Page 36 of Devil's Own: Roughneck

Her face lights up. “I wouldn’t mind at all. I’d like you two to be friends.” That tells me everything I need to know. She plans on staying around, staying with me or she wouldn’t want us getting close. If she intended to walk, then that would pit her son against me, and if he’s a part of the club when that happened, she’d be pitting my brother against me. Gee innately knows the life. She knows you don’t pit a man against one of his brothers. And fuck if that doesn’t mean the world to me. We stay up talking for a while longer.

I already have Waite’s number since he’s been staying at the club. We all do. Before Gee gets up the next morning, I pick my phone up and tiptoe to the living room. The clock says it’s eight. He should be up by now. I press his contact and hold the phone to my ear.

“Roughneck?” he asks groggily. Maybe he wasn’t up.

“Yeah.”

“My mom okay?”

“She’s fine—still sleeping. I kept her up—”

“Don’t need to hear that about mymom,” he says. “No offense.”

Punk.

“What I was going to say is I kept her up latetalking.”

“Talking?”

“Life shit.”

“Life shit? The good kind?”

“I think so. She seems to think so, too.”

“Wow. She’s turned down every man who ever showed the slightest bit of interest in her. Now here you are talking life shit.”

“You want to go riding today? I feel like we should talk since she’s so important to the both of us.”

“Yeah, let me shower and I’ll be down.”

He’s not the only one who needs to shower. The last thing I need is to smell like sex with his mom. I said we talked. Some of that happened with my dick inside her.

Gee woke up while I was washing my hair and joined me. Then, while I dress, she fixes breakfast in the kitchen. Food is Gia’s love language. I don’t know what I did to earn a woman like her, a woman who keeps my dick hard 24/7 and cooks like a master chef, but I’m damn glad I did it. Hopefully, I’ll get a sign to let me know so I can keep doing it for the rest of…our lives. Fuck. It’s real. This shit is real. I want to put a ring on her finger. That thought keeps me smiling while I go out to help her with breakfast.

“Sit,” she orders. “I got this.”

“I got two hands, woman.”

“Don’t I know it,” she replies, smirking as she stares at them. I might’ve gotten creative last night. I stand and make the two steps over to where she’s clearly lost in memories of all the ways I gave her my hands, and I swat her softly on the ass. She pushes up on her tiptoes to kiss me before getting back to work. “If you want to help, we need forks. Three.” Like she has to remind me. I invited him down this morning.

She sets three plates down on the table. I’m on my way to grab the forks when there’s a rap on my door and I pivot to go answer it. It’s Waite. Holding the door open for him to answer, he tips his chin up. “Roughneck,” he says.

“Your mom’s up in the kitchen.” I gesture while closing the door.

“I smell,” he says to me. Then, “No one cooks like you,” he calls out to her on his way up the stairs.

“Hey, baby.” She greets him with her arms wide open and in what appears to be a practiced move, he steps right into them, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her up off the floor with the strength of his hug. And I have to give him credit. The kid has that biker swagger down already. He’s not even a biker yet.

Once he sets her down, Gee smiles as she waves both of us over to the table. “Both my guys under one roof. I don’t think I could ask for more.”

Waite smiles at her, and I honestly feel the slightest pinch of jealousy seeing them together. Knowing he got to grow up with all her love.

We sit down to eat. Then, after about an hour or so, she shoos us from the house.

“Glad it’s you,” he says right before revving his engine so I know he doesn’t want me to comment back. He had something to say and he said it.

He’ll make a great addition to the club.

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