Pagan (The Henchmen MC 8)

I chuckled at that, taking her lips in mine until she swayed against me.

"Go get your non-pussy color. The guys and I have a lot of work to do. We can take this to a notary tomorrow."

"Yes, yes, cute and all that. Thank you and whatnot. Now go." Benny was impatient to have her alone, to talk, to gush about shit.

I smiled, releasing Kennedy, and leaving them to celebrate.

Though the real celebration would come much later.

In bed.

Where she showed me her gratitude. Naked.

Yeah, fair fucking trade.SEVENTEENKennedy"Are we being invaded?" Benny asked, freezing, staring out the door.

We had had a busy morning, both of us booked from opening until about twenty minutes before, and we were both hoping to give our poor arms a small break before we had to have our early evening clients. But there was nothing you could do about walk-ins. They came and we had to take them.

Being that we were expanding, we needed to still be pretty careful with money. True, I wouldn't have rent next month thanks to being an actual bonafide real estate owner, but supplies cost a lot of money for a salon if you wanted to make sure you made the correct purchase the first time so you wouldn't have to replace anything six months down the line.

After way too much champagne on a weeknight, Benny springing for an expensive bottle, and both of us drinking ourselves giddy, we had set to work on the actual plans.

Because while The Henchmen were making things safe and usable, we still had a lot we needed to do.

We needed a real waiting area, with comfortable seating, a single serve coffee machine, and a coffee table. We needed a computer that didn't come straight out of 2000. We needed two more haircutting stations, one more nail station, and two more pedicure stations.

Then, once we were taken on a walk-through of the construction area, with actual construction hats on because Reeve had insisted, we learned that the other side of the building had another bathroom, storage space, and another huge back room that was likely meant to be a break room, but we decided could be cut in half so we had a nice break room, but also a private room where we could maybe, once the cash flow was healthy, hire an esthetician to do waxing. It would be a pretty full-service salon which wasn't available anywhere else in Navesink Bank. You would normally have to go to one spot for your hair, another for your nails, and a third to get a wax. Being able to offer all three would put us leaps and bounds above the competition.

The sky was truly the limit for me/us for the first time maybe ever.

Thanks, almost entirely, to Pagan.

After I had shopped at Home Depot with Benny, then had too much champagne, Pagan had brought me back to the compound where we had gone at it for hours until both our bodies were too exhausted for another round.

He had passed out and I had snuck off into the bathroom, curling up in a warm bath, unable to hold it in anymore, and having a good, long, cry. Not a sad one, one that was full of a relief like I had never known, gratitude, and a happiness that felt like it was bursting out of my pores.

"Ugh, it kind of seems like it," I said, pushing aside my salad and rolling my neck.

There outside our front doors and windows was a huge crowd of women. I mean, there were at least ten of them. What would even possess them to all try to come to my little salon all at once? I was pretty sure it was obvious from the outside that we wouldn't be able to handle them all at once. But maybe they were okay with taking turns, in which case, there was a nice chunk of money to be made from a group that big.

So I pushed my frustration and exhaustion aside and gave Benny a shrug. "Money, money, money..."

"Mon-eeee," Benny sang back.

"Wait," I said, pausing. "Is that Maze?" I asked, the distinctive purple catching my eye as she whipped her hair somewhere in the front of the group by the street.

"Looks like it. That's my handiwork right there," Benny said proudly, puffing up a bit.

"Wait," I said, giving the group another look. "If that is Maze, then that means that they are the girls club."

"What the hell is the girls club?"

"They are all the old ladies to the bikers, plus a few of the women who belong to the friends of The Henchmen."

"Should we be worried?" Benny asked, looking confused.

"I have no idea."

It was true, I didn't.

Because while I had been at the compound pretty regularly since I started getting serious with Pagan, the wives generally seemed to stay at their respective houses with their kids, leaving the compound to mostly the slightly older puppies and the brand spanking new ones.