The coil released and I came undone, bones rattling under loose muscles as I fucked down against him and clenched him hard with my cunt.
Zeus roared like a triumphant beast as he came a second later, biting down into the junction of my neck and shoulder the way a wild cat would do to still his mate as he bred her.
A shiver rippled down my spine as I collapsed against the bike and Zeus slid his wet cock out of my sex. He cupped me gently in one hand and leaned down to press a kiss to the back of my neck.
Without words, he carefully peeled me off the leather seat and dressed me, his touches reverent as a worshipper attending Madonna. I pressed my hand to his bearded cheek as he knelt before me in a quiet gesture of love.
“Feel alive, little wife?” he asked me.
“Whenever I’m with you,” I told him.
He beamed. “Glad to fuckin’ hear it. Now, we’re late, which is your fault ’cause you’re so fuckin’ edible but we’ve got to hightail it or we’ll miss our appointment and Axe-Man will be fuckin’ pissed.”
“Our appointment?” I echoed as he swung back onto the bike.
He ignored me as he reversed out of the alley and took us back onto the highway and onto the Main Street of Entrance. We stopped in front of a revamped Street Ink Tattoo Parlor, brand-new without a sign of the Nightstalkers trauma.
Zeus got off the bike then plucked me off and put me down on the pavement.
“You wanted a tat for a while now, this is as good a time as any seein’ as mine’ll take ’bout three hours. Just cleared it with the Doc and you’re good to get one now, if you want one,” he explained.
I blinked at him.
I’d wanted a tattoo since Mute died.
He’d come to me in a dream, as he often did, silently standing off to the side of my adventure packed dreams like a sentry. And one time, he’d shown me what he wanted me to get inked on my skin to remember him by.
But, “What are you getting done?”
He grinned at me and for the first time, I thought he looked like his son in all his boyishness. “You’ll see.”
And I did. Because two hours after Nova finished giving me a Mute symbol on the inside of my left wrist, Zeus appeared bare-chested in the main room of the shop and I got my first look at his tattoo.
It was an angel, one inked right over his heart. Her small, detailed face was mine and her hands were raised to cup the scar of the bullet wound Zeus had taken for me nearly eleven years earlier.
“Z,” I breathed as tears compressed my chest.
He wrapped an arm around my waist and brought me into his right side. “My fallen angel.”
“My guardian monster,” I breathed into his mouth as he lowered it onto mine for a kiss.
I needed to tell ’er.
In fact, I’d needed to tell her for fuckin’ weeks but she was so goddamn happy and healthy for the first time in over a year so fuck me if I wanted to be the one to ruin it.
But I knew Danner wouldn’t wait for much longer.
My girl was eighteen years old now, celebrated her birthday in the hospital with an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen that she couldn’t eat because she was avoidin’ sugar so the dozen of brothers and their families had indulged while we pumped AC/DC into her hospital room.
Shit birthday but she’d told me she loved it anyway ’cause it was her first with me.
Girl still gave me a fuckin’ toothache, she was so sweet.
And now she was mine in a way that was permanent.
I watched her black diamond ring glint in the light as she waved it in the air to punctuate her story about what Sammy had done at the Autism Centre the other day. She was gearin’ up to work there full-time after graduation after decidin’ against university. I’d pushed for it. Lou was smart and if things had gone a different way—as in I wasn’t in her life—she woulda gone for sure. Told her I had enough money to send her to the best university for twenty fuckin’ degrees if she wanted.
She didn’t.
My girl didn’t want to commute to Vancouver or be away from the club and me for any length of time. She liked her new family too much to let ’em go.
I loved that so I’d shut up about school.
Besides, she’d be happy as fuck at The Autism Centre and the club had just done a charity run down the coast to raise money for it. Raised enough to add an after-school special needs tutorin’ program, one that my girl was going to set up.
H.R. was leanin’ toward her, captivated and nearly as in love with her as I was. It was weird as shit that my daughter’s stepmum was her age but we made it work and the way we did that was through lovin’ each other like we’d never be given another chance to love again.