“I know the drill, Cam.”
She tried to pull away, so I tightened my arms. “You mad?”
“No. Frustrated.”
“Well, we’ll pick up where we left off when I get back.”
Trix rolled her eyes and pulled away. “I’m not sexually frustrated,” she called over her shoulder as she walked toward the kitchen.
“Better not be after the way you came not twenty minutes ago!”
“Oh, shut it,” she grumbled, making me smile.
I went back to the spare room to grab my shit and get dressed, and by the time I made it back to her, she was standing with her hands full by the front door.
“What’s all this?” I asked in surprise.
“Ham sandwich, chips, thermos of iced tea,” she replied, pushing a small pink cooler into my hands.
“Uh—”
“You didn’t have lunch.”
“Sweetbea—”
“I know you don’t wanna bring that pail into the clubhouse, but I didn’t want your sandwich heating up in your saddlebags since I put mayo on it. So, I don’t know, just pull it all out before you go in or somethi—”
I cut off her words with my mouth.
Jesus.
I had to bail on her right after we’d had sex for the first time and she was sending me off with lunch? Who was this woman?
“You’re the perfect old lady,” I mumbled against her lips, making her jerk back.
“That’s just what every woman wants to hear,” she scoffed, scowling.
“Hell, yeah, it is,” I said, pulling her back to me.
“You’ve obviously been with the wrong women,” she commented before sucking on my bottom lip.
“With the right one, now.”
I slid my tongue into her mouth and my hand into her hair as she groaned. God, she made me hard. I was seriously contemplating saying fuck it and carrying her back to bed when she finally pushed away and took a couple steps back.
“Go. The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll be done.”
I nodded, trying to clear the Trix fog from my head. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’ll call you if I do.”
As I opened my mouth to reply, she raised her eyebrows, so I snapped it shut again. I didn’t want to fight with her—especially when I was leaving. With my luck and Trix’s temper, she’d probably take off just to prove a point if I pushed her.
“Be back soon,” I said with a nod.
I strode out the door and closed it, then moved away as I heard her engage the deadbolt. I only got a few feet from the door before I had to turn around, though.
Pulling my keys from my pocket, I unlocked the door again, then peeked inside to yell, “See you soon” so she didn’t think I was nuts, right before shutting it. Then I locked the door myself, making sure the deadbolt held when I tried to open it.
* * *
“Things have gone quiet,” Slider said loudly over the noise of the room, making men shut their mouths mid-sentence. “I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on. The two informants that gave me information got nothin.’ No news from Salem, no news about Eugene, no fuckin’ news, period.”
“What the fuck?” Samson, an older guy with hair down to his ass in a long, thin braid called out. He’d been a member for fuckin’ ever, and I’d known him since I was a kid.
“We got no fuckin’ clue what’s goin’ on.”
“Maybe they changed their minds,” Mack said seriously, making me chuckle. God, that guy was green.
“Doubtful,” Dragon mumbled next to me with a shake of his head.
“Keep yer eyes open,” Poet called out harshly from behind the bar. I didn’t know what the fuck he was doing back there—it’s not like the man would be serving drinks. We had prospects for that shit. God, I was glad I never had to go back to that.
I was a second generation Ace. My biological father was an Ace before he went fucking psycho and kidnapped Farrah, and Casper was, too. So, from the beginning, I’d had an in.
That didn’t save me from the bullshit, though. Our president, Slider, and his VP, Poet, were under the impression that getting the shit beat out of you and taking on the most menial jobs in the club built character. I didn’t know about that. What I did know was that by the time I’d been patched in, I’d had dirt on almost every single one of the men in the club, from where they stashed their personal drugs to where they dipped their dicks. When you’re cleaning up after a person, you figure out things about them that they never wanted other people to know. Like Carl, who stuffed his blow up his ass when he went on a run.
Fucking nasty.
The probation period worked, though, especially for guys like me. I’d known most of the men in the club since I was a kid, and I’d seen them as uncles. But once I was a member, they weren’t uncles. They were brothers. They were my equals and my greatest allies. Instead of living under the protection of the club, I’d become a part of the protection. And as I’d found my place among them, their view of me had changed, too—from the kid they’d watched play in the mud to a man they knew would have their backs.