Wild and Free (The Three #3)(37)

She curved her arms around his shoulders. He turned his head and looked down at her, seeing her eyes were wide.

“Hold on, bao bei,” he murmured.

She nodded.

He moved.

He heard her gasp as he went about taking her upstairs as fast as they could get there, including opening and closing the steel door and the back door to the restaurant.

All this took seconds.

As they came to a rocking halt in the kitchen, he smelled Jian-Li’s lunch.

He also smelled biker. Five of them.

He gave Delilah a slight shake and she unwrapped her legs from his hips. He put her to her feet and looked down at her.

Her hair was slightly tousled and her eyes were huge and bright.

“That…was…awesome,” she breathed.

He grinned.

She leaned deep into him, her hand hitting his stomach. Smiling up in his face, dazzling and gorgeous, she whispered, “Let’s meet the parents.”

Meet the parents.

He’d have that once. With her. Doing something natural for a human, something Abel couldn’t ever have until her, knowing he found the woman for him and adding humans to his life, his family, giving him more.

More family, which was the only real joy he had in his long life.

Or, at least that joy would last for a while.

Abel wanted to kiss her for that reason and others besides.

He didn’t. He shifted so she’d let him go, but he took her hand and led her into the restaurant.

When he did, he saw instantly that Jian-Li was in hostess mode, nodding, smiling, and greeting the bikers who were gathered inside. Xun, Wei, and Chen were close but off to the side, giving her space to do her thing.

He took in Delilah’s family and saw instantly they were hardcore.

They weren’t bikers.

They were live, breathe, eat, drink, f*ck, bleed, and die for the life bikers.

And he knew the one to the front was Delilah’s father. He knew it because she had his hair and his eyes and he had a tinge of her scent. It was masculine, but the tang was underlying it. She got her pale roses-and-cream skin from somewhere else, but she got serious goodness from her father.

He was maybe five foot eleven. He was stocky with a hint of a gut. And he was in leathers— chaps over jeans, jacket, even a suede shirt.

His dark but salted hair was long, as long as his daughter’s, but just the back. The top was clipped and spiked. The mullet to beat all mullets that only a guy like him could pull off.

His face was weathered. It was clear he had no problem with sun and wind, drink and food, likely drugs. He lived his life, every f*cking minute of it, and he enjoyed the f*ck out of it, all of this written on his face.

Then something else was written on his face as he noticed Abel and Delilah coming into the room.

Love and joy. Pure. Absolute.

Delilah pulled her hand from his, raced across the room, and Abel forced himself to stop and freeze in that position, his jaw clenching, feeling a muscle dance in his cheek as she threw herself into her father’s arms.

He knew from what she’d told him that they were very close. She adored the man, trusted him, her affection for him was extreme. Abel also knew from the look he’d just witnessed on her father’s face that he returned all that.

Thus that man would never harm her.

Abel still felt the overwhelming urge to forge straight to them and tear his woman out of her father’s arms.

“Daddy!” she cried as her father shook her in his hold, her feet off the floor, arms around his shoulders, face in his neck, his face wreathed in smiles.

“My little girl,” he husked, his voice beyond gravelly, straight to shards.

Finally, he let her down but didn’t let her go, just positioned her a foot away, his hands holding her at her forearms out in front of them.

That was when Abel moved, immediately getting close, wrapping his fingers around her upper arm, forcing himself to pull her away but doing it gently. He felt her eyes come to him, saw her father’s eyes move to him. But when he got her where he wanted her, he did not hesitate to clamp an arm around her shoulders and tuck her tight, her front to his side.

“Things have been intense,” he said quietly to her father. “I get who you are to Lilah. She told me. But the first time I had eyes on her, she was not in a good way. So I’m not good with men touching her. Any man. This might wear off. But until it does, I hope you get me.”

He felt Delilah relax into his side as her arms snaked around his middle. Through this, her father held his eyes.

Then he hooted, “Fuck!” He turned and said to the men behind him, “Did I tell you I was gonna love this guy?” He turned back to Abel and Delilah and shouted, “I f*ckin’ love this guy!”

The tension that had sifted into the room at Abel’s actions slid away as Delilah made the introductions. “Daddy, this is Abel.”

“Yeah, little girl, I think I got that,” he replied on a huge smile aimed at his daughter and then stuck a hand out to Abel.

Abel let her go, she did the same, and he moved to take the man’s hand. But it was a surprise when he didn’t shake and instead grasped Abel’s forearm and gave it a powerful tug, forcing Abel forward so the side of his chest slammed into the side of Delilah’s father’s.

Both men leaned back, but Delilah’s father lifted his other hand and pounded Abel’s shoulder repeatedly, smiling up at him, before he lifted his hand again and slapped his cheek, again repeatedly, doing this lightly with fatherly affection.