Cash (The Henchmen MC 2)

“Oh, sweetheart,” I said, smirking. “If you had any idea what I could do with my tongue, there's no way you'd be telling me to tuck it back into my mouth.”

I was rewarded by her choking hard, beer spurting out of her mouth as she coughed.

“If you could try to refrain from killing my guests,” Summer said, handing a paper towel to Lo, “I would really appreciate it.”

“Hey there, gorgeous,” I said, smiling at her before swinging her off her feet and swirling her in a circle.

I had a soft spot for Summer. Maybe it was because she was the first woman in a long time that I had never had any sexual interest in. It wasn't that she wasn't gorgeous with her long red hair and her delicate face, but it had been clear from day one that she belonged to my brother. Lord knew the man needed some softness in his life and that was exactly what Summer gave him. She helped smoothe his rough edges. She also kept him on his toes. There wasn't a day that went by that they weren't arguing and making up, when they weren't challenging and comforting one another.

She gave my brother someone to come home to, someone to remind him to shrug the weight of leadership every now and then. For that, I would always feel like I owed her. Which was why I was at her asinine dinner party in the first place.

It didn't hurt that she threw an absolute shit-fit when any of us had tried to come up with excuses to not show up.

“Hands off my woman,” Reign said, walking up as I put his woman down, wrapping an arm around her waist, half gluing her body to his. “You gonna behave?” he asked me, giving an almost imperceptible chin-jerk toward Lo who was squatted down, wiping her spilled beer off the floor.

I gave him a smirk. “Oh, you know me. Fucking angel, man,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder and moving over toward Wolf.

“'Sup Wolf?” I asked, reaching behind him for a beer.

“Weird fuckin' party,” he said, using as few words as possible, as was his nature.

Wolf was a lot of things, not one of them being talkative.

“Yeah. If Repo and about three dozen armed psychopaths were here, it'd be like a fucking reunion.”

“I get us,” Wolf started, waving a hand toward himself, me, and Reign. “Don't get them,” he said, gesturing toward Lo and Richard Lyon, Summer's cocaine kingpin father.

“Well, he is her dad,” I shrugged.

“And Lo?”

That was a good point. “Maybe Summer feels like she owes her? Lo was really the only reason we could go in there and get her out.”

Lord knew we, The Henchmen, owed Lo and Hailstorm a big, bloody fucking favor in the future, a fact that had been weighing more heavy on me than Reign for some reason. I guess he figured that whatever it was, would be worth having the woman he loved back.

“All together?” Wolf asked, turning his light, fathomless eyes at me.

That was another good point. Sure, it made sense for Summer to want to see her father. It also made sense for her to want to see Lo again. She invited Wolf and I over all the time. But why, all of a sudden, did we all need to be in the same room, especially given that quite a few of us didn't exactly get along?

“Dunno,” I said, watching as Lo walked over to Richard Lyon like he wasn't one of the biggest dealers on the East coast. Then again, I had seen her walk up to a ruthless, heartless fucking skin trader like they had shared Sunday brunch every day for years.

“Bitches, man,” Wolf said and I turned to find him smirking fondly at Summer.

“Got that right,” I agreed, lifting my beer to him. “How was the run?” I asked, watching Lo throw her head back and laugh at something Richard said, her laugh a strange tinkling little sound that carried across the room.

“Hand me one,” Reign said, walking up, gesturing to my beer.

I handed him one and, unable to help myself, smirked at him. “How fucking pussy whipped are you to allow this clusterfuck to happen, bro?”

Reign snorted, shaking his head at himself. “You've seen Summer get a bug up her ass about shit before. She starts using six syllable words and shit, day and night, never letting up.”

“Other ways to take her mind off of it,” I suggested, raising a brow. He knew what I meant.

“Man, I fuckin' tried. Ten minutes after, she's sitting up and starting again. Figured, what harm could it do?”

“Lo's got a gun strapped to her thigh,” I pointed out.

“You got a gun in the small of your back. Wolf has one on his hip. Summer,” he said pointedly, “has one inside her boot. Don't think we can judge.”

“How many courses is this thing?” I asked, looking around at all the serving trays (yeah, serving trays... in my brother The Henchman leader's house) laid out on the kitchen counter, just waiting for food to be placed on them.

“Dinner and dessert,” Reign said with a sigh. “Talked her down from four courses.”

“Fuckin' serious?” Wolf asked, dangerously close to laughing.

“Serious about what?” Lo asked. I hadn't even seen her walk up, but there she was, at Reign's side.

The silence after her interruption was palpable and awkward with Reign recovering first, taking a swig of his beer and answering, “Summer wanted this to be a four course thing. Speaking of,” he said, swiveling his head over his shoulder to where it looked like Summer and her father were having some sort of heated debate, “I gotta go see what's up.” With that, he was gone.

Wolf looked at me with a silent shaking chuckle in his chest and said, “You're on your own.” He grabbed a fresh beer and moved away, inclining his chin at Lo as he passed. “Woman,” he said in his deep voice before he was gone.

Lo turned to watch him walk away, a strange small smile playing at her lips. When she turned back to me when Wolf was out of sight, she said, “I like him.”