Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(116)

“In case you didn’t get it, I’ll say it,” I began. “Thanks for folding and bringing up the laundry.”

“You don’t have to thank me for doin’ something that contributes to our life.”

Was he for real?

I snuggled even closer.

He was for real. Every inch of him.

Hound’s arms loosened but not that much, only so he could trail his fingertips along my sides.

I felt him relax under me and I did the same on top of him.

We were both close to sleep when I murmured, “I can’t wait to be on the back of your bike, cowboy.”

His arms got tight again.

“Me either, baby,” he whispered. “Me either.”

I smiled against his skin.

And lying on top of my old man, happy, sated, in love and with so much to look forward to in life it wasn’t funny, I fell asleep.





I Will Not Ever Forget Hound

“You got yourself a pet?” Camilla Turnbull asked nastily, her focus on Hound.

Hound didn’t move. He just stood in her living room that he’d walked into, following Knight Sebring and his man Rhashan Banks.

She’d been eyeing him up from the minute he moved in. Her four goons had been doing the same.

What she didn’t do was get off her ass, which was planted in her fancy couch in the room with a view. Not even to offer Knight a seat.

Knight took one anyway, across from her in a chair.

“Why don’t we at least try for civil?” Knight suggested.

She didn’t take her eyes off Hound. “We vacated Chaos.”

Hound said nothing, just held her gaze.

Knight spoke.

“Chaos requested a rep at this meet, I agreed. They’re concerned you’re not committed to your retreat from their turf, and I’m concerned you’re not committed to your promise to me that you’ll deal with your girls in ways I find less provoking.”

Her attention finally turned to Knight.

“Now, why would I break a promise I made to the all-powerful Knight Sebring?” she asked bitchily.

“Your current attitude, you honestly expect me to answer that?” Knight asked back, and Hound could sense him losing patience, but he didn’t have to sense shit. Knight wasn’t hiding it.

“They’re whores, Sebring,” she returned.

“They’re humans, Camilla. If they’re at a place in their lives they gotta turn tricks, you run them, why would you make that worse for them?” Knight fired back.

Her upper lip curled in a humorless grin. “They’re not all your mother.”

“None of them are my mother,” Knight bit. “And that doesn’t mean dick. You knowin’ my history doesn’t mean dick. You sharin’ you know it when it’s no secret doesn’t get you dick. But you takin’ from this meet that you got attention you don’t want means more than dick. I’m here. I’m givin’ you my time. I’m showin’ you respect. You throw that in my face, that’ll be a statement you’re makin’ and I’m not sure you’ll wanna know where I take it from there. What I will let you know is this will be the last meet you get so maybe you wanna curb the attitude and make this time useful for both of us.”

“How can it be useful for me when the only purpose you have in being here is telling me how to run my girls and threatening me not only with you,” she jerked her chin at Knight, then at Rhash and finally moved her eyes to Hound, “but also Chaos, when Chaos doesn’t have shit to do with it anymore? You wanted Chaos clean,” she said to Hound. “It’s clean. Now run along, little doggie.”

Hound didn’t make a move or a sound.

He just kept staring at her.

She was young. Okay looking. She made the little she had better with expensive clothes and makeup and a good dye job for her hair. He could tell she worked at that body. It was lean to the point it was feral. She probably kickboxed or some shit.

She could kickbox herself unconscious.

He still could snap her neck before she could blink.

“We’ve wasted our time,” Knight murmured, getting up from his chair, doing it getting her attention.

“I told you I’d lay off my girls, I’m laying off my girls,” she snapped.

“Not from news I got last night, which prompted me reaching out to make this meet,” Knight replied.

Her eyes skidded to one of her goons before they went back to Knight.

The eye skid meant that was news to her.

This little girl didn’t have a grip on her boys.

This whole act was show.

But she better get a grip or get the man pulling her strings to sort their shit, because when Knight said she didn’t want to know what he’d do if she didn’t get things in hand, he wasn’t talking shit.

“Perhaps the message hasn’t yet filtered through the ranks,” she mumbled. “I’ll make that happen right away.”

“Your boys don’t take freebies either, Camilla,” Knight added. “Not at all, but definitely not rough ones.”

Hound watched her mouth get tight as she listened to Knight give it all to her, but Hound didn’t know her so he couldn’t read that. Either she was pissed her boys weren’t listening to her or she was pissed Knight was telling her how to do her business.