Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(11)

She was pushing the Native American gig, something she started doing when she gave up on being a biker babe years ago, and she hadn’t let that go. It was something she could do seeing as Dutch and Jag told him they were an eighth Apache since their momma was a quarter. Right then, she pushed it with the hair as well as the three-layer bone choker she had at her throat.

After what she spouted at him at the Chaos Compound, he really didn’t want to feel that sheet of hair, those big eyes, those puffy lips and that choker in his dick.

But he did.

He unlocked and opened the door.

She pushed in before he could block her way.

Once in, she did not take in his ratty-ass apartment that he’d lived in for nine years and had not run the vacuum once (mostly because he didn’t own a vacuum, but also because he never intended to buy one).

She whirled on him, planted her hands on her slim hips and announced, “So you’re alive.”

He felt his mouth get tight and threw the door shut, but that was all he got in before she came at him, both hands up, and shoved him so hard at his chest, his entire torso rocked back.

That was when he felt his whole face get hard.

She didn’t hesitate to get up in that face and fuck him, fuck him, he felt her tits brush his chest, she was that close.

“You big jerk!” she shouted. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Stand down, woman,” he growled.

“You haven’t dropped my check in two months, Hound.”

He couldn’t stop it.

He blinked at her and did it slow.

“You might miss a month but you never miss two,” she informed him of something he knew but thought she had not ever noticed.

“As you can see, I’m still standing,” he told her.

“I can see that. What I hear is that Chaos has got whatever trouble they’ve got with whoever took Millie and now they’re rubbing up against Bounty.”

Bounty was another MC in Denver.

They’d never had any problem with Bounty.

Now they did.

“Think you made it clear last time I saw you that you’re outta it with Chaos, so not sure how that’s your issue,” he stated.

“Uh, were you not there when the boys voted in Dutch as a recruit a month ago?”

Actually, he was on maneuvers so he had not been.

Though, since he sponsored Dutch, along with every man who’d had his patch when Black died, his official vote wasn’t really necessary.

He decided not to answer.

“I thought something had happened to you,” she said it like it was an accusation.

He put both arms up at his sides, which he thought pretty much said it all.

It did, but she was clearly not happy about the way he did it and he knew that with the way her face screwed up, all pissed.

“You drop my checks,” she declared heatedly.

“Gonna leave that duty to another man,” he told her.

“Why?” she rapped out.

“’Cause I got other shit I need to be doin’,” he replied, not the entire truth, not a full lie either.

“It’s because I was a bitch to you,” she said it, straight out.

“You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true,” he returned, and that wasn’t a lie at all.

What he left unsaid was that her saying what she’d said sucked dick.

“I was upset,” she explained herself.

“That didn’t go unnoticed,” he shared.

“Don’t be an asshole, Hound,” she snapped, and his brows went up as his temper caught.

“How’s that bein’ an asshole?” he asked.

“You’re bein’ flippant,” she told him.

He leaned toward her. “Woman, I don’t even know what ‘flippant’ means.”

“Then you need to spend more time reading books and less time doing Chaos’s wet work,” she shot back.

He leaned away and slowly drew a very long breath into his nose.

She glared at him.

When he had no verbal reaction to her remark, she looked around then back at him.

“For God’s sake, Hound, you live in a sty,” she declared.

“Got no woman to keep the place nice for, baby,” he drawled. “As you pointed out. And men don’t mind they live in a sty. It’s only women who give a fuck about that shit.”

Her eyes got squinty. “Why don’t you have a woman?”

He was not discussing this with her.

“That’s none of your fuckin’ business,” he returned.

She threw up an arm in front of her to indicate him. “You’re hot.”

He did another slow blink.

He was?

“It’s a waste,” she decreed.

She’d know about waste, all of what was her going without a man for seventeen years.

“You’re worried I don’t get my wick wet enough, Keely, you can mark that off your list of things you shouldn’t stick your nose into in the first place. I get what I need. I just don’t keep it.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“You obviously won’t feel this way, but you don’t know me so I’ll educate you that for a guy like me, you give it enough time to get time in, snatch becomes a drag and no man needs anything draggin’ on him.”