She turns her face so she’s looking at him. “Maybe I like older men,” she says, but her voice is shaking.
“Not like me, you don’t. Besides which, you’re a slip of a thing, and I’d tear you apart.”
She sucks in a breath.
Jack pulls one hand away from the wall and slowly, oh-so-slowly, rubs his thumb across her bottom lip.
Camile darts her tongue out, so briefly if I’d have blinked, I’d have missed it.
Jack groans low and deep. “Fuck me, baby girl. You’re dangerous, you know that?”
“Yeah?” She blinks up at him.
He watches her for a long moment, but then something shuts down in him and he pulls away. “But I’m way more dangerous, and you don’t want to be involved with the likes of me. Trust me. Go back to your friends—you remember them? My daughter, and your friend, Vani? I don’t think she’d be happy about this.”
She pushes past him angrily, and he lets her. I dart into the room opposite, hiding as she walks by me.
I hear Jack groan in the altar room. “Fuck me.”
Then he sighs audibly and his heavy footsteps leave the room to follow Camile back to the party.
Good lord, I need a moment. If they could bottle the sexual tension between those two and sell it, we’d all be at it like rabbits. But I’m glad Jack shut it down because he is right, he’s dangerous and Vani would not be happy. I’ve spent my life having to watch out for predators, and I know one when I see one. Camile is sweet, and she’s kind of a good girl, compared to a lot of the women here, so she’d be a terrible fit for biker life.
I almost laugh at the idea of her in leathers, on the back of a bike. I’ve always pictured her married in a few years, to a man in the mob who comes across more as a businessman than a mobster.
When I get back to the party, there’s no sign of her.
“Where’s Camile?” I ask Mackenzie.
“She got a headache, so she’s gone home, but she suggested we all go for brunch soon. Just us girls. Nurse our hangovers.”
My heart warms. “I’d love that,” I say truthfully.
Roman and Mal appear, as if from nowhere, and put their arms around me, each kissing the top of my head. I look aroundfor Cain, always needing to know where he is, and my gaze finds his. Our eyes lock, and there’s so much that passes between us in that simple look.
The party recedes around me, all the noise and chatter, and all that matters is my two men either side of me, and Cain’s gaze holding me in a tractor beam of emotions.
These men are my home, and I know they will be for as long as I have air in my lungs.
I’ve finally found the place I belong, and my heart is full.
Camile
“I’ll have the iced latte macchiato with cold whip foam,” I tell the server and close the menu.
The other girls have all ordered, and banter continues around me as they tease each other about their men. We’re sitting in a coffee shop in Arbington, a town about twenty minutes away from the college. It’s become our little routine, the four of us—me, Vani, Ophelia, and Mackenzie. Though I love being with them, I always feel kind of left out when the subject of the guys comes up. Maybe I need to start dating more, but it always seems a little pointless when my family will marry me off as soon as I graduate, which isn’t too far off now. I can’t say I’m looking forward to going home to Mexico. This place feels like home now. Besides, my family has been having serious issues with a local cartel, and it’s got me worried.
I glance outside, to where Tino is sitting in a car, watching the street. His presence is reassuring. He’s got headphones on and will be listening to his music. We always have at least one of the men guarding us when we come here. It shows how much they love their women that they’ll sit outside giving us privacy and some time together. Sometimes, they’ll come in and take atable far away from us, grabbing a coffee themselves, but Tino had told Mackenzie that he was fine in the car with his music.
Maybe one day, I’ll have someone to care for me in the same way.
“I’ve got something to show you guys,” Ophelia says, flushing, and holds out her left hand.
On her ring finger is a delicately carved wooden ring. The wood is engraved with what appear to be runes.
Mackenzie gasps and covers her mouth with her hand. “Does that mean what I think it does?”
“Yes.” Ophelia beams. “They asked me to marry them. Roman made one of these for each of us.”
