Page 79 of Eight Bikers' Heir

“Another for the books, captain!” Mo told me with a grin on his lightly stubbled face. “We can finally go home!”

Home. It had been a while since I was back on American soil. Since I had my beautiful wife in my arms.

“What are you doing first? I’m sleeping for twelve hours straight and catching up on every movie I missed,” Elijah asked from the other side of me. It was time for that smart brain of his to take a break after all the intelligence work he did for us.

“I’m going to have dinner with my wife,” I replied as I leaned back in my seat with a small smile on my face. I had a lot to catch up on when I got back home.

“Tell her we said hey,” Mo said before leaning his head back and closing his eyes as the gust of the helicopter wings surrounded us.

They hadn’t ever met Brianna before, but they had seen pictures of her. Hell, I even heard a few of them comment on how beautiful she was, which I couldn’t blame them for. They were right. She was stunning, and I was the only one in my unit who was in a relationship. Again, I couldn’t blame them for that either.

We were all busy and devoted to our work, but there was someone waiting for me at home. Someone who needed me and wanted me, while I was always halfway across the world and thinking of her.

I just hoped that she would always be there for me to come home to.

Chapter1

Brianna

Every day felt the same. A constant stream of work, household duties, and missing my husband, who was always thousands of miles away. Honestly, he was away from home more than he was here, and that wore me down more and more with each passing day.

I sighed as I dropped down onto my bed, my feet aching from being on them all day long cleaning the apartment. Between being a freelance translator and a landlord of a few units, I kept myself busy while David was gone on his missions with his unit, but that didn’t stop the loneliness that constantly nagged me.

Nothing could because I missed my husband. I understood that he loved his job, but I wasn’t sure anymore if he loved our marriage more. I blinked my eyes a few times as they stung at the thought, not wanting to sink so deep into such a dark thought. David loved me. I just wished he showed it more.

The days were lonely, but the nights… oh, the nights were the worst. Our queen bed felt so much bigger when I was tucked under the sheets all alone, wishing that his arms were wrapped around me. His lips against mine or anywhere else.

My teeth subtly pressed into my bottom lip as I let my eyes flutter shut, trying to remember the last time we even had sex. It was probably the last night before he was sent off on this mission that he was finally about to finish up. No sex for weeks to months was torturous, but I wouldn’t ever cheat on him.

I considered buying a toy, but even the thought of that made my face heat up in embarrassment. In reality, I knew that getting a toy and taking care of my sexual urges was totally fine and normal, but I grew up in a fairly conservative household. I was raised on the premise of intimacy being contained to sex with your married partner and so on so forth.

Some habits and mindsets were harder to break out of than others, so I bottled up my desires and focused my energy on doing translation projects, maintaining the units I rented out, and looking after the household as I had also been taught growing up. It was hard to stick to such traditional roles when my husband was always gone, though.

With a deflated sigh, I opened my eyes and sat up, my gaze sweeping over my nightstand and settling on a framed picture of David and me when we were dating in our twenties. His now salt and pepper hair was light brown, and his blue eyes shined as we leaned against each other with smiles on our faces. We fell in love so quickly and naturally, and it felt like those warm, fuzzy honeymoon days would last forever.

They didn’t, but we were still happy as we got into our thirties and started figuring out our lives more. Now, as I hit thirty-six and he reached forty-one, we weren’t as carefree and starry-eyed. We changed as people usually did, and that wouldn’t be a problem if we changed together more than apart.

Truly, could we sustain a marriage when he was gone so much? Would the distance eventually break our marriage of fourteen years apart?

The younger version of me would scream and cry at the thought of that, but I had grown up a lot since then. I was the one who went through days of being all alone, hoping that my husband came back from his missions and still wanted to be with me. Given that I was a curvier woman, I always worried that I wouldn’t be attractive to him anymore, even if he hadn’t given me any notion of that.

My fingertip traced the top edge of the picture frame, my heart aching as I reflected back on our younger days when our problems were so small. It was tough seeing younger women in their honeymoon or dating days, like one of my old tenants, Aisling, who ended up dating multiple men!

With my figure, I felt lucky enough to catch the eyes of my husband. I doubted I would pique any other guys’ interest on top of that. Not that I cared to anyway, but I was sure that Aisling never felt lonely or neglected with all of those men so in love with her.

I felt terrible just thinking about that. I appreciated my husband so much, especially after all we had been through together, but a strong marriage required communication and affection. We didn’t get to experience or share much of that since we weren’t even on the same continent, and I just didn’t see David retiring any time soon.

Not when he loved his job and respected the men in his unit so much. That would be like breaking up a family for him, but what about our family that we hadn’t even gotten a chance to start yet?

My conflicting thoughts went up in smoke at the sound of my phone ringing, my heart lurching as I quickly swiped it off the bed. With large, hopeful eyes, I brought the screen into view, hoping to see my husband’s name on the screen, but it was Ryder, my brother, instead. My shoulders sank a little.

I love Ryder, but I was dying to talk to David. I wanted to know about his day and hear about how brave he was. I wanted to make sure that he was okay and safe because I worried about him every single day. Despite how down I felt, I was also so incredibly proud of him and the work he did to help other people.

With a light tap of my forefinger, I answered the video call and held up my phone so that my face was centered on the screen. I plastered a smile on my face as Ryder and Delilah popped up with joyful looks on their faces.

“Hey, guys!” I greeted them, swallowing down my emotions.

“Hey, how are you doing? It’s been a while!” Ryder asked as Delilah lifted her hand in a friendly wave.