Epilogue
Aiden
Seventeen years later
“Well, she’s full of fucking determination, isn’t she?
” Archer asks with a chuckle, watching our daughter, Nichole, come flying out the back door wearing her helmet, ready for our ride to the local coffee shop.
We do this every Sunday, just like Mia used to with her father.
Nichole gets hot chocolate, and I get a coffee.
We eat sweets and talk about whatever’s on her mind.
Been doing it since she was nine. I told her I needed fifteen minutes to go over some things with Archer, but unsurprisingly, she’s just like her mother and doesn’t like to wait.
What Nichole wants happens when Nichole wants, and there’s no other way.
Her long platinum hair flies out behind her, and it hits me that she’s beginning to look much too old.
Today is her sixteenth birthday, but thankfully she’s not too old to want to spend time with her dad.
Thank Christ. If that day ever comes, it’s gonna fucking crush me.
“If you don’t hurry up, I’m gonna take it down the driveway without you. It’s my birthday. You have to do what I want!” she calls out as Archer chuckles even more.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath. It wouldn’t be the first time, but thank fuck, our driveway is hundreds of feet long, so it’s a good place for her to practice, slowly.
She’s adamant that she’s getting her motorcycle license now that she’s turned sixteen, which also scares the shit out of me, but Mia assures me there’s no way I can stop her. She’s grown up with bikes—and bike clubs—her whole life.
“We can talk more about the new supplier tomorrow. I’ll get outta your hair.
You’ve got a big day today,” Archer says, standing.
He’s getting up there these days, and soon he won’t be riding, but he’s still hanging on as my VP.
In fact, my whole club is still intact. Things have settled down a lot, and we’ve managed to keep under the radar for the better part of fifteen years.
But we’ve all changed, especially me. The moment I looked into my daughter’s little face, I knew I had to take this club in a different direction.
We got out of the gun market, sold the strip clubs, and partnered with the Hounds, opening new methadone recovery clinics in South Carolina and Northern Georgia, helping veterans and anyone struggling.
In turn, they decided to partner with us, giving a portion of all of our clinic profits to help fund a bigger and better Nicola’s Haven in Savannah that houses over fifty beds for women needing care after abuse.
We contract Briggs to come in and teach them self-defense once a week, and in his early seventies, he’s still a tough and gritty motherfucker with a real big heart.
It warms Mia to her core to see him be a part of what we’re doing.
After we took on the bigger facility, we moved into the old place as our family home and have turned it into a fully functional off-grid property.
Nichole leans in to give Archer a hug. “Were you just smoking, Uncle A?” She wrinkles her nose. “That’s a bad habit,” she tells him as Mia comes down the back steps into the yard.
“Your daddy used to smoke, you know, and I used to make that very same face,” she tells Nichole.
“You smoked?” she asks me, her blue eyes lined with shock in her pretty heart-shaped face. “Why did no one tell me this?”
“You weren’t supposed to tell her that, Rhiannon.” I glare at Mia.
“She’s sixteen, Aiden. It won’t do her any harm to hear that her dad is a little less than perfect.” Mia laughs.
I ruffle Nichole’s hair and kiss the top of her head. “I quit the day your mom told me she was pregnant with you.” I grin as she leaves my grasp and heads for the bike. “Wanted to make sure I was around to get made fun of for the long haul,” I add.
Nichole looks at me over her shoulder and laughs. “Come on, Dad.”
Mia sticks her tongue out at me, and a vision of her taking my cock down her throat momentarily consumes me.
I bring her close and kiss her juicy lips.
I swear to Christ, she gets more stunning every year, and my need to be no more than a foot away from her at all times is still very much intact.
If that hasn’t changed with two kids and seventeen years together, it’s safe to say it never will.
“Guess I’m being summoned,” I tell her gruffly.
She kisses me once more. “And you’ll be summoned later.” She giggles into my lips.
“Fuck,” Archer quips. “At least wait till I’m out of earshot.”
“Enjoy the ride, Daddy, and then get back here,” Mia says to me. “We’ve got a double birthday to celebrate.”
I groan and smack her ass. “Don’t remind me.”
“You’ll survive, I promise.” Mia laughs as she heads inside, and I meet my daughter for our ride.
What are the odds her first boyfriend is the son of a Hounds member, and they have a birthday two days apart?
“Seb is getting his own bike soon. He’s working on it with his dad,” Nic tells me before I fire up my bike. Fuck, I’m gonna have to kill him. I don’t want to kill a kid.
“But he says I can’t ride on the back till he’s gotten used to it and he’s comfortable. He wants to make sure I’m safe.”
Interesting. Okay, maybe I won’t have to kill him, because hearing that makes me like Sebastian Wolfe just a little bit more. For now.
As my daughter clings to me and we leave the driveway for our weekly tradition, I realize how lucky I am to still be here.
How lucky I was that stubborn and wild goddess wandered into my club seventeen years ago.
Mia may have arrived with the intent to kill me, but she ended up giving me a reason to truly live. She ended up giving me life.
* * *
Mia
“How’s he taking this?” Brinley asks me as we watch Aiden scowl at her oldest son, Seb, who whispers something in Nichole’s ear and makes her laugh. He’s a year older than she is, and they’ve been hopelessly infatuated with each other for well over six months.
“How you’d expect.” I grin back at her. She knows exactly what I mean.
Of course Aiden doesn’t like it. Seb is such a handsome kid, the kind that makes a girl lose her train of thought.
I know because I was young once too and looked at Aiden just like that.
Hell, I still do. He’s still fucking gorgeous, and it’s really not fair that he somehow looks more rugged and more attractive the older he gets.
His body is still hard and lean, his hair still a dark blond although a little shorter now, and his beard a little thicker with flecks of gray running through it.
And he wears his glasses all the time now.
The thing I love most is that he still has an appetite for me, like we just met yesterday. I feel lucky when I think of friends who say their husbands never pay attention to them anymore. I have the exact opposite in my life, and for that I’m grateful.
“Mom, can me and Max go into the woods?” I look down at Brennan, our seven-year-old son. He’s with the five-year-old son of the Hounds’ vice president, Sean, and his wife Layla. Little adventurers they are, always getting into something together.
“Fine with me,” I say, turning to Layla.
“Just take your sister with you, Max, and don’t be long. Dinner will be ready soon.” She gestures to her fifteen-year-old daughter, Calli.
I give Brennan a kiss on the head. “Be good, little king,” I say, sending him off as I lean back in my chair next to the girls in the wide, open part of our yard.
It’s quite the life we’re living now. Our clubs are in harmony, and dare I even say, some of us are really good friends now.
I’ve been blessed with a man who lived the life of an outlaw once, but who now lives his life a little more inside the law.
He still cuts the red tape, as he calls it, but strives to be the kind of man our kids can look up to, and there is absolutely nothing sexier than that.
Aiden Foxx has given me a beautiful family, and a career that I love.
I no longer felt the need to go into forensics once we started Nicola’s Haven. I switched my major and earned a degree as a trauma counselor so I could throw myself into our women’s shelter. It became my passion to help young women just like my sister.
It’s that legacy we’ve created together over the years that’s led our daughter to decide she wants to become a therapist after high school, and hopefully continue her work with us. It wasn’t surprising since she’s been helping there from the time she was old enough to walk.
In her elementary years, she’d spend time babysitting the younger kids while their moms had therapy sessions, or helping with the grounds and gardening.
She grew up here, for the most part, before it became our family home, so to live here now makes this place feel even more filled with love and light.
It also didn’t hurt that her dad brought home four horses that she loves to ride in her spare time.
This small piece of land has truly become a haven for our family.
The sun is just setting as we all finish dinner, and Brinley and I call everyone to the patio to sing happy birthday to Seb and Nichole. There must be fifty or more people in our yard, but it still feels spacious as we gather around.
I feel Aiden tense as Seb puts his arm around Nichole. I grip Aiden’s hand and lean over to him, “Relax, Daddy, she’s growing up.”
Mason chuckles beside him, and Aiden cuffs him in the chest. “You’re next.” He nods to our niece, Mason’s ten-year-old daughter.
“Like fuck. She’s gonna start being homeschooled the day she turns twelve.”
The two teens blow out the candles on their large sheet cake as the crowd cheers for them.
“Hard to believe our girl is growing up.” Briggs makes his way over and shakes Aiden’s hand.
He’s been training Nichole in martial arts since she was four, and he started not long ago with Brennan too.
In this world, it doesn’t hurt to know how to protect yourself, and Aiden and I have always wanted our kids to be well-rounded.
“Can she kick your ass yet, old man?” Aiden chuckles at Briggs.
“Nah…” Briggs scrubs his fully gray beard.
“Yeah…” Patty looks at me and starts to laugh. They’ve been like grandparents to our kids, and having them in their lives has been the biggest blessing since my own mom moved to California fifteen years ago with Craig.
Seb picks up a piece of cake and dots icing on the end of Nichole’s nose, and I hear a low growl start to rumble in Aiden’s chest. Seems my husband might be in need of some distraction.
“You know, we’ve got fourteen bedrooms inside our house,” I whisper to Aiden. “What do you think the odds are that we can locate one where nobody will find us for a half hour?”
He lets out a growl, and then those steely blue eyes I’ve loved since the first moment I saw them soften.
“Are you asking me to hunt you, Mrs. Foxx?” he asks with a smirk as he lets my hand go.
My body starts to heat at the way he looks at me. “Oh baby…” I mutter into his lips. “When have I ever asked you for anything?” I begin backing away, slowly, so as not to attract attention. “It’s an order,” I add before turning to head into our house.
I know he’ll follow me. A few moments later, a current runs through me when I see my rugged biker king stalking toward me with the hungry look I get down on my knees for.
Excitement builds inside me, and I know no matter what comes our way, no matter what challenges we face, as long as Aiden Foxx keeps looking at me this way, I’ll have everything I need.
Ours is the kind of love you can’t live without.
The kind of love we’d kill for, together.