Chapter 15

If you love someone, just tell them. Or text them eighteen times. It’s the same thing.

-Verity’s secret thoughts

Verity

I’d been living with my husband—and yes, I still couldn’t believe that I was calling him that, let alone that he actually was—now for a week.

I’d realized a few things.

One, he was messy.

Two, he was bossy.

Three, he was noisy.

Four, he was whiney.

Okay, maybe not that fourth one so much until just this minute.

“I’m going to work.” He frowned hard at me.

I idly wondered if that frown of his worked on other people, or if it was only me who was immune to his anger. Maybe it was because I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. Or maybe it was because I could see the excitement in his eyes when I fought with him.

I could also see the hard column of his cock that was straining the front of his black tactical pants that he wore while he was teaching.

“I don’t think you…”

“I’m. Going. To work,” I repeated, much slower this time.

He sighed. “Fine.”

My lips pursed.

“Why’d you give in so easily?” I demanded.

“Because I knew you were going to go in. I got yesterday out of you, but that was just by the skin of my teeth,” he answered instantly. “Now, I need to tell you about the cameras and the security system. Give you emergency numbers, and a code to use if you feel you’re in trouble and can’t speak.”

I bit my lip to keep from denying him, knowing he needed this to know I was safe.

That didn’t make me feel better about being treated like a prisoner by my own husband, though.

Even if I had brought it upon myself.

I listened as he droned on and on, even taking my phone at one point to program in not just every member’s number in the Dixie Wardens Alabama Chapter, but also the Benton, Louisiana chapter. A man named Silas, his son named Sebastian. A man named Kettle. Trance. Loki. Cleo. Torren and Sterling.

There were also a few men from some place in Texas, but he told me not to use them unless I’d exhausted all of the Dixie Warden resources.

“Okay,” he said, handing me back my phone. “I’ll go get a shower. Is there anything else you need?”

I bit my lip to keep from calling him crazy, and instead settled on shaking my head.

I even managed to keep my temper under control…all the way up until he insulted one of my favorite songs by Macklemore.

“This is the stupidest song I’ve ever heard,” he grumbled.

“Then close your ears,” I snapped.

He sighed, long and loud.

“I’m only doing this for your own good,” he said to me.

“Why are we in my car, anyway?” I snapped, glaring out the window.

I knew why.

If I was insistent on going to work, he was going to be sure that I was virtually stuck there unless I called someone to come get me. And he knew I wouldn’t bother him while I was at work, and he also knew that I wouldn’t be leaving because I’d already been out the week prior.

So, by taking my car, he would then take it to work after dropping me off at the pub.

Effectively stranding me there until he was ready to come back and get me.

“Remember what I said about the cameras. There is one in every room, even the bathroom,” he started to repeat for the fourth time that morning. “If you go in there, make sure you text me or the number I gave you so they can switch it off.”

“I’m not texting you,” I started to say, but he interrupted me before I could finish. “And I’ll be sure to tell the prospects to pay attention. If they see you go in there, they’ll know to turn it off before they see anything I don’t want them to see.”

I harrumphed.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered.

And it was.

But the kiss he gave me as he dropped me off in the dining room of the pub was enough to leave me weak and breathless. At least until he called halfway through the day and told me he wouldn’t be back until well after closing time because something ‘had come up.’

Which left me there for six hours longer than I wanted to be.

By the time he arrived an hour after closing, a long thirteen hours later, I was tired, hungry, and not in the mood to go to a club party.

Did he ask me what I wanted, though?

Hell no. He just took me straight to the clubhouse, which was so far off any main roads that I knew I would never find my way out if I happened to wrangle the keys from my man, and pulled into the longest fucking driveway in the history of mankind.

Then he wedged my car into a parking spot so small that I knew I’d have to exit out his side of the vehicle or I might hit the bike he’d parked next to, and he knew it.

Chicken shit.

I stayed there, waiting for him to get out, and finally sighed and gave him my attention.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what?” I snarled.

“For finally looking at me.”

I rolled my eyes. “What did you want, your highness?”

His mouth twitched, and then his arm was around my waist and he hauled me roughly across the console before slamming his mouth down onto mine.

I gasped, unable to help the reaction my body had to his, and threaded my fingers around his neck.

He pulled back, and then opened his stupid mouth.

“Should’ve kissed you half an hour ago, and might’ve gotten you into a better mood.”

I smacked him on the forehead, causing him to laugh.

He got out, and pulled me with him, and waved at another bike that pulled up behind my car.

“What’s wrong with her?”

Aaron.

I turned to him and wrinkled my nose.

 

“I’m hungry, and tired, and my husband is an asshole,” I turned back to my man. “You could’ve at least warned me that this was what we were doing.”

“I would’ve, but you refused to answer my calls.”

“I refused to answer your calls,” I poked him in the chest. “Because you wouldn’t stop calling to check on me in between every single break you took, which, might I add, was a whole lot more than normal.”

He shrugged.

“I don’t like you being there by yourself…especially not after…my grandfather.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Don’t try to play the pity card with me,” I poked him again. “Shithead.”

He laughed then, making me want to smack him.

“Your hair is sticking up,” he continued to dig his grave deeper.

I gave up and turned on my heel, walking straight to the back porch where I could see the now retreating back of Aaron.

I could hear Truth’s footsteps behind me, and I hurried faster, but he easily kept pace with my shorter stride.

I could feel him at my back as we climbed the steps to the porch, which was suspended about twenty feet or so off the ground and were attached to the back of the large house.

I waved at those that I knew, and came to a halt at the table of food that was laid out before me.

I went for a cup of ice and the tea, resigning myself to disappointment.

“Grab yourself a plate,” Truth ordered from my side.

He was already filling up his own plate, piling it so high with crab, shrimp, and corn that I worried for the integrity of the plate.

“It’s seafood. It’s good. I promise.”

I knew it was seafood. I also knew that if I ate it, I’d be in the toilet having the fires of holy hell leaking out of my ass because it gave me diarrhea almost the moment the food hit my mouth.

So no, despite knowing they were good, I wouldn’t be eating them.

“No thanks,” I shook my head in the negative.

It was just my luck that the entire get together was based around a crab boil—something that also made my colon want to eject from my body.

I also couldn’t eat the potatoes or corn since they’d been boiled with the crab and shrimp.

“Come on, try it, you’ll like it.” He waved the shrimp in front of my nose.

I bared my teeth.

“If I eat it,” I said lowly so only he could hear. “I’ll spend the entire night on the potty trying not to shit my guts out…okay?”

He clamped his mouth shut, finally realizing that everything here was along the same lines as the shrimp.

“I’ll go get you something…”

I left him before he could finish, heading straight to the table where the ladies were sitting and dropping in next to Aaron’s wife, Imogen.

“Men are stupid,” I told her.

She snorted before taking a drink from her red Solo cup.

“I think you should meet my husband,” Tally said. “He’s an ass on a good day. On a bad day, well let’s just say he’s…”

“Let’s just say what?”

That was Tommy, her husband, and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at the look on Tally’s face.

“He’s an even bigger ass,” Tally finished. “Why are you skulking?”

Tommy’s mouth kicked up, and I saw his hand lower behind Tally’s back, and she shivered.

“What do you think he just did?” Imogen whispered.

“My guess is that he just put his hands down her pants,” I whispered right back.

Tally’s eyes, which had been unfocused and distant, finally returned to me.

“But there’s this thing about the man you love,” she whispered, not caring that the man she loved was standing at her back, listening to every word. “They can drive you insane, but at the end of the night, when you’re in their arms, everything that was wrong with that day ceases to exist.”

I found my first smile since I’d arrived.

The happiness that I could see on her face was reflected on his, and I felt a pang of sadness hit me.

Would I ever have that with Truth? Or had I forced myself on him, and we’d never have that?

I didn’t know, but I hoped like hell that one day we would—if only we could get over the Elais Beckett hurdle, I felt like we would have a fighting chance.

Hiding my irritation as well as I could, I settled on nibbling on the cookies that were lining the table as far as the eye could see.

“You’re freakin’ awesome, you know that?”

I took another bite of cookie and smiled at Imogen.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Because you’ve just eaten your seventh cookie, and haven’t slowed down long enough to care about the fact that the men are watching you like you you’re going to go postal any moment.”

I sighed.

Looking down at the cookies with disgust, I shoved the next two into my mouth and made a promise to myself that I’d lose the weight I’d put on since moving into the same house as Truth.

It wasn’t a lot of weight, per se, but it was enough that I couldn’t fit into my jeans as well as I’d been able to do two weeks ago.

I looked over at the man responsible for all my weight gain—all seven pounds of it—and let my eyes rove all over his body.

Even in a pair of jeans, a black shirt, and his cut, the man looked ripped. He looked like he worked out, played hard and had no regrets at all in life.

His eyes turned away from the conversation he was having with Seanshine, Aaron, and Tommy—when had he left?—and caught mine. Our gazes caught and held.

“Have y’all gotten serious?”

I looked up, and realized rather quickly that the ladies were having a conversation around me—one that clearly was about me—and I hadn’t been paying the least bit of attention.

“I’m sorry, what?” I gave Tally a small, apologetic smile.

“I asked if y’all were serious.”

I looked down at my ring, fingering it, and the ladies gasped.

“What is that?” Tally grabbed my hand.

Imogen leaned across the table, her ass waving in the air, and snatched my hand to hers.

“You’re married?” Imogen shrieked.

***

Truth

I was having a serious conversation with Aaron about emergency protocols, my hand on Tank’s head, petting him softly, when the woman's shrieks rent the air.

“You’re married?” Imogen shrieked.

The men that were surrounding me looked in my direction, wondering if I would deny it, but I could do nothing but shrug.

“Vegas, baby.”

The men had, apparently, neglected to tell their wives that we were married.

Big Papa snorted.

“Got my first wife that way, too.”

We’d all heard about Big Papa’s first wife.

She was a Vegas show dancer and had seen him at a show. She thought he was some big man made of money with him dressed up so fancy as he was. Really he’d just been attending a police officer’s convention and had worn a suit instead of his uniform. Tracy, Big Papa’s first wife, thought he was hot shit in that suit, and one thing led to another, causing them to be married by the end of the night.

Sean came along nine months later, and two months after that, she was gone again, never to be seen again.

Big Papa had filed for divorce, and had then filed for abandonment when nothing ever came of the divorce papers he’d sent to her.

Six months later, Big Papa was officially a single father, and he’d pretty much been that way ever since.

Though he’d been married one other time, but that hadn’t taken either.

That one had just been a fast and loose wedding as well. The marriage had been even shorter.

Two days after Lizzibeth married Big Papa, she filed for an annulment.

But that was about all I knew about that one.

Lizzibeth had nearly broken Big Papa.

It didn’t seem like too big a deal at the time, but now that I had a woman of my own, I could see the lines on his face. I could also read the loneliness in his eyes, though he’d never admit to it.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Aaron said, popping me solidly on the back with one scarred hand. “The real question is, what are you going to do about it.”

I sighed.

“I’m not doing anything about it,” I admitted. “I’m going to keep living my life.”

“And what about her?”

That was from Ghost.

“What’s it to you if I do anything or not?” I shot back.

“What’s it to me?” he asked, leaning forward out of the shadows. “You have a woman that cares for you, and you’re just going to throw her away?”

I’d never said that. Not even once.

“Nope,” I denied. “She’s already moved into my house. Now I just have to make sure that pecker head doesn’t try to kill her.”

“That won’t happen,” Big Papa promised, ready to turn the topic at hand. “Now, about that security.”

I listened, and even retained some of the information, but it was hard to keep my hands off my woman…my wife.

She was talking animatedly to Imogen and Tally about something, and the way her eyes swung from one woman to the other, paired with the smile on her face, was making me lose concentration.

“Earth to Lover Boy,” Sean drawled.

I sighed and returned my attention back to the conversation at hand.

And immediately wished I hadn’t.

“We’re going to make a run this weekend to the Benton Chapter House,” Big Papa was saying. “You are not cordially invited. You’re going, along with the rest of us.”

“Can the women go?” I asked.

Aaron groaned.

Tommy grinned.

“We already went over that, for about fifteen minutes,” Sean said. “This is a penis only trip, and vaginas aren’t invited.”

“But what about Beckett?” I asked. “I can’t leave her here by herself with that jerkwad loose in this town.”

Big Papa continued to stare.

“We went over that, too.” Sean confirmed.

I crossed my arms over my chest.

“And what was decided?”

“That we send the women for a girls’ weekend up north,” Tommy said. “My parents are living in Colorado for the winter. They want to partake in unlimited snowboarding and have a place big enough to house not only the ladies, but us as well if we want to drive there after we’re done here.”

I thought about it.

“I do have a break coming between sessions,” I admitted. “I have to finish a sword, and the next one up after that is Verity’s project for her dad. If I ask her to go to Colorado, and tell her I’ll join her there in a few days, she won’t have a problem with that.”

Big Papa slapped me on the back.

“It’s settled then.” He stood up. “Who wants to take a shot with me?”

Nobody raised their hand, and Big Papa laughed.

“Never thought I’d see the day where all of my boys are pussy whipped.”

With that parting comment, he left, leaving Sean, me, Tommy, and Aaron sitting around an unlit fire pit, staring at each other.

“I’m not pussy whipped,” Sean finally added. “I don’t even have pussy.”

We all let that digest for a few long moments before Tommy chimed in with, “That sounds pretty sad.”

“I thought you were into Tommy’s sister?”

That came from one of the prospects, and everyone around the fire pit tensed.

I looked at Tommy to gauge his reaction. Aaron looked at Sean.

And I chose to leave.

Ghost chose to follow me.

I had a destination in mind.

Ghost followed me because it was either stay and listen to drama between brothers, or listen to women…and I knew which one I would rather have.

I lifted my hand and grasped onto Verity’s pony tail, tipping her head backwards with a slight tug.

“You ready to go?” I asked.

She blinked, and then let her eyes drift over to Ghost.

“Yes,” she answered. “But I told the ladies that they could come over tomorrow so we could make cookies for the firefighters stew and auction tomorrow night.”

I looked over at Ghost, who shrugged.

We both knew that the ladies weren’t going to miss this stew and auction without a great bit of coercion on our part.

“About that…”