Page 17 of Wolf.e

She’s completely out of her element, but she’s curious. Looking around the room trying to drink us in, trying to make sense of why we seem so civil. We aren’t but what she’s getting is our club on best behavior for Ax.

“So, Brinley, you grew up here?” Kai asks, leaning forward onto his palm with a fuck me look on his pretty boy face.

She smiles at him in response and it’s fucking earth shattering. The way those full pouty lips curve upward over straight white teeth for Kai of all people serves to heat my blood.

As do those gorgeous dimples in her cheeks that appear for him. They match the one in her chin.

This fucking guy. His dick is still probably wet from the blonde he took into the pool hall earlier.

“Yes, over on the corner of Netherwood and Spruce,” she answers in that raspy, soft voice. “I just got back to the house last week. My mom left it for me when she passed but I haven’t been the best at keeping up with it the last couple of years.”

“The McCurry boys gave her an insane cost to replace the porch.” Layla takes a bite of fresh bread. “You boys need to have a chat with them about it,” she orders, nudging Ax.

Ax nods of course. He’s a fucking slave for this woman.

“No, that’s fine, termites are an expensive fix…” Brinley says. “I don’t want any… trouble.”

My men look around the table at each other and grin. She’s Layla’s friend so they’ll be respectful. She probably thinks we’re gonna go bang down their door and threaten them.

I mean, it’s possible but the stereotype is amusing, nonetheless.

“The whole thing needs replacing. I just started working with Layla’s brother at Crimson Homes. I’ll have it fixed up by the end of the summer. No need for a talk,” Brinley adds, resting her hand on Layla’s arm, her pale pink fingernails shine in the dim light. The beast in me imagines what they’d look like with my blood under them after she tears up my back.

“I’m pretty good with wood, I could probably take a look for you.” Kai gives her his best dazzling smile, and I grit my molars to stop myself from cuffing him up the back of his head.

Brinley smiles nervously and averts her eyes from his, her innocence taking over. I kick him sharply under the table without looking up from cutting my steak. Kai turns his attention to me. I lift my gaze to take my bite and shake my head slightly only once, no one else would notice. Kai nods and grimaces, understanding I’m telling him to back off.

My eyes flit to Brinley’s and the moment I meet her gaze she looks away. I take another bite of steak and watch her talk to Layla. Every time I feel her eyes on me, I focus on her, and every time she looks away, pretending she wasn’t looking at me.

It’s a game I could play all night.

You can look away all you want, but you can’t run from me, little hummingbird.

My VP and cousin, Jake, stands with a head nod and a smirk to the table beside us. I follow his gaze to a sweetbutt and know he’s about to hook up. He’s always ready to party and is extremely impulsive which is why his father, my uncle Ray, nominated me to take over as president for him before he died. I didn’t want to take it from Jake, but luckily for me, Jake didn’t seem to care. He was happy to be VP. This way, he can drink copious amounts and party his life away. Two things I have zero interest in doing. I’ll knock back a shot of whiskey or two but aside from that, my body is my fucking temple.

I grab his arm. “Be back here in thirty minutes, you aren’t missing toasts,” I say, and he nods before stealing out the clubhouse door.

Jake listens and slides back into his seat twenty-five minutes later just as Shelly starts the rounds of speeches after dinner and has all the girls at the table tearing up. Ax’s father was my uncle’s Enforcer and his father before that was Sergeant at Arms for my grandfather. The club is in all of our blood, and Ax and I already have an unbreakable brotherhood. We served three tours in the Middle East together. That shit bonds you like nothing else.

I watch Ax now as his mother talks and Layla tears up, he’s all in for this fucking woman or so it seems.

Layla is cool, I’ll give her that, but as I listen, all I can think of is Ax on his knees before he met her, no more than a year ago, on the middle of the pool table while two brunettes traded sucking him off in front of everyone. A competition to see which one would earn his cum down their throat first.

He tried to pass them off to the rest of us after, to which I gave him a hard fucking no. I’m all for fucking women but there isn’t a damn thing they could do to earn my cock down their throat. Especially the ones who hang around here. No clue where their mouths have been.

I watch the two lovebirds across the table now. Ax has his arm around Layla’s neck and he kisses her on the lips like he is actually committed to her for all eternity.

Layla champions all her girls for more shots, and after speeches the party gets going. I take a few minutes to do my diligence of making my way around the room and talking to everyone important. We have several members from different charters here and some of their ol’ ladies. Not all the men bring them along, some of them treat events like this as a release from their constants. Ax and I also have ex-military buddies who have shown up for us. Men we spent time with in Kuwait and Afghanistan. Seeing these men here tonight brings back all sorts of memories from both ends of the spectrum. I make my way back to the table to find Brinley and Layla acting out some sort of choreographed dance while seated at the table, and I keep on eye on the proper little hummingbird that seems to be loosening up.

“We did at least ten of these over the years for our church youth groups,” Brinley tells the girls.

“Do you still remember every single one?” Layla asks her, laughing as I rejoin.

“I cannot see you as the little girl in the front row every Sunday…” Chantel says to Layla as she laughs, gulping back a shot—probably her tenth. I've seen that woman drink men under the table on any given night.

“New girl, I could see,” she says, pointing to Brinley to which they laugh again—all of them but Brinley, which just solidifies to me she may not always enjoy her good girl persona.

Before Brinley can speak, I sit. She straightens right up, and her eyes nervously focus on anything but me, instead paying attention to her half-filled glass, people talking and milling about, the girls.

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