Chapter 15: Wolf.e: Chapter 14

I pull my mask off and inspect the paint mix Kai has just tested. It’s for the Harley gas tank I’m hand-spraying a hexagon pattern on the base. We snuck into the garage to get it done before we go get Gator when his protection leaves for his Saturday whore call. Not exactly conventional when we’re planning something like we are today, but sometimes the line between keeping my legal business running while dealing with all the day-to-day of my club is a struggle.

I’m already later than I hoped because chapel ran late and I had to have a talk with Mason, reminding him he can’t kill Gator the moment we get him into the van. We need to know who gave him the order to seek out Mason’s little sister and who ransacked two of our Atlanta clinics over the last month.

We’re sure we know, but we need that confirmation so we don’t start a needless war that puts my club at risk.

“Needs more sheen,” I say to Kai, knowing exactly what my client wants. He’s fussy, and with any luck this job will be done today and be one less thing I have to worry about. “He wants it like a glossy lipstick—the exact shade his fiancée wears.” I hand him the image of the color again so he can match the sheen.

I picture the shade on Brinley’s full lips, and my cock swells at the thought. The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m usually pushing women out the door, but the one I actually let stay in my room last night snuck out and hid from me in the backseat of her Uber this morning.

Something I’ll be teaching her? She doesn’t leave until I tell her she can leave.

Kai takes the card with the lipstick shade and puts it in his coverall pocket.

“That’s fucking sick, by the way, man.” Kai nods to the work I’m doing.

Airbrushing hand drawn, intricate designs is my specialty. This one will have the beehive pattern and the Harley logo embedded into it when we’re done.

I’m just about to get back to it when what sounds like a loud backfire echoes outside the garage. It makes us both flinch and drop what we’re working on. I shut off the compressor my airbrush is hooked up to and stalk toward the half open, overhead door. I pull it up wide, knowing it won’t be anything too threatening since we’re in the middle of downtown Harmony.

I can’t say what I was expecting to find in my yard, but anything else isn’t comparable in the slightest to what actually greets me.

My little hummingbird. In the tightest cutoff jean shorts she could mold to her body and a loose black tank top. She’s focused and struggling to lift the hood of a rusted-out piece of shit Ford.

She might as well be wearing a big red bow and a gift tag addressed just to me.

I hold my hand out across Kai’s chest to block his fast approach. I don’t fucking think so.

He smirks and chuckles before turning around and heading back inside. Brinley gets the hood up miraculously and pins it in place. I watch as she waves smoke out and her tank blows around the dip of her curvy waist, enticing me to rip the shorts from her body and devour the fucking sweetest pussy I’ve ever tasted. And I would do it right here in the middle of my parking lot.

I stand for a minute while she doesn’t realize I’m here just watching her, wondering who the fuck’s truck this is. It’s not in that bad of shape for being original but it definitely needs some work. I pull my mask down from my forehead and let it dangle around my neck, wiping the sweat from my brow with the sleeve of my t-shirt.

I’ve seen enough of the back of her, now I want to see the front, so I clear my throat.

She spins around instantly and when she realizes it’s me, her mouth falls slack.

Her hair is in a high ponytail and her pretty heart-shaped face is center stage.

Motherfucking thunderstruck.

Brinley makes an effort to close her pouty lips. Shame.

She’s a goddamn smoke show.

“What the… seriously?” she asks under her breath as she puts her phone in her back pocket, her breathing shallow.

Her polite annoyance fuels me further. I fucking love how flustered she is.

I want more.

“I just…” I watch the pink start to creep up her throat and I almost feel her pulse start to increase. “I barely got this thing here. How are you everywhere?” she asks,

“If by everywhere, you mean the town I live in and the business I own, I think it’s obvious,” I deadpan.

“Right, my neighbor said you were the best,” she says as she folds her hands in front of her. I’m starting to recognize this is Brinley’s way of centering herself when she feels like she’s overstepped or when she’s nervous, another thing she’s probably been trained to do.

I can’t wait to retrain her to never fucking apologize.

“We are,” I tell her. “Custom body work and paint—which you clearly need. Next door, Big Mike’s does everything on the inside, which you also seem to need,” I say, eyeing her steaming truck.

“I don’t think… I can just take it to Taylor’s. That’s where my dad went, I only came here because Mr. Kennedy seems reliable—”

“Taylor’s doesn’t do body work anymore,” I interrupt her. “And why wouldn’t you want the best?”

“It’s just, well… dammit.” Brinley straightens her shoulders before speaking like she’s answering a question in a beauty pageant. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t easy for me. I don’t do things like what we did last night. And I don’t have a lot of money.” Her eyes meet mine and I shamelessly stare. “Plus…” she starts.

I let her stumble over her words.

“I need the work done on this truck to be above board,” Brinley says, looking up at me, interrupting my hungry roam of her body with my gaze.

I raise an eyebrow and pull my gloves off, moving toward her, eating up the ten feet between us to get a closer look at her truck and fuck, I just want to smell her.

Brinley backs against the hood as I approach, not knowing what to do, the pink starting to return. I breathe in her jasmine scent and reach out, grabbing her belt loops with my first two fingers, tugging her to me. Her mouth pops open and I almost turn savage with the need to stick my tongue into it.

The fuck? Get it together. Jesus Christ.

I wait a few seconds just enjoying her struggle then drop my hand.

Her breath hitches like she thinks I may hurt her. If she keeps looking at me like this, I might, but I’d make sure she fucking loved it.

I reach into Brinley’s front pocket and pull her keys out. I let go of her and she moves quickly between her truck and the car beside it, trying to get out of my way. I have a quick look at the disaster in front of me.

“What you brought me is a half eaten electrical system. Probably mice, I don’t even know how you made it here.”

“Crap,” she mutters, looking down then back into my eyes.

“It’s not normal for a truck this age to have this wiring. Did someone restore this?” I ask as I continue to inspect.

“My dad,” Brinley answers, tightening her long ponytail.

I watch the worry grow on her face, seeing the dollar signs add up as I tell her all the things she’s going to have to replace.

“Big Mike will give you a detailed breakdown, but…” I think for a second. “Are you planning on selling it? Is that why you want to have it fixed?”

“Yeah, I was thinking about it. For the front porch Layla mentioned last night.”

“We can work something out,” I tell her, closing the hood. I crouch down and start at the front of the truck, running my hand along to scan the body,

“I, um… just don’t want to be involved in anything… less than above board,” she says.

This woman really has no idea what it means to be socially aware. She’s basically insinuating I’m a criminal. I mean, I am, but still.

I stand and start to make my way to the back of the truck, sandwiching her against the truck. She backs up, as if she could disappear into it but not before every part of me grazes every part of her and that fluttering pulse lights up at her throat. I pause against her just because I want to feel her.

“You don’t know me and you don’t trust me,” I tell her the obvious, caging her in with both my hands on either side of her. “But we’ll get one thing straight right now. I don’t like being an assumption. This is an above-board business you’re at.”

“Okay,” she says. “S-sorry I wasn’t sure.”

“Because I run a motorcycle club, you think I’m going to rip you off?” I ask her.

I push off the truck and uncage her, putting space between us. Brinley takes a deep, shaky breath, but she doesn’t move.

I pop a glove back on and run my hand across the bottom part of her door. Rust falls off as I go. “I’m less likely to rip you off because I run a motorcycle club. Street sense 101. We have integrity,” I tell her.

“Of course.” Brinley agrees but only out of fear.

“How bad is it?” she asks, changing the subject, watching me check the rest of the truck over. I stand and stuff my gloves in the back pocket of my coveralls.

“It’s rough. It’s a lot of work to restore the body. That hasn’t ever been done before, has it?”

“I don’t think so,” she says, confirming what I already know.

“We’ll make it the same robin’s egg blue it’s supposed to be now.”

“How much will it be?” she asks, blocking the sun from her eyes with her hand.

“Like I said, we can work something out.” I move closer to her. “You don’t pay me or Mike until you sell it. You’ll get double the restoration cost. I can guarantee it. I even know some people who may be interested in buying.”

Brinley drops her hand, and her eyes hold the sun. It turns them such a light shade of blue they almost take my breath away. She looks at the truck then back at me.

“Can I think about it?”

“Nope.” I drop her keys into my pocket. “No one else will look after you the way I will. It would also be a safety hazard for me to just let you drive it home.”

She gives a haughty look to deter me but it only serves to show me the smallest spark of fire I know is lurking under her prim and proper surface.

“I wasn’t going to drive home. The neighbor I was telling you about? He offered, he’s picking me up—” she says at the precise moment a little beige sedan pulls into the parking lot.

I’m ready to tell her I’ll be driving her home, not some fucking guy I don’t know, when I see he’s about seventy-five years old. He waves at her with a wrinkly smile and then at me and I realize he’s a customer of Mike’s.

“Yeah okay, give me your phone,” I tell her, waving at him.

Brinley looks as if she’s unsure, and I start to lose a little patience.

I hold my hand out. “You expect Mike to call the price out to you down the middle of Main?” I ask her gruffly.

She reaches into her pocket without looking away, unlocks it and hands it to me, folding her hands in front of her while she waits. I add my information to it, text myself and hold it back out to her. She goes to take it and I pull it away.

Brinley scoffs and that little spark surfaces again as she reaches.

“We’re not ten, just give it back.” She looks back at her happy neighbor. “I don’t want to make him wait.”

I decide I like Brinley Beaumont a little annoyed and fired up.

“Make sure you answer it when I call,” I tell her firmly, unmoving. She looks up at it then back at me. “Fine,” she says, reaching for the phone. I let her take it and she practically runs from me to the passenger side of the old man’s car, stuffing it in her pocket.

“Goodbye, Mr. Wolfe,” she says in a tone that’s meant to be businesslike but makes my cock twitch as she slinks into the front seat.

See you soon, hummingbird. Real soon.