Chapter 21 #3
Andrew looked rightfully chastised by my father.
He nodded once and turned away, hurrying to his pretentious Lexus without looking back.
I released a long breath, knowing it was over for now.
We waited until Andrew had driven out and the gate closed.
The gate was replaced the same day it had been destroyed and was stronger than the one there before.
There were also more security cameras and lights.
King turned to look at Hudson. “You good?”
Hudson’s jaw tensed again.
“Control your shit,” King told him. “I fucking know how you feel, but we won’t blow this.”
Then he turned to look at me. His eyes ran over what I was wearing, and without wanting to, I fidgeted under his scrutiny. He looked back at Hudson.
“What is this? You claiming my daughter?”
“Hey,” I protested, taking a step towards them. I saw Warren laugh behind his hand and glared at him. “No one is claiming me.”
Hudson turned around and gave me an equally menacing glare as King was giving him.
“You’re mine, remember?”
I folded my arms over my chest. I didn’t want to admit the thrill that shot up through me at those words, but I’d be damned if I let anyone think they owned me.
“You claim my daughter, you do it right.”
“Is anyone listening to me right now?” I shouted. All of them turned to me with an implicit ‘no’ in their eyes. I threw up my hands in frustration.
“Already done,” Hudson said.
Before I could ask what the hell he meant, he took off his cut and turned to face my father, pointing at his chest. King leaned in, his brows bunching together before he straightened up and looked at me.
I couldn’t read what he was thinking and did not know what Hudson showed him that had my dad nodding, like he was giving Hudson his blessing.
“Whoa,” Warren blurted, then laughed after looking at Hudson’s chest. “I fucking knew it.”
“What?” I snapped.
No one answered me and Hudson was looking at me like he wanted to throw me over his knee and spank me. And not in the fun way. I marched over to them. Warren took a step back from us, grinning like an asshole.
Of course, I’d seen the tattoos that covered the left side of Hudson’s chest, following up from the intricate sleeve he had.
Some of them were old. He’d started the sleeve before I left.
I ran my eyes over them. All of them looked a couple of years old, none of them seemed fresh.
I hadn’t exactly been focused on them the times I’d seen him shirtless, other things occupying my eyes, or them being rolled up in the back of my head in ecstasy.
I shook that thought off, trying to see what the others were so giddy about.
It was distracting staring at his chest, plus he was flexing and not giving me any help to find it.
I was about to demand they tell me what the fuck was going on when I spotted it.
The swirling calligraphy was beautiful, and it dipped in the center, rising at the start and the end of the letters, right over his heart.
My name.
I lifted my eyes to his in shock and looked at it again, then back at him.
His face was unreadable. In fact, he looked angry.
It was an old tattoo, I could tell by the slight fading of the ink, but it was beautiful all the same.
The work was intricate and perfect. And it went way beyond the normal meaning of getting a person’s name tattooed on you.
This meant a hell of a lot more in an MC.
He bent down so his lips were right next to mine.
“I’ve always owned you. And it’s only a matter of time before you mark yourself too,” he grabbed my wrist, his thumb moving over the pulse point. I tried to pull out of his grasp, but he didn’t let me. “Deny it all you want but you and me. We were always going to happen.”
Then he let me go, gave Warren and King a look before he grabbed his cut and stalked off. He didn’t go to the clubhouse or back to the old lady’s house. He walked around the back and disappeared from sight, leaving me standing there gawping after him like an idiot.
Warren’s arm came down over my shoulder and he tugged me towards him, kissing my hair with a laugh as he plucked at the t-shirt I was wearing. “Shopping in the adult section again.”
“Screw off, loser,” I shoved him, but he was immovable. King eyed us but said nothing more as he walked away. Warren opened his mouth, but I slapped a hand over it. “If you sing Waverley and Hudson sitting in a tree, I swear to God.”
“You wound me,” he started walking me to the clubhouse, not relinquishing my shoulder.
“I was going to say, you loooove him, you want to have his baaaabies,” he sang, but he cut off and grunted loudly when I slammed my elbow into his gut.
“As happy as this makes me, you need to shower,” he said, pushing me away from him with a wrinkled nose, and despite how annoyed I was, my cheeks flushed.
“Get cleaned up, you floozy, then come make me lunch.”
He was trying to be funny to take my mind off what happened with Andrew, and I was grateful for that, but it was embarrassing as hell, and I had no intention of making food for anyone. In fact, I was going to hide out for the rest of the day. I needed to process what just happened.
Hudson had my name tattooed over his heart.
It had been there long before I came back home. As everyone disappeared inside and I turned to head to the house, Tanya appeared in front of me, glaring, her face red with anger.
“You think that means something?” she snarled. “That doesn’t mean a damn thing. That tattoo has been there for years, and he doesn’t give a shit about you. He isn’t claiming you. He’s mine.”