“And now?”
“Bash and I might be at the beginning of something. We’re close. He helped me build my car, and was there for me during a difficult time of my life. I was a kid then, but I’m grown now, and…” I shook my head. “I don’t know where it’s going, but if we end up together then he’ll never be okay with my belonging to another wolf, too.”
“No, I don’t imagine he will.”
“So, I’m not going to ask if I can run with the Pack to see how it feels, because right now I don’t know that I could join, even if your Pack is as wonderful and magical as the one I ran with up north.”
“But if things don’t work out with Bash, you’ll let me know.”
“Yes, Sir. No promises, but I’m not happy being a lone wolf, anymore. I’ll never be part of the RTMC, because I’m a girl, and I don’t want to have to wait for the third night every month.”
He’d put the steaks on the grill by this point, and he sat in a chair in front of me, his eyes analyzing me. I was certain he was taking in my scent, too.
Finally, he said, “I’ve given leave for seventeen female lone wolves to live in Hamilton County. If we add in the surrounding counties, the total is probably close to thirty. I won’t give you permission to start your own Pack, but I wouldn’t have a problem with all or some of you making plans to run together on the full moon if you can find a safe place.”
“I wouldn’t know how to begin finding them, or how to organize us.”
“I’ll only consider allowing you to do this because you know the problems between Pack and Club in Atlanta, and I believe you’ll go out of your way to keep the peace here. Also, you know the rules for a group of wolves who aren’t metaphysically connected. You’re strong, smart, and have all the makings of a leader. If you’re interested, I’ll have someone contact them all and give them your phone number, explaining you’re putting together a woman-only lone-wolf moon run. Whether they’ll contact you or not? I can’t say.”
“That’s most generous of you, Sir.”
“Not as much as you’d think. It benefits all of us to make sure the lone wolves stay in control of the beast part of their nature.” He stood and went back to the grill. “You’ll help them with that, and will let me know if you see someone on the edge.”
He brought plates, forks, and steak knives out, as well as some potato chips, and I set the outside table while he went back to the grill, saying, “There’s a pitcher of lemonade in the outside refrigerator, and glasses behind the bar.”
The steaks were divine, and I complimented him on his grilling technique.
Instead of thanking me, he said, “Duke tells me you and Brain are quite close.”
“He helped me with my homework during high school. I’ve been able to spend some time with Harmony, and I can’t believe how perfect she is for him. It’s like they were made for each other.”
“And what do you think of my sister-in-law?”
“Gen’s great. She welcomed me into the MC family from the very first. I’m not an ol’lady, and I don’t really fit into the club’s structure, but she made it clear I’d get the same respect from the women here as I had in my dad’s club.”
“Tomorrow night’s the full moon. What are your plans?”
“I’m going to Atlanta, running with the MC down there the third night.”
“You know, there’s no pressure to decide anything right away. Bash, Pack, career, your dad… nothing has to be set in stone. I understand why the Club can’t have an ol’lady who’s Pack — I can see into my people’s head and override their will. I don’t do it often, but the option’s there.” He met my gaze, daring me to hold it, and I dropped my eyes out of respect.
“You’ve experienced Pack energy from someone much weaker than me.” His voice was kind and yet powerful, and I met his gaze again. His smile let me know I was welcome to look into his eyes, and he continued. “My pack is stronger, tighter, happier, and I daresay will feel even more magical. I’d love to have you with us, but I understand your conflict. Should you want to give us a test run, let me know and you’ll be welcome.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Please, call me Randall.”
“Thank you, Randall.”
When we finished eating he declined my offer of helping with the dishes, and walked me to my car. “I appreciate the courtesy visit, as well as the beef. It’ll all work out, Angelica. I admit I hope you choose the Pack, but go with what makes you happy.”
He hugged me, the hug of an Alpha, and I relaxed and accepted the energy he gave me. I didn’t have to — as a loner, I could’ve refused it and had it surround me instead of absorbing it, but I had no reason to be rude, so I accepted it. He was right — it was more magical than the energy I’d experienced before.
And Bash was going to be pissed when he found out I’d come, but we’d figure it out.
Chapter Nine
Bash
Slick said Bambi had done fine on the glory hole, and he wanted to try her on an established customer who liked them sweet and submissive.
“Just keep an ear out for her if you do,” I told him. “I’m headed downtown — Poppy’s scheduled to submit, and the guy wants intense impact play. He’s paying two thousand for the evening, and Poppy knows our cut’s going to be substantial if I have to observe the whole damned thing.”
“Ghost can’t observe?”
“He asked for the night off a while back.”
“You got too much going on personally to spend the evening watching some bloke beat on Poppy. Where’s Bobcat?”
“You think he’s okay for this?”
Bobcat is an actual bobcat. He’s officially a friend of the MC, and a paid employee. He can’t be in the MC because he isn’t a wolf, but he’s part of us and we trust him. I’d always gotten the feeling he’s vanilla, though, which meant he wouldn’t know when to call foul, and might stop things when Poppy was fine.
“Yeah, he knows the score. Everything okay with you and Angelica? You left her alone with Dawg last night, and now you’re about to do it again. We only needed you a few hours last night. What gives?”
“She had to get up early this morning. No need in me waking her up partway through the night to relieve Dawg.”
He motioned one of the other guys to take his place behind the counter and walked me to my office. He closed the door and sat heavily on my sofa.
“Talk.”
Shit. We had Slick here because the girls think he’s a good listener, and he knows how to be all sensitive and shit with them. I didn’t need a good listener, but I also knew he wouldn’t drop it until I talked.
I got two beers from the fridge beside my desk, tossed one to him, and sat in my desk chair. “It’s a long story, but I got to see the video of her breaking up with Pickering. She talked about the things he’d shown her, and how intimate and close to him she’d felt. She told him he gave her beauty in bed. I don’t think I can give that to her.”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head as he said, “Stupid fuck. She was breaking up with him to be with you. Whatever you give her, it’s what she wants.”
She’d tried to call and I hadn’t answered. Her text asked me to call her before I came over. Something was up and I was a coward for avoiding her. Damned if Slick wasn’t right, though — she’d broken up with him, and wanted me, and I was an idiot for sulking because I was reminded the two of them had shared something. He’d had her one night, and I intended to have her the rest of her life. She’d fucking given herself to me — let me claim her as mine even knowing full well what that meant in our world.
I nodded to Slick, called Bobcat, and then called Angelica. Slick closed my office door behind him on the way out.
“Oh, good. I was starting to get worried.” She sounded genuinely happy to hear from me, and the fist around my heart relaxed a little.
“I can’t always get right back to you, Princess. Should be able to get away from here soon, want to meet me somewhere to eat? O
r, I can come get you, if you’d rather.”
“I could eat again, but I really want to go for a run.” She took a breath, as if fortifying herself. “I gave Randall a courtesy visit, and took him some beef as a gesture. He cooked up a few steaks while we talked.”
My wolf came to the surface and growled, and I didn’t try to push him down. My vocal cords were rough as I said, “Tell me you didn’t join the Pack.”
“What? No! I just wanted to give Randall a courtesy visit, and I needed to do it alone.”
I stayed quiet as emotions I hadn’t felt in a decade swirled through me. When I’d been forced to leave my family I’d shut everything down. If I didn’t let anyone in, I couldn’t hurt like that again. Then Angelica had wormed herself in, little by little, day by day, as we built her car. And then I’d been patched into the club and I’d lost seein’ her every day.
“You still there?” she asked, and I realized neither of us had spoken for a while.
“Yeah.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“I hugged him goodbye, so you’ll smell him on me. I told him about you, about the possibility of us, and explained that I’d originally been considering joining the Pack, but I couldn’t consider it now. He was really nice about it, said he understood, and told me to choose whatever makes me happy.”
Right, because she’d been considering joining the Pack, but giving her oath to Randall and the Pack meant she and I could never be a thing. Fuck. “He’s right,” I told her, the fist squeezing around my heart again, “and I’m bein’ selfish, asking you to stay by my side when it means you have to stay a lone wolf. I have the MC, and they’ll be your family, but the club can never replace the Pack for you, the way it does for me. They’ll never let you run the second night.”
“Can you come over? Randall had a possible solution, but I don’t care how secure Brain says this app is — I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”
“I’ll see you in fifteen or twenty minutes. I’ll run with you around town, and we can stop and eat while we’re out.”
* * * *
While we ran, she talked to me about putting together a group of women who could run together on the full moon. Not a pack, and not the tightknit group of the MC, but if they could find a place to run together, she’d have somewhere she belonged the night of the full moon.
There was so much I wanted to point out — potential pitfalls, as well as the fact I wanted her all to myself — but I only said, “I get that this’ll be your thing, but will you keep talkin’ to me about it?”
“Of course. You good with pizza?”
I followed her into the restaurant, we ordered two large pizzas, and when the waitress was gone, Angelica demanded, “Okay, spill. Something’s wrong.”
“It’s my shit, Princess. You’re fine.” I took a sip of my beer and looked around the room without making eye contact with her. Still, I could see her in my peripheral vision, waiting for me to spit the rest of it out.
Finally, she stood and moved to sit on my side of the booth, and leaned into me until I put my arm around her. She molded her body against mine, relaxed and at ease — her tranquil scent comforting, the rhythm of her heartbeat a balm to my soul — and something loosened inside me a little more.
She didn’t make demands, didn’t insist I talk, just sat with me, and I finally told her, “A few things you told Pickering got to me, and it’s my problem, not yours. I’m just not sure I can ever give you beauty. And then, you talking about Randall reminded me there’s more magic I’m keeping out of your life. I guess I’m just wondering if I’m really all that good for you.”
“Shit, Bash. I don’t know if anyone’s ever said anything so sweet to me before. I mean, if that isn’t putting me first? Making sure I’ll be happy? You big lug — I haven’t been as happy being around someone since… well, since you helped me build my car. I mean, I got pissed as hell at you for running all the guys away, but when it was just you and me in a shop bay, working together? We fit. And now? When I’m lonely, it’s you I think of. When I want someone to hold me, it’s your arms I crave. I know who you are and I know what you’re capable of, and I want you in my life. Doesn’t get any simpler than that, does it?”
At a loss for words, emotions too strong to risk trying to talk anyway, all I could do was pull her to me and hold her. I didn’t deserve her but I no longer cared. She was mine, and I’d do whatever it took to keep her.
Which, with Angelica, meant not holding on too tight. She’d grown while she’d been away, become her own woman. The caveman thing would only go so far with her, and yet, I needed to make sure she understood what being mine meant.
“I’m not happy about you going to Randall without me, but I’m not pissed. I’m bordering on upset that you didn’t let me know you were going ahead of time, though.”
“I didn’t tell you because you’d have tried to stop me.”
“I know, and my point is, that doesn’t work for me. If you know I won’t want you to do something — don’t just do it and then tell me later.”
The waitress brought our pizza and Angelica pushed me away. “Time for me to go back to the other side of the table. I’m starving.”
I didn’t let her go. “Not until you agree to talk to me about stuff ahead of time.”
She sighed. “No promises. I mean, I’ll consider it, but for something important that you’re going to fight me on, I might do it again.”
I let her go, and watched her move away from me and load her plate with pizza as I considered how best to respond. I ate two pieces of pizza before finally telling her, “I appreciate your honesty. I like knowing you won’t tell me what I want to hear, just because it’s easier. I’d like to think I can get that kind of honesty about what you’re planning to do.”
She changed the subject and I let her. If it happened again, we’d fight it out, then.
Chapter Ten
Angelica
“Angel! You made good time, which I should probably bitch at you about, but I’m too happy to have you home.”
There’s nothing like having your dad’s arms around you, and I hugged him back with a smile. “I miss you, too, Daddy. Glad I’m just a couple of hours away from you now.”
“Any problems with the bike? We can run by the shop and adjust the timing or something.”
I just looked at him, and he grinned. “Yeah, yeah. If the timing was off you’d have fixed before taking it on a road trip. Come on inside. Grab us some beer from the fridge and I’ll get the snacks. I want you to tell me all about what’s going on with you.”
Three hours later, I was still talking, he was still listening, and I realized my mom wasn’t the only one who could give me good advice. He told me how my mom had handled him when he went all caveman and tried to boss her around, and explained how the ol’ladies often worked together to get their way when their men were being idiots. It wasn’t the same as having my mom around, but I was so thankful for my dad, and I made sure I let him know how much I loved him, and how much I appreciated all he’d done for me.
I rode to the property that night on the back of his motorcycle. I’d planned to drive mine, but he asked me to ride with him and I’d been more than happy to climb on behind him.
Running with the MC was like coming home. The rhythm of our feet as we loped through the forest, the way we worked together to bring down a deer. The safety and camaraderie of the group, the familiarity of running with people I’d known most of my life… and all of it under the light of a silvery moon on a nearly cloudless Georgia night.
And my dad. The one constant left in my life.
Bash and I might not work out. I might decide to take a different job in another city and no longer be around the men in the Chattanooga MC… but my dad would always be in my life, no matter where I lived or who I decided to share my life with.
I considered where I wanted to eat as I put my clothes on the next morning. My dad was standing by his bike when I emerged from the forest, and
I told him, “I’m starving. How about the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet place?”
When we had our food and had eaten enough to slow down and talk, I finally asked the question I hadn’t had the nerve to ask the day before.
“I think things are going to get serious with Bash, Daddy. Like, long-term serious. I really want your approval.”
“No one’s ever going to be good enough for you in my eyes, Angel, but you could do a lot worse than Bash. Part of me wanted you to find a civilian, someone who’d give you a normal life, but I have to admit I’m happy to see you stayin’ in the MC family.” Neither of us said anything for a few minutes, and my dad added, “He hurts you, I’ll take him apart, though.”
I knew he would, and I knew there was nothing I could do to change anything. People say girls find guys like their dad to get serious with, and Bash and my dad are an awful lot alike. I smiled and said, “Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you, too, Angel.”
* * * *
I drove back to Chattanooga late Sunday afternoon. Bash had asked me to come by the compound, so I went there before going home.
The guys were watching a game, sprawled all over the place, some with girls in their laps, others with a beer in their hands. Some with a beer in their hands and a girl lying across them.
Everyone had their clothes on, though. Just a chilled out, relaxed, family evening.
“Hey, Girly,” Dawg said, scooting to make room for me on the sofa. “Bash had to run take care of something. Shouldn’t be gone long. Sit and watch the game with us till he gets back.”
I leaned against him when I sat, and his arm curled around me. It’d been a long night, and I’d only slept a few hours in wolf form. I’d been up all day and I’d just ridden a hundred and forty miles on my bike. I felt myself drowsing off, and snuggled into Dawg a little more as I allowed sleep to take me.
Bash, Volume II Page 7