Chapter 3

“Are you sure you’re ok with this?” I squeeze Ana’s much smaller hand with my giant, rough mitt. We’re standing outside my cabin, looking towards my Pops’ house where he and my siblings have gathered for our usual Wednesday dinner. We can’t do Sundays because that’s Pops “self care day”. That means he spends the day doing all sorts of old-fashioned man grooming with products that probably contain lead or arsenic before he heads to Rosie’s Diner to try to pick her up.

Looking down at the tiny brunette beside me, I admit I was shocked when she texted last night with her answer. I was slightly concerned that maybe she hadn’t thought it through enough. But, I’ve since learned that once this woman decides to do something, she does it and she doesn’t fuck around. I called into her office at 11 am to find her in a cream-colored pants thing. The pants that are attached to the top, whatever you call them. I call them a gift from God because this thing showed off her tits perfectly, the deep V exposed tanned flesh with enough cleavage to be sexy, but keeping enough covered to have me wanting more. If I thought that was a sight, watching her walk purposefully ahead of me into the courthouse almost had me buckling at the knees. Her big, round ass jiggling its way up the courthouse steps level with my eyes is something that is burned into my memories forever.

A gentle squeeze of my hand snaps me out of my thoughts.

“Yup. Dinner with your family is the best time to tell them. Get it all over with at once.” Her green eyes bore into mine before she decisively nods her head. I take a deep breath and gently squeeze her hand back.

“Here we go.”

* * *

“You got married? Wait, didn’t she hate your guts like two days ago?” Tav says, his face screwed up in utter confusion.

“Yup, she hates him,” Dayz agrees, eyes on her fork separating her peas from her potatoes.

“I don’t hate August,”

“Ah, yes you do. I remember you clearly stating when we were on lockdown, ‘August Tombs is a bossy asshole. I hate him’,” Tuesday states matter-of-factly.

“I said ‘I hate his alpha bullshit’,” Ana corrects gently. As if that makes it better. Although, I concede, I was a bossy asshole trying to keep everyone safe and I don’t regret a minute of it.

“Um, I think I would remember that.”

“I’m not sure you would, because if I remember correctly halfway through my sentence Rhodie stuck his tongue in your mouth and you lost all train of thought.”

I watch as Tuesday’s eyes narrow slightly. She tilts her head for a moment and then nods.

“Yeah, actually, I could see how that could happen.” Rhodie takes a big bite of his bread roll, smiles widely, and looks at my sister as if she invented Harley Davidson, beer, and strippers.

“Well, I called it at the clubhouse. I saw this happening from a mile away. So, welcome to the family girl.” Pops says and starts digging into his roast.

“Wait, how come she gets a welcome? You call me names and shoot at me!” Rhodie drops his roll in outrage.

“She -” Pops points over the table “isn’t trying to stick anything into my grandson.”

“That you KNOW of,” Tuesday helpfully points out, making the table groan collectively.

“Anyway, we got married and Ana has agreed to take my name.”

Jules’s eyes flick back and forth between the two of us. “So, what’s really going on?”

“What do you mean? Are you deaf, kid? They got married. She’s probably pregnant. Are you pregnant?”

I see a red blush taking over Ana’s face as her mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out. This, however, does not deter my grandfather.

“You don’t look pregnant. Has your, ah, bust gotten larger?” Pops asks as he gestures with his fork in a big circle around his chest. My eyes roll toward the ceiling and I’m silently willing Pops to stop, but he just keeps going.

“I remember your grandmother, God rest her. As soon as she got pregnant, her tits got huge. It was a fun nine months.” I can feel something rising inside of me. I’m not sure if it’s bile or my blood pressure, but I really want to put my hands over my ears and take a few deep breaths. Instead, I pinch the bridge of my nose and count to seven.

“Ana is being investigated by immigration and I offered to marry her. So, no, we are not pregnant.”

My family stares at me for a beat before they all start talking over each other about how this makes so much more sense. I look at Ana and she’s wide-eyed, taking in the chaos that is my family.

I like to keep a tight rein on things. Myself, my siblings, and my Pops. They’re all my responsibility, but it can be a Herculean task sometimes. I wouldn’t have them any other way, though. I know what it’s like to lose the people you love in the blink of an eye, so anything I can do to make sure who I have left is safe and happy, I’ll do it. I reach under the table and gently place my hand on Ana’s smaller one, resting in her lap. I give it a little squeeze and she turns her face to me. Every time I look into her bright green eyes, I feel calm. She smiles up at me and gives my hand a squeeze before letting it go and starting in on her meal.

“So, how is this whole thing going to work, exactly?” Tav asks, gesturing between me and Ana with his fork.

“You’ll have to ask Gus. It’s his plan.” Ana shrugs before going back to her meal. God, I’m glad she enjoys her food and isn’t into eating only three salad leaves with no dressing. I swallow my mouthful, giving myself a little extra time because if I’m being honest, I didn’t think she’d agree, let alone that we’d get this far.

“Well, for starters, we have to live together. Thankfully, Ana has agreed to move in with me.”

“Sweet! We can be neighbors!” Dayz says with more enthusiasm than I would expect from her.

Following the murder of our parents in a home invasion, Pops came to live with Dayz and Tav, who were only 13 and 16. The problem was, none of them wanted to live in what Dayz had dubbed “the murder house”. So Pops moved them all into a caravan on site while they demolished the old house and built a smaller farm-style one. After college, both Jules and I decided we would rather be home in Rose Grove with our family than in the big city. Thankfully, all the houses in this area are built on enormous land blocks, so me and Jules had small two-bedroom cabins built near the back of the section. After Tav and Dayz finished college, they returned home and did the same thing. I live on one side of Dayz, Tav on the other side of her, and Jules next to him. We can see each other from our porches. It may seem weird that my family lives this way, but it works for us.

“Yeah, totally neighbors. We could sit on the porch drinking wine and stuff.” Ana offers, however, Dayz is shaking her head emphatically.

“That’s a nice offer, but I can’t do wine. Tequila is fine, though.”

Tav frowns her way. “Why can’t you drink wine?”

“It makes me slutty.”

Ana chokes a little, and it feels natural for me to reach behind her and rub her back until she settles.

“Now what have I told you, baby girl? There’s no such thing as being slutty. There’s only being a strong woman who is comfortable with herself and her sexuality and if she so wishes, she can share that with whom she chooses.” Pops nods to himself and I can see Ana’s lips twitching.

Fucking hell, I knew that someone must have given Dayz all the information that young women get, but I just kinda figured that happened at school. Or maybe Pops gave her a book or something. Now I’m wondering just what Pops’ parenting actually entailed.

“I like when you drink wine,” Rhodie growls before dropping a kiss on my sister’s neck. Suddenly, he flinches back from her,

“What the hell was that?”

“Horny dog training tool.” Pops sprays Rhodie with water from a spray bottle I hadn’t even noticed sitting next to him on the table. A sweet chuckling sound washes over me and I glance down to see Ana bright-eyed watching the shit show that is Tombs family dinner.

“Jules, you found a good woman yet, like your brother?” Since Dayz settled down, Pops has been on our cases to think about ‘hitching our wagon’ to one woman. Which is going to be fucking hard for Jules, given he seems to only entertain women in groups.

“Nope. Don’t need a good one, just a willing one. Or two.” He smirks at Pops with a glint in his eye. Pops just sighs before turning his beady eye onto Tav.

“What about you, boy? Any females?”

“Well, Pops, they tend to not like being called that. But nothing serious on my end. I’ve been out a couple of times with a nice woman, but she’s hesitant.”

“Lemme guess,” Jules butts in, “She’s at least 10 years older than you and needs to take it slow for the kids?” Tav gives him the stink eye, but given that Jules was born with the stinkiest eye in our family, it’s a losing battle.

“No! She’s only 5 years older than me.” Tav mumbles out.

I check on Ana and am pleasantly surprised to see her eyes pinging back and forth over the table, bouncing between my siblings and grandfather. It’s not like she doesn’t know them. They were all locked down with us at Devils’ Rose MC. But there were lots of people there, the MC brothers and their families. Roman and his family. They all sort of ran interference for my family, I guess. Now, she’s getting the full, uncut version and I’m surprised by how relieved I feel at her enjoying herself and not running for the hills. I lean down, taking a sneaky sniff of her scent, before whispering in her ear,

“You doing ok there babe?” She turns her face to me, eyes glittering, a broad smile across her face.

“Your family is fucking whackadoodle. I love it.”

It’s been an entire week of married life and all my meager belongings are now settled in Gus’s cabin. It made sense to move in with him seeing how the past five years I’ve lived in the guest wing of Roman’s house. I didn’t think Gus would appreciate living in the Bratva compound, not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I felt like it could get a little too testosterone-y once Roman and Sasha return.

When Gus told me he lived in a cabin, I have to say I was a little surprised, given how NOT outdoorsy he was when we fled into the woods after a group of men stormed Roman’s house with guns. My first impression of Gus, aside from him being ridiculously hot, was he was incredibly bossy. And shit at being outdoors. He may be stealthy and formidable in his urban environment, but out in the wild, he was like a bull in a china shop. You can’t go into the woods thinking you can control it. You have to work with the landscape and use natural camouflage. Maybe even try to keep quiet when stalking or being stalked. I mean, sure, not everyone spent time with a dad like mine, but surely the man has seen at least one of those survival shows.

Anyway, I may not have expected August Tombs to live in a cabin, but looking around, it’s decorated exactly how I imagined. Stereotypical functional man decor - brown leather couch, giant TV, and a coffee table in the lounge area. Brown leather and wood bar stools pushed in under the island. A small wooden dining table with a tidy, little pile of junk mail, coupons and newspapers, that doesn’t look like they’ve been touched at all.

The bedrooms are even more bland. Or perhaps that’s just the small guest room I’m currently in that also houses a treadmill and some boxes of spy-looking stuff. It’s a necessity, though. We both agreed that at this point it’s best to keep separate bedrooms, which is fine with me because being this close to Gus is seriously messing with my head. The smell of him everywhere in the house is playing havoc on my hormones. Seeing him on the first morning I stayed over, shirtless, in gray sweatpants, drove me to a lukewarm shower and a little one-on-one time with his very fancy, removable shower head.

“Babe? Are you home?” That’s another thing, he’s started calling me babe, and it makes my stomach flip every time I hear it. I’ve always found him attractive, and when we were in lockdown, it felt like we had the beginnings of something. But with a little time apart, I can see that diving into something more than we did would have been a big mistake. Even now, I’m not sure what I want out of this thing with Gus. He has the ability to break my heart without meaning to, so I want to tread carefully.

“Yup, I’m here.” I walk out and find him leaning on the kitchen counter on his elbows, his head in his hands. His firm ass is right in front of me and I have the biggest urge to slap it to see how hard it really is. He spins around and my eyes shoot to his face. I don’t want him to catch me creeping on him.

“Gus? Everything ok?” His frown suggests everything is not ok. His eyebrows are dark slashes over those chocolaty eyes and there are deep lines above that slightly crooked nose that looks like it’s been broken before.

“Well, immigration called, and they thanked us for sending through our marriage certificate and wished us well for the future.”

I breathe out a long, relieved breath. “Well, that’s nice of them. Is that why you have that face?”

“Ah, no. I have this face because they would like us to see a couple’s counselor of their choice.”

“Wait, what? What the hell for?”

“Apparently, it’ll help strengthen our case if we can show our counselor how well matched we are.” He pushes away from the bench and runs his hands through his hair a few times. Gus is tightly wound on a normal day. Presented with this type of shit and he looks fit to burst. We need to settle down and get control of the situation.

I take a breath and let it out. “Shit. Ok, no, we’re ok. We know each other fairly well. We get on. You said it yourself, we’re attracted to each other. Your family likes me, my besties like you. We’ve got this, Gus,” I tell him with an emphatic nod. “When’s our first counseling session?”

He looks at me, and I can’t tell if it’s with fear or regret. “Today, in about an hour.”

“What the actual fuck!?” Now I’m leaning on the bar with my head in my hands.

“I think it’s a ploy. Get us when we’re stressed. See if we show any weaknesses or gaps in our relationship. But you’re right babe, we’re ok. We’ve got this. Hey, hey, look at me.” His warm hands grip my shoulders and he gently turns me to look at him.

“We’ve got this.”

How the hell did we go from me trying to calm him to him calming me? See what I mean? He’s way too potent.

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s show this counselor how bloody happily married we are. We’ve got this.”

* * *

Ok, I’m not sure we’ve got this. I was feeling good when we first walked into the couples’ counseling office. It was all really welcoming, a lovely jolly receptionist, flowers, calm prints on the wall, and relaxing elevator music piped through the speakers. We held hands as we waited. Smiled at each other. Had witty banter with the aforementioned jolly receptionist. But that was the ruse to lure us in. Now Gus and I are sitting entirely too close on the smallest loveseat I’ve ever seen in my life, being interrogated by a woman whose resting bitch face could rival Jules.

“So, how is your sex life?”

“Our what now?” I can’t help myself, that just popped out. We went from talking about how we met (minus the illegal details, of course) to sex. I would have at least thought she would have warmed us up for the sex question. Perhaps bought us a drink, told us we look pretty, that sort of stuff.

“Your sex life? You’re newlyweds?” She adjusts her small wire-framed glasses to read her notes. “Yes, you’re newlywed, so I’m expecting you’re having a lot of sex.”

Gus coughs to clear his throat, and I wait for him to answer and yet nothing comes out. Bastard.

“Um, yes. Totally. We have sex. All the sex. All the ways you can do it, we are having it.” I squeak out. I swear if I had a narrator in my life, the voiceover would say, “In fact, they were not having sex. None of the sex. All the ways you can do it, they were not having it.”

I’m sure my vagina is lamenting over being married to the hottest guy alive and there has been no P in V action. For good reason, I tell myself.

“Hmmm. As I expected.” What the hell? I shoot a panicked look at Gus, who throws his arm around me and rubs my arm with his rough hand.

“Would you say you have had some challenging times in your relationship?”

A flashback of how we met, running from armed men to the foiled human trafficking auction, flick through my mind.

“Not really. We’ve been pretty lucky, haven’t we, babe?” Gus asks as he drops a kiss on the top of my head.

“Yeah, very lucky.”

“Hmmm. That’s not quite ideal. We like to know our couples have what it takes to weather any storm.” She looks up from her notes. “August, is there something Ana loves doing that you dislike?”

He gives me a small smile. “Yeah. She loves camping. I’m not as comfortable as her in the great outdoors.”

I snort because that is one hell of an understatement. The hand that has been stroking my arm gently pinches me, and I glare up at his smirking face.

“Perfect! Before our next session, which I will schedule for next Wednesday, I would like you two to go on a camping trip. Maybe this coming weekend. The weather is meant to be nice.”

“Oh, yeah. That sounds like it could be fun,” Gus says through his teeth, but Marta, our counselor, ignores him and carries on.

“Next Wednesday, 5.30pm. I’ll see you then.” Without saying a word, she stands and walks to the door, holds it open for us, and waits as we struggle to unwedge ourselves from her couch. We walk past, saying our thank you’s, and head down to Gus’s SUV.

“Holy shit, what was that?!?” Gus grumbles under his breath.

“I don’t know! All I know is that I’m going camping this weekend and so are you!” I squeal a little and I can feel my excitement building. This is exactly what I need. Whenever I’m overwhelmed or confused, a tramp or an overnighter in nature centers me. Usually, I just take my tent and bits and pieces to Roman’s woodland retreat, but this weekend I’ll be able to find us a nice campground to stay in.

“Hey babe, don’t look now, but did you notice that car earlier?” Gus’s posture is ramrod straight. He’s facing me, but he’s looking out of the corner of his eye.

“Blue sedan, tinted windows, paint scrape on the front bumper?”

A smile plays on his lips. “Exactly.”

“Yup, noticed them not long after we left your house.”

“Our house,” he murmurs.

“Our house.”

He nods and then opens my door, keeping an eye out on our surroundings. Helping me in, because his car doesn’t have running boards, he waits until I’m settled before buckling my seatbelt. Usually, I’d be pissed by this display of manliness, but obviously, I lost my feminism somewhere because I’m quite liking the treatment. Although I have to keep telling myself not to get used to this. It’s just for a visa. I’m jarred out of my thoughts when Gus slams my door and I check the rearview mirrors to watch his back, not wanting anything to happen to him, and to note their license plate. He gets in on his side, shutting the door behind him.

“Got the license plate,”

“Good girl.” My stomach clenches at the endearment. I never thought I’d like that sort of thing, but in Gus’s gravelly voice aimed at me? Holy Fuckamoley, it’s panty drenchingly hot.

“We’ll get Tuesday on to it.” I nod my head at this and make a note to call Ivan to see if he’s heard anything on the streets. With Roman in Russia, the Bartashev Bratva runs a genuine risk of someone wanting to make a run for Pakhan, and they won’t care if I’m in the way. Shit a brick.