Page 42 of Wraith
“You think they’re trying to sabotage their own deal?” Edge raises a brow. The look on his face is absolutely murderous.
Steel shrugs. “Don’t know. He seemed happy enough to be in the agreement. Gave his own daughters to it. Don’t know why he’d bring us down when he’s now a part of it. He could have gone to war before, if he wanted to. I think this is something else. Someone. Some other club who has a beef with us expanding. That kind of shit never comes without growing pains.”
“The warehouse or the shit with Gage?”
“I don’t know,” Steel admits. “But I’m fucking gonna find out.”
“It’s hard to think at ten in the morning after being up all damn night dealing with shit like this,” Edge forces out. “I’m happy to go home and shower this fucking day off of me.”
“Let your old lady take care of you,” I tack on.
Steel and Edge shoot me murderous glares. This is more like it. More like them wanting to hate me, but for some reason, never being able to. More like me getting under their skin and them being good enough fuckers to take the ribbing day in and day out and use it as some sort of comic fucking relief.
Steel slams to his feet. “Viking is an asshole. I can do with a few hours’ sleep not thinking about him.”
“Shower here,” Edge advises him. “Harley’s even worried about Leah. You should take her to see a doctor. Get her some pills for that shit. She shouldn’t be walking around sick as a dog all the time.”
“You think I haven’t tried that?” Steel looms over Edge, menacingly, but Edge just rolls his eyes like he’s bored with Steel’s tantrums. “She refused to go.”
“I see. So she’s as stubborn as you. That’s why you both make a good match.”
“Remind me again why I don’t kill you?”
I turn around and leave to the bickering of men who sound like they themselves are married old ladies. I like it. It’s good to hear them back to normal after the terrible morning, and shit last few days they and the rest of the club, have had to endure.
Outside, I gun my bike to life and roar out of the compound. Exhausted and dirty, sick inside at the thought of what might happen between our club and Viking’s forces and what that means for Leena, I just want to get home.
I want to pet Abby until she’s slobbering all over my hands. I want to pick her up and bury my nose in her fur and breathe in her doggy scent. And then I’ll do the same for Leena. I’ll bury my nose in her hair and inhale the sweet flowers that cling to those mahogany strands. I want to haul her into the shower with me and fuck her until we’re both raw and moaning, until her skin is as wet from our combined juices as it is from the water.
I just want her.
I need her.
I need her in my arms.
In my bed.
In my heart and by my side.
My lungs feel compressed as I ride home, the fear that longing brings with it clenching up tight inside of me, pinching my insides until they’re a churning mess. I’m not usedto this. To any of it. To feeling and feeling so deeply. For a man who tried to shut that shit down, it’s a deluge that I have no idea how to handle.
It hurts, but the pain is so fucking sweet that I would never turn it off or shut it out again.
I park my bike by the house and stride up the porch steps. I throw open the door and half expect to be bowled over by Leena, she looked so worried when I left. I nearly expected her to be waiting by the door for me. I want her to be. I want her to erase the shitstorm that’s raging inside of me, to wipe that slate clean with her tender caresses and her sweet kisses. She’s not.
Nothing. The house is silent.
A minute passes.
Two.
Then Abby comes running, barking and slobbering and winding herself around me even though she’s dragging her back legs, not in her wheelchair at all.
I pet her, pick her up and let her bathe my face in her doggy scented kisses.
“Leena?” I call, when I set her down.
The house is quiet. Too quiet.
