Page 37 of Wolf

Smoke roseas the steaks were turned over on the grill. Hunter manned it, his young nephew hovering around his feet, looking at the food with avidinterest.

“Adair, you’ll burn yourself if you stand too close,” Hunter scolded him, but his face was soft as he looked down at his nephew. He roughed up Adair’s curls before pushing him off in the direction of the other kids. Adair grumbled but ran off to the group setting up a game of kickball on thegrass.

“When you going to announce the deal?” Hunter asked, turning over a browningsteak.

“Tomorrow,” I answered, unsurprised that he’d figured it out. All the other brothers probably guessed it, too. I took a drag of my beer as I set down a plate of raw steaks to be grilled, while Hunter put the cooked ones on a separate plate. Kay, our club mother, appeared a moment later, and with a motherly pat on his shoulder and then mine, having to reach on her tiptoes to do both, she took the cooked food over to the table to be devoured by the other members. “Let them have this day, and I can tell them in Church tomorrow. Nothing’s going to change between thenandnow.”

Hunter nodded, quietly turning over the steak on the grill, and I could sense there were words waiting on histongue.

“Spit it out, Hunter,” I said, setting my beer down on the side of the grill. Hunter did the same and put down the tongs, turning to me. His green eyes met mine at an almost similar level, considering he was one of the closest to me in height in the club, though he was still a fewinchesoff.

“You’re not up to something again, are you?” Hunter asked. I could see the tense look in his eyes and his shoulders bunch as he asked thequestion.

I had gone behind Hunter’s back for the sake of the club last year, and although it had been the right choice, I had hurt Hunter in doing so. We had sorted out our differences, but although the punches got the load of it off our shoulders, I wasn’t naïve enough to think that our shared trust would snap back to the way it was after what I’d donetohim.

“I’ll do what’s necessary for the club, Hunter. Even if I have to get my hands dirty,” I said, and when I saw the flash of anger in his eyes and his mouth jump to speak, I interrupted. “But no,” I said, stopping him, “I’m not up toanything.”

Hunter’s anger dissipated, and his shoulder’s slumped, but his annoyance radiated from the click of his tongue and the jibe afterward. “You’re so fucking stubborn when it comes to yourrule,Wolf.”

“Club before all,” I iterated. “It’s a president’s rule. One Roscoe passed down to me, and one I willcarryon.”

“Problem is, you’re more of a crafty bastard than Roscoe,” Hunter grumbled, picking up the tongs again to viciously stab a stake and flip it. His green eyes cut across through the black hair falling in front of his face. “You know, you might find something beyond the club. Something that comesfirst.”

I noticed his eyes switch across the yard toward the open door of thecompound.

My eyes found Anna, who was wearing a new pair of denim skinny jeans hugging that tasty ass of hers as she joined a short redhead, who I realized was Mallory, taking out the baked goods that the girls—Anna excluded, since she couldn’t bake for shit—had quickly whipped up in thekitchen.

I looked to Hunter, who frowned atMallory.

“You’re not jealous that everyone is going to eat your wife’s cookies?” I said, knowing the bastard had refused to let Mallory bake at the compound anymore after the one time she baked brownies for Hunter’s bachelor party to remind him what he was coming home to after the strip clubs and everyone started turning up at his house in the hopes Mallory would bake for themagain.

“It’s fine.” Hunter sighed. “She’s been baking at home so much I don’t know what to do with her. That and her applying to go back and finish college and cleaning anything she can get her hands on is making her so tired. Give her another ten minutes, and she’ll want to go nap on thecouch.”

Baking and tired, huh? Smugly, I took another sip of my drink before I reached over and clapped Hunter on the back. “Good luck, brother.” I laughed, leaving him confused as I went to go swipe myself somecookies.

I sat down with a burger and a separate plate full of cookies that I had to fight tooth and nail with Jax and Pretty for, the fat fuckers, before I looked down at the table full of brothers. Some of them had gone to join in with the kids’ game of soccer, and the rest were laughing and joking with eachother.

What I was looking at now was the reason why I made that deal with Charon. It was these moments that I would happily sell my soul to protect. Because beyond the money and the guns and the pussy, there was a family bond in the club. It was what mattered the most, and that was the main reason why we wereallhere.

Not that I would let myself be led by the nose by that arrogant bastard. He may have been the head of the Grim Repeaters, but alliance or not, I meant what I said. I wouldn’t let myself be manipulated by the likes of them. Not my club. Not mybrothers.

“Wolf?” Anna’s sharp voice drew me out of my thoughts as I looked up to see her standing with a plate in one hand and the other propped on her hip. “Move,” she said, gesturing to the space on the bench on the other sideofme.

My eyes cut to the other end of the long bench, and I saw a gap she could easily have fit in next to Moon and Jasper. She ignored my long stare in that direction before I changed my view back to her and the nice eye-level view of her cleavage. “Move up,” she said, shooing me withherhand.

I looked at the waving appendage, noticing the way she stood with her plate of food held securely in one hand, and smirked. My own hand flew out, circling her smaller one, and before she could even think to try and pull it back, Ipulled.

She half shrieked in surprise as her soft ass landed on my lap. “Wolf!” she snapped as she tried to push off me, grinding her hips into my lap, making a currently inappropriate member revive at hertouch.

“Sit still,” I growled, and hearing the graveled tone of my voice, she stiffened likearod.

Fuck, I wasn’t sure if that made it anybetter.

Even so, my arm wrapped around her waist, keeping her pinned down on top of me. I tensed when she opened her mouth, expecting a fight, but to my surprise, a large, heavy huff came from her lips as she dropped her plate down next to mine on the table and ignored me, picking up a chip and eating it without lookingatme.

Theminx.

I shifted so she fit better on my lap, her small frame tucked into my chest and underneath my chin, where the strawberry smell of her hair permeated my nose, and reached for one of my cookies. I looked up to see the brothers sending glimpses down my way and smirking at Anna, who pinned them each with a glare, daring them to say anything. They didn’t, ofcourse.

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