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“What the fuck are you wearing?” I ask sitting up and taking in the inches of sheer lace separating us.
“Well, I wanted to show you, but you’re being incredibly difficult.” She slips her hands over her hips and wriggles the panties down her legs, tossing them to the side.
“That’s better,” I growl, taking her mouth again. She lets out a breathy gasp as I push inside, throwing her head back and arching her hips up to meet mine. Her hands go to my shirt, unbuttoning it and sliding it down my arms, until I’m trapped. She giggles. “Oooh, this is like having you tied up.”
“None of that, angel.”
By feel alone, she unrolls my sleeves and helps me take the shirt off. Then she wraps her arms around my neck, pulling herself up for more rough kisses. She strokes one of her hands down over my cheek. “Happy wedding night.”
I stop for a second, staring into her eyes. This wasn’t quite what I planned, but somehow it’s still perfect.
Once I’ve satisfied my wife, I toss a sweatshirt and pair of jeans at her. “Don’t bother with underwear.”
She screws her face into a curious pout. “I need a bra.”
“Come on, hurry up.” I stop and stare at her while she slips into a bra. “I can’t wait to get you to Belize. Nothing but you in teeny, tiny bathing suits for an entire week.”
“I’m surprised I get a bathing suit.”
“Good point.”
It takes a few more minutes to get her moving. Her giant braid and all the curls I freed have to be tied back, and I’m practically yanking her out the door before she finishes. We have to stop in the kitchen so I can grab a few things.
She laughs as I lead her out the side door. “Are you trying to avoid our party?”
“Fuck, yeah.” I glance down at her. “What were you and Tawny talking about earlier? She give you any shit?”
“Oh, no. She couldn’t have been sweeter.” I don’t have to see Trin’s face to know she’s rolling her eyes.
I lower my voice as we move down the driveway where I parked my bike earlier. “You want to know why?”
“What? Why she was civil to me? Because we’re married now and she has to be?”
“Yeah. And Sway wants me to come down there and be SAA.”
She stops moving so abruptly, I’m yanked back. “Ohmygod.” She laughs uncontrollably for a few seconds, actually dropping my hand and doubling over.
“Trin?”
Her hands flail in the air a few times before she stands up straight. “It all makes sense now.” She snickers again. “She was being all catty about Hope. Then she—” She bursts into giggles. “She asked if the four of us were a “thing.”
“Who? What thing?” A few seconds later, I get it. “Ew. Seriously?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Christ,” I mutter.
“Oh, God, what if she was hoping we’d move down there and swing with them?”
We stop at my bike. “Thanks, Trin. I may never get it up again now.”
All laughter fades, and she presses her body up against mine. “Oh, I doubt that,” she says in a husky voice. Her hand brushes over my dick and proves me wrong. “See,” she teases, giving me a gentle squeeze.
“Fuck. Don’t distract me.”
She drops her hand and takes a step back. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“What’s in the bag?”
“You’ll see. Stop asking so many questions and get on the bike.”
She grabs my shoulder and throws her leg over, hopping on behind me.
Z waves at us on our way out of the gate.
It’s a cool spring evening. Perfect for what I have planned.
Ten years ago, I took her to this exact spot.
I’m pretty sure it’s where I realized I was in love with her.
Just like that night so many years ago, I glide my bike into a grove of trees. Trin’s quiet as she hops off.
Maybe she won’t find this as romantic as I thought.
She watches while I grab the saddle bag, then takes my hand as I lead her through the woods. Fletcher Park is quiet. Empty, except for a few night critters off in the distance.
We reach the low stone wall surrounding the overlook, and I set the bag in the grass on the other side.
“Wyatt,” she whispers.
There’s enough moonlight for me to catch the tears glittering in her eyes.
“Why’re you crying?”
“I’m not.” She sniffles and swipes at her cheeks. “You…this. I can’t believe…this is perfect.”
“It gets better.”
I spread a blanket out and drop down, pulling her into my lap. Grabbing the bag, I take out a box and hand it to her. She opens it and laughs. “Wedding cake! Thank God, I barely had any earlier.”
“I know. I asked Hope to put this away for us to have later.”
“That was sweet.”
She’s quiet, feeding me cake, and taking bites in between for herself.
“What’s next?” she asks when I set the box aside.
I shift and slide her down so she’s sitting between my legs. Her back is to my front, and I lean against the wall to hold us both up. “I never get tired of this view,” she whispers.
My hand brushes a few strands of hair off her face. “Me either.”
“Thank you. This is exactly what we needed.”
I squeeze her a little tighter. “You’re not having second thoughts already, are you?” I tease.
She shifts. “Never.”
“This week’s been crazy.”
“Yes.” She looks back at the view. “I needed the reminder.”
“What’s that?”
“How strong we are together.”
“There’s no more you and me. There’s just us.” I rub my cheek against hers and whisper in her ear. “And as long as we’re together—we have everything.”
A few years later…
“Grace! Alexa!” Trinity shouts from the front porch of our cabin. She has a fussy, unhappy Brittany on her hip, so it’s up to me to wrangle the others.
“When are the girls going home?” I ask. I’ve been outnumbered all weekend and am beyond ready to send them home with their parents. “This is supposed to be our vacation cabin, not a summer camp.”
“Oh, stop. You know you had fun taking Alexa and Grace fishing.”
“Yeah, but it stopped being fun after dinner when Grace had a hissy fit and—” I jerk my chin at the squirmy bundle in Trinity’s arms, “she screamed all night long.”
“Poor Bit-Bit,” Trinity coos, looking down at her. “I think she misses her mom. It’s her first time away from Heidi.” She glances up at me and grins. “You’ll get your boys’ day out. We’re watching Chance next weekend.”
Before I can grumble about that, the older girls race over the lawn and slam into my legs one after the other. “You two are way too big to be doing that,” I teasingly scold, while ruffling their hair.
“Pick me up, Uncle Wrath,” Alexa demands. She reminds me so much of Heidi at this age. I swing her up into my arms, and she plants a kiss on my nose.
“You look just like your mom did when she was little.”
She beams, showing off the spot where she lost a tooth last night.
“What about me?” Grace asks. “Do I look like my Mommy?”
“Don’t know what your mom looked like when she was little, squirt. Probably.” She screws her face into her pre-hissy-fit pout. “But you’re cute as a button,” I add, which puts the brakes on the waterworks.
As soon as I set Alexa down, she races up the porch steps to check on her little sister. Grace throws her arms up in the air, so I lift her up next, and we join Trinity and the girls on the porch.
Grace and Alexa end up pulling out their coloring books. Together they sit at our feet chattering and coloring.
Trinity winks at me over Brittany’s head.
“I’m going to fuck you so hard when they go.”
I silently mouth the words at her and point two fingers at the girls. Trinity laughs and shakes her head. I make an exaggerated hip thrust, which makes Trinity laugh even harder.
Alexa turns and studies us. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Whatcha coloring?”
She picks up the coloring book to show me, but we’re distracted by Murphy’s truck coming down the driveway. The girls jump up, ready to run down the steps, but I grab them by the backs of their shirts. “No. We don’t run up to moving vehicles,” Trinity scolds.
Once Murphy parks, I let the girls go and they scramble down the stairs. I follow behind them.
“So, did you finally knock her up with a boy?” I ask, nodding at Heidi.
She rolls her eyes and rubs her hand over her stomach. “That’s not how biology works, Uncle Wrath. You can’t get pregnant when you’re already pregnant.”
“If anyone could do it, he could,” I answer, which makes Heidi roll her eyes again and Murphy laugh.
Brittany—I refuse to call her “Bit-Bit” like everyone else does—struggles and reaches for Heidi as soon as she sees her and lets out a screech when Heidi stops to give Alexa and Grace hugs. “I’m here, baby,” she coos, finally freeing Trinity up.
Alexa runs to Murphy and wraps her arms around his legs. “Were you good?” he asks, picking her up.
She entertains him with stories of all the fish we caught but leaves out the part about not touching any worms. At my feet, Grace explodes into tears. “Where’s my mommy and daddy?”
“Oh, honey. They’re like half an hour behind us. They’ll be here soon,” Heidi explains.
I pick Grace up, and she wraps her little arms around my neck, crying and snotting all over me.
“I think she’s tired,” Trinity says softly to Heidi who nods. Grace ignores both of them and holds on to me tighter.
“You ready to go home, Gracie?” I ask.
“No!”
Trinity bursts out laughing.
Later, when everyone’s gone home, our cabin is nice and quiet. We’re still lying in front of the fireplace—where I attacked Trinity as soon as the last vehicle left our driveway and did exactly what I promised earlier.
“This is nice,” she murmurs, snuggling against me.
A low noise of agreement rumbles out of my throat.
“You did have fun, right?” she asks.
“With the girls? Yeah. I always do. Why?” I glance down but can’t see her face. “Is this you checking in with me?”
I feel her smile against my skin.
“Maybe.”
I feel like White Knuckles was the sweetest, yet somehow dirtiest Lost Kings MC book yet. But I loved every second. I hope you did too.
I fully expected White Knuckles would be a novella. In my brain the book would be: Dirty Sex, Burn Down Gym, Wedding.
Easy-peasy.
However, Wrath decided to punish me for burning his gym down.
I was drained after More Than Miles. After writing it and again after publishing/promoting it. I love Murphy’s story so much and I’m so happy that an overwhelming number of people loved it as much as I do.
As it is, I’m already probably more emotionally attached to my books than is healthy, but Murphy’s story really gutted me. I panicked and came up with ways to bring Axel back, because I felt so bad. I lamented that Heidi and Murphy weren’t given enough time together on the page after they’re finally together. I cursed Alexa out for fucking up my timeline.
If you follow me on social media or are part of my Facebook group, you know I’ve been squirrely about saying exactly what the next few books would be or who they will be about. Mostly, I didn’t want to hear disappointment that there was going to be another book about Wrath and Trinity. I have a very clear idea of where the next four or five books are going and they need to happen in the order they’re going to happen in. Forcing myself to write about another character won’t work. I’ve been told over and over the reason my books don’t sell better is that it’s too hard to dive into a series with inter-connected books. I’ve been advised to write stand-alones dozens of times. Personally, I think people can comfortably come into the series at book #4 or #6 but then I’m told readers don’t like to do that—write stand alones, Autumn. Well, that sounds fun and all, but I’m apparently not wired to write that way.
Besides, what you, my lovely readers who reach out to me, continually say, is how much you love my characters. You tell me how much you enjoy catching up with them and starting one of my books is like getting together with old friends. THAT is why I write and share my stories. Sales, obviously, are nice, but I love that you love my characters and look forward to hanging out with them.
I keep saying I’ll worry about writing stand-alones in my next series. And then I sob because I don’t want to write anything that isn’t Lost Kings. I need to take this series where it wants to go.
And oh the places it’s going to go!
I’m so excited about the next four books I have to remember to contain myself, so I don’t give anything away.
So, back to White Knuckles.
After More Than Miles, two months sort of came and went and I hadn’t made a lot of progress on White Knuckles—because I thought “Hey, it’s going to be a simple novella: dirty sex, destruction, wedding.” I had a vague outline and a few key scenes. Then I did something I don’t do normally, I plotted. Physically sat down and wrote out a scene-by-scene diagram of the book. Oh, I was so proud of myself—like a toddler who just learned to pee in the potty proud. Usually I pants my way through the stories with minimal plotting and certainly nothing so formal. I enjoy allowing the characters to guide me. Now, I had a map of where I needed to go.
Wrath didn’t care for that.
Even though this too was a “wedding book” I didn’t want you to feel as if I just copied White Heat. Obviously some things were going to be similar, but I tried to keep it to a minimum. And I didn’t want to rehash any of Wrath and Trinity’s issues from Tattered or White Heat. They’ve both grown and changed a lot and I loved being able to show that. Much like Hope in White Heat, I knew Trinity would be strong for her man, no matter what happened. I love Trinity. People who define her by her sexual history make me shake my head. If Hope is secretly me (as has been suggested), then Trin is who I secretly want to be—a chick who shoots a guy one minute and kisses the love of her life the next.
This book became complicated because, hey, when you do something serious like burn down a building, there are consequences for that. Let’s just say the first draft of White Knuckles was incomplete.
And Twitch. I do feel a little guilty, because I kind of knew back in Tattered that he wouldn’t be long for this world. Sorry, Twitch.
Eventually, after some very frustrating weeks of sixteen hour days staring at my computer, the story went where it needed to go. I love Wrath and Trinity. A lot. I feel protective of them and wanted to give them a book that was worthy of their journey and how far they’ve come.
There’s something you can’t do with stand-alones.
If Tattered on My Sleeve was a stand-alone, you’d be left wondering “hmm, did those two ever get married?”
See what I mean about emotionally attached to my books?
Maybe you don’t give a rat’s ass if Wrath and Trinity ever got married, but I suspect if you’re still reading this, you care a little.
I wanted to tie up loose ends with White Knuckles and as I am always fond of doing, leave some things open for future books, like “WTF is Murphy doing fighting now? Did Loco double-cross the Lost Kings? Will Teller find some peace? Did Whisper have a hand in the destruction of Furious? Is Rock thinking of stepping down? What’s Sway up to? Where the hell is Lilly? WHO THE FUCK ARE GRACE AND CHANCE!?”
You know, stuff like that.
By the way, I’m not giving anything away up there. Those are questions my beta readers sent me after reading White Knuckles.
In case anyone is wondering, that whole pot-
farm-on-a-Christmas-tree-farm is actually based on a true story. Hopefully the owners of the farm never read my books.
Never mind, I totally made the pot farm up.
2016 sucked in some ways, but was also pretty damn good in other ways. I “met” and connected with so many of you through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and plain old email. I was lucky enough to hug readers at a few signings. In 2017, I’ll be in Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., and Huntington, WV, I can’t wait to meet you!
As some of you know, I’m usually working on about ten different projects at once. But the two I’m most committed to at the moment are, Beyond Reckless (Lost Kings MC #8) and (gasp!) a stand-alone set in the Lost Kings MC realm. Not Mara and Damon’s story—those fuckers are more complicated than I thought.
We’ll see which story wins. My money is on Teller, but we’ll see. His story is turning out to be more complicated than I expected. Imagine that.
Thank you so much for buying my books and loving my words. I’ve received so many heartfelt messages telling me how my books have gotten you through a difficult time or that the struggles Rock, Hope, Wrath, Trinity, Heidi, Murphy, and the rest of the crew have been through helped you feel less alone in some way. I’m usually stunned silent when that happens and want to weep with gratitude. I’m honored. Your words humble and inspire me and I thank you for that.
Love,
Autumn
p.s. I’m doing something I’ve never done before, so keep reading.
