God, I loved it when she used my full name.
“Call me that again,” I rasped.
She frowned. “What, your name?”
I nodded. That small smile tilted her sweet lips again. “I love you, Samuel.”
I leaned forward and covered her lips with mine in a soul-searing kiss. I made sure it branded her. “You’re my entire goddamn world, baby girl.”
She linked her fingers with mine. I brushed my thumb over the back of her hand. “Promise you’ll let me go this time before you decide to fuck around?”
I growled softly. “Baby girl, I’m never fucking around again. You’re it for me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, in you, on you—”
She giggled and smacked my chest. I captured it with my free hand, holding that one as well. I brushed my nose with hers again. “No more games, baby girl. This is it. It’s only forward from here, and I’ll fight for you and to keep you until my last dying breath, you hear me?”
She nodded. “Loud and clear,” she whispered.
7
Sam
Ishrugged my cut onto my shoulders as I slipped from Reina’s room. She didn’t sleep during the night, only during the day. So, to say that I was a cranky son of a bitch was a mass fucking understatement. Top that off with the shit my woman had gone through? It was a recipe for a disaster of the nuclear kind.
“She goes on lockdown,” I snapped at River. “She doesn’t go outside of these gates.”
River looked behind me at Reina, waiting for her to say something. I turned to look at her as well. She was wearing one of my t-shirts with a pair of shorts that weren’t nearly as short as she usually wore. I used to hate the way she dressed because of the way everyone always stared after her.
Now, I fucking missed it because it meant she wasn’t fucking coping.
Reina just nodded at River, giving her consent. I’d expected her to fight it. Or maybe I’d hoped she would, because then that would mean they hadn’t fucked her up as badly as I thought they did. But she just basically laid down and took what I was ordering without a single word of complaint.
It made me want to break something. Iwanteda fight with her. And not because Iwantedto fight, but because Ineededher to be okay again. Didn’t make much sense, but I didn’t give a good goddamn about it.
Just to be on the even safer side, I ordered that two men be with her at all times when I couldn’t be with her. “I’ve got her, brother,” Tank assured me, speaking up from his position at the bar. He had a hot mug of coffee in his hand, and he cast Reina a small smile. I gritted my teeth at the sight of it, but she relaxed at the sight of him.
“He was with us,” River whispered to me. “Saw her back when it all first happened. Sheneedsthose of us that saw that shit to treat her normally. Don’t let your assholeness fuck that up for her.”
I just nodded, my jaw clenched. Right now, I’d suffer through basically any fucking thing if it meant helping her.
“I’ll make sure someone I trust is with her as well,” Tank told me. “She’s safe, brother.”
I appreciated that more than he would ever know or understand.
This club and I had failed her more times than I wanted to admit. But I wouldn’t let this shit happen again. If we could keep Adelaide, Axel, Jaxon, and their little girl, Emma, safe, then Iknewwe could keep Reina safe. I just had to get every fucker that wore a cut on the same page. She was no longer a club bunny. She wasmine—my old lady. And everyone was going to start treating her as such.
I just needed everyone to put her on the same fucking pedestal they put Adelaide on. And by claiming her as my old lady, I knew they finally would.
I grabbed Reina’s face in my hands before she slipped into the kitchen. Her beautiful eyes locked on mine, momentarily stealing the breath from my lungs. “I love you,” I whispered. Her cheeks warmed beneath my palms. “If you need me, come get me. I don’t give a fuck that I’m in the chapel.Youare my priority, you hear me?”
She nodded. I kissed her before striding off towards the chapel, my boots thumping across the floor. I looked at Tank and Vern, who Tank had roped into guarding Reina with him. “Someone will fill you two in,” I told them.
They both nodded. I took my seat at the table, nodding once at River to let him know we could begin church. He cleared his throat, focusing his attention on the men at the table.
“Our number one priority is finding who the fuck did this to Reina specifically and why the fuck they want my son. All we know is that this person fucking called Axel his nephew. Family records don’t show anyone in his biological mother’s family to be a sibling.”
Fuck.
“All we know is it’s the Angels of Hell MC. But they’ve scattered. Get one, you miss the rest.”