Valen (Henchmen MC Next Generation 6)

He recovered before he landed on his ass in the shower, and I reached for the towel he had draped over his other shoulder, wrapping it around myself, and walking away with as much dignity as I could muster with my weak knees and sore thigh and ass.

As I grabbed my clothes and got dressed, I kept reminding my needy body the same words I told him until they became a mantra.

Until I almost believed them.

That is never going to happen again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Valen

“Just when you think you have them figured out, they knock you on your ass,” Dezi mumbled to himself as he looked down at his phone.

“What are you talking about?” I shot back, confused.

Dezi loved women.

In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever met anyone who loved women as much as Dezi did. Both platonically and sexually. He was constantly tagging along with the girls when they went out. Even when they didn’t invite him. And the girls all seemed to love him back. With the princess, that meant platonically, almost like a brother. But women in bars, yeah, they didn’t seem to have any defense against his charm.

There was a boyishness about Dezi that mingled with this sense you got around him that underneath it all, he was dangerous as fuck.

And that seemed to be like catnip to the ladies.

Which was why it seemed like he was referencing one woman.

He ignored my question, though, as he mumbled something about “mini cows” that made no sense to me, given the context of the conversation.

From where I was leaning at the bar, I could see Louana standing in the living area next to Rowe and Malc.

We were almost two weeks out from the shooting, and while she was putting on a good show of being back to normal, even wearing somewhat tight black jeans that I knew were rubbing against her barely-healed wounds, I could tell she was still feeling it.

She had herself cocked to the side, putting all her weight onto her good leg, and whenever she moved too quickly, there was a flash of pain across her face.

She’d stopped taking the pills several days ago, seeming only to pop a couple ibuprofen for the pain instead, which I could tell was barely cutting it.

I didn’t know what the wound itself looked like because she hadn’t let me near her since that whole shower thing.

I knew better, damnit.

I knew her well enough to know that she was not going to get all warm and fuzzy with me because I’d gone down on her.

Back in the day, yeah, she used to get all soft and sweet after an orgasm or ten.

But this wasn’t back in the day.

This wasn’t young, inexperienced, heart-over-heels in love with me Lulu.

This was the grown-up version of that girl that I’d hurt so badly that she’d felt like she couldn’t even stay in the area afterward.

She was here to punish me. So knowing she let her guard down enough to get close to me likely made her think she somehow lost the upper hand.

Which was fucking ridiculous, of course.

I’d been struggling to not overthink about her before. But since I got a taste of her again? Since I got to hear her whimpering and moaning for me again? Since I felt her nails digging into my skin again? And since I felt her tight pussy squeezing my fingers as she came again?

Yeah, you could say it’s been the only fucking thing on my mind.

Meanwhile, my mind needed to be on some other, more serious shit.

But there was no reasoning with desire and with the feelings that were creeping up thanks to our history.

Which was why each time she went to walk away, to talk to someone else in the room, and she winced, then quickly tried to cover it up, I felt a tugging sensation inside, something that made me want to go across the room and ask her to sit down, to take it easy, to stop pretending she was totally fine when I knew she wasn’t.

First of all, it wasn’t my fucking place.

Secondly, she’d bite my goddamn head off if I tried.

So I kept back, but kept an eye as she made her rounds, getting to know some of the patched members better, since the ones she did know, she hadn’t spent much time with since she was eighteen.

It was a party, of sorts.

Shit had calmed down in the club after all of Cary’s drama. And it seemed like Nave was finally making his way to the club to prospect.

Which was about damn time.

The rest of us needed to patch in before Roderick and Liv’s hoard decided it was time to prospect too. I mean, sure, there was a chance they might not want it. But I was pretty sure we’d be seeing Rune, Croft, and Vas in the near future.