Free BUTCHER: Wolves MC (Riding With Wolves Book 3) by Faith Winslow Page B

and fucking. But who are you to tell me what I’m in the position to do, or not do? What gives you the right? That’s my call, not yours. And right now, I don’t know exactly what I want—but I know I wanna see her again, so that’s what I’m gonna do.”
    Hammer shook his head from side to side and snorted a caustic laugh under his breath.
    “Okay, brother,” he said in resignation. “Just be careful.”
    “I will, man,” I said as I stood up to leave. “Thanks.”
    I reached out and patted Hammer on the shoulder. Even though we’d just had a heated exchange, I appreciated the fact that he cared enough about me to have it, and I respected him for his dedication and loyalty to me as a biker brother.
    “You’re juggling a lot of balls,” Hammer said, putting his hand on my arm as I began to pull it away from his shoulder. “I don’t want to see any of them drop.”
    “Me either,” I replied.
    Hammer released his hand from my arm, and I nodded at him and then left Pinky’s. But when I left, his words came with me. They haunted me and clung to me and kept replaying in my head.
    Maybe it wasn’t fair for me to start something up with Lexi at this point in my life—or maybe it wasn’t fair for me to try and start something up with her without telling her about the rest of the things I had going, namely, as Hammer had put it, my “situation.”
    But what would Lexi say if she knew about my “situation”? What would she do if she knew about everything else I had going on in my life? She’d probably run as fast as she could in the opposite direction—and I certainly didn’t want that to happen.
    One thing at a time , I told myself as I got on my bike and revved my engine. I was putting the cart before the horse and jumping the gun a little. My dinner with Lexi was supposed to be a meeting to discuss my gang involvement and see if we even had any shot at a future. These other disclosures could come later, if they had to.
    I’ll tell her what she needs to know, when she needs to know it , I reminded myself, repeating the words I’d said to Hammer. And right now, she didn’t need to know shit about my situation. All she needed to know was what she’d asked about, and that was all I intended to tell her.
    I’d tell her what I could about the Wolves, leaving out, of course, our most clandestine agendas and other super-secret secrets. I’d answer any questions she had, quash her fears and concerns, and hopefully, talk my way into her heart—and into her bed.

Chapter 16
     
    ~ Butcher ~
     
    “Are you sure I can’t get you something to eat?” the waitress asked. She wasn’t so much concerned about my hunger as she was about the table I was occupying, and she raised both eyebrows at me as she waited for me to answer.
    Hell yeah, I was hungry. I was starving. I did want something to eat, but I didn’t want to get it yet. I didn’t want to order until Lexi got there. It would have been rude to start dinner before my dinner date showed up.
    But still, I could understand the look on the waitress’s face, and it gave me good reason to break convention. I’d been sitting at a table, waiting for Lexi, for nearly forty-five minutes, and the restaurant was starting to pick up business and was running low on tables.
    I’d arrived at Olive about ten minutes early and hunkered down at a two-seater, and now it was a little after six thirty—the peak of dinnertime—and I was wasting space. If I didn’t order something, anything , there were plenty of other people who would, and my waitress would surely ask me to leave so that she could serve any one of them.
    “Um… I’ll take an order of hummus—for now,” I said. “And a Miller Lite, bottle.”
    I didn’t know a lot about Mediterranean food—other than the cuts of lamb and other meats most frequently used in it—and hadn’t even looked at the menu. But I was familiar with hummus, so I deferred to it for my order.
    “We don’t have Miller Lite