This day has turnedinto the longest fucking day of this year so far. The fact I’m not at home with Tatum has put me in a filthy mood. However, when my president calls and tells me to be somewhere, there’s no choice to be made, so here we are.
King called just after one p.m. and detailed a problem that he and I had to sort out before it became a massive fucking headache for the entire club. It involved tracking down a guy who has complicated shit for the club and making it clear he’s no longer welcome in Sydney. We should have been finished hours ago, but the asshole was elusive, and we’ve only just gotten word from Devil as to his current whereabouts. We’re heading there now but have had to make a stop at King’s place, which is only fucking slowing us down more.
“Nitro,” Lily says with a smile as I follow King into their kitchen. “Tatum’s out the back.” At my frown, because I thought Tatum was at home, she adds, “She dropped over to return a dress she borrowed.”
I leave King and head out to the back deck to find my wife. She’s on her phone with her back to me while she gazes out over King’s backyard and carries on a conversation. By the sounds of it, she’s talking with her assistant.
My eyes are drawn to her ass while I close the distance between us. Always to her ass. My hands and mouth know every curve of it by memory.
She ends her call and turns while I’m dedicating time to her body. When my gaze meets hers a moment later, the heat blazing from her eyes tells me she wants my hands on her as much as I want them there.
“Are you finished with King?” she asks as I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her close.
Brushing my lips across hers, I shake my head. “Not yet. It’ll probably be another couple of hours before we’re finished.”
Her hands rest on my ass, and she gives me those beautiful eyes of hers. “I’m not working for even a minute tomorrow.”
Fuck, I could take these kinds of promises from her every day and die a happy man. I bend my mouth to her ear. “I hope you’re ready for a long night.”
She presses herself against me, tracing her finger across my lips. “I’ve spent days thinking about this mouth. And your tongue. I hope you’re planning on doing indecent things to me with it.”
“Fuck,” I rasp, my dick far too fucking hard for her right now. “This filthy mouth of yours will get you in trouble one day.”
A hint of a sexy smile ghosts across her face. “I hope so, champ.”
Fuck.
Tatum doesn’t call me that very often anymore, and every time she does, it stirs shit up in my chest. It makes me remember the first time she ever called me that. That day all those years ago in the hospital after I rid the earth of Joseph. It makes me remember the fear I felt that I would lose her.
I’ve spent a decade keeping her safe and I’ll spend the rest of my life continuing to do that. Some days, when the grime of the world comes a little too close for comfort like it has this week, the urgency I feel to keep her from harm fuels me. It takes over every thought I have and feeds my beast. This is the real reason King always takes me with him when the club has dirty business to take care of. The reason why I end up being away from Tatum more than I would prefer. It’s because of that darkness that lives deep inside me, always ready to do whatever the club needs.
Wanting to shift the conversation, I ask, “How’s Renee?”
At this question, her smile takes over her face. “She’s having a baby.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
Still smiling, she glides her hands to my stomach and grips my shirt. “We’re gonna be grandparents.”
At that, I laugh. Tatum never wanted children, the same as I didn’t, yet we’ve done more parenting of Renee than her mother has. Marilyn has done the best she could, but at the end of the day, she just doesn’t have the capacity that Tatum and I do.
I know that Tatum has loved every minute of parenting Renee as much as I have, but now I see just how deep that love is. Her eyes hold a mixture of love and maternal softness unlike anything I’ve ever seen in her.
“Yeah, Vegas, we’re gonna be grandparents.”
Tears glisten in her eyes as she grips my shirt harder and searches my eyes silently for a long moment. Finally, she blinks them away and says, “You need to figure out how to build a treehouse.”
“Because?”
“Well, do you really think Greg has it in him to build one? The guy might be one of the best lawyers I know, but those hands of his are not made for hammers and nails.”
She’s not wrong, but there’s something else here. I can hear it in her voice. “Why a treehouse? The kid won’t need one for years.”
She takes her time before saying softly, “I never had a treehouse as a child and it’s all I wanted. Our grandchildren need a treehouse.”
Fuck me, this woman is something else and I will never know what I did to deserve her.
I kiss her, taking my time with it, showing her how much I love her. When I let her go, I say, “Our grandchildren will have the best fucking treehouse there ever was.”
