by KB Winters
“This movie. They got just about everything wrong.”
She shrugged, a teasing smile on her lips.
“I don’t know. They seem to get some things right. The family loyalty. The pain in the ass federal agent. The guns. The girls. The asshole older brother.”
I almost spit out my food. “Easy details to figure out, but the stuff that matters? Bullshit.”
“Yeah?” She folded her arms and leaned back against the sofa, gasping softly when I slid over and wrapped an arm around her. “How so?”
“For starters,” I said, aroused by her perfume and the silky feel of her skin, “you never do shit in a room full of people. Not even if they’re your people.”
I didn’t watch much TV or movies, didn’t have the time and when I did, I preferred to lose myself in a woman, drink with my brothers. I nuzzled her neck before I added, “But not for the reasons you think.”
Her brows arched in skepticism. “And how do you know what I think?”
Because I know you. “It’s written all over your face. You think I don’t trust my own damn people.”
“Wrong.”
She laughed out loud, tits jiggling as her body shook with laughter when I returned her skeptical look.
“You trust who you trust,” she said, shrugging as if the answer was obvious. “Sadie, Virgil, and Terry. You trust Kat to do whatever she does for the family, but that’s it.” She flashed a satisfied smile when I didn’t deny it. “But you wouldn’t shoot someone in a room full of people for one reason.”
“And that is?” I was getting hard listening to her. From her sexy curves or her sharp mind?
“You’re a control freak, and even in Midnight Mass, you don’t always know every single person in the place. You can’t track down and pay off—among other things—if you aren’t dead certain who’s in the room. And with all the vacationers, you can’t even begin to know who they are.”
“Smartass,” I grumbled, but I was damned impressed with her.
Her boisterous laugh slowly faded to a soft, sexy sigh. “Not really. Just perceptive. But if you’re labeling me, I’ve always wanted to be a badass.”
“You are a badass, Mo.” I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “And I can teach you more.” The shiver put a smile on my face, and my dick woke up again, eager to join the party.
Mo stood; hands fisted at her sides as she smiled down at me. “Let’s go.”
“Now?”
She nodded. “Sure, we just fueled up. Badass training.”
Her enthusiasm was contagious, and even though it screwed with my plans, I agreed. “Put some clothes on and meet me on the back porch in five minutes.”
Mo made her entrance just as I finished setting up, and she smiled at the look on my face. “Too much?”
“A bra? I’m not complaining, believe me. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“That’s because you don’t know me.” A flash of sadness darkened her eyes but only for a moment before she smiled it away. “Now, where my gat?”
“Your gat?”
She nodded; expression mostly serious but her lips trembled with laughter. “Isn’t that what the gangsters calling it?”
I gave her a side-eye and put the gun in her hand, standing behind her so not even the wind could come between us as I whispered in her ear. “Legs apart, shoulders squared and chest out.”
Her body shook with laughter, her ass brushing against my dick.
“Sounds exactly like get down on all fours, arch your back and finger your pussy.”
I groaned and squeezed her hip. “Pay attention.”
“Okay.” Her smile slipped, and she focused on the metal in her hand. “I’m ready to listen.”
“Relax.” Her shoulders were tense, and she held her breath, classic beginners mistake. “If you relax before you pull the trigger, you have a better chance at hitting your target.”
Every part of her body relaxed before she squeezed the trigger again. “I hit it!” Mo turned in my arms, pressing her mostly naked curves flush against me.
“You did.” I smiled at her excitement, wondering when the last time was that I felt that excited about something. “Good job.”
She turned back to the other targets, empty cans, beer bottles, and milk jugs, knocking each one down with one or two shots. “Damn, I did it again!”
“You’d make a fine woman for a gangster, but you’re a little too slow to be a gangster.” It was the perfect transition into the first conversation I wanted to have with Mo.
Her smile dimmed, and she set the gun down. “You don’t have to say that, Jasper. In fact, I’d prefer if you didn’t.”
“If I didn’t tell you the truth?”
“I don’t need you to be nice to me, Jasper. I don’t want or need your pity either.”
“Good because I don’t fucking do pity.” It was a useless emotion that led to bad decisions.
“Fine, say what you want. It’s not like I can stop you anyway, but I do know what this is and what it isn’t.”
“I’m starting to think you don’t know a goddamn thing.” The words came out on a growl as I grabbed the gun and went inside the cabin. The woman was determined to drive me crazy. Out of my fucking mind. I was trying to tell her how I felt, and she thought she knew. I just figured it out; how could she know?
She followed me up to the armory, “I know more than you give me credit for, Jas.” Her bare feet stomped harder with every step. “I know you only show up for a fuck when you’re horny or having a bad day. I know you leave before the condom hits the bottom of the wastebasket. I know you’re hoping that this baby isn’t yours. So desperate for it not to be, you’ve probably even prayed about it.”
Her words hit the back of me like a dozen jabs to the spine, but I didn’t explode. I didn’t turn around, march to her and shake some fucking sense into her pretty little head. That was what I wanted to do, but I had a plan, dammit.
“Nothing to say? Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She let out a disgruntled sigh, turning away from me just as I turned toward her.
“Thanks for the lesson.”
Not this time. I reached out and snagged her arm before she could walk back through the door. “Like I said, you don’t know shit.”
“I know what I want in life and what I will accept, and it’s not your pity.”
“It’s not pity, dammit!” The words came out on a roar, but Mo didn’t even flinch. “You’re mine, Mo. As distasteful as you might find that, you are mine, so you better let that sit right with you, really quick.”
She shook her head and yanked out of my hold. “No, I’m not yours, Jasper. For years that’s exactly what I wanted—to be yours. To have you love me the way that I’ve loved you since the day I met you. But that’s not what this is. We were careless and got pregnant, so we’re having a baby together. You can be involved as much or as little as you like, but I refuse to be with a man who only sees me as an employee on some days and nothing but a fuck on others. Even if it means a better life for my baby, I don’t want it, Jasper. I’m sorry, but I just don’t.”
Her fierce blue eyes were deadly serious. No hint of the playful Mo I was used to over the years. This time she was serious and protective, of her heart and our baby.
And I couldn’t really blame her, but I could make her see the truth. “We get along, and we’re sexually compatible. That’s more than most couples have, isn’t it?”
“I hope like hell that’s not true, but you know what, Jasper? Even if that’s all most relationships are built on, I’m not doing this to myself. I’m not going to live with you and share a bed with you and pretend to be some happy family.”
“Why the hell not? I can give you the best of everything.” Most women would jump at this chance, and I was sure Mo would have stabbed a few of those women to get to the front of the line.
“Because,” she sighed. “I’m in love with you, and this pretend life you want to have, it’ll only confuse things. I’ll fall deeper
in love, and you’ll remind me that this arrangement isn’t about love. Then I’ll slowly die, day after day, because I’m in too deep, because you’ll be such a good father to our child, and then one day there won’t be anything of me left. Nothing.”
Shit. Even I could acknowledge how depressing that sounded, and I didn’t want to do that to Mo. It sounded like a terrible way to live. “Fuck!”
Mo’s lips curled into a sad smile. “Thank you for offering, Jasper. If I didn’t have this baby to think about, I might have taken what you have to offer. But I have to set a better example for him or her.”
She rubbed her belly, and I felt an ache form behind my chest bone. It was a deep and pervasive ache, the kind that felt like it might grow deeper and burrow in with every passing day. It felt like if I didn’t recognize this uncomfortable feeling now, I might regret it forever. Fight harder, son. Don’t give up so fuckin’ easily. Finally, a piece of Colm’s advice might come in handy.
“You’d be willing to accept my scraps, if not for our baby?”
She nodded. “Which is pretty fucked up because you never would have made the offer if not for the baby.” Her laugh was sad and bitter when it bubbled out of her. “A baby, I should remind you, that you don’t think is yours. Maybe you ought to wait until you get those results.”
A slow smile stretched across my face as the answer came to me. “Come on.” I took her by the wrist so she wouldn’t try to get away and dragged her to the main room where our bags sat unpacked beside the closet.
“I don’t need to see anything, Jasper. Really.” She sounded worried, and I would deal with that, after I found what I was looking for.
“I think you do. It’ll help you understand.” I wished I could just say the fucking words, but when I opened my mouth to tell Mo that I couldn’t live without her, nothing came out but a grunt.
“I understand perfectly. Your upbringing has you believing that you can grow to love me since we made a child together. I’m telling you, here and now, that you don’t need to do this. I get it.”
“You don’t get it, and that’s the fucking problem,” I growled when my hand brushed over the still unopened envelope that I was looking for.
“Got it.” I clutched it in my hand, nearly crumpling it before I could wipe that sad, smug look off Mo’s face.
“Got what?” She stared at the envelope, and her shoulders fell in resignation. “Oh.”
I knew exactly what she was thinking this time; it was written all over her face.
“Open it.”
“I don’t need to open it now. I’ll do it when I’m alone. At home.”
I smiled. “You’ll do it now because the plane isn’t coming back for seventy-two hours, per my orders. And you’ll never be alone at home again because you’re moving in with me.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Stop, Jasper. Please, just…stop.”
“Open the fucking envelope, Mo. Please.” The woman could try the patience of a saint, and I was no fucking saint.
“Fine. I’m sure your offer is more than generous,” she growled and opened her palm to accept it. Mo fanned the envelope and ripped a neat line at the side before turning it upside down until the sheet of paper slid out.
I knew the moment she realized what it was because her dark blue eyes lightened to a stormy morning sky. The fact that she kept reading proved something I think I already knew. Mo was brave, probably braver than me because I was too much of a pussy to open the damn envelope. She tore into and read every word before she looked away.
“Got any other objections?”
Mo shook her head, soft red waves falling around her shoulders, momentarily distracting me from the importance of this moment.
“But I don’t…why didn’t you open it?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t want to risk that the baby wasn’t mine.” Saying that shit out loud was scarier than any fight I’d ever experienced, but she needed to hear it.
A nervous laugh escaped. “I don’t get it, Jasper. What’s going on?”
“Ah, so you finally admit that you don’t know everything about me? About how I feel?”
“So, tell me.”
“I tried to tell you, but you weren’t listening. You weren’t ready to hear it.”
She folded her arms over her chest, breath hitching unevenly. “I’m listening now.”
“I got that envelope a week ago, maybe longer since these fucking days just blend together lately. But I couldn’t open it. Been carrying it everywhere with me, hoping to find the right moment to open it, but that moment never came.”
Mo took a protective step backward. “Okay, then, why are you talking about moving in together and raising this baby? Why now?”
“I don’t know, Mo. Ma woke up, and everyone was there. They were happy, and I realized that I didn’t need to worry about them every second of the day. I started to figure that maybe it was time I started to focus on me for a little while, figure out what the fuck I wanted for the future.”
I hadn’t realized it at the time, but now it was clear.
“And what did you figure out?”
“Nothing,” I laughed. “I didn’t figure it out until just now what it meant. I thought of my future and what I wanted and who was missing from the family this morning, and you know what?”
She shook her head. “What?”
“It was you. Your face came to mind. Instantly, without me doing a fucking thing to conjure you up, there you were with that smart ass quirk of a smile on your face, dressed in your Midnight Mass uniform.”
“And?”
“And usually, when I think about you, Mo, you’re naked and on your knees or riding my cock with your tits bouncing in my face. Or best of all, begging me to give you the dick.”
“So you want to date me?”
“Fuck no,” I growled. “I want everything. You. Our baby. A whole fucking life together, this baby, more babies, nonstop sex, dinners in the middle of the week. Shitty gangster movies.”
Tears welled in her eyes and she sighed. “Jasper.”
“I’m serious, Mo.”
She nodded, accepting my words as truth. “And if this letter says there’s a zero percent chance that you’re the father of this child?”
“I still want it. I still want you. Probably always will.”
Her lips spread into a slow, satisfied smile as she handed me the paper. “Congratulations, Jasper Ashby, you’re going to be a father.”
“Forgone conclusions, babe.”
“Say it,” she urged, almost daring me.
“Say what?”
“You know what. Tell me how you feel, Jasper.”
“Mo,” I groaned, heart racing because I knew this was it, the moment when I got what I wanted or fucked it up forever.
“Come on, Jasper. I love you. I have been in love with you for years, and I never thought this moment would happen. I was sure that it would never happen, honestly. But here we are, maybe, sort of, planning a life together. A future together. Tell me why I should accept.”
I took one step forward and hooked my arm around her waist, pulling her body flush with mine. “You should accept because my life would be a hell of a lot better with you by my side. You should accept because I’ll buy you a different pair of that sexy lingerie for every damn day of the year. You should accept because who else but you could teach me to love you the way you deserve to be loved, Maureen?”
She swiped at a tear, and I dropped a kiss to her forehead.
“Jasper,” she said as a warning, and I knew I had to finish it. Say what I didn’t think I’d ever say.
“You should accept because I love you, Maureen. I don’t know what the fuck that means. I don’t know how to love anyone that’s not family, and I want to be able to love you the right way. I need you to show me—”
“I accept,” she answered eagerly, her words as watery as her eyes. “I accept your offer, Jasper. I love you too, and I want…I want it all. With you too.”
&
nbsp; Relief and happiness took over me at the same time. I felt warm and satisfied, and most of all, I felt like putting my mouth on hers. “That’s good to hear, Mo. Really fucking good.” And then I did put my mouth on hers, I drank from her sweet lips for as long as I could before other urges took over.
Mo’s hand slid inside my pants, and she stroked my cock in that way guaranteed to get me hard in seconds, but I took my time, savoring every inch of her curves for as long as I could. I fucked her with my mouth until she came on my tongue. I fucked her with my fingers until she begged for the dick.
And finally, when she was pink and smiling and so sensitive, she trembled every time I touched her. I slid deep and spent the rest of the night showing her just how special she was to me.
Epilogue
Mo ~ Six Months Later
“I’m not sure this is a baby shower gift.”
Maisie’s pale skin turned strawberry red as she held the crotchless negligee in the air for all the baby shower attendants to see and ooh over.
“I mean, I love it, and I think Virgil will too, but seriously?”
Sadie sat on her grandmother’s perch beside Maisie and arched one eyebrow. “I read somewhere that it is a traditional grandmother’s gift to ensure that, when the time is right, you get started on the next grandchild.”
“Oh, that is such bullshit, Ma, and you know it.”
Kat let out a loud bark of laughter from where she sat on the sofa, legs crossed and doing her best to keep her new pregnancy a secret on Maisie’s big day.
Maisie’s baby shower took place just six weeks after my own, with many of the same women in attendance, like we were all family. I sat near the back of the room, rubbing a nonstop circle on my swollen belly while the other hand held my sore back. But I didn’t want to be anywhere else on this day when we help Maisie celebrate and prepare for another Ashby baby, set to arrive in seven weeks’ time.
Sadie shrugged off Kat’s words with a small smile. “It is my right, as the grandmother, to push my children to spend more time in the bedroom. Or the pool. Or the herb garden.”
And then there was my electronic bottle washer. It was such a stupid but practical and luxurious gift that I hadn’t been able to resist.
