Page 51 of Colt

My jaw went tight.

I fucking knew it.

My arm slid across my girl’s shoulders again, pulling her close. Christian the fucknut needed to know who she belonged to.

“Thing is, Chris,” I bit out. “My Freya’s as sweet as they come. She’s the kinda woman who’d rather let you down gently than make you feel rejected. It’s why I’ve locked her down. You snooze, you lose, and the fuckery of all is, you were years too late.”

Freya’s face jerked up to stare at me wondrously.

Christian heaved out a defeated breath. “Fair enough.”

I leveled him with a stare. “I’ll come in tomorrow and get Freya’s car. What time?”

He glanced at my girl and then back to me. “About ten. I’ll do the work this afternoon and test it in the morning. Is that okay with you?”

“Yup,” I told him. “See ya then.” I turned and marched Freya out of the auto shop, heading back toward the car. Glancing down, I saw Freya still had a massive smile on her face. “Lose the self-satisfied grin, baby. It doesn’t become you.”

She giggled. “You know, when my brothers act like cavemen, I want to bang their heads together, but when you do it, it’s kinda hot.”

I sighed audibly, grabbing her door, and helping her into the passenger seat. “You’re driving me fuckin’ crazy.” Grabbing her seat belt, I pulled it across her lap and clicked it in place.

“Now you know how I’ve felt for the last six years,” she murmured. “It’s shitty, right?”

I grimaced. “You have to understand the position I was in at the time. I was twelve years older than you. Me at thirty and you at eighteen wouldn’t have been right. You weren’t mature enough then. You hadn’t lived. At least now you’ve gone through college and med school, you’re more confident and comfortable in yourself.” Checking her seat belt was secure, I gently cupped her cheek, turning her face to look into her eyes. “It’s happened the way it was meant to. You needed time to find yourself before you saddled your cute ass with me. You were too young, Princess.”

Her eyes softened. “I know. It just hurt when you pulled away.”

I ran my thumb over her bottom lip. “I had to.”

Her forehead furrowed. “Why?”

I popped a kiss on the end of her nose. “It’s gonna take us a few hours to get to Grand Junction. We’ll talk it out, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she breathed.

I stood to my full height and closed the passenger door before making my way around the hood to the driver’s seat.

It was becoming clear that Freya had some pent-up frustration with me. I could understand it; her seeing me with other women must’ve hit hard.

Pulling my door open, I slid into the car and pulled my safety belt on. “Do you know how I met your dad?” I asked, starting the vehicle.

Her face turned toward me. “Yeah. It’s club folklore. You’d never met him before but still had his back when he ran into trouble with the Sinners.”

I nodded as I pulled out of the parking lot, joining the flow of traffic. “I’d just left the military. Didn’t wanna go home, so I decided to buy an old motorcycle and bum around the country. Wyoming was my first stop.”

She shifted onto her side to face me, curling her knees up into her chest. “Why didn’t you wanna go home?”

I shot her a glance before turning back to the road. “You know my background?”

Without pause, she murmured, “Colter Van Der Cleeve, only son of Conrad and Caroline. Two sisters, Cordelia, twenty-seven, and Grace, twenty-four. Your ancestors were among the first settlers, and now they own most of New York.”

My spine stiffened. “You never said you knew all that.”

“Why would I?” she asked. “It’s your business, not mine. It’s no skin off my nose if you’re as rich as a king.”

“It’s not just about wealth,” I responded carefully. “It’s about status and background. My family is one of the wealthiest in the USA. The Van Der Cleeves helped the Dutch colonize New Amsterdam—now New York—in 1620, but we can trace our name back centuries before that to the rulers of an area in medieval Germany. My ancestor, a gazillion times removed, was Anne of Cleeves, Henry VIII of England’s fourth wife, the second one he divorced.”

Freya blinked. “You’re English royalty?”

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