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“And what about him?” Ava nods her head over toward Slingshot, who looks like he’s weighing Wendy’s tits in his palms.
“That’s Slingshot; he’s carried one on him since he was twelve years old. Took a man’s eye out with a ball-bearing once, guy’s got one hell of an aim.”
“Oh.” The smile on her face fades to shock as she takes it all in.
“So, what brings you to Springdale, Ava?” Beth quickly changes the subject, giving Levi an elbow shove and when we’re joined by Mia and Jekyll, I pull Ava onto my lap to clear a seat for them. It’s the first signal I’m giving out to everyone that she’s mine, and when I rest my cheek on her shoulder, I don’t miss the amount of shocked looks it attracts.
“Well, I kinda have an issue back home, and when I met Isaac in Paris—”
“Paris?” Mia practically spits her beer across the table. “Cobe ain’t ever been to fuckin’ Paris.” She laughs, and Levi shares a look across the table with me that tells me to shut it down.
“It don’t matter how we met. She’s here now, and I’m countin’ on you girls to show her the ropes, make sure she gets the same respect you do from the hangouts.” I look between the two girls, who no brother would dare to even look at, and no whore would dare to question. Mia may only be the old lady of a prospect, but she’s Prez’s little sister, and Beth is Levi’s girl. Ain’t no way anyone with a brain cell would challenge that.
“Is this you tellin’ us ya gotta girl?” Levi raises his eyebrows.
“Sure as fuck is. Spread the word.” I grab Ava’s face and kiss her lips hard, hoping the whole room fuckin’ sees, and when the sound of whoops and wails pick up around us, I can’t stop my lips from smiling against hers.
“Yo, Lover Boy! We need to talk.” Dec’s voice calls out over everyone, and when I see the serious look on his face, I get up and leave a flushed-pink Ava with the girls while I go to him.
“What’s up?” I question as he pulls me into the hall.
“Maddy traced the call; it came from Cali. She also ran a background check and looked into the ex you mentioned. Guess where he is right now?” Dec hands me Ava’s phone back. “I’m assumin’ you ain’t gonna wait around for him to come find her?” Prez rests his shoulder on the door frame and looks out at the barroom. From here, you could almost believe the girl fits in; here she looks nothing like the privileged girl I fucked in the Four Seasons for three days straight.
“You're assumin’ right.” I nod my head.
“Look, I don’t know where this girl came from, but I can see what's got ya tongue hangin’ out ya head, and I can also tell that ya like her. A lot. You go do what ya need to do to protect her. Take Bulletproof with ya, and we’ll take care of her here while you see it through,”
“I appreciate that, Prez.” I shake his hand and head back to the table, pleased to see that Ava is settling in and talking to the others.
“That sounded serious. Is everything okay?” she checks, and I don’t wanna take the smile off her face by telling her she was wrong about her ex.
“Yeah, darlin’, everythin’s fine.” I kiss the top of her head and casually slip myself back into the conversation they’re having about the time Lucky led twenty men on a sixty-mile detour to get to a pick-up point.
* * *
Ava’s slightly tipsy when I get her back to my room. I love how she’s relaxed with my friends tonight, any worries she had about the club being dangerous seem to have vanished, and as she flops her body onto my bed and snuggles comfortably onto the pillow, I realize how tired she must be.
“You never told me how you got your name,” she mentions sleepily as I take off my jeans and slide under the covers beside her.
“No, I didn’t.” I don’t even think I want her to know. I didn’t like the way she looked at me in the bar when I warned her I’d kill the man who was doing this or the fear I saw in her eyes when I threatened that mother-fucker down the phone.
“I wanna know.” She rests her hands on my chest and balances her chin on them, looking up at me so fuckin’ innocently my heart could break.
And I decide, here and now, that I want this to work more than I want my next breath, and for that to happen, we can have no secrets.
“They call me Cobra because I strike before you see me comin’.” I look back at her as I explain, and when her cheeks flush pink and her eyes stretch a little wider, I get the desperate urge to crush her in my hands to stop her from running.
“Every club has roles that need to be filled; I’m this club's Enforcer. Yes, I’ve killed, and I’ve hurt a lot of people, but none of ‘em have been innocent,” I explain, hoping it doesn’t freak her out. “Dec wanted to speak to me earlier because they traced that call ya had. It was your ex; I know that’s not what you want to hear, but—”
“Isaac, it can’t be, you don’t understand. Josh isn’t like that. Yes, he cheated on me, and he hurt me, but he’s not violent, and I don’t think he’d want to do me any harm.
“Yeah, well, you’d be surprised what a man will do for love, darlin,’” I tell her, stroking my thumb over her cheek and appreciating how smooth her skin is.
“And that ex of yours is gonna find out how far I’m prepared to go tomorrow.” I wait for her to argue, to try and convince me I’m wrong again. What I don’t expect is to feel her lips touch mine.
“I think you just told me that you love me.” She cradles my face in her palm and smiles.
“I do.” I frown as I say the words because it suddenly dawns on me that, that is what this is.
