by Isabel Wroth
“What?”
“I’m leavin.”
“I heard you.”
“No, I’m leavin. I leave after fuckin you nearly into a coma, you kiss me goodbye. I come back, get a kiss hello so I can do it all over again.”
“Are you for real?”
“Babe,”
She frowned at how his voice hardened with his total, dead fuckin seriousness, sat there a minute, glanced at the food he’d put together for her, and with a few little blinks sat forward and raised her lips to his for a soft, sweet little kiss. “Don’t let the door catch your ass on the way out.” He laughed and grabbed a handful of her hair, holding her still for the kiss he wanted. Deep, hard, tongues twisting until he reached his limit, “You’re such a shit. Gotta go, be back soon.”
“Kay,” She said, looking a little wasted after he drew back. “Eat your gross breakfast.”
“Yeah.”
Chapter Eight
She was breathing deeply of the jasmine blooming in the hothouse when she heard the roar of his pipes. The sound of them made her clit spasm and her entire body break out in hot chills. Yeah, hot, chills. Heat that rippled over her body and left goosebumps in its wake. The sex this morning had been unexpected, well, as unexpected as it could be with a mammoth biker sharing her bed. She’d gone to sleep last night after having threatened to castrate him if he tried anything, to which he’d just laughed, grabbed a handful of her boob and cuddled up behind her in bed.
She hadn’t slept so good in eight years.
Bastard.
She wasn’t sure still what had prompted him to snatch her up and fuck her like their lives were depending on it, and the orgasms…holy shit, she’d never been one to have multiple orgasms, and whether it was due to her hypersensitivity or his skill at wielding that massive cock of his, but she’d rolled from one orgasm to the next like she was on a rollercoaster bound for heaven. And the stupor afterwards, jesus it had felt good to linger, pressed up against his hard body while he’d stroked her softly.
But after, how he’d palmed her belly, that had rocked her to the foundation of her soul. To feel him tentatively connecting to her, to them. And then running away to go fix her breakfast in bed. She didn’t know what to think. How to feel. What to do other than have been sarcastic and snippy. Which had led her to wonder if he’d be back at all after she’d snapped at him.
And then that kiss…
“Babe?”
She almost jolted sideways with the leaping of her heart, the surprise at his voice cutting through the hot house to where she knelt. “Here,” She croaked, and glanced up to see him come striding through a shaft of sunlight, like some depraved god risen from the underworld come to claim her. Hades, and she his willing Persephone. He came towards her, his heavy boots crunching on the gravel, his short wallet chain slapping softly against his thigh, filling the space with his presence and her heartbeat kicked into overdrive. He saw her, peeled his sunglasses of his face and smirked at her, coming to stand over her and look down at the flowers she was planting around the rim of her new mermaid fountain. “Looks nice.”
He held his hands down to her and she stood up, but like it had been happening, more and more it seemed, the hothouse spun around her and she swayed a little, getting caught up and smashed to Roar’s hard, leather covered chest. “Shit, babe? Ever, honey what’s wrong? Do I need to panic?” She smiled a little drunkenly, because he already sounded panicked and closed her eyes, steadying herself with two fistfuls of his cut. “No. I’m good. Dizzy. Doctor said it’s normal, just to be careful and not stand up so fast.”
“This happened before?” Man, he sounded pissed off. Had he not just heard the part where it was normal? “Few times, yeah. I’m good. It’s okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Just…just let me stand here a sec, it’ll pass.”
His arms curved around her, one hand pressing her head deeper against his chest, making her breathe in the smell of his leather cut, the wind and the cold air on his skin. He didn’t say anything else, just held her steady until her fingers unknotted from his cut and she felt confident she could stand up on her own two feet and not keel over. “Ev, you okay?” She turned her cheek to see Tara, a dainty little pixie like thing, with more hair than anyone she’d ever known in her life, hovering uncertainly in the doorway of the hothouse, gnawing on her lips while she looked nervously at Roar. “Yeah. Got dizzy again. Tara, this is Roar, Tara’s my resident artist. She makes all the glass stuff around the place.” She felt Roar jerk his chin up at Tara, heard him grunt a manly, “Hey.”
“Nice um, nice to meet you. Do you need some water? Or an Italian soda?”
“Yeah, actually. The sugar would be good.”
“One raspberry Italian soda, comin up.”
Tara hurried away and Roar made her entire body melt when he scooped her up and took her over to a nearby stone bench, carefully setting her down so he could drop to his haunches in front of her. Despite her assuring him again that she was fine, he was frowning intently at her, hair all sexy and wild from his ride. Damn, something else she liked about him. “How often this happen?” He grunted, and she shrugged, dusting the dirt off her hands and wondering if she was going to be one of those pregnant women she’d read about, who were constantly in need of an orgasm. If so, she was screwed, because Roar was just one big walking orgasm waiting to happen. “Two, three times in the last couple months.” Tara came hurrying back, her thick mane of honey brown hair flying in the most disgustingly perfect manner around her cute face, with her soda in hand. “Thanks, how are your balls?” Roar guffawed, not missing how Tara flinched before she smiled, “Good. I’ll have another chandelier done soon, maybe another one in time for the show.”
“That’s great,”
Before she could talk any further at her friend, she skedaddled as quickly as possible. Roar looked over his shoulder to where she disappeared through the hothouse, while she sipped thoughtfully on her sweet raspberry soda. “I scared her.” Roar stated, sounding not quite happy about that. “It’s not you. She’s got a pretty dark past.” Roar turned back around and his brows were in his hair, “You looked into her?” He said disbelievingly. “Yeah. She’s my tenant, clearly hiding a shady past and I wanted to know what it was. Found out, took steps to protect her.”
“You did.”
“Yes?”
“And just how did you go about all this?”
“Your condescension is so sweet.”
“Seriously, babe. What were you gonna do?”
“Right now, it’s not your business. It’s hers. She has a problem, then I’ll make it your business, no negotiating.”
She raised her brows and snorted when he finally gave a nod of acknowledgment, getting up and having to jolt back when he sprung up and caught her elbows like she was going down. She noticed then that he had grass stains on his jeans and smelled like dirt, “You go for a roll in the grass or something?” She asked, lifting up the edge of his cut to see more dirt and grass stains, “No. Tore a hole in the front lawn at the compound. Had to fill it back in with sod.”
“Oh. You can back off, I’m good.”
“Good. You forgot something.”
She stood there for a second, trying to remember what she’d forgotten, and then it hit her. “Oh. Right. You’re back.” She rose up on her toes to touch her lips to his, and his hand slid back into her hair to steady her. Her soda almost slid from her fingertips because his kiss hit her like an entire fifth of whiskey, churned up from her toes, warm, bone melting. “Love that mouth,” He told her gutturally, fingers shifting, gripping and kneading in her hair until she felt drowsy and sleepy again.
Shit he could kiss.
She liked that too.
Damn.
He strolled with her through the nursery, hand in hand, big cup of coffee in his free hand that she was doing her best not to sniff at longingly. He was looking around her place, getting to know her business, asking about the butterflies
she’d hatched. “Caterpillars for now, trying to keep them in the hot house until they morph. It’ll be a butterfly house when alls said and done, place to host small parties, wedding showers, stuff like that.” He’d shot her a weird look then that she couldn’t quite decipher, and stopped in front of the metal sculpture, a bird made entirely out of old silverware. “That’s cool as shit.” He said while he studied it, and she felt her cheeks turn hot, “Thanks. It’s one of my best.”
Was it weird that it made her happy, when he snorted the sip of coffee he’d just taken? He spluttered and pulled his hand down his face to get the spray off his lips, looking at her in amazement and then back to the bird. “You did that?” She nodded, reaching out to pluck a dead leaf from where it had gotten stuck in some of the metal twists. “Dad taught me how to use a blow torch when I was a kid, I wanted to help him work on the bikes and cars they brought into the garage. One of the only times he ever told me no. I figure they were chopping them or something, so I started doing little art projects. After they were all gone, needed something to do to keep me busy, got better at it, and when I put stuff up out here, people started buying it. The kids that come out here with their parents know I’ll buy scrap metal from them, or things they dig up from their yards, like railroad ties, or old silverware or something. They bring me cool stuff, I make this. One kid’s dad puts shoes on horses, the kid rides his bike two miles, brings me a huge box of old shoes once a week and I give him twenty bucks. He’s saving up for a car when he turns sixteen. He’s eight.”
He looked at her like she’d just done something to blow his socks off, so she ignored him and kept walking. Her people were walking around helping customers, kids were running around screaming with streamers and whacking at her big wind chimes. Those would need to come down today, a storm was blowing in. “Hey Todd?” She shouted, and the beanie wearing hipster popped up from behind some hydrangea bushes on the other side of the berry patches. He planted a hand on his hip, gave her a droll look and unclipped the walkie talkie from his belt to wiggle at her. “Oh, right.” She unclipped hers and pushed the button, having totally forgotten that she’d gotten these for everyone to make life a little easier. “Sorry. I need the big chimes down by tonight, storms blowing in according to the radar.”
“On it, boss.”
“Do not, crash the forklift into my koi pond again.”
She saw him turn a ruddy red from across the property, give her a salute and hustled towards the equipment shed. “He crashed the forklift into your koi pond?” She shot Roar a dirty look at his amused, disbelieving drawl. “Some piece of ass flashed him some side boob. He crashed.” His answering laugh was hilarious, she just rolled her eyes and headed for the front of the shop. It was inventory day, and with Annie fired, she had a slot that needed filling. Great. Trudy, her part time shop girl fresh out of high school, visibly creamed her panties. “Hey Trudy, got my inventory list?” Trudy hustled to get it for her, then went back to batting her eyelashes at Roar. He looked amused, so she left him to it and went back to her office, leaving the door open because she was totally eavesdropping. “Hi again, Mr. Morningstar! Back for more grass?” Trudy was adorable, and very friendly, but her attempt to be cool while flirting still needed some work.
Morningstar? She mouthed to her papers, what the hell kind of name was that? “Nope. I’m good, kid. Thanks. Babe, need the keys to your Jeep.” She looked up from counting the number of squash starter packs she’d sold last month and blinked at Roar, leaning in the doorway to her office, smirking at her. “Why?”
“Need to haul some stuff and the prospects have the truck.”
“Legal stuff?”
“Babe.”
Bikers communicated a lot in varied one word answers, and that babe, was a droll, ‘are you serious’ tone. “What? I don’t know your business. And it’s my Jeep.” He rolled his eyes at her, “We’ll talk about my business later. Got some stuff of mine that won’t fit on my bike.” She hoped he wasn’t going to haul exercise equipment, or furniture saturated with the scent of spilled beer, pussy and smoke into her clean house. She’d set that shit on fire if that was the case. “Keys in the cup holder inside.” His immediate frown was disapproving, but he didn’t say anything. Just raised his brows expectantly, and she huffed, “Leaving. Right.” Amusement crinkled around his eyes, but she almost went nuts when she tasted the coffee on his mouth. “Jesus, you taste like coffee I can’t have.” She whimpered, licking her way into his mouth to suck on his tongue. “Shit, honey. I’ll drink coffee all day long if you kiss me like that.”
“Deal.”
He didn’t come back until after closing time, coming in just as she’d started to decide what she was hungry for. He shot her a token, “Hey babe,” And hauled a bunch of bags towards the bedroom, “Uh, hi. Need help with that?”
“Nope.” He said firmly, while he went back out for a second haul, and she wondered if she was going to have room for all his stuff. Curious, she followed him into her room and the breath whooshed out of her when she saw what he’d done. He was in the process of putting a dark blue pillow case on a weird, huge pillow, a case that matched the ones on her bed, some other baby stuff… “Roar, what is all this?” She asked softly, and he looked up at her with a mouthful of the pillow. “Saw you shoving pillows all up under you earlier to get comfortable. It’s a preggo pillow or something. Lady at the store said it would help support you when you’re sleeping.”
She stood there just sort of…gobsmacked and watched him put the case on the big pillow. He gave it a final jerk to settle it and then dropped it on the bed, looking at her expectantly, and she just stared back at him, not sure what he was waiting for. “Oh,” She jolted and crossed the room to give him that kiss he’d demanded of her, annoyed because she liked the way he smiled down at her with his big hands on her butt. Smug. He was smiling smugly. “You went and got baby stuff.” She stated, unable to keep from curling her fingers into his cut, her thumbs rubbing at the familiar smoothness of the leather. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I know shit about babies. You said I got till March, figure by that time I ought to know a few things about babies.”
Damn. She liked that too.
Turned out later that night, she discovered she really liked the preggo pillow. It was the shit.
Chapter Nine
Two days later, she was standing at the edge of her new planting field, where she intended to grow a huge berry patch. The storm that had blown in and lasted for two days had been impressive, the rain had come down so hard she’d worried half her nursery would have been washed away. But now, she found a bunch of the starters she’d painstakingly planted, tossed around because the boars had come in and rooted them up from the soft, wet ground. She was pissed as she stood there, the toe of her boot nudging the sad, torn up little roots, plotting some porcine murder when her cell rang. “Yeah?” She answered, not having bothered to look at the caller ID, and Roar’s rough morning voice filled her ear. “Where the fuck are you?” He growled angrily, and she looked back at the house, “Out back, looking at my fucked up berry patch. Boars got in and screwed it up, and the storm last night tore up half the damn patch-“
“Ever, it’s just past sun up. What the fuck are you even doing awake? And why the fuck do you keep leaving the bed without waking me up?”
She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it for a minute, hearing him bellow her name demandingly. Hell, she could hear the echo of it from the house a quarter mile away. “I’m awake because your son likes to make me puke my guts up promptly at 5:45, every morning. I leave the bed in an effort not to puke on you, you’re welcome, and I don’t wake you because who the fuck wants an audience for that?”
“You…” He made a tight, pissed off, growling sound and followed up with a testy huff, “Wake me up if you’re leaving the house. Fuck me, woman. Wake me up anyway. Where’s ‘out back’?”
There was something in his voice, a note to the coarse growl
that made her insides give a shudder. She didn’t have a name to identify it, because it wasn’t just that he cared or was concerned. It went deeper. Deeper to a place she wasn’t ready to dive into yet. “Walk out the back door and look right,” She saw him stomp out to the back porch and look to where she waved at him. “Get back here.” He ordered, hung up and stomped back in the house. She looked down at Squatch, and his tongue lolled happily, giving her an adoring look that made her reach down and ruffle his ears. “Apparently we’ve been commanded back to the house.” Squatch barked in excitement and took off towards home, but then stopped and ran back, jumping around her legs until she started moving, and took off, then came back, again and again, panting hard by the time they got to the house and covered in mud. “Wash room, dude.”
Squatch used his doggie door, that led right into the big tub she’d installed in the mudroom just for him, so she could hose him off after their jaunts into the woods. She hosed him down and toweled him off as good as she could, then he hopped down and bounced into the house to fling himself down onto his dogbed by the fire place. He was snoring by the time she hit the kitchen, where Roar was grumbling around while he made up something that resembled eggs. “Books said you’d only be sick for the first three months.” He grunted at her, and she slid onto a bar stool and watched him making a mess on her stove. “Some women don’t get sick at all. Some are sick through the whole thing. Just depends, I told you, my doctor says I’m a normal pregnant lady.”
