by A. E. Fisher
“I’m not convinced,” Jax said as Wolf continued to rub the ink off his neck. “Remember that one time when Ripper hit him with that pan when he was out and nada? Didn’t feel a fuckin’ thing.”
I wasn’t sure if he had heard the comments, but after a few more seconds of rubbing, Wolf snapped, “That’s it. I’m off to go find her ass and smack it until it’s black and blue.”
Jax opened his mouth. “But—”
I grabbed him by the collar and started dragging him backward, away from Wolf and toward our bikes before Jax laid himself down for the prez to trample all over in his rampage.
Jax got my drift when he began walking, and I let go of his collar. We heard the clubhouse door slam shut behind us.
“What do you think Prez is gonna do?”
“Fuck all,” I said. “Prez has been wanting her ass ever since he met her, and he has yet to catch her. She’s too fucking smart and outwits him every time.”
Wolf was one of the hardest bikers I knew and had ever known. He was respected, feared, and loyal to a fault. He had dealt with some of the best and worst, and even though he had his past in Russia, he was a strong man.
Except when it came to Anna.
Against her, he was unarmed and unprotected, and she knew how to get under his skin. Us brothers had his back, no doubt about it, but even I had to admit that none us were crazy enough to start a fuck-over game with Anna. She was too unpredictable.
“That you know of,” Jax countered. “Who knows what it was that triggered this bizarre game of theirs? I’d put on a white cloth and call myself Jesus if they haven’t had sex. Besides, I don’t think Anna’s wit is what’s stopping him from having more of her.”
“Then what is?” I asked, letting my curiosity get the better of me.
“Who the fuck knows?” Jax shrugged, dropping the topic.
We walked in silence until we reached our bikes, and as I swung my leg over the seat of my bike, Jax opened his mouth with that sly grin.
“So, Mallory … Is that still a no?”
I chose not to acknowledge him. I turned on my engine and let myself fly out of the parking lot, leaving his sorry ass behind.
Pulling up the driveway, I saw Adair, covered in different colored gels, run out the front door.
After a week, I had stopped locking all the doors since Mallory hadn’t shown any signs of running. In fact, she seemed content to live up in the bedroom while she did her utmost best to avoid me. Our little dance after our close kiss had her fleeing from me, which worked out well, even if it was annoying as hell when that little ass of hers scurried away. Every time I fought the urge to go after her, the stronger it got.
Like I said, doomed.
I turned off my engine as the rug rat pounded into my leg and all but climbed up my body and into my lap. I hadn’t even gotten off the bike yet, and I was trapped.
Pink, green, and yellow goo got stuck straight onto my leathers. That was going to be fun to wash off. What the hell was it, anyway?
“Uncle Hummer.” Adair grinned, almost bouncing off my lap in excitement. I held him by the shoulders to make sure he didn’t fall off as I looked down at him.
Adair had taken an instant ease to me, which I found unfamiliar since I was often told that the permanent scowl on my face made people run in the opposite direction.
“What is it, kid?” I asked, curious as to what had him all hyped up. After child-proofing the house under Mallory’s watch, who had peeked from behind her door as I installed child-lock gates at the top and bottom of the stairs and locks on the bedroom and bathroom doors, Adair had been pouting for the better part of three days.
“We’re baking cookies,” he announced, and I realized that the so-called goo all over me was icing.
“I can see that,” I grumbled, looking him up and down. He was covered in it. “I think you’re supposed to paint the cookies, not yourself.”
Adair giggled.
“Where’s your momma?”
“In the kitchen with her friend.”
“Friend?”
“The pretty lady. She has this white hair that’s all like this and big red lips,” Adair said, trying to flatten his hair and talk through his pouted lips, which was more amusing than I imagined it would be. I couldn’t help the laugh … until I realized the one and only woman it could be.
My eyes widened as I scooped Adair into my arms and half fell off my bike, attempting to race to the door. If Anna was baking, then … Oh, hell no …
“Please be okay. Please be okay,” I chanted as I raced through the open door and stopped dead in my tracks.
My eyes went over everything first, making sure everything was still in one piece—no burn marks or missing half my house—before I turned toward the kitchen. Christ, what a mistake.
Mallory’s round, beautiful ass was swaying high in the air as she bent over the oven in only a pair of tiny shorts. If I tilted my head a little, I could see the edges of those mouth-watering globes and—
A sharp whack smacked the thought right out of my mind.
I swung around to see Anna behind me, wielding a spatula like a weapon. She glared at me with her icy blue eyes, a knowing smirk on her lips, followed half a second later by another bang from below the counter.
“Ow, ow, ouch!” Mallory whimpered, staggering back out of the oven and holding the back of her head. “I hit my head.”
Hard, too, from the sound of it.
She turned to scowl at Anna, but didn’t quite make it when her eyes landed on mine. She continued holding her head as her gaze raked over every inch of me, slow and steady, taking in the leathers and the rainbow splotches all over them, and then Adair in my arms.
She lowered her hands as her eyes went wide over the mess. “Adair!” she scolded. “You got icing all over Hunter.”
Adair’s little green eyes turned down in defeat, a trembling bottom lip pouting out.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” Mallory countered, taking a step toward us before stopping, darting to grab the kitchen counter. I could see a slight sway in her movements.
I set Adair on the floor and was on her in a moment.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled, reaching up to touch her head again and wincing.
“No, you’re not.” I pulled her hand away and turned her head down to assess the damage.
When I ran my fingers lightly over her head, she winced.
“Ouch. Stop. It hurts,” Mallory whined.
“Stand still,” I ordered when I found the part she had hit. A shallow cut scored across the top of her head. It wasn’t bleeding much, but it looked sore and painful. “Were you trying to cut your head in half?”
“No, I was putting the cookies in the oven and jumped,” Mallory argued, trying to maneuver out of my grip.
“Mommy …” Adair whined.
Mallory crouched down to the height of her son and gave him a big smile. “I’m all good, baby, just a little bump on the head.”
Adair pouted, not satisfied with his mother’s reassurance. He gripped the material of that tight grey AC/DC shirt I loved seeing half-soaked and transparent, but even more so as it rode up her back and revealed that small strip of skin and the two little dimples on either side of her spine.
Mallory leaned down and Adair pushed onto his tiptoes and pressed a soft, careful kiss to the top of her head. He missed the cut, but the sentiment was still there.
Mallory gave him a soft, sweet smile that did funny things to my chest as she wrapped her arms around her son and squeezed him tightly. “Thank you, baby.”
“How noble,” Anna said, startling both me and Mallory. It was like sticks had been stuck up both of our asses as I jerked my head to look up at her.
Her eyebrows were knit together with confusion as she looked between the two of us. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said before Mallory could.
Mallory stood up and reached to touch her head again, wincing.
&
nbsp; “There’s a first-aid kit under the bathroom sink. I’ll go get it,” I said, ready to turn tail out of the kitchen, but I was choked by the collar of my shirt as Anna lunged over the breakfast bar and caught me.
“Oh, no, hot stuff.” Her red lips showed her white-toothed grin. “You get to finish the cookies, and I get to stitch up your hot little captive.”
Mallory’s jaw dropped in surprise at Anna’s words. Otherwise, she couldn’t say anything as Adair was scooped from her arms and dumped into mine before Anna whisked her away, leaving me with a kitchen covered in cookie dough and icing.
Great.
Chapter Six
Mallory
“Are you sure leaving them unsupervised in the kitchen is safe?” I asked, watching as Anna poured disinfectant onto a swab.
She had showed up at the door over three hours ago, and much to my present shame, I had first wondered if she was the maid. In those black skinny jeans and corset, though, I corrected myself into thinking she was one of Hunter’s followers. I had been mean and bitchy to her as soon as she had stepped into the house, and she had laughed before correcting me.
Yup, I felt pretty shitty afterward.
Turned out that Anna was cool, if not a little intimidating. She was strong-willed and had eyes that saw a little too much, and if the trash bag full of burnt cookies meant anything, she shouldn’t be left alone when baking. Even so, there was something mysterious about her, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, and I wasn’t one to pry.
Anna laughed as she pressed the swab into my wound, making me wince. It reminded me of Hunter’s hands on my head and the way his body had been far too close to mine. After avoiding him for so long, it was like being exposed to nuclear chemicals. My skin was hot and cold at the same time, my mind barren of thoughts, and his gruff voice made me fight between whimpering and snapping at him. Then there was that lovely aftershave smell that overruled all those, and I chose to stand within his scent bubble where I could satisfy my perverted nose.
At least that was the end of it. I was afraid I would move into fantasy areas, and then that would lead to imagining him naked, which would lead to imaginary sex. Not that I had a problem with imaginary sex, except for the fact that I had a habit of bringing my delusions into my everyday life, and seducing Hunter was in the no-no zone.
I waited for Anna to elaborate her laugh, but she didn’t. She simply fixed me up before putting my hair to rights, which had flour, icing, and all sorts of other stuff in it thanks to Adair’s sticky hands, and then packed away the first-aid box.
“Noble,” Anna said as she rose from under the sink.
I froze, my eyes shooting straight toward her. Did she know?
“… was his father’s son. They both were incapable of flushing a toilet, not to mention able to cook anything. Hunter always looked after him, not his father. He kept Noble from doing stupid shit, despite Noble being the older brother.”
I sighed a breath of relief as I stood from the toilet. Anna didn’t know about Adair, or the fact that Hunter must not have kept much of an eye on Noble once he had grown up, because Noble did stupid things. Aka, me.
“Your cookies are safe,” Anna said. “Well, more than they would be with me.”
“Wait. Hunter can bake?” I couldn’t hide the shock in my voice, going from one extreme of information to another.
Big, broody, don’t-give-a-shit Hunter could bake? I had seen him cook the occasional simple meal for us, which I ate later when I was alone, but baking, too? The image of him in a pink apron with frills and Adair brought a strange mix of amusement and warmth to my chest.
“He makes mean blueberry muffins,” Anna joked, nudging me in the arm as we headed down the stairs.
Before we got two steps down, Anna stopped, turned, and walked straight up to Hunter’s door without hesitation and twisted the knob. It clicked but didn’t budge.
“I knew it.” She gave a sigh of disappointment before joining me on the stairs like nothing had happened.
She must have been as curious as I was. Not that I had tried to open his door or anything. Okay, I was lying. I had known it was locked before Anna had even touched the knob. It was locked before he had even bought me locks for my own door and the bathroom.
The thought soon ended when I reached the bottom of the stairs. I swear I almost swooned.
Adair was standing on one of the kitchen stools with a little apron I had never seen wrapped around his chest with little gingerbread men on it. He had icing all over his face, as well as a look of concentration, so absorbed in drawing on the cookies he didn’t notice our approach.
What made my heart cry was the way Hunter stood over him, his big arms encasing him so he wouldn’t fall off, holding Adair’s arms still as he helped him with the icing. The only disappointment I felt was that Hunter wasn’t wearing a pink, frilly apron as I had hoped. I thought about buying him one, but figured the chances of him wearing it were slim.
Anna stood by my side, a wide grin on her full lips as we both watched.
Only when Adair gave a happy laugh and dropped the icing did Hunter look up and catch us standing there. I should have looked away, or looked embarrassed for being caught, but the smile on my face was too genuine to hide.
My gaze remained locked on Hunter’s as Adair squealed and climbed down from the stool with Hunter’s help, cookie in hand, and ran straight up to me. It took a lot of strength to break that stare as I turned toward my baby.
Adair handed me the cookie like it was the most precious thing in the world. Scrawled in what could be a mix of pink and red, and maybe a little bit of purple, was a big heart saying, “I heart Mom.”
I scooped him up into my arms, not caring how dirty he was, and gave him a big wet kiss on his cheek. “Thank you, baby!” I pressed more kisses on his lips until he laughed and squirmed away from me.
Then he ran back over to Hunter and started jumping up and down on the spot like he needed to go potty, waving his hands in the air like a lunatic. Hunter nodded, picking up another cookie and handing it to him as he raced off back toward Anna.
Anna cooed over him as he passed her a cookie with her name on it and … “Boobies?” Anna read out loud. “Anna’s boobies?”
Hunter choked down a laugh and did his best to hold a straight face, looking everywhere but her.
I looked over and, sure enough, it had another heart with the words “Anna’s boobies” with the two O’s dotted to look like breasts.
I looked at Hunter with my mouth wide open as Anna burst out laughing.
“You let Adair write that?” I snapped.
“Yeah,” Hunter said, meeting my eye. “Kid wanted to write it. He asked, so I helped.”
Oh, no, he didn’t.
I marched my way up to him as his grin tweaked wider. “You can’t let him write things like that.”
Hunter shrugged. “Better to teach him the good things in life now.”
I had a feeling my jaw would ache tomorrow at the amount of astonishment I’d had today.
“No. You don’t,” I growled. “Do not steal my son’s innocence.” I might have stomped my foot like a child, but I chose not to acknowledge it.
“My nephew needed help, so I helped him.” He took a step into my space.
I was all too aware of the fact that Anna had disappeared somewhere with Adair, and we were left all alone in the confines of the kitchen area.
“Get used to it, babe. I’ll be helping him whenever he needs it from now on.”
Until I got the hell out of town, I thought. Regardless, the comment did warm my heart.
I might have been laying low now, but that was what I had to do to get Hunter to let his guard down. When I had the chance and the means to escape him and this town, I would be gone in a blink of an eye. Not that I would tell him any of that. I would leave him a note, though. I was a decent person, despite what he thought.
When he took another step closer, he stole my oxygen all over again, and any
thoughts I had about escaping dissolved with his scent. It was my one weakness. I could resist everything else.
“So, if he wants to write boobs, I’ll help him write boobs,” he added, his voice dropping low and husky, and the way he said boobs had my nipples tingling.
Okay, maybe I couldn’t resist his voice. But his body, his thick neck and flat chest with abs I could count as I licked them, and a V I could nip my way down …
“Babe.” He dragged my eyes back up to his face.
Shit. Maybe not his body, either.
Those green eyes swam with what I refused to acknowledge as a hunger that I would not admit. It made me dampen my lips. They washed over my skin, resting somewhere below my chin, where his eyes became fixed. Heat burst across my chest.
Fuck, I couldn’t resist any part of him.
That moment in the backyard came back to me.
“Hunter,” I whispered.
He moved, dipping his head, and the hot, wet heat of his tongue ran over the top of my breast. I gasped as he dragged it into the valley of my breasts before leaning back, icing disappearing into his mouth.
Everything went on auto-drive as an inferno of lust revived inside of me. I needed a change of panties before he could even lick his lips, and possibly a new shirt if my nipples drilled any more holes into the cotton.
“Never tasted anything sweeter,” he said, his face only inches from mine.
“That’s because it’s icing.” My wittiness failed me.
Hunter’s grin twitched. He grabbed me by the ass, lifting me off the ground and slamming me hard against the cold wall, before crashing his lips down on mine.
It was hot and animalistic, and tasted sugary sweet as he wasted no time thrusting his tongue into my mouth, coaxing my tongue to play with his.
I groaned against him, writhing my body with delicious friction against his chest. I wrapped my legs around his waist and did it again, feeling the hard material of his jeans brush against the crotch of my own denim. I almost orgasmed right there.