Wild Like the Wind by Kristen Ashley
She took a sip of wine from her flute, looking away for a beat, then she looked back at me.
And when she did, I held my breath at what I saw in her eyes.
“I think Tad would walk through gunfire for me,” she whispered. “He’ll never be in the position to do that but I honest to God think he would, Keely. And I’ve been thinking on it since our phone conversation and I think that’s why I said yes. I think I’m whacked because I started to fall in love with my fiancé after he proposed to me.”
“And I think I’m beside myself with glee that’s happening for you, babe,” I replied softly.
She shot me a grin.
I lifted my glass up between us.
“To the magic of edible glitter dust and budding love,” I toasted.
“To hot-as-fuck teddies working wonders and best friends forever,” she toasted back.
We grinned at each other like goofs.
Then we clinked and drank.
Before she put her glass down, she exclaimed, “Shit! I forgot the fancy little knives. Hang tight.”
She dashed to the counter.
I didn’t need a fancy knife to shove a sliver of prosciutto in my mouth and I proved it by doing that.
“Okay, I said I was out of it,” she started before she turned back with the baby cheese knives in her hand, “but old habits that aren’t exactly old, since I haven’t yet gone cold turkey, are hard to break. In other words, I’m talking Chaos gossip. So what gives with you dogging Hound at that old lady’s funeral? Everyone is gabbing about it.”
I nearly choked on prosciutto.
Bev slid back into her seat and shoved knives into cheese even as she looked at me. “You okay?”
I pounded my chest, grabbed my glass and pushed out, “Yes,” before I took a sip.
“The old ladies are pissed, Keely,” she shared. “Everyone knows Hound has a soft spot for you. You show at that funeral and take off without giving him a hug?” She grew cautious. “I mean, I know . . . well, I guess I figure it’s about cemeteries, and well, no one likes them but you have more reason not to.”
“Bev—”
“But Elvira saw and she got ticked and she’s winding up Tyra and Lanie and Tabby and even Carissa, who’s sweet as sugar.”
“Elvira?” I asked.
“She’s a Club adoptee. I don’t get it. She was the black lady sitting in the seats by the casket with that smokin’ hot black dude. They just got engaged. He’s a cop.”
Even though I only had thoughts (and eyes) for Hound and Jean at the funeral and didn’t see any black lady with her smokin’ hot guy, I did another one of Hound’s slow blinks on learning that anyone having anything to do with a cop was adopted by Chaos.
“She’s a long story,” she finished.
I asked another one-word question.
“Carissa?”
“Joker’s old lady.”
“Ah,” I mumbled.
“Millie defended you, according to Lanie, but they figure with the time in between,” she shrugged a shoulder uncomfortably, “you should have . . . well, I mean, it’s Hound. How many old Jewish women has he been lookin’ after? Everyone was floored she even existed. They thought you could suck it up and show him some love.”
I was showing him some love all right.
“Bev, honey—”
“Not to come down on you but I also thought it was kinda uncool,” she kept going hesitantly.
“Bev—”
“I don’t want you to think I’m a bitch but he’s always had your back.”
“Bev, let me speak.”
She shut up and stared at me.
“Okay, I need you to brace. I mean, hang on, sister. Seriously,” I warned.
She kept shutting up but now was staring at me intensely.
Shit.
Okay.
She would get it. She’d be on our side. She’d be for anything that made me happy.
Just do it, Keely!
“Hound and I are together,” I announced. “We’ve been together a few months. The boys know. My boys that is, Dutch and Jagger. We were having a rough patch when Jean died that was really rough. I think we’ll have a lot more rough before it’s done, just not that kind. He loves me and I love him and we’re committed to this. Like committed. He’s my future. I’m his. He makes me happy. He lost Jean and I’m not certain he’s dealing but we just got back together and made the decision to tell everyone, come out, so I’m letting us settle into that before I take his pulse on Jean. But we’re not telling the Club. Not yet. Just you. And the boys. They’re ecstatic. And, well . . . so am I.”
She just kept staring at me intensely.
“I really am, Beverly,” I whispered. “And it’s bad timing, I get that, after I wasn’t all that supportive of you making a decision in your love life I wasn’t sure about. But that was a lot about you bursting into tears and babbling about Boz for fifteen minutes after you told me you said yes to marrying another man. I’m all in with Hound. I’ve talked to Black. I don’t know if he’d understand but it doesn’t matter. I’m in love with Hound and he loves me fierce, babe. So fucking fierce. And that’s all I’m letting in right now.”
Like Hound was when I told him I loved him, my best friend sat there unmoving and unspeaking.
“Bev, I really need your support in this. The brothers are gonna—”
I didn’t get that all out.
I jumped in my seat when she let out a war whoop and burst out of her chair. Doing an arms and legs spread cheerleader leap in the middle of her kitchen, she then half-skipped, half pranced in a circle, almost like a Native American dance without the offensive slapping her hand to her mouth, but definitely making unintelligible sounds of sheer jubilation before she stopped suddenly.
She whirled to me and threw out an arm, finger pointed at me.
“I knew it!” she yelled. She raised her arm and hacked it down with finger pointed toward me again. “I love this!” She brought both hands in front of her and clapped repeatedly, fingers pointed straight up. “He has been so into you for so long. And he’s such a good guy. Okay, he’s a little bit loco. Maybe a lot loco. But he’s still such a good guy. This is so fucking AWESOME!”
She screamed the last.
I opened my mouth to say something, the smile on my face so big it hurt, when she rushed the table and the smile died fast when I jumped in my seat again after she slammed a fist violently on the table, making everything on it jolt and wobble. In fact, three olives rolled off her charcuterie board along with a pickle, such was the violence of her hit.
“If any of those motherfuckers does dick to make this hard on you two, I’m gonna lose my mind,” she shrieked. “One last thing I’ll give Boz is a striping if he even thinks of pulling any shit with Hound about this. I’ll even butt up against Tack!” she shouted.
Uh-oh.
Biker cheerleader Beverly going up against Kane “Tack” Allen, president of the Chaos MC who got his title by means of executing the last one?
Shit.
“Bev, babe—”
“They’re gonna make him stand the gauntlet, and you know it, girl.”
It was then, I froze.
“And if they go through with that shit,” she carried on, “I’m gonna burn down the Compound my damned self.”
I was thrilled with her excitement. Absolutely.
But I was stuck on what she’d said.
Black had told me about standing the gauntlet years ago when Chew had slept with Crank’s ex-wife and Crank had demanded a vote from the brothers, wanting Chew to stand the gauntlet.
The brothers did not vote this to happen seeing as first, Crank was a fucking asshole and most of the brothers hated him and were making maneuvers to get his ass out. And second, because Crank doing that to Chew proved what a fucking asshole he was (well, some of it) because he shouldn’t call for anything that extreme to make a brother pay penance for sleeping with a woman Crank himself scraped off.
As in, l
He’d been the one who had dumped her and filed for divorce. Not only that, he talked trash about her any time she was brought up in a way you’d think he’d hated her, so Black nor I ever got why he’d gone balls to the wall about Chew fucking her.
“Keely?” Bev called.
My dazed eyes went to her.
Shoulders slumped, she slid into her seat.
“You hadn’t thought of that?” she asked.
“I knew that they wouldn’t be . . . wouldn’t be happy and that Hound would face that displeasure, but . . . the gauntlet?”
Bev sucked in her lips and bit them.
I didn’t know if they’d ever made anyone stand the gauntlet. It wouldn’t be something they put out there if that decision was made. That would be brothers only. It could have happened when the Club was sliding toward the hellmouth that was Crank and fighting desperately to pull themselves clear before they went into freefall. Everything was insanity back then.
But I did know what the gauntlet was.
They didn’t run it, oh no.
They stood it, or to my way of thinking, they were forced to stand it so they could be forced to withstand it.
In other words, if a brother did something that the other brothers felt he deserved to pay penance for, they didn’t pile shit on him for days, weeks, months, making him eat it until they felt he’d paid their price.
They got shit done and quick.
This was by tying that brother’s dominant hand behind his back and making him fight every single brother for a round of five minutes. There was no break for the brother doing atonement in between. Once that five minutes was done, the next brother came right in. If he went down, they pulled him up. If he became unconscious, they threw water on him until he was sentient, or at least standing, and then they went at him again.
Once the last brother threw the last punch, it was done. Amends were considered made. And all was forgiven, if not forgotten.
“They wouldn’t do that to Hound,” I said quietly.
Bev made no reply.
“Not Hound. They wouldn’t do that to Hound.”
She finally said something.
It was, “Girl.”
And that was it.
That meant she thought they’d do it.
To Hound.
“I couldn’t bear it if they did that to Hound. Not Hound. Not at all. But definitely not because of me,” I told her.
She leaned across the table toward me.
“Don’t,” she hissed.
“Beverly—”
“He’ll do it, he’d stand through it, and he won’t give a shit,” she declared.
He would.
He’d do it and he wouldn’t give that first shit.
For me.
My voice was getting higher. “I don’t care! They can’t do that to Hound because Hound is Hound.”
“And Black was Black,” she said gently.
“So?” I snapped. “They can’t see past that to see Hound’s happy? I’m happy? It has not one fucking thing to do with them, and they can’t act like they’re having a little tizzy for a day or two and then get over it?”
Her lips ticked up but she said, “Not sure any of those men have ‘a little tizzy’ in them. More like the different levels of the wrath of hellfire when they get pissed.”
“Well, they can just get over it,” I bit out.
“Keely—”
“They fucking can,” I sneered. “I swear to Christ, Bev, if they put my man through that for doing nothing but falling in love with me, I’m done with the Club. Hound will stay in it. Dutch and Jag will patch in. But I’ll be out.”
“Keely,” she whispered, blue eyes big and horrified.
“And I’ll tell each and every one of them just that if they even think about making him stand the gauntlet.”
“You need to stay out of this and you know it, babe,” she advised gravely. “It’ll be a brother thing.”
“Excuse me? The man I pick to drive his cock in me is a brother thing?” I asked sarcastically. “I don’t fucking think so.”
“Keely, you know how it is.”
“I know how it’s not going to be and that is the fact they are not going to make my man stand the gauntlet for falling in love with me. Not after all he’s given to the Club. Not after what he gave to Black. Not after how he took care of my boys. Not after all he did for me. No way. No fucking way.”
With that, on a slash of my hand, I grabbed my champagne flute, almost committing the sacrilege of spilling some Sofia, before I put it to my mouth and swallowed the whole damn thing.
When I put it down, Bev was already up, going to the fridge to get the bottle.
She filled my glass and set the bottle on the table, her gaze on me.
“You know I got your back, babe,” she said softly. “You also know that doesn’t mean dick.”
“Thanks, Beverly. And you’d be surprised. Those men love you. And it seems to me from what Hound’s been telling me, they might live their lives and do their thing and they don’t give a shit what anyone thinks but they do care what the brothers think, and from what I’ve heard, they now also care what their women think. And you’re still considered Boz’s so you have more loyalty from that Club than you think.”
She looked like she’d fallen into a weird trance.
So I called, “Beverly.”
She snapped out of it and came back into the room, her eyes clear, so clear, they were almost sharp and . . .
Fuck.
Dancing.
She swiped up her glass and lifted it toward me. “You’re right, sister. Love is in the air and fuck it. They don’t think snatch has a say? They don’t think our feelings matter? Whatever. We’ll just keep on keepin’ on, and in the end, be happy.”
I ignored the earlier look in her eyes, lifted my recharged glass and again we clinked.
She gulped hers all down.
I only drank half of mine.
She put her glass to the table, grabbed the bottle, started her refill and said, “Gotta keep up with my girl.”
I shot her a smile that I hoped wasn’t shaky and replied, “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
In the end, we got trashed.
So in the end, I had to call Hound to pick me up.
Also in the end, I nearly burst into tears when Hound showed at Bev’s door and she threw her arms around him, shoved her face in his chest and shouted, “You and Keely! This makes me so happy!” then dissolved into sobs.
I managed not to burst into tears when Hound’s arms slowly wound around her, he looked over the top of her head and raised his brows, giving me a “Please kill me” look.
It was then I had to stop myself from laughing.
Needless to say, getting in Hound’s truck with Hound, the first time I’d ever been in his truck with him alone, the first time I’d ever ridden beside him without the boys with us, and it coming to me I’d never been on the back of his bike and couldn’t until we told the brothers, I started to dive into my head.
This being, diving into my head angrily.
Because Bev was right.
Those men practically worshipped Black.
So they’d make Hound stand the gauntlet to have me.
I was so into my head, thinking these things, I didn’t notice that I didn’t speak all the way home.
Or all the way up to my front door.
Or all the way up to my room.
All this last with Hound following me.
“Everything good with you and Bev?” Hound asked carefully when we both hit the room.
I shot him a glare. His brows went up. And angrily, I went to the shopping bag I’d left on the armchair, which looked like it was covered in shaggy sheepskin, that sat in the seating area of my huge bedroom.
With my back turned to him, I tore off my clothes, all of them. Then I yanked the teddy out of the bag, bit the tags off with my teeth, and molded it on, adjusting it around my not-as-abundant-as-Bev’
I turned to Hound, slammed my hands on my hips even as I jutted one out and demanded, “Well?”
That got me a new look from my new, expressive Hound. One that shared he wanted bad to bust a gut laughing at the fact I’d just angrily slid on a teddy, at the same time he wondered how pissed I would be if he ripped that brand-new teddy clean from my body.
It was a freaking awesome look.
“Do you like it?” I asked when he said nothing.
“I’m not sure how one second, I could be worried you got into it with your girl and the next minute I’m so hard I think my dick’s gonna split in two at the same time I wanna laugh my ass off ’cause you’re so damned cute. So yeah, I like it, but answer me. You and Bev okay?”
“First,” I brandished an arm down my front like I was a model calling attention to a shiny car on a podium at a car show, “Happy day after I told you I love you day.”
That got me another new look from Hound.
One that said he thought I was damned cute and he loved me . . . fierce.
I had to ignore that so I could stay on target with what I had to say.
“Second, if the brothers make you stand the gauntlet, I’m done with Chaos,” I leaned toward him dramatically, “forever.”
His face softened, registering openly his understanding.
“I see the old ladies got together and got their panties in a twist,” he muttered.
“I’m being very serious, Shep,” I warned.
“Baby, on your knees at the edge of the side of the bed. Now.”
That took some of the anger out of me mostly because you couldn’t be angry when you were in the throes of a mini-orgasm.
I went to the bed and did as I was told.
Hound didn’t waste time coming to stand in front of me.
He also didn’t waste time making new adjustments to the neckline of my teddy, gliding it over my nipples to expose them in a move that felt so good, my lips parted and I felt a rush of heat between my legs. He then put his palms to the bottom sides of my breasts and shoved them up and in.