Page 28

I consider going straight home for a few seconds, but the throbbing in my side warns me it’s not a good idea. My injuries will only worry her and my little mama has had enough of that in her life.

So, instead of driving past the clubhouse, I pull through the gate with the rest of my brothers.

We’re all battle-weary as we climb from our bikes, but the adrenaline still pumps through our systems.

Brothers grab sweetbutts as soon as we’re through the doors, tossing them over their shoulders and heading in other directions. Some pull the club girls to them right there in the common room, making quick work of their clothes and shoving their protected dicks inside.

Others grab their ol’ ladies and head to some of the private rooms upstairs, while others just find a darkened corner.

Giblet and Bambi grab their medical bags and get to work on those of us with injuries that needed more help.

Wanting to get home to my woman and kids, I grab what I need from Hannibal’s medical bag and head over to the pool table. I place the suture kit on the felt top and climb up.

I remove the holster that snuggles my precious and place it carefully on the pool table, then I slide my kutte from my shoulders.

After I pull my shirt off, I remove the bloody gauze from my side.

Hannibal has the cut holding closed with pieces of medical tape.

Once they’re off, the pieces of skin separate until I’m staring into a gash about half an inch deep.

My fingers work quickly to get the big ass fucking needle ready.

Unfortunately, the gash is on my dominant side and too far toward my back for me to get with my right hand.

I glance up for help, but Hannibal, Giblet, and Bambi are helping the others. The only ones not busy are a couple sweetbutts the brothers finished with. I don’t want Dimples or Spunky anywhere fucking near me, so I call for one of the newer girls.

“Cookie. Come here.”

She’s one of the more decent ones to have around. Well, unless you count the way she opened her fucking mouth when Birdie first arrived. Her eyes heat as she gets closer, her tongue coming out to lick her lips.

“Need help to work that adrenaline off, Pope,” she purrs.

Before Birdie returned home, I might have taken her up on the offer. Now, though, just the thought has my stomach roiling.

“No,” I snap. “The fuck is wrong with you? You know I have an ol’ lady. Don’t come at me like that again.”

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, Pope.”

“See that it doesn’t. I’d hate to have to slit your fucking throat.” I hold out the needle. “Need you to stitch this for me.”

“Okay. Turn so I can see it.”

The touch of her fingers against my skin has a shudder of revulsion skirting up my spine, but I grit my teeth.

I close my eyes at the sting of the first stitch, breathing deeply through my nose.

They’re only closed for a few minutes before a commotion at the front door of the clubhouse has them snapping open.

“Move out of the fucking way and let me see him,” Birdie screams, her voice high and panicked.

She shoves through the wall of brothers trying to block her out, her eyes searching through the common room.

Terror covers her face as she finds me. But then her eyes drop to Cookie, and she freezes.

Her face drains of color and her body shakes.

Pain bleeds through her beautiful green eyes and then they go blank as she just . . . fucking . . . stares.

“Stop,” I order Cookie, needing to get to Birdie.

“What? I’m almost finished.”

“I said fucking stop,” I yell, grabbing her wrist and yanking the needle from my flesh.

Urgency rushes over me when she whimpers, and I rush to her in deep strides. As soon as I’m in front of her, I lift my hands to her face, cupping her cheeks in my palms. I rest my forehead against hers, staring deeply into her empty eyes.

“Come back to me, baby. Come back. I’m right here. I’m sorry. I’m fucking sorry,” I whisper repeatedly.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The first time she comes to the club since showing up weeks ago and it’s finding me with my fucking shirt off and another club girl touching me. It doesn’t matter if she was patching me up. To Birdie, it was only a reminder of that night seven years ago.

Dammit. I should have gone to her and the kids like I wanted to.

“Come on, little mama. Come back. Beat my ass. Do whatever you have to do. Just come back to me.”

I count the seconds in my head as flickers of life work behind her eyes. The more pain I see from her because of my actions in the past, the more I question if I made the right decision back then. Questioning myself is something I don’t do, so it’s a testament to how fucked-up her pain has me.

Fire sparks in her emerald depths and anticipation licks up my spine.

Come on, baby. Give me hell. Bring the inferno.

Birdie places her palms in the middle of my chest and shoves with everything in her. My body stumbles backward, the wound in my side pinching.

“You dirty bastard,” she growls, advancing on me.

I bite my lip with a groan when my dick twitches behind my jeans.

Fuck, yeah.

“You promised you wouldn’t get hurt. Then I have to hear from my sister that you are. So, what do I do? I run to the last place I want to come to so I can check on you. What do I find? Your pathetic ass with some other bitch’s hands on you.” She drills a finger into my chest as she snarls, “Again.”

“Hey,” Cookie starts from the side.

“Shut up,” we both growl at her without taking our eyes from one another.

“Let me see,” Birdie demands.

“I’m okay, little mama.”

She glares at me. “I said let me fucking see. I don’t want you dying before I get the chance to kick your and everyone else’s ass in this club.”

Now, see, normally, I would swiftly address such disrespect. But since Birdie is a club brat who grew up here, and we were the ones who deeply disrespected her first, I believe we’re all willing to let it slide.

With a sigh, I turn so she can see the wound on my side.

Birdie pokes it none too gently, causing me to wince. “Well, it looks like shit. Maybe next time you should get someone else to fix you instead of a sweetbutt who’d rather ride your dick.”

She grabs one of my belt loops and drags me back over to the pool table before shoving me against it. Before she snatches a new suture kit, she snaps a pair of gloves onto her hands. She doesn’t even warn me she’s about to stick the fucking needle in.

I deserve it. Definitely.

But fucking hell.

Warn a pathetic dude next time or some shit.

I swear I hear her chuckle under her breath, but I doubt my perfect woman would do something so heinous.

Then it happens again when I grumble at another stitch.

Nope. That’s definitely a chuckle.

When she’s finished, she yanks off the gloves and tosses them onto the table, then folds her arms over her chest. “What happened?”

I run my fingers through my hair, watching when red flecks of dried blood flutters from it. “Club business, little mama.”

“Of course,” she mutters bitterly. “Club business. How the hell could I forget that? Who cares that it pertains to me, right?”

“He wasn’t there, and the ones who were are dead. Good enough?”

“No, but it’s not like you’ll give me more than that. You never have. This club is still the same, always shutting out the people you should be able to trust.”

“I told you everything.”

“Did you?”

Frustration eats at me in the face of her distrust.

“I’m protecting you, goddammit.”

“I know that, but this is my life too, Pope. I deserve to know what’s happening.”

My boots tear across the carpet as I march back and forth, my blood still pumping with adrenaline from the violence and having her here.

“I’m always protecting you. Then, now . . . always,” I yell.

My shoulders tighten as the club quiets and Birdie’s body stills.

“Then?” Her eyes narrow. “What do you mean you protected me then, Pope?”

I glance around the room, taking in the expressions on my brothers’ faces, on their ol’ ladies, on the sweetbutts.

Brothers are worried, ol’ ladies and sweetbutts are curious.

Manic stares at me with anger, his fists clenched, unbelieving that I just blurted our secret out. Cyanide watches, hopeful but hesitant.

“Answer me,” Birdie’s voice shakes, her eyes skewering me with an unflinching look.

With a growl, I pick up one of the pool balls and throw it against the wall, my nostrils flaring.

She won’t let this go.