Unattainable (Undeniable, #3)(21)

“Jesus, you’re gettin’ heavy. How old are you now, twenty-f*ckin’-five?”

Ivy laughed. “Nine, stupid! I’m only nine!”

“Yeah, yeah.” He grinned, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and set her down. “Makin’ me feel old, little sister.”

“Cage, when are we gonna work on bikes again?”

He grinned down at his little tomboy of a sister. “Soon, baby,” he said. “Soon.”

He gave the trio of boys a quick chin lift, Harley a hair ruffle and a kiss, then headed through the foyer and into the kitchen area. His father was leaning back against the kitchen counter, a beer in one hand, his other arm wrapped around Eva with his free hand resting on the slight bulge of her stomach. Her long brown hair was piled messily on top of her head, and she was wearing an old pair of sweats and one of his old man’s tees.

She was four months along in another high-risk pregnancy that his idiot father had insisted on. Because for some reason three kids weren’t enough for the *, he wanted another, for reasons God only knew why. To make sure the world knew he still had swimmers? Cage would never understand that man.

Cox and Kami were opposite them, Cox sitting on top of the counter, Kami standing between his legs, both drinking beers.

“Yo,” he said, giving a halfhearted wave.

Cox nodded his way, Kami gave him a wave and a smile, but it was Eva who pulled away from Deuce and came at him with her arms wide open. As he folded his arms around her, he locked eyes over her shoulder with his father who, instead of saying hello, grunted something incoherent and turned back to Cox.

Ass. Hole.

“What’s little Kelley doin’ here?” he asked, referring to Christopher.

“Hawk’s on his way,” Eva said as she pulled away from him and gave him another genuine smile. Reaching up, she tugged on a lock of his hair that had pulled free of his rubber band.

“God,” she whispered, her big gray eyes sparkling. “You look just like your dad when he was your age.”

He started to smile at her despite her comparing him to his old man, because, f*ck, how could you not smile at someone who loved as hard as this woman did?

“He looks like his f*ckin’ mother.”

Cage lost his smile.

His mother might be a club rat turned deadbeat and she might love drinking more than she loved her own kids, but she was still his mother, and half of what had happened to her had been his old man’s fault in the first place.

“Ignore him,” Eva whispered. “And go say hi to your sisters.”

“Speaking of, where’s the brat?” he asked, referring to Danny.

Eva smiled and pointed upstairs.

Looping back around, Cage headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time until he was standing outside his sister’s old bedroom. Without bothering to knock, he turned the knob and pushed open the door.

“Jesus f*ck!” he yelled, slamming the door closed.

“Knock much?” Danny screamed from inside her room, where he’d just seen her naked, on her knees, getting nailed by her husband.

Fucking hell.

It wasn’t the first time he’d accidentally walked in on them, either. Those two idiots couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen pantries, didn’t matter where they were. Their home, someone else’s home, the clubhouse, a restaurant, the two of them were always all up in each other’s shit, all the motherf*cking time.

The door flew open and Danny, looking disheveled but thankfully clothed, stormed into the hallway. “What the f*ck!” she yelled.

He rolled his eyes. “Was comin’ in to say hi, you f*ckin’ brat.”

The corner of her mouth curved and a dimple appeared. The next thing he knew she was lunging, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing.

“Get the f*ck off me!” he bellowed, shoving her backward into Ripper’s arms, who was also now thankfully clothed. “You f*ckin’ smell like Ripper,” he said, feigning disgust.

Ripper, laughing, swung one of his arms around Danny and held out his fist. Cage eyed it warily before fist-bumping him quickly.

“Don’t know where that shit has been,” he said.

“Fuck off,” Ripper said. “You just get back?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d that shit go down?”

“Wham bam,” Cage told him. “In and out. Spent the night at Preacher’s, shot the shit with the Demons for a few, did what I had to do, then took the scenic route home.”

“Nice,” Ripper said. “Prez’ll be happy.”

Yeah right, he thought, scoffing internally. Prez, his never-happy-with-him father, was just that. Never happy with him.

Behind him, two doors down, Cage heard the toilet flush from inside the bathroom. The faucet turned on, then off, then—

The door swung open and all heads swiveled just in time to see Tegen walk out into the hall, wiping her wet hands off on her long white linen skirt.

Glancing up, her cat-like green eyes locked on him and she froze midstep. He was about to say hello when suddenly her small, slightly pointed nose wrinkled up and her mouth flattened with obvious disgust.

“By the way,” Danny said cheekily. “Tegen’s here.”

Cage felt his already pissed-off mood worsen because, Jesus Christ, every time he saw the bitch, it was more than obvious she still had a stick up her ass about what had happened one drunken night, seemingly forever ago. A night he didn’t even remember.