Page 67 of Kneeling to Candy

She points her big makeup brush at me like a wand, shaking it. “Yeah! Fuck those men. Fuck them right up their chrome tailpipes. Now get in here and help me choose my eye shadow for the day. We need to hustle if we plan on getting to Jo’s in time, before the preggers eat all the food.”

“The preggers?”

“Yeah, the preggers—as in all the mamas incubating their babies,” Ebony explains nonchalantly, circling her makeup brush around her tummy. “Jo, Opal, and, according to Chase, Simone, too.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Referring to them as ‘the preggers’ is a little crass.”

Ebony waves a dismissive hand at me. “What you call crass, I call honest. Have you seen what Jo can stuff away in her mouth? I don’t know where the hell she puts it, since that second set of twins takes up all the vacant room in her stomach. Her bones must be hollow like a bird’s or something, hoarding it for extra reserves when those twins suck the nutrients right out of her. Proof those preggers will eat our share if we don’t hustle.”

Good old Ebony—distracting me with meaningless tasks and ridiculous conversations when she senses I’m out of sorts.

Despite my foul mood, I join her in the bathroom. Doing anything is better than brooding over Butch and his asinine behavior.

Ebony digs through her cosmetic bag, pulling out eye shadows. Pursing my lips, I consider the option before settling on a nude with peachy undertones—perfect for Ebony’s honey-bronze skin.

Without looking at me, Ebony stares at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, applying her eye shadow with meticulous precision.

While Ebony works, I lean against the wall, sulking like a child not getting her way—irrational behavior for a grown-ass woman. However, I feel my reaction is valid, given Butch is trying to convince Atlas and the rest of the guys not to assign me to the case, ruining my chances of finding closure on a deeper level.

“Curious, but which men are we upset with today?”

Ebony is not one to pry. She hates it when others enquire about her past or current situationship with Tank. If you respect her boundaries, she’ll respect yours. Seems my pissy demeanor is extreme enough to make her feel obligated to root out the source of my sullen mood.

Grimacing, I fold my arms across my chest like a petulant child. “Not men—a man. As in mine.”

“Gotcha. And what did Butch do to deserve the wrath of Candy?”

“He’s trying to stop me from joining the sex trafficking case.” I explain the current mission, who’s the culprit is to me, and how I volunteered to be the inside person for the operation.

“Can you believe the nerve of this guy, interfering where he has no right?” I huff, irritated all over again.

With only one eyelash attached to her eyelid, Ebony slowly turns to face me. She gawks at me, blinking her eyes rapidly, like she’s having a seizure.

“Excuse me?! You volunteered to do what, now?” Ebony tosses her eyelash curler on the counter, shaking her head. “I know damn well you didn’t offer yourself for this case to be a good-doer and not think your old man wouldn’t have something to say about it.”

I scoff at her words. “Has the man claimed me, Eb? Maybe with his body, but he hasn’t with his words. Last I checked, if a biker wants an old lady, he makes his claim known to the club. Butch is not my old man.”

Ebony rolls her eyes to the ceiling, her one fake eyelash fluttering wildly. “For fuck’s sake, stop being dense. The entire club knows you’re his. He laid a silent claim on you over a year ago.”

Surprised, I recoil. “A silent claim? A year ago?!”

“Mm-hm,” Ebony hums, turning back to the mirror to attach her other eyelash. “Why else do you think the brothers stop coming to you for bunny time?”

“I assumed it was a combination of me shooting them down and being a snitch on the club.”

“Maybe at the time, but the crew has moved past the betrayal. I’m talking the whole year after. You think any of those guys wouldn’t have asked for a hookup if you were available? Come on, Candy.”

What she says makes sense. As soon as I stopped having casual sex with the crew members, I never had to decline the guys more than once. With how often the bikers like to get their dicks wet, it didn’t make sense they wouldn’t have asked again the year following.

But if this is true, why hasn’t Butch claimed me publicly?

For crying out loud, we screwed each other’s brains out the night before and were greeted by half the crew when we exited the storage closet. It would have been the perfect opportunity to do it if Butch’s intentions were to make me his old lady.

My temper rises again. “Silent claim or not, Butch hasn’t said jack shit to me about titles. Until he utters the words to me or puts a property patch on my back, it’s all speculation at best.”

Ebony waves me away. “Whatever you say, chica. But I’m telling you, old man or not, Butch reacted the way he did because he has feelings for you.”

“I know he has feelings for me,” I murmur with a slight shrug, my cheeks heating. “He admitted it to me last night.”

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