My phone clattered on the nightstand.
At that hour, it was probably because something was going to shit.
Snatching it up, I didn’t bother with the display. Whoever it was, I had to fucking answer.
“Yeah?”
“Heads up,” I heard Daz through the line, “your girl’s fucking smashed. All the women are.” There was a scuffling on the line, then his voice directed to someone else, “No, you aren’t giving Max more fucking stripping lessons now. Sit your asses down.” I could hear the indistinct whine of women’s voices in response before he came back to me. “Fuck, I fucking apologize to anyone that’s had to corral my ass when I was this drunk.”
“Last time I had that job, you passed out on the way home after screaming at me for not taking you to get tacos,” I reminded him. It was still easier dealing with him, though. After he’d lost consciousness in the backseat, I left his ass in the car overnight.
“You didn’t have eight of me,” he argued. “At least Ham’ll be here to get his crazy fucking woman off my hands.”
I heard Max’s “hey!” in the background.
“You sit down and stop harassing the guys, I wouldn’t have to say it,” Daz said to her.
“You guys getting them all home?” I asked.
“Yeah. That’s why I’m callin’. If you aren’t at the farmhouse, you should get on your bike.”
Fuck. When did my club start turning into a bunch of assholes that got in everyone’s business? “Brother—”
“Apparently, Evie likes to cuddle when she’s plastered. Never seen anything like it. JJ went to sit with the girls after his last dance, and half an hour later she was nearly laying in his lap.”
I was a fool, but that shit got me out of bed.
“Fuck,” I muttered, looking for pants.
“She wasn’t making a move. From what I’ve heard since I got out here, she won’t shut up about you. But drunk Evie takes sweet to a new level. Not to mention, she’s fucked. Seriously. Max got them doing shots at one point. Your girl’s going to be a fucking mess in the morning—if she even makes it that long.”
My decision had been made already, but that would have done it, too.
“I’ll meet you there.”
“Good call, brother.”
I ended my call, found some pants and my cut, and got out the door.
I was on the front porch at the farmhouse when Daz pulled up. As soon as they were stopped, Avery was getting out of the passenger seat.
“Dammit, sugar. I told you to fuckin’ wait. You’re going to hurt yourself in those shoes,” Daz snapped at her as he came around the hood.
For her part, Avery didn’t look that drunk. She had a small smirk pulling at her lips, but she was steady on her feet even with the shoes.
“You’ve seen me dance in taller ones than this. I’m fine,” she sassed back.
“One of you want to tell me where Evie is?” I demanded.
“She’s in the back,” Avery answered.
Seeing as I was looking in the backseat window and there was no head there, I looked to Daz.
“She fell asleep. We dropped Ember first, and she laid down with her head on Ash’s lap until she had to get out, too.” He shook his head. “I’m telling you, she’s something else. Mutterin’ about how nice everyone is and how cool they are. Asking to babysit all the kids and have Ember and Avery give her a makeover.”
“Which we’re so fucking doing,” Avery added.
Christ.
I went to the back door, looking through the window first to make sure she wasn’t leaning against it. She wasn’t. She was curled up in a ball across the bench seat, facing the seat back like she was snuggling up against it.
“Come on, sugar. Time to make this shit up to me,” Daz said, and I heard his footsteps going toward the house.
“What about Evie?”
There was a pause, then a little shriek. I glanced over my shoulder to see Daz had slung her over his. “Stone’s got her,” he grunted as they went inside.
Yeah, I had her. She was right there in front of me again, and somehow in even just two weeks, I let myself forget the draw of her.
Pulling open the door, I watched her lie there without stirring for a minute debating what to do. I could try waking her, or just see if I was able to get her into bed without her stirring. The second option was the smart one.
“Evie.”
She shifted around but didn’t wake.
“Sweetheart, you gotta wake up.”
The sleepy groan that time had my cock responding even more than it did to the dress she had on, and that dress with the way she was laying showed off nearly the whole length of her legs in a way that was fucking testing me.
Going for broke, I leaned into the truck, reaching out to brush her hair back. It was soft, so fucking soft just like I imagined all of her would be. She leaned into my touch, but even then, her eyes stayed closed.
Maybe there was some kind of higher power keeping me from making a mess of my life.
Slipping my arms beneath her legs and back, I hoisted her up. She’d never have been heavy, but after eighteen months of working out to pass the hours, I was in better shape than I had been since I left the Marines. Even getting her out of the car door was easy now.
When I had her out and the door kicked closed, I adjusted her so she was leaning on my chest, her head on my shoulder. My sweet Evie snuggled right in, face nuzzling into my neck.
I got about halfway up the stairs when the movement finally made her stir.
“Wha—”
“Sh. You’re all right, sweetheart. Gonna get you to bed.”
“Yours,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Your bed. You’re cozy.” She nuzzled farther in like she was trying to burrow into me.
“Not sure that’s a good idea.”
Her head came out of my neck, and her hazy eyes settled on me. “It is. I know it.”
“Evie,” I started to argue, but she scrunched her face.
“No. I thought I should leave you alone, but Ember said she had to keep at Jager. She said sometimes you have to be willing to fight for what you want.” Her words slurred a bit, but there was a deeper clarity to them that shocked me. “I’m small, and I’m not that strong, but I’m used to having to fight for what I want. I left my home to get it. I can fight. You’ll see.”
It came out like a threat, but some part of me that was already screwed wanted it to be a promise.
Her face relaxed, having made her point, but that fucking nose of hers twitched.
Fuck, but that got me every time.
“Okay, bunny. My bed.”
“Okay.”
So I did just that, taking her to my bed and laying her in it. She was already out again by the time I did. Without waking her, I stripped off her shoes. Her purse was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully, it was just on the floor of Daz’s truck. If not, the crew at Candy Shop were all people Daz trusted, so they’d probably just stash it somewhere for safe keeping.
With that done, I got in beside her. I shouldn’t have, really fucking should not have for the sake of my own sanity, but I couldn’t resist wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into my side. Even in sleep, she came willingly, wrapping an arm around my middle and a leg over one of mine.
I laid there for a long time thinking that I’d imagined that exact scenario a hundred times lying in my shitty cell bed. Sure, in my head I’d fucked her to exhaustion rather than her getting drunk off her ass, but it wasn’t just the sex I’d thought about. I’d pictured this. The stillness, the quiet. My bed in the place I called home and a beautiful woman next to me.
Fuck, that imagining went back before I even knew Evie.
It went back to when I was younger than her, a rifleman a few months into my time with the Marines. My corporal decided we needed a few words before we shipped out for the first time.
“Every man that goes to war has to keep a picture in his mind. Something other than the blood and the gore. You don’t have that, you aren’t gonna make it through. That’s the brass tacks. Being a Marine means we do what we do for our country, for freedom. I’d never diminish that. But when you’re in the thick of it, when shells are falling, men are dying, and you feel like you haven’t had a real night’s sleep in a year, that ain’t always goin’ to cut it. Some of you will be leaving behind a woman that’s got your heart. Some of you might have kids. You got all the motivation you need right there. Those that don’t, I suggest you find something to hold onto. Something you’ve got, something you want, doesn’t matter. It just has to be something you can hold onto when you got nothing else.”
I had no idea what I could keep in my head that’d see me through. I wasn’t leaving behind anything. Mom had already passed. My dad was a fucking scumbag that ran out on her. I had no family. I didn’t even have the club yet. But something about what he’d said about the guys that had a woman, a family, already having what they needed, stuck.
So when that time came, when the shit I was seeing in service to my country threatened to overwhelm me, the image I clung onto was a simple one. I imagined laying my head down at night in a real bed, away from all the shit we were mired in, living my life on my terms, and a soft, warm woman that had it all from me at my side.
When I left the Marines, I didn’t let go of that image for a long time. Even when I found the club, when I took my place in it, I held onto that. It was only after years that it started to fade.
Until I met Evie.
Until they closed me in that cell and I was back in a place where I knew I needed to hold onto something to keep it together.
Only then, unlike when I was younger, it wasn’t a vague, faceless woman. It was her. And that image was all the sweeter for it.
Right then, experiencing a part of that—even if it was one night and I’d never get it again—I felt content in a way I never had unless I was on my Harley with the wind in my face.
I felt fucking free.
And I knew, no matter what I’d told myself, that there was no way I was letting go. From right then, in the dark, while she slept peacefully, Evie was mine.