“If by ‘over’ you mean set up their lawn chairs over on the green there,” he said, pointing, “and watch us do chores. Then yes.”
“Frisky older ladies are amazing.”
“Dixon agrees. He puts on a show for them when he catches them out there.”
“You don’t strip for them?” I teased.
“Baby, they see all this,” he said, waving down at himself, “and they might develop high blood pressure. I’m not gonna be responsible for that.”
There was no stopping the laugh that escaped me at that.
This guy had no right to be both as attractive and charming as he was. Add in his competence and protectiveness and he was basically the perfect guy.
“So, who is the gardener?” I asked as he led me toward the front path.
“Guess we all are. My brother and I are still prospects. We do most of the grunt work here.”
“I’ve never met bikers who have such abundant flower gardens.”
“It’s for the tortoise.”
“What was that?”
“There’s a club tortoise. He likes to eat those flowers, so we keep them growing for him.”
Damn him.
He took care of animals too?
I was dying to find a single flaw.
You know, aside from the lying to me and outlaw biker profession thing.
“There’s also a bird inside, just so you know.”
“I love birds.”
“Really?” he asked, pausing with his hand on the knob, shooting me a lowered brow look.
“Yeah, it happened out of nowhere. I turned thirty andboom, suddenly I’m noticing every bird. And now I feel like I owe my father an apology for always pointing them out to me when I was a kid.”
“You got layers, huh?” he asked. “This is a macaw. And he will try to eat any food you’re holding. And maybe pull your jewelry. He’s got a record for trying to rip earrings off. And once, an old man’s medical alert necklace. That was a whole clusterfuck. Ready?”
“Yep,” I agreed, feeling a little more at ease now that I knew more about these men.
Sure, they were absolutely hardened criminals. But they took good care of their animals. That said something. So did the gardening for them. And the fact that there was a trio of children’s bikes on their sides by the driveway.
The inside was, well, manly. Which was expected. It was all bare walls and leather furniture. There was an unnecessarily large TV (and this is coming from someone who had a too big TV myself), a few gaming consoles, an array of empty beer cans on the coffee table, and a single hot pink bra hanging from the stair banister.
The male voices were coming from the back of the house, and when Caymen led me through, we found ourselves in a sprawling kitchen complete with an island, a table to the side, and a large parrot cage.
Sitting on the open door of said cage was a gorgeous blue and gold macaw. In his big foot was a generous slice of a peach that he was picking at with his beak.
“Hi, buddy,” I cooed at him, unable to stop myself.
“F… fuck.”
“Yeah, that about covers this night,” I agreed. Then I turned to the rest of the men gathered around who had fallen silent at my entrance.
