After we took on the bigger facility, we moved into the old place as our family home and have turned it into a fully functional off-grid property.
Nichole leans in to give Archer a hug. “Were you just smoking, Uncle A?” She wrinkles her nose. “That’s a bad habit,” she tells him as Mia comes down the back steps into the yard.
“Your daddy used to smoke, you know, and I used to make that very same face,” she tells Nichole.
“Yousmoked?” she asks me, her blue eyes lined with shock in her pretty heart-shaped face. “Why did no one tell me this?”
“You weren’t supposed to tell her that, Rhiannon.” I glare at Mia.
“She’s sixteen, Aiden. It won’t do her any harm to hear that her dad is a little less than perfect.” Mia laughs.
I ruffle Nichole’s hair and kiss the top of her head. “I quit the day your mom told me she was pregnant with you.” I grin as she leaves my grasp and heads for the bike. “Wanted to make sure I was around to get made fun of for the long haul,” I add.
Nichole looks at me over her shoulder and laughs. “Comeon, Dad.”
Mia sticks her tongue out at me, and a vision of her taking my cock down her throat momentarily consumes me. I bring her close and kiss her juicy lips. I swear to Christ, she gets more stunning every year, and my need to be no more than a foot away from her at all times is still very much intact. If that hasn’t changed with two kids and seventeen years together, it’s safe to say it never will.
“Guess I’m being summoned,” I tell her gruffly.
She kisses me once more. “And you’ll be summoned later.” She giggles into my lips.
“Fuck,” Archer quips. “At least wait till I’m out of earshot.”
“Enjoy the ride, Daddy, and then get back here,” Mia says to me. “We’ve got a double birthday to celebrate.”
I groan and smack her ass. “Don’t remind me.”
“You’ll survive, I promise.” Mia laughs as she heads inside, and I meet my daughter for our ride.
What are the odds her first boyfriend is the son of a Hounds member,andthey have a birthday two days apart?
“Seb is getting his own bike soon. He’s working on it with his dad,” Nic tells me before I fire up my bike. Fuck, I’m gonna have to kill him. I don’t want to kill a kid.
“But he says I can’t ride on the back till he’s gotten used to it and he’s comfortable. He wants to make sure I’m safe.”
Interesting.Okay, maybe I won’t have to kill him, because hearing that makes me like Sebastian Wolfe just a little bit more.For now.
As my daughter clings to me and we leave the driveway for our weekly tradition, I realize how lucky I am to still be here. How lucky I was that stubborn and wild goddess wandered into my club seventeen years ago. Mia may have arrived with the intent to kill me, but she ended up giving me a reason to truly live. She ended up giving melife.
* * *
Mia
“How’s he taking this?” Brinley asks me as we watch Aiden scowl at her oldest son, Seb, who whispers something in Nichole’s ear and makes her laugh. He’s a year older than she is, and they’ve been hopelessly infatuated with each other for well over six months.
“How you’d expect.” I grin back at her. She knows exactly what I mean.
Of course Aiden doesn’t like it. Seb is such a handsomekid, the kind that makes a girl lose her train of thought. I know because I was young once too and looked at Aiden just like that. Hell, I still do. He’s still fucking gorgeous, and it’s really not fair that he somehow looks more rugged and more attractive the older he gets. His body is still hard and lean, his hair still a dark blond although a little shorter now, and his beard a little thicker with flecks of gray running through it. And he wears his glasses all the time now.
The thing I love most is that he still has an appetite for me, like we just met yesterday. I feel lucky when I think of friends who say their husbands never pay attention to them anymore. I have the exact opposite in my life, and for that I’m grateful.
“Mom, can me and Max go into the woods?” I look down at Brennan, our seven-year-old son. He’s with the five-year-old son of the Hounds’ vice president, Sean, and his wife Layla. Little adventurers they are, always getting into something together.
“Fine with me,” I say, turning to Layla.
“Just take your sister with you, Max, and don’t be long. Dinner will be ready soon.” She gestures to her fifteen-year-old daughter, Calli.
I give Brennan a kiss on the head. “Be good, little king,” I say, sending him off as I lean back in my chair next to the girls in the wide, open part of our yard.
