I laughed and tugged on his hand, but he was immovable, meaning I just swung back on the heels of my boots. “You really want me to answer that?”
“Yes. It’s for my big dick, isn’t it?”
I threw my head back and laughed again. When I eventually looked at him, I met his eyes. “Partially that, partially you’re sexy as hell and have a way about you. But then there’s the fact that you’re smart, funny, and you love me in a way no other man could ever love me.” I stepped closer to him, my other arm snaking around his body, my hand landing firmly on his ass. “Mainly, you have an amazing ass, Mr. Tucker.”
Drew rolled his eyes back, tilted his chin to the sky, and started rotating his hips. “Oh, baby, yeah, talk dirty to me, just like that. Give me some more. Stroke that ego. Stroke it. Own it.”
I squeezed the handful of ass and released him with an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, I can keep going all night… just like your stamina.” I winked, trying to look sexy and knowing almost immediately that I’d failed epically.
He was holding back his laughter, I could tell, but he grabbed my chin and tugged it to him, planting a kiss on my lips to reassure me he thought it was cute… ish. “Once all this shit is over, I swear, I’m going to give you the life you deserve.” When he pulled away, his eyes searched mine, and his face was surprisingly light. “But for now, let me fill you with… sausage. Maybe some eggs?” Then he grabbed my hand and started guiding me towards Rusty’s. “If you’re really lucky, I’ll let you have some of that humble pie you once offered me when we first met.”
I wanted to address his comment about a better life. I wanted to reassure him that I was happy regardless of everything else going on in our lives because I was with him. As long as I had Drew, I could face everything else. Unfortunately, he closed that door, diverting us back to humor after he’d rescued me from my sad attempt.
“I don’t want pie. You’re all the dessert I need.”
I walked with him to the doors and waved to Rusty once we were inside surrounded by the smell of grease and the wash of cooled air. Janette was nowhere to be seen, but Sam was on shift, and she was leaning at the edge of the booth Sloane and Howard were occupying. She looked around to shoot a smile in our direction as she waved at our usual booth. I grabbed a couple of coffee cups when I passed the counter and slipped onto the bench, tucking my legs under me as I waited for Drew to sit in his usual spot opposite me.
He slid into place, rolling his shoulders in his cut and tugging it down before he rested his forearms on the table. His focus was on Howard, and when the chief turned and offered him a sly smile, Drew shook his head and found himself smiling in return. It was such a contrast to how they used to react to one another’s presence. Now they were friends. I’d go as far as to say Drew thought of Howard and Sloane as family, which meant somewhere inside his twisted little heart, he loved them. Not that he’d be declaring that out loud for the world to hear. Drew loved hard, but quietly. And right now, hislove was directed at me as he stared straight into my eyes and kept his smile in place.
It was these moments I loved with him. When he would allow me alone to see how he really felt. When those walls would drop just enough so I could sense everything he wanted me to. That was what I had been so awkwardly trying to put into words just minutes earlier.
“I love you,” I declared with a smile.
“I’d be pissed if you didn’t.”
I flipped him the bird, smiling up at Sam as she wandered over with the coffee pot and filled up our mugs. She took one look at us, smiled and walked away again. The girl could read a room. It was one of the things I appreciated most about her.
“Can I ask you what you think about Helen without bringing down the mood?” I asked quietly. “I knew she had information, but all of that she just told us was way more than what she’d disclosed to me. Do you believe her?”
Surprisingly, his face didn’t fall, but he barely blinked as he looked at me. He turned his hands over on top of the table, palms upright. “What choice do I have but to believe her? It’s not hard to believe that Mayor Walsh is a shady motherfucker. A man like Jon Taylor will have loved being connected to him, and God knows how many other mayors from other small towns in Texas.You make my town’s criminals pay for all the crime they brought to my doorstep, and I’ll make sure your wallet is thick.That’s what he’ll have been told. He’ll have been taken out, wined and dined, made to feel important, and Taylor will have soaked that crap right up. His ego needed it. He needed to feel important, more important than he ever really was. It makes sense, Jon getting a bonus every time he took a crowbar to the back of a convict’s knees,causing them injuries they’d never get over once they were out. Mayors want clean towns on their watch. They don’t want people getting out, being free, and stirring up more crime when their name is above the city gates. But there’s more to it than that. Helen said so herself. Whispers of money laundering by The Navs involving the Mayor, whispers of corruption, and both parties having some kind of hold over each other. Jon Taylor spilled secrets to his wife while drunk and horny, but he wouldn’t have known shit like he thought he knew. A man like him connects the dots, and sometimes he connects them wrong. But that doesn’t mean the dots don’t exist. It just means no one has figured out the final picture yet. Clint warned me when I went to see him. He told me I had no idea how far things reached, or how deep shit ran. There was always going to be a reason why Mayor Walsh was so hell-bent on one of the Hounds taking the fall that night after the engagement party, Ayda. Do I believe he’s coming after us along with The Navs? Sure. I’ve looked Walsh in the eye recently, and all I saw was the look of a man who wanted to pour hot oil over me and make me bleed. I believe he’s coming after us. I just don’t think he expected us to fight back the way we did. Harry taking the fall fucked up their plans. Maybe it was always me who was meant to go down. Taylor would have loved nothing more. But Walsh…?”
I reached for his hands and leaned in, lowering my voice. “Why, though? Why would he be so hell-bent on fucking withourclub? With you? I figured it had to be the governor or someone putting pressure on him, but if this is coming from Mayor Walsh, what is his motivation?”
“Maybe I fucked his wife once?” He smirked.
I rolled my eyes, mainly because I knew what Mrs. Walshlooked like. I’d spent time with her at football games. She was gorgeous. She was where Rubin got that beautiful olive skin tone and his deep, dark eyes.
“Drew Tucker, cut that shit out. You’re turning me into one of those jealous women. Next thing you know I will go Lorena Bobbitt on your ass, and then who will you run to?” I shook my head playfully. “But I’m being serious. Why us?”
He winked, which was his way of offering me a silent apology for the fucking Mrs. Walsh remark, and then he tugged on my fingertips and looked down at our hands. “Helen told us that she knows Walsh is working with The Navs. She didn’t know the connection, but if that many men inside were stumbling into her unit, and enough of those were Navs who mentioned Walsh while they were high on morphine or whatever else she was pumping into their systems—telling her they needed someone to get him on the phone or get him to Huntsville, we have to believe they’re in with him deep.” Drew looked up through hooded eyes, his amusement fading away with every second that passed. “I don’t know Walsh’s game yet. I don’t really know why Travis, Trigger, whatever the fuck he’s called came after us that night. All Idoknow is that it had nothing to do with that Emp we buried on their turf. It can’t have been. There’s more to this, andthatis what led to Harry dying in Huntsville Prison rather than in our arms.” His jaw set tight, the mention of Harry’s death tasting as sour to him as it had done the day of the phone call that told him he was dead.
“It bothers me, all this,” I admitted quietly.
“I know.”
The not knowing bothered me to the point of distraction. Even if Mr. Walsh worked with the Navs since he’d takenoffice, or even before, there had to be a reason he was coming after the club now. Why wouldn’t he have acted when Drew was in prison for five years? None of it made sense to me. If Walsh worked with The Navs, he had to have known that Travis had shot his brother, and yet, he came after The Hounds. Long before I had met Drew, I’d heard the mumblings about The Hounds and how people perceived them, but it wasn’t enough to destroy lives to get them out of town. I also wasn’t convinced that money was enough of a motivator for the likes of Walsh or Travis. Surely if that were the case, Walsh would have come to the club that occupied his town rather than go to a bunch of outsiders run by an unstable man who bordered on insane. Travis was a loose cannon. I swallowed the nagging curiosity and ran my fingertips against Drew’s, looking up into his eyes.
“You only need to know one thing, Ayda,” Drew whispered.
“What’s that?”
“I only struggle when I don’t know who my enemy is. Once I know, no one works faster or harder than I do. I have a name in my mind. I have a target.” He leaned even closer, his voice dropping to a whisper as he pushed his lips out. “Whatever Walsh is up to, he’s going to regret it. By the time I’m finished with him, he’s going to wish he were dead. I only see one real problem here.”
Our eyes searched each other’s, our thoughts mingling together until they became one and the same. Before either thought much of it, the same word fell from both of our lips.
“Rubin.”
Chapter Twenty-Two