Cole: The Wounded Sons, Leah Sharelle [the reading list .TXT] 📗

we got back from the beach. Three weeks and I was yet to speak with my old man and find out why he’d asked me to stay away from Oaklee. It wasn’t as if I didn’t want to confront Dad and come clean and tell him Oaklee was mine because I did. Fucking badly. I was getting tired of pretending and acting like she was nothing more than a passing friend. It wasn’t sitting well with me either that Oaklee had slipped comfortably into our subterfuge. The flirty looks and mental messages she gave me with her eyes she was enjoying, and truth be told, so was I. It was kinda fun driving each other wild with heated looks, lip licks and thigh rubs. It made for some heavy and hot sex up against the door back at her place when I finally made it back to her bungalow.

Our sex life was far from lacking; we’d fucking gone at it like rabbits over the last handful of weeks, whether it be at her bungalow here or at the apartment down at the beach. Oaklee and I had slipped off to Queenscliff every weekend since the first, loving being free to walk down the main street holding hands. No one bothered us, stared or passed judgement.

We could be us, and I wanted that to continue here in my family home.

Seeing Oaklee and Mum interacting so well didn’t make it easy to walk up to Dad and tell him either. What started out as a necessity because of a stupid promise to my father was fast becoming a dangerous lie to keep Oaklee from losing her job, or worse still, a relapse into her eating disorder.

And to make a crap situation worse, Gabe informed us we had to report to Holsworthy the day after tomorrow. Fucking a whole state away from my girl for ten days.

Approaching Dad before I left was out of the question. Who knows what kind of shit storm might erupt and leaving Oaklee to deal with it alone was not going to happen.

“You okay, Cole?” Gabe asked me, using my given name because of the outsiders at the compound tonight.

Shaking my head, I leaned my elbows on the bar, my head turning to look at my captain.

“Gabe, have you ever felt on top of the world and fucking annoyed and pissed all at the same time?”

“I believe I understand that concept, mate,” Gabe sighed, “I am in love with a woman who owns my heart. Our wedding is finally beginning to look like it’s going to happen, and before we get called back up, and I am over the fucking moon, except—” Gabe dropped his head down, he looked like he was struggling to keep his shit together and that in itself was alarming. Gabriel Booth was nothing if not a fucking rock; he had the broadest shoulders and the compassion of ten men. He led Team FIVE with a maturity some men twice his age didn’t possess, so seeing him upset now was hard to watch.

“Cousin, what’s going on?” It wasn’t often I called Gabe cousin anymore. Not that I didn’t consider him my family because he was. All the kids, blood or not, were my family; we all thought that about each other, but to me, Gabe was a brother. Just as important to me as Zander, Chase and Dane were. I would take a bullet for him without question.

“It’s Devon, mate,” he sighed heavily, “I can’t fucking get her pregnant. We have been trying for fucking months since we got engaged and the stick just won’t turn pink!”

“I don’t know much about conceiving other than how to have sex, but seems to me you aren’t at the worry stage just yet, Cap.” Looking sideways at Gabe, I watched him closely, looking for his unmistakable ticks and tells, anything that can give me an insight into just how high his stress levels were.

“Yeah, that is what Devon keeps telling me. It will happen when it happens, but fuck me! When will that be?” Gabe growled in frustration.

Slapping him on the shoulder, I laughed at my CO.

“When your boys get a clue where the finishing line is,” I quipped, then jumped from the stool quickly to avoid the fist that came flying at my face.

“You’re getting slow in your old age, Gabe. Too many late nights in bed with your woman and not enough on the course.”

“I can kick your arse any day of the week, 2nd Lt,” Gabe muttered, “fucking prick.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, mate,” I threw over my shoulder, walking off to find Oaklee with the intention of stealing her off Mum for a few minutes. I needed my girl’s lips and maybe cop a feel of her luscious arse for a minute or two. I still had to report to my old man’s custom bike shop for an hour or so before finishing for the day. Gabe and I spent all morning and afternoon at the gun range, preparing the ground for a new concrete wall to be installed at the far end of the property to act as a bullet trap. Booth wanted to extend the outdoor range and had plans for a bigger and better trap than the one currently in place. His idea was to install two ten feet slab walls one foot apart and fill in the middle with a special rubber compound, kind of like a sandwich made up of concrete with a bullet stopping filling. It was an ingenious idea and would save on replacing the concrete walls so often. The work was backbreaking but fucking rewarding as hell, but I needed some time with my Temptress to get me through the next couple of hours.

Searching the room, I found Oaklee still with my mum, but Dad and Doc had joined them.

There was nothing wrong with walking over and seeing what is going on, I thought to myself as I made my way past the pool