Larkin looked at me. “Happy?”
I shrugged. “Not really, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Fucking fools,” Stonewall grunted. “They’ll get softened up by the Rebels and then we’ll make a real peace.”
“That’s probably what Trenton wants,” Larkin said as we walked back toward our lines. “He can’t look weak in front of his men, so he destroys the Rebels, gets them nice and tired out, and then makes nice with us.”
“Good plan,” I grunted.
“We’ll see how it goes.”
The desert wind swept through the valley as the Demons MC climbed onto our bikes.
There was a roar from the devil himself as we kicked our bikes alive.
We rode out in formation.
We were the Demons MC. Nobody fucked with us, because we were the biggest and baddest fuckers alive. We took what we wanted.
But we also weren’t fucking stupid. We made deals when deals made sense. And right now, everyone knew a deal with the Snakes made sense before we ended up killing each other completely.
War wasn’t over, though. The Rebels would get crushed, but somehow I knew our part in all this wasn’t over yet.
As we rode back, my mind was firmly on my old lady, on Caralee. She’d be safe now. She’d be safe and we could figure out what the fuck we wanted.
Although I knew what I wanted. It was the same thing I’d wanted from the start of everything, from the very moment I saw her come into the damn clubhouse that first crazy night.
I wanted to claim her. I wanted to make her mine.
I rode with my club. I would die for my club.
But I loved Caralee, and I would keep on loving her as long as I had breath left.
Chapter Thirty-Three: Caralee
One Year Later
I sat on the porch, my feet kicked up and a mug of hot herbal tea in my hands.
The forest was quiet and I liked it like that. Ever since moving into the cabin, I had slowly lost my taste for the city and loved being out in the secluded space more and more. True, we spent a lot of time at the clubhouse, but that was just what it meant to be the old lady of a Demons MC member.
I looked at the ring on my finger and smiled. I could barely remember back when I would have loved for that ring to disappear. We kept saying we were going to get divorced and marry each other properly, but we both knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Because in a lot of ways, the way we’d ended up together was perfect. It was just how it was supposed to be, and I wouldn’t change much about it if I could.
Maybe some of the worst parts. I still thought fondly about Rod. He brought me and Ford back together, after all.
I sipped my tea and sighed. I missed coffee, but it was a small price to pay. I missed a lot of things, actually, but I had to abstain.
The past year had been crazy and great all at once. I had finished my degree, mostly because Ford had insisted on it. The war between the Snakes and the Rebels had raged on and was still continuing, since their leader Jetter hadn’t been captured yet. Though the Rebels were done, for all intents and purposes.
Which meant there were whispers of renewed problems with the Snakes. I didn’t know too much about it, but I’d heard it had to do with distribution lines from South America, something about smuggling drugs and stuff like that. Ford tried to keep me from most of it, but I heard things just being around the clubhouse.
I knew Ford’s life was dangerous, but that was what I loved about him. Living on his own terms, he faced whatever challenges were in front of him with confidence.
I really envied that about him, though he was always saying that I had my own gifts, stuff he could never do himself. I wasn’t sure about that.
But best of all, ever since I’d moved into the cabin, I’d had my body worked over again and again, every night that Ford was home. The man was an animal, completely insatiable. He couldn’t get enough of me and I couldn’t get enough of him. It worked that way for us, night after night of body-bending sex.
As I sat there, the sound of a motorcycle in the distance made my heart race. I always felt that way whenever Ford was coming home. We’d been together for a while now, but that feeing hadn’t faded at all.
I was fully, deeply, crazily in love with him.
I watched as he rounded the bend and parked his bike right out front.
“You’re home early,” I called out.
“Couldn’t stay away,” he said, grinning. He climbed off the bike. “How’s my wife doing?”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask her.”
He laughed. I stood up, putting my mug on the ground, and he swept me up in a huge hug.