest. Quinn’s hands came up to cover her mouth as an “aw” came out.
“So, we have a cat now,” I stated.
“Yep.”
There were worse things. “How firm are you on the name?”
She bit her lip. “Very.”
“It’s a reference I’m not getting?” I asked, and she nodded. “Alright. Amy Pond the cat then.”
I handed the kitten back to her, then looked to the car. Looked like I was going to have to wait even longer to get her upstairs.
“I’m guessing we need shit out of the car for the cat?”
“A couple things.”
Yeah, that figured.
“Alright, you show me what we need, and we go inside and get her situated. But once she is, you’re mine, little bird.”
Her eyes widened, the pupils dilating. Oh yeah, she was going to give me that.
“Can we…um…” she trailed off, blushing fierce, and I realized what she was too shy to ask.
“You want to break out your toy again?”
“Yes,” she squeaked.
Fuck, I was one lucky son of a bitch.
“Show me what we need, babe. Now.”
She hopped to, pointing out one of the boxes in the backseat conveniently labeled Kitty Stuff. I grabbed it, kicking the car door shut behind me, and we headed up to the house.
Inside, I dropped the box on the floor and gave her arm a tug. She put the kitten on the floor before she threw her arms around me, giving me a soft, sweet kiss I felt sear right through my heart. After two years, a load of fucking heartache, and all the shit we’d endured to get to that moment, I finally got to say the words I never thought I’d have the chance to say again.
“Welcome home, little bird.”
Get ready for another ride with
the Savage Disciples MC.
He’s the last man who thought
he would ever get tied down.
She’s the woman he can’t resist.
Daz will finally meet his match.
Drew Elyse spends her days trying to convince the world that she is, in fact, a Disney Princess, and her nights writing tear-jerking and sexy romance novels.
When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found over-analyzing every line of a book, binge watching a series on Netflix, doing strange vocal warm ups before singing a variety of music styles, or screaming at the TV during a Chicago Blackhawks game.
A graduate of Loyola University Chicago with a BA in English, she still lives outside of Chicago, IL where she was born and raised with her boyfrien
d and her fur babies Lola and Duncan.
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