3

STEEL

I didn’t know what was going through that woman’s head. Whatever it was, she had better knock it off. Fucking male escorts? And I better not have heard her say Creed would do for her kissing mission. And what the fuck did she mean by again? Had they already done something? That night of the drunken phone call came to mind. Creed had taken her home, but what else had he done?

If that broody fucker even thought of putting his lips anywhere on her, I would kick the fucking shit out of him. I got rid of that fucker Wes by sending him to work for a mate of mine three hours away. He wasn’t Mia’s type and nowhere near good enough for her, and as her friend, it was my job to look out for her. He just wanted to get his dick wet—well, that was my story, and I was sticking to it. Anything else required far too much truth.

I held the bulldog under my arm and strode quickly in the direction Mia had disappeared. The black sooty patch on the asphalt where I’d come so close to losing her caught my eye as I passed by it. I hated the reminder of that day, not to mention my dick move of dropping her to the ground when I heard Callie screaming for me. Seriously, my PTSD from my army days had nothing on my love life.

Reaching the front door of the compound, I heard the girls giggling and screaming behind it before I even opened the huge door. I had planned to be here when Booth and Stella arrived back from their honeymoon. Mia had other ideas, and to be honest, I really enjoyed myself with her today. I mean, I always did because she was a great friend and employee, and I always felt at ease with her. She was one of the few women I knew who didn’t mind my leg, which meant I could be myself around her. I’m not the good-looking movie star guy everyone says I am. I didn’t feel that way about myself at all. It was a reputation I had earned, but I wasn’t sure how. My face came with my body, and I couldn’t do much about that.

When I opened the door, I was immediately taken by Mia’s soft laughter. I searched for her and found her standing by Stella, her hands pressed against Stella’s flat belly. Booth was behind his wife, holding her shoulders gently and smiling. It was good to see my CO like that. His life hadn’t been easy. He’d spent a lot of time at Deck’s house or at Mannix’s and mine. Our parents always welcomed him when his mum couldn’t and his father wouldn’t.

Judging by the girls’ fascination with Blondie’s stomach, I guessed Booth was going to get his chance to be the dad he’d always wanted for himself. Catching my president’s attention, I gave him a chin lift, and his answering megawatt cocky smile made me laugh. It was weird seeing him so happy and relaxed, but it was bloody nice for a change. I searched the room, looking for the raven-haired club princess. I found her lying on the floor under the pool table, her head on Trigger’s stomach with her hand up above her head and her tiny hand stroking our loyal pet’s soft fur.

My heart warmed every time I saw Shiloh with Trigger. The day Deck brought her home from the hospital, Trigger became Shiloh’s dog, and my dog would do anything to protect the little girl.

I hoisted the heavy pup higher in my arms and snuck my way to the pool table.

Seb and Squid were playing a game of billiards when I plopped the bulldog down on the felt tabletop. Their expressions were ones of surprise as I put my finger to my lips to keep them quiet.

“Is them your shitkickers, Unca Coops?” the tiny voice came from under the table.

“Yep,” I answered, popping the p. I smirked when I saw the look on Deck and Charlotte’s faces from across the room, and my brother gave me a chin lift that told me I did okay with this present.

Darth sat next to Deck at the bar, and I nearly choked on my laughter when Darth scowled at me. Then, when he saw the pup, his eyes nearly popped out of his head, and I started laughing. The big prick always outdid us in the ‘giving Shiloh presents stakes,’ but not today.

“Don’t see what’s so funny, pretty boy. Did ya hear ’bout the new baby?” Shiloh’s little voice sounded a bit sad.

I ignored the ‘pretty boy’ comment because we never knew what the kid was going to call any of us from one day to the next. I motioned for the prospects to keep an eye on the bulldog. I bent over and dipped my head down under the pool table. Shiloh looked at me with her huge blue eyes.

“What’s up, Squirt?” I got down on my good knee and hoped like hell that I didn’t need help getting back up. If I was to judge by last time I’d assumed this position, it wouldn’t bode well for me.

“Reckon I might be losing my princess title if Vinnie knocked Blondie up with a girl baby.”

I nearly choked on my spit. Holy shit! The shit this kid said. Lifting my head, I glanced over at Seb and Squid, who had obviously heard Shiloh because they were pissing themselves laughing. I had to bite the inside of my mouth to stop myself from laughing. Miss Shiloh looked rather serious, and she would give me what for if I didn’t take this whole thing serious-like.

While I pondered my next question, I decided to sit down on the floor and leaned my back against the leg of the professional-style table. It was much more comfortable, but now I had guaranteed my need for help to get up.

“You know, Squirt, your daddy and mummy could be having a girl, too. And Stell’s baby might be a boy,” I said, but her head was shaking straightaway.

“Nah, I heard Daddy telling Mummy that it’s a boy. He know this coz he said the position he f—”

I reached out and placed my hand over her mouth, stopping any more words from coming out. Houston, I think we have a major problem.

“Um. Right. Okay, it’s like this, Shy-Shy, you can’t say that shit, ah, stuff anymore. Remember when you got suspended from day care last month?” I waited for her to nod her head, which she did—several hundred times until she started to resemble one of those bobble-head dolls.

“Okay, well, good. See, you have to start being better with your words, and no more copying what you hear Daddy saying to Mummy. Okay, baby girl? You try harder for Uncle Coops?”

Good God, I used to shoot a sniper rifle from a thousand yards out, had combat training, special ops training, and lost a leg in battle, and this little pint-sized, foul-mouthed princess had me sweating bullets. The look I was getting from Shiloh was one of patience—her asking for it, not me.

“Whatever flops your mop, Studmuffin.” Her answer came out sounding exactly like Mia. In fact, I was pretty sure Mia said that to me not more than a week ago when I told her that I was going to put Shiloh’s car seat in her car as she was on Shiloh duty that day. Mia couldn’t drive my SUV or any of the others in the club because she was too damn short to reach the pedals.

Laughing at her response, I whistled for Seb to hand me the pup. It was going to take some help getting me up, so I might as well stay down here with the kid and the dogs. Plenty of time to embarrass myself later.

Before Seb could do my bidding, Mia came bounding over and took the pup from the prospect. The smile on her face warmed me. I could look at that smile for days. Whoa, okay, where did that come from? Giving me a wink as she held the pup off to the side of her body, hiding it from Shiloh, Mia bent over and looked under the table. Shiloh was leaning back on Trig’s stomach again and had her eyes closed, pondering the rank of the soon-to-be children of the MC, I was sure.

“Hey there, Shy-Shy, whatcha doing?” Mia asked Shiloh.

“Chilling, sexy eyes. Hows bout you?”

Mia’s eyes whipped to mine, her eyebrows raised, and a smirk graced her face as she mouthed, Sexy eyes. Who the fuck did she get that from?

I laughed again and shrugged my shoulder, hoping I had an innocent smile on my lips.

Giving me a ‘yeah, right’ smirk in return, Mia covertly handed me the bulldog.

“Want to give this little girl some loving, Squirt?” I asked, placing the pup on her lap. The wriggling pup’s movement had Shiloh’s eyes open in seconds.

“Holy fucking shit balls. Unca Coops, is this mine?”

“Shiloh Zoe Johnston, did I hear what I think I heard?” Charlotte called from her spot on the couch. Deck had Charlotte wrapped in his arms, his face planted in her shoulder, muffling his laughter.

“Cool your jets, dancing mamma. I’s just excited. I will stop cursin’ now,” Shiloh yelled back.

Deck was now rolling around, laughing his arse off on the couch from Shiloh’s response. I swore this fucking kid was the light of everyone’s lives at the MC. Her reaction to my gift was golden, and I could not have asked for better.

Looking over at Mia, I saw softness on her face. She loved Shiloh just as much as the rest of us.

This was a good idea to bring some happiness back to everyone, not just Squirt. As the pup jumped all over Shiloh, her giggles of delight made everyone in the room stop what they were doing and look.

“What are you going to call her, Shiloh?” Booth called out from his perch at the bar. Stella sat on the bar in front of him with her legs wrapped around his waist.

“Yeah, Squirt, you got a name for her yet?” I prompted her.

Shiloh looked at the pup for a few good minutes, her bottom lip getting a real munching.

“I wanna call her Motherf—”

“Shiloh!” Deck, Charlotte, Stella, and Mia all called out at once.

The rest of us just burst out laughing, then Mia, too, started to laugh, but her laughter put her off balance, and she fell over and landed on my lap. In her haste to get up, her hand brushed over my zipper-covered crotch, and the zing of electricity that travelled through me not only shocked me but also confused the fuck out of me—as did the hardness of my cock just from her touch. What in the ever-loving fuck was going on with me?

The laughter stopped suddenly when the door to the compound banged open, and in walked Callie, the object of my obsession for years and Mia’s sister.

Mia pulled her hands away like she had been burned, her narrowed gaze on her sister said What is she doing here?

“What are you doing here, Callie? I thought I made myself perfectly clear the last time we spoke.” Booth’s booming voice came across loud and clear that he was not happy she was given entry to the front gate. Whoever was on that detail wouldn’t be getting their patch any time soon.

Callie tossed her blonde coiffed hair over one shoulder. She must have been kidding herself if she thought that pout was going to work on the pres, but it worked on me. Christ almighty, did it work on me, fucking idiot that I was—but no more.

“Yeah, well, if my stupid sister would answer my texts, I wouldn’t have to resort to climbing through Stella’s hole in the fence. I nearly ruined my new jeans.” Callie said the last part with an accusing tone like it was the club’s fault.

I felt a small smile on my lips. The chick certainly did have some balls.

Suddenly, Mia’s hand was back on my crotch but not in a get my dick hard kind of a way. It was more like an ‘I’m going to make sure you can’t produce any children’ kind of a way.

“Fuck, Mia. That fucking hurts.” I growled at her, bringing Callie’s attention to us. She couldn’t see us from where she was unless she tried hard, and trying hard was not something Callie Stone did. She tried to do as little as possible.

“Mia, I have been trying to get in touch with you. Check your fucking texts.” Callie snarled at Mia, a look of contempt in her eyes.

“I saw them. I just didn’t open them,” Mia replied softly. Gracefully getting to her feet, she then shocked me when she held out her two hands to me, crossing one over the other, bracing herself so she could help me up. I wasn’t sure she was going to be able to, but I appreciated the gesture, so I gave her my hands. With a little effort and a lot of bracing with her feet around the leg of the pool table, she helped me to my feet. I knew Mia helped me up so I wasn’t in a vulnerable position on the ground. Callie had a bit of a mean streak and could say some hurtful things about my injury, which was something I had noticed Mia had little tolerance for. The fact Mia did that on my behalf gave me a sense of… Oh, fuck if I know. These weird feelings about Mia were turning me into Deck and Booth. Pussy whipped, and I refused to be pussy whipped ever again.

“Callie, what are you doing here?” I asked her, my patience with the situation held by a thread. I watched as Callie transformed from the vixen to the mean, poisonous sister.

“I sold the townhouse. We had to move out immediately. The new owners wanted vacant possession, and I gave it to them.”

Mia had a look of pure disbelief on her face, her mouth gaping.

“My stuff. Our furniture. How can they have vacant possession if everything we own is still in there?” Mia shouted.

“Our parents left the place to me, not you. It was my furniture, and I took that to my new place, but your stuff is gone. If you had looked at your texts, you would have seen you needed to come and get everything out. There is a bag of clothes on the back stairwell, and that’s it.” Callie flounced her hair over her perfectly shaped shoulders and popped her hip, showing her generous curves and to-die-for body. A body I was used to having my hands on, a body that was strangely not doing it for me right now.

Mia’s, however…

That tight T-shirt Mia had on was definitely doing it for me. Jesus, I felt like I was in the twilight zone, trying not to lust after one sister while developing feelings for the other one.

“Callie! You need to leave the compound right now!” Booth ordered.

I noticed Tori had shown up and was looking at Callie with something close to hero-worship. Then her mouth turned up in a sneer as she looked towards Mia.

“Tori, why aren’t you at work? We have you rostered on at the Bar and Grill tonight,” I interrupted, not liking the way she was eying Mia.

“My kid got sick, so I came here to tell Mia she needs to cover for me,” she answered, her attitude notched up with Callie in the room.

“Mia isn’t on tonight. She has the night off.”

Before I could tell Tori to get her arse back to the bar, Mia placed her hand on my arm. I felt the warmth of her touch instantly.

“It’s okay, Steel. She can’t help a sick child,” she said to me, and then, looking at Tori, she smiled softly. “Of course, I will work for you. Just give me a minute to say bye to Shiloh.” Mia turned around, dropping her hand from my arm, and once again, got down on her haunches and whispered something to Shiloh. I couldn’t hear what she was saying to her, but whatever it was must have been funny because Shiloh started giggling her head off.

“Okey-dokey, brown eyes. Catchya in the a.m.,” Shiloh singsonged as she held her bulldog pup close to her chest. Trigger was still lying down, sleeping, not worried about the new addition in the least. Not that I thought she would. My old girl was a gentle soul—until she was not.

“Hey there, Steel. Wanna give me a ride home? My ride here had to drop me off and go. I don’t feel safe walking in the dark.” It wasn’t dark outside yet and wouldn’t be for a few hours. A fact I knew she was aware of.

But I had missed her. A lot of the people here didn’t see her good side, but she did have one—sometimes. I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. What the fuck, I might as well. Maybe she would explain more thoroughly why she turned me down. It couldn’t be just because of my leg. Surely, she wasn’t that shallow?

“Sure, bike or truck?” Please say truck. Please say truck. Of course, she didn’t.

“Oh, your bike, baby. You know how you like my legs wrapped around you.” She purred, running her tongue across her teeth. Once upon a time, that move would have made me rock hard, but for some reason, tonight, not so much.

A soft gasp had me looking down at Mia to see she was watching me with wide, shocked eyes that were filling with tears. Oh. Fuck. No.

“Mia, I—” My words were cut off by Callie.

“Steel, can we get going? I would like to take the long way and spend a bit of time with you.” She was talking to me, but her eyes were on Mia.

Mia stumbled to her feet. I reached out to steady her, but she flinched at my hand on her arm and pushed away from me. My heart broke from the hurt look she gave me.

“Creed, can you give me a ride to the bar? I left my car there when we went to get Shiloh’s puppy.” There was a hitch in her voice, which sounded thick and not like herself. Was she trying not to cry?

“Sure thing, gorgeous. Let me go get my keys.” Of course, Creed wouldn’t put her on the back of his bike. He never took pillion passengers, not even Shiloh wearing her special harness.

Memories of that bad time flooded my mind, and for a few seconds, I forgot that I wanted to kick his arse for coming to Mia’s rescue. Again. I started to move forward to grab Mia, but like a scolded cat, she had already moved further away from me and closer to the club’s bar. My leg was giving me more hell for being down under the table with Shiloh, so moving quickly was out of the question, and I was fucking sure Mia knew it.

I didn’t want Mia alone with Creed. I remembered what she said in the car about him being the only choice for her. I didn’t want her to choose him, touch him, or do anything with him. I wanted her to choose me. Any other man just wasn’t happening.