“No. I doubt he would have made his plans known to any of us.”

  “Beast fucking knew,” I say.

  “Yeah, and he shut that shit down.”

  “True, but that doesn’t mean much because he didn’t tell me anything.” My father’s phone rings a moment later.

  “What’s going on, Beast?” He listens to whatever Melanie’s father says and then ends the call. “So, it seems your woman saw Chrissy clinging all over you at the salon and then ran into Damon and agreed to a date out of hurt.”

  I nod. “Yeah, that’s kind of what Beth said without mentioning the date,” I say, biting back my anger. She left that key fucking detail out, but I’m sure that was intentional.

  “Beast showed her the footage from inside the salon.”

  “There are cameras inside the salon?” I

  “Yeah. You remember when your mother went in there and there were some fuckers flirting with her and they dared to touch her?” I growled, remembering the fuckers that had the nerve to put their hands on her.

  “Max kicked them out and the fucker dared to challenge him, but those fools had no idea that Law wouldn’t call you.”

  “Yes, and I was on them in a heartbeat, ready to bash their heads in for trying to intimidate my wife.” I chuckled because my father wasn’t the kind of man who allowed anyone to mess with his wife.

  And I was just like him. Thinking about Damon putting his hands on Melanie riled me up again. “I need to get out of here for a bit.”

  “Take my bike. It’s just been retreaded and tuned up,” my pops says.

  “Okay. I’ll be back in just an hour.”

  “Give her time,” a soft voice comes from the doorway, and it’s Melanie’s mother. “She loves you, so whatever happened, I’m sure it will work itself out.” I press my lips together, nod and leave, needing to clear my head.

  Strolling out to the back of the yard where the bikes are set up, I grab my father’s and climb on. I need an hour or so to clear my mind and get the tension to roll off my neck. Every muscle in my body is tight and ready for war. Speeding around toward the front and away from the party, I head toward the gate where the prospects monitoring it open it up.

  The wind hits my face as I speed through Steeleville, and I decide to ride around the perimeter instead of driving through town. There’s just no way I want to run into anyone. The one thing I do is avoid driving past the Brandon home because I’ll be tempted to tear down that door and claim my woman, giving no fucks about the problems between us or the hours before she turns eighteen.

  I’m a little more than an hour into my ride before I get my temper under control. Once I ride into the Riders yard, the party is fully underway and everyone is cheering when they see me. Several of my cousins are waiting for me as I park my father’s bike, but first my father stops me and pulls me aside.

  He grips my shoulders and stares deep into my eyes. “Are you good?”

  “Yeah. I calmed down, but I can’t wait until the morning.”

  “Just have some fun here. Then you’ll see your future wife, and everything will be okay.”

  “Thanks, Pops.” We head into the crowd where my cousins surround me and hand me a drink.

  “Congrats, Cousin. You’re the first of us to finish college, and now you’re about to take the lead in your father’s business,” my cousin Daisy says. “Too bad you screwed it up with Mel.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to fix that tomorrow, and she’ll be your cousin soon,” I insist, taking a drink of my beer while staring off into the distance and thinking of the future with my wife. Melanie and I will have our happily ever after, and no one will get in the way—no one.

  Chapter Eight

  Melanie

  I couldn’t get away from the party fast enough. Watching Will lose control like that had multiple effects on me all at once. A part of me was torn between anger, fear, and lust. He’d gone wild on Damon for asking me out, even though he was cheating on me. It made no sense, but then again, some men thought they were allowed to cheat while their women were forced to take it and be faithful. That isn’t me. I'm not going to be the fool.

  “Melanie.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  I stare out the window the entire car ride to the house, refusing to look at my father. He calls my mother to inform her that he was taking me home and would be returning quickly. “I won’t be long.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want us to come home?” she asks, and I feel like a jerk for ruining their time out.

  I shake my head, and he answers, “No. Melanie needs time alone.”

  We pull up to the house and I enter the code, unlocking the front door. I thought I was going to be alone, but my dad followed me into the house, walking past me.

  “Dad, what kind of game are you playing at?” I ask as I stomp inside, slamming the front door.

  “What kind of game?” he says, feigning ignorance. A professional tactic, I believe.

  “You lied to me about your talk with Damon when you really told Damon to back off.”

  “Princess, you have been in love with Will for a long time, and although I’m a father and not particularly happy about it being so soon, I won’t stop you two. I didn’t lie about what I said. I just said I warned him off. Damon knows that Will’s in love with you and wants you to be his wife, which means not a damn one of the Riders should think twice about approaching you.”

  “So Will can fuck around, but I can’t date anyone?” I hiss, slamming my close-fisted hands down at my sides.

  He waves a finger at me. “Young lady, your mouth. And what makes you think he’s fucking around?” His brow raises and a muscle in his jaw flexes, telling me my dad’s pissed. You wouldn’t be able to know it, but I can read my father.

  “I saw him with Chrissy at the salon.” My voice cracks when I let the words fall from my lips, and I see my father fall into full protective daddy mode. He wraps his arms around me, holding me as I fall apart. He loosens his grip briefly, and I can tell he’s texting.

  “Just letting your mother know I’ll need a little longer.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

  “No, you won’t. At least not until we get this situation straightened out, because I never want my little princess feeling any kind of pain.” He kisses my temple. “Chrissy? You think that he’d waste his time with her? Sweetheart.” I can’t fight the tears flowing down my face. “Would you feel better if I showed you something?”

  “What?” He takes my hand and leads me to his office, pulling out a chair from in front of his desk and bringing it around beside his chair. “Take a seat for a minute.”

  He takes a seat in his leather chair and then turns on his computer. I watch him log into several password-encrypted links before it finally opens up to a set of security cameras. “We’re in the town’s main cameras. Many of the shops have their own cameras, and we have access to all of them for safety reasons. The salon is no different. Now—when was this encounter?”

  “Earlier today, around nine.” He nods. When he loads the screen, I see inside the salon and there is the image before me. Will is standing way off, too close to the door. Almost afraid to enter. She moves toward him like a hunter stalking her prey. I can’t make out what she says to him, but then he takes a seat closer to the camera, and my father turns up the sound. Every word uttered from her filthy mouth nearly makes me vomit, but Will’s reaction changes everything. He’s angry and possessive of me.

  “What have I done?” I gasp.

  “Sweetheart, if you only saw a part of this… Hell, when I saw part of this, I wanted to rip his head off. Chrissy has a bad habit of taking men with weak minds. Will isn’t the kind, especially after all this time.” He’s always had a soft spot for Will. I don’t know if it’s because they have the same name, which bothers me a bit, or because he’s close with Boomer, but either way, he’s not wrong. Will hadn’t betrayed me. In fact, he’d only proven his devotion to us.

  Before my father leaves, he tells me to give it time. I’m sure about what I need to do. My heart aches in a way that I don’t understand. I’ve loved William Steele for years, letting my heart hope he’d be true. It was so hard, and yet I’ve failed him by accepting a date because I felt abandoned and betrayed.

  I stay in my bedroom for the rest of the day, wanting to avoid all conversation about the incident or anything to do with Will and just hide. My mother brings some food up to my room, and although my stomach is doing somersaults, I manage to eat a little. Unable to sleep, I take a long shower, crying my heart out.

  It isn’t until one in the morning that my body finally gives in to the stress and sadness of my own silliness and I pass out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t keep me asleep. Nightmares of Will hating me fill my dreams. I lie in bed until the sound of the doorbell startles me out of my thoughts. Scrambling for my phone, I check and it’s only seven.

  It’s probably my bestie coming to surprise me for my birthday. She’s like that. We’ve been friends for the past two years. A soft knock at my bedroom door tells me it’s my mother. “Hey, Mom. Come on in.”

  “What’s up?” I ask when she enters. Of course, she looks perfect even though it’s only seven in the morning and she’s not even dressed for visitors yet. My mother is the epitome of beauty. I wonder how she does it after having all of us kids.

  “You have a visitor downstairs.” She gives me a sheepish smile.

  “Who?”

  “Will.” My heart climbs its way into my trachea, nearly choking me.

  She walks over to the edge of my bed and takes a seat, patting my hair. “You don’t have to see him if you don’t want.”

  “I do…it’s just…” I bit down on my bottom lip. “I don’t understand this. Us…he made me feel so alone…when he was right there. Like I wasn’t good enough to see, and then I saw him, and it only dug the knife in deeper. Why is this so hard?”

  “Because men are stupid and try to do things the way they think is right. Will had his reasons, as rational as he believed they were. They had merit, but there is something to be said for age. Trust me when I say even your father made me want to strangle him, and I had my doubts when we first met. Talk to him, and just remember that above all, you are still in control, and we will always be there for you.”

  “Thank you.” She pulls me in for a brief moment before standing and taking her leave. I can always count on her to make things better.

  I wash my face and change my clothes into something a little more comfortable. Today’s going to hit one hundred degrees, so I opt for a pair of shorts, sandals, and a thin tee shirt. When I step out of my room, Will is sitting at the top of the steps. He quickly jumps to his feet, looking nervously at me. His eyes scan over my body. There’s a light rumble that comes from his throat, but I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad noise. “Um, Melanie, can we talk?”

  “Yes. I think it’s about time, but let’s not do it here.” I don’t want any of my siblings or my parents to hear.

  “Thank you.”

  Without hesitation, he takes my hand. The pleasurable sensation is indescribable and hits us both as his eyes meet mine. Our eyes lock, and he pulls me close until my chest meets his. “Will,” I whisper. It’s been so long, and the memories of that day are flooding back.

  “We should go,” Will chokes out, and then he leads me down the steps.

  My parents are sitting in the living room. “We’ll be back,” I mutter as we continue past them.

  “Where are we going?” I ask Will, scrunching my brows as he leads me well past the front of my house.

  He smirks a little too slyly for me and says, “Just for a walk.”

  “I’m hardly dressed for anything special.” I’m dressed for almost anything, but I’m trying to gauge his motives.

  “I think you look beautiful. Downright sexy, as a matter of fact, birthday girl.”

  I blush, dipping my head. “Thank you.”

  He tips my chin, bringing my eyes up to look at him. “Don’t thank me. I’m the one blessed to look upon you.” He brings my hand to his lips and kisses it, causing my pussy to drool all over my panties like a foolish, pathetic little girl. Why does this man have his hooks in me so deep? Because I’ve loved him since I was a little girl, even before I knew what love really was.

  Chapter Nine

  Will

  Funny how I avoided seeing her for months, but keeping my distance for a few hours had been torture. I’d been up since three in the morning, pacing throughout my apartment, trying to figure out what to say. How to make her see that I was in this for life and that no one would ever come between us.

  “Um…Lanie. I don’t know where to begin.”

  She tugs her hand from mine and huffs with that cute little sass that drives me wild. She stops in the middle of the sidewalk and crosses her arms under her ample breasts, pushing them upward. That thin top does nothing to hide how fucking hard her nipples are. “You can start with why you abandoned me for the past three weeks. I sent you a ‘congratulations’ and received a general thanks. Nothing else. All my messages were left unread.” Fuck…

  “Babe, I don’t have the same phone anymore. Graduation morning, I accidentally ran it over. Due to security concerns, I didn’t save in a cloud, and my card in the phone was crushed. Because I was busy, I didn’t bother getting a new phone for three days. By then, you didn’t message me again.”

  “Why would I have bothered?”

  “I wanted to message you, but then I would have kidnapped you, tied you to my bed, and made love to you all night long.”

  “You make it sound so terrible.”

  He cups my elbow and pulls me into his arms, cupping my cheek. “Your father would have hunted me down. Besides, I promised my mother that I wouldn’t take advantage of you.”

  “Is that what you were fighting about in the jewelry store?”

  “Yes. She already had me make that promise and I’d broken it, so she was angry with me.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s been difficult to keep my distance. I promise you that I’ve never touched another woman or given in to anyone’s flirtation or outright offers. I don’t know what you think you saw between Chrissy and me, but there was nothing going on.”

  “I know. My father showed me the footage inside the salon.”

  “Yeah, I forgot about that until your father called mine to tell us.”

  “Yes, and I still want to punch her in the face for putting her hands on you and for even cutting your hair.”

  “Normally Max does it, but I didn’t want you to see me looking like a bum, so I gave in. Maybe it’s time you learned to cut hair.”

  “Maybe, I will,” she says, tilting her lips.

  “Where do we go from here?” she asked.

  “Well, I hope we start all over and begin with happily ever after.”

  “I have a feeling we’re going to have lots of bumps in the road.”

  “As long as you’re with me, I’ll do all I can to smooth out those bumps. So why have you been so busy? What have you been doing? I know nothing about you.”

  I sigh because I have no secrets, but there’s a lot to tell. “I decided to get multiple degrees, and then I started taking over my father’s company little by little. I’m becoming vice president, and eventually I will be the president of the Riders. But for the past few weeks—or rather, months—my true occupation and focus has been this.” I stopped her in front of our house that I built.

  “This is why you’ve been busy?” Her wonder and awe are captured in her voice and expression. Fuck, I’m so damn happy she loves it. I slide open the control panel and enter the code, opening the gate.

  “Yes, doing this. Some things haven’t gone according to plan.” Her eyes widen and her lips twist. I take her hand and lead her through the gate, closing it behind us. As safe as I feel in Steeleville, we need our privacy.

  “Am I going to fall through the floor?” she asks with a serious face before cracking a grin. The light in her eyes goes straight to my dick, but I have to hold it together so I decide to punish her for being a smart ass.

  I pull her in close and my fingers clutch her waist, tickling her sides. “Oh my God, stop. Okay, okay. I quit. I’m sorry,” she giggles. Her laughing plea stops me as I hold on to her tightly, breathing in that perfection.

  “Hardly a danger of falling through anything, I was talking about delays with delivery dates,” I growl against her ear, biting down on her lobe. Fuck, I’m tempted to fill her up on our front lawn.

  “Lanie, please tell me you’re on birth control.”

  “I am. My mom recommended it. You don’t want babies with me? I thought you’d be like the rest of the men here…like your father.”

  “My father was much older when he had me. As much as I can’t wait to start our family, we have plenty of time for it. Besides—as I recall, you have ambitions that don’t include having little ones just yet.”

  “Rett, I love you.”

  “Melanie, my love for you will never fade. You’re everything to me, and to know you love me has made my existence.” I cradle her face with my calloused hands and slide them into her hair, bringing her lips to mine and kissing the lips that I’ve missed so much. “My world.”

  She moans as my mouth connects with hers. Our hearts race, and my hunger for her only grows. I bracket my arm around her waist and carry her up the four wooden porch steps. As much as I want to take her inside and fill her womb, it’s not time. Walking over to the swing, I sit my future wife in my lap.

  She pulls back and tilts her head with a bit of surprise. “Um…we’re not going inside?”

  “Not yet. I can’t be trusted.”

  “Why? Are you going to deflower this poor, innocent damsel?” She gasps in horror.

  “You have no idea. I told you, sweetheart, that the thought of being with you drives me insane. Every day, every hour, every minute away from you is insanely painful. I spent hours upon hours working to distract myself. I’d either be in class, in the gym, or building something to keep myself from thinking about you and wanting to hold you again. Those stolen moments before Christmas were a mistake and a fucking blessing all at once. I got to taste you and know instead of just guessing. They haunted my dreams, filled my fantasies.” She squirms in my lap.

 

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