time I did. Only, he went to reach for me whereas I slammed my heel into his instep, used the flat of my hand and shoved it into his nose, then with glee, raised my knee and dug it straight into his junk.
The howl he released satisfied the beast inside me, but what satisfied me more?
Him dropping to the ground.
I grabbed his hair, smashed him down, and right where he’d spat, I pushed his face into it.
“Think you can spit in front of me, you motherfucker?” I snarled, and the hoots and hollers from behind the gate were the only thing that had me dropping the bastard’s head and letting him slam face-first into the ground.
Dust motes rose, but I was used to that. Texas was built on dust. That and the sweat of the folks who lived under its molten sun.
When I stared between the bars, my heart froze.
Go to them, Lucie. They need you as much as I did.
Only trouble was, Ry had been the only one brave enough to take me.
My eyes caught on Flame’s stunned ones for a handful of seconds before I wrenched them away, only for Axe to snare me in a tight visual hold. I went along the line as though there weren’t twenty brothers storming toward the gates, diving into Dagger’s gaze, before tumbling headfirst into Wolfe’s.
What had been jittering around inside me like a hand grenade that was due to explode, turned softer, sadder.
They’d changed.
The life had made them harder. Being a part of a one-percenter club—an MC that was pure outlaw and better than the other ninety-nine percent of riding clubs out there—had caused more frown lines than smile lines, and there were thick brackets of tension on their brows. Not that that made them any less gorgeous to me.
The fuckers.
They were all as stacked as ever, all as ripped and delicious in their cuts, tees, jeans, and boots. How four items of clothing could make my pussy wet, I’d never know. I was like Pavlov’s dog for them though.
Well, for the four men inside those clothes.
No other fuckers.
Flame, with his red hair, brown eyes, and freckled face that should have looked wholesome but somehow was like walking sin. Axe, whose blond hair and green eyes could make me wet with a single stroke of his finger down my arm. Then there was Dagger who, like his name, reminded me of steel. His hair had been steel-gray at eighteen, and with those dark brown eyes of his, he lulled you into a false sense of security before finishing you off. Either with his cock if you were me, or his knife if you were an enemy.
Then, there was Wolfe. Like his namesake, he was strong and proud, feral with his shaggy, dirty blond hair and eyes that were colder than Lake fucking Tahoe.
“Lucie? Is that you?”
“Rhetorical question?” I retorted, folding my arms across my chest. Flame knew who I was—he might look older, but I didn’t. I wanted as little bullshit around me as goddamn possible so I refused to cut him any slack.
The prospect groaned, and though the brothers—mostly newer ones that I didn’t recognize—began hollering and laughing at the dumbfuck on the ground, the four, my four, carried on eyeballing me.
“Aren’t you going to let me in?”
The men turned to Wolfe and that had my brows lifting. Shit had changed more than I’d thought.
Living across the state, I hadn’t heard as much about my family’s MC as I’d have liked. Ry and I had chosen to live a different life, but without him, and now, with my father gone, I had no reason to stay out of it anymore.
This was my fucking home, and I needed to be here.
“Why are you here, Lucie?” Wolfe, just as his namesake might, growled.
Before I could reply, a little voice whispered, “Mommy? What’s happening?”
The men stiffened, and when my baby girl popped her head out of the backseat and jumped out of the car to investigate for herself, I saw Wolfe’s nostrils flare.
He cut me a look, and though he was learning he was a daddy right this minute, and though that look might have felled lesser men, I wasn’t a man and I wasn’t lesser.
I cocked a brow at him. “How about you open these gates, sugar?”
❖
Wolfe
I’d been in gunfights.
I’d almost been raped by an Aryan in the showers of a federal lock up.
And I’d dealt with more dirty businessmen than Satan himself.
Yet nothing had my heart in my throat like