Page 117 of Wolf.e

I’m full out crying when I’m done exploring this beautiful space that’s all mine thanks to him. And through it all, Gabriel trails behind me with a look on his face I just can’t place. Pride?

“I love you!” I cry, launching myself into his arms. He holds me tight and lifts me right off the ground. “I love you, I love you.” I kiss his face, his lips.

He pulls his hands up and swipes the tears from my eyes.

“And I love you. But I’m gonna need you to prove it,” he says.

I pull back to look at him as his mouth turns up into the smirk I love.

“Right here?” I ask as he hoists me up onto my new cash counter and loses his fingers under my blouse. They’re warm on my skin and I instantly begin to heat. No blinds cover the windows, it’s broad daylight outside. Gabriel reads my mind before I can say it.

“The windows are tinted; I’ll keep you covered… don’t worry and don’t think about it, little hummingbird. Take what you want.”

“Right,” I convince myself. “Don’t worry… take what I want,” I tell myself as my head falls back with his lips on my neck.

Gabriel makes the choice for me as his hands squeeze my hips then slide up the back of my shirt, the feel of his lips on my skin taking me past the point of stopping. I ask myself how I got so lucky as to fall into the path of Gabriel Wolfe. The biker club king with the haunting gray eyes who managed to end the life of Brinley Rose Beaumont, the good girl who always did the right thing, but was never happy.

This ruthless man the world calls a criminal is the best man I’ve ever known. He’s brought to life the woman I am now, and I silently vow from this moment forward to be his queen. To be the woman I was destined to be. The thought frees me.

I’ll feel happy and alive, with my arms wrapped around my king, riding faster than our angels can fly.

Seventeen and a Half Years Later

“That’s it, nice and slow,” I tell my oldest son Sebastian. “Squeeze the trigger halfway, you don’t want it to come out too quickly or you’ll just make a mess and you’ll have to start over.”

His brow knots in concentration as he focuses on the fine lines he’s mapped out on the gas tank of his own bike we’ve been refinishing. A bike he’ll be able to ride anytime, anywhere, in just two short months when it’s done and he turns seventeen. By then, he’ll be able to get his full M class. He’s already been riding with his permit for three months and he’s a natural. It makes his brother chomp at the bit to get his permit, but he has to wait another two years.

“Fuck,” he bites out when he moves outside the lines with the paint he’s airbrushing.

“Eh,” I tell him gruffly. “Not in front of your mother.”

Behind me, my gorgeous bride of fifteen years scoffs, her attitude has only grown stronger as has her beauty. At forty-one, she looks better than any twenty-five-year-old could, she says it’s thanks to always being sexually satisfied. Tells me it’s the fountain of youth and she must be right because I don’t feel anywhere near my almost forty-nine years.

“Sorry,” Seb mutters.

“Same thing I say every time, Seb, you gotta slow down, take your time. You think your dad got this good by rushing?” Brinley asks. “And by the way, if you two think I don’t know how you talk when I’m not around, you’re fucking crazy.” She winks. “Be cleaned up in an hour, I don’t want grease monkeys at my daughter’s graduation,” she says, moving in to kiss my lips.

Her signature jasmine scent is like heaven in my shop.

I pull her close and linger there a little longer.

“Disgusting,” Micah, our almost fifteen-year-old son, says as he comes into the shop. He’s already too big for the suit he’s wearing, and we just bought it last year for his own middle school graduation. Both my boys are almost as big as I am, much larger than I even was at their age and they’ll be a team to reckon with one day.

“Agreed, can’t you two cut that shit out,” Seb says without looking up.

“Be happy we love each other,” Brinley says, cuffing Seb on the back of his head.

“Mom, now I have to start that whole line over.”

“Guess that’ll teach you to mind your manners then, won’t it?” she asks him with an eyebrow raised.

“Come on, let's let the hem out of those,” she says to Micah when she eyes up his pants. She’s wearing a little sundress, and it isn’t without great effort that I don’t kick both my boys out and take her right on my workbench. Later, I tell myself.

Seventeen years with this woman, three kids, two businesses, and club life, and the only thing that’s constant is the way I want her. Everything changes around us daily. Kids grow up, people live, people die, people move away, our businesses have changed.

My detail shop has moved to our property. After Seb started preschool, we expanded here so Kai and I could work and still take the kids to school while Brinley grew Hummingbird Designs to become one of Savannah’s most sought-after interior design companies.

The club has changed, we’ve patched in new members, seen members pass, and members retire. We’ve had times of peace and times of worry but through it all, I’ve never stopped wanting her, and I’ve always tried to make Brinley and our family my focus. It’s been the greatest joy of my life to raise our kids with her and have my club family by our side.

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