Last Ride (Wind Dragons MC #5.5)(5)

I pull out my phone. “I’ll call Bailey and make her make you.”

He plucks the phone out of my hands and lifts it up in the air. “And now what are you going to do?”

When he starts going through my phone, I try to grab it back off him. “Trust me, Rake, if you go through that you’re not going to like what you see.”

He stills and flashes me a wide-eyed glance. “Nudes?”

I nod. “In all different poses and distances.”

He hands me back my phone instantly. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you know me?” I grin, sliding my phone into my bra. There’s actually only one photo on there I wouldn’t want anyone but Dex to see—a sexy one of me in lingerie that I sent to him the other night while he was working at Rift.

He was home in fifteen minutes.

Like I conjured him with my mind, Dex comes to sit on the other side of me. He doesn’t say anything about me sitting so close to Rake, or pay any attention to it, because he knows we’re like family. I’m like this with all of the men, pretty much. They’re like my brothers. Brothers I never expected or wanted, but ones that turned out to be everything I could possibly need.

“What’s the time?” I ask him, knowing that we have to leave to get Clover from school anytime now. I really hope the dogs haven’t destroyed the house in our absence, or I’ll never hear the end of it from Dex.

“We have to leave in twenty,” he says, then looks to Rake. “Are we still picking up Cara and Rhett?”

The kids wanted a playdate, so I said I’d have them all at my house today.

Rake nods. “Yeah, that would be f*ckin’ great. I have to drop by Rift and Toxic now. We’re hiring new bouncers.”

With that, he stands, but not before kissing the top of my head. “I’ll come and get the kids once I’m done, yeah?”

“Sounds good,” I say, watching him as he disappears back inside the clubhouse. “I hate waking up Asher from his nap,” I say to Dex.

“Me too,” he answers, nuzzling my neck. “But, babe, it’s the only time we have peace.”

I laugh at that, because it’s the damn truth.

I stand up and offer Dex my hand. He takes it, even though there’s no way I could pull him up on my own. He’s a large man, and he’s made of pure muscle. He looks exactly the same as the first day I fell in love with him, although the actual date is debatable—I think I always loved him, even as a child. He used to call me his fairy, and I used to love it every single time.

He stands up and pulls me in for a slow kiss before we head back inside. It’s time to put a sleeping Asher in his car seat and pick up the kids.

Dexter Black carpooling.

It still makes me giggle.





THREE




Faye

THE next evening, Dex and Tracker take Talon and Ranger to follow a lead regarding Talon’s rat. They still aren’t any closer to finding out who it is, and I know it’s driving Talon insane. I stay at the clubhouse with everyone else, just in case something happens. Until the traitor is found, I don’t think I’m going to be able to relax. Talon is now one of us, and we could be targeted next. Not that we couldn’t take on whoever it is, but I like to know what and who we’re up against. The kids are playing outside, the dogs running around, Arrow and Irish busy on the grill. We seize any opportunity to have a barbecue, even when some of us are trying to track down a killer with ties to our newest members.

Tina sits down next to me, looking straight ahead as she speaks. “Which prison is Darren in?”

My eyes widen. “What?”

Darren is Tina’s ex-boyfriend, and he’s a cop. At least he was a cop, until Irish killed him. He was abusive, and threatening Tina, so Irish took care of it. He also lied and told her that Darren was arrested, hence the questions.

“Which prison is he in?” she asks me again. “No one really talks about what happened to him. No one even told me how many years he got. You’re the one that helped the prosecution, so could you just give me some peace of mind?”

Well, f*ck.

The information I have, she isn’t going to like.

And I can’t tell her, because Irish would do the same thing to me that he did to the man in question.

Colt, Shayla’s dog, runs up to me for a pat, which I use as a distraction, stroking the top of his massive head.

“I’ll tell you what,” I say, needing to talk to Irish about how to handle this. “I’ll get the paperwork for you to read over, all right? I’m not sure where he is right now, but I can find out.”

It’s kind of the truth. I know he’s six feet under, but I’m not sure where exactly. Who knows where they buried the body. I certainly don’t. I’m a lawyer—everyone needs to be cautious about how they word things around me.

She nods, shoulders relaxing. “That would be great. Ardan changes the subject every time I bring it up, and I get it, Darren is an * and doesn’t deserve the mention, but I just want to know what happened, you know? It’s annoying me that I don’t. Do you think we can keep it between us? I don’t want Ardan getting upset.”

Fuckity f*ck.

I can’t tell Tina the truth because Irish wants to protect her from what happened, and now Tina wants me to do the same for him? These two really need to sort their shit out.