by Naomi West
Slowly, the gunfire slows down and then stops entirely. I put Cormac back in the box and pick up the pipe, going to the door, readying myself. Connor or Xander; that is the question.
The person on the other side of the door approaches slowly. It sounds like they’re checking every corner, the way their footsteps resound off the tiled floor, and then the knock comes at the door. “Kayla?” For a moment it’s difficult to tell whose voice it is. I didn’t realize how badly my ears were ringing until I tried to focus on something other than a baby’s scream. I try and focus now, attempting to block out the ringing. “Kayla?” It could be Connor’s. He’s tricking me. He’s putting on a voice that sounds like Xander’s so that he can get me out there and then do horrible things to me, like he’s done horrible things before. Maybe this is paranoia but it’s not unlike the tricks he played on me when we were together.
“Xander?” My voice is far shakier than I thought it’d be. It comes out like the warble of a bird. “Xander, is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Open up.”
“But …” I drop the pipe. My hands are shaking. My breathing is coming too fast. “You might be Connor.”
“What? I’m not …” He lowers his voice. “It’s me. I promise. It’s over. Connor is dead.”
I put my hand on the door and open it slowly, and then pull it open so fast I almost dislocate my shoulder when I see Xander standing there, face spattered with blood. He takes a step forward, staring down at me. He makes to put his hands on me but then looks at the blood and lowers them. I go to the box and get Cormac, cradling him to my chest.
“Get us out of here,” I tell him.
He nods. “Follow me. I’ll take you out the back way where it’s less …”
Bloody, is the unsaid word, hovering on his lips and then disappearing.
“How are your men?” I ask, as we climb into the car. Sirens ring around us, the police are on their way, but Xander doesn’t seem even mildly panicked at the prospect. I guess being an Angel has its perks.
“Mostly okay. Maxwell caught one in the arm and another fella caught one in the leg, but that stunt you pulled …” He starts the car and pulls away from the laundromat just as cop cars round the opposite corner. “That was genius, Kayla. Real goddamn genius. It gave us the time we needed. We won. We fuckin’ won.”
I hold Cormac so that we’re face to face. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” I kiss his nose. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t, little man.”
“You never have to worry about that again,” Xander says. “I can promise you that.”
“Can you promise that you can promise?”
We share a smile.
When we get home we wash again, but this time we keep Cormac with us, and then we put him to bed in the bedroom and lock the window and sit in the living room, making sure nobody can get to him even though Xander tells me that none of this is necessary anymore.
“He’s dead,” he says, bringing me a glass of water. “I put the bullet in him myself.” He drops onto the couch next to me. “I … the bastard admitted that it was him. I mean, I knew it was him, but in this business when you say a man did somethin’, what you mean is he either did it or he gave the order. But Connor did it, with his own hand. He burned my goddamn little brother.” He lets out a shaky breath. “It’s a strange thing to get back from a fight and not have a drink. I don’t think I’ve ever done it before, since I was fourteen years old.”
“Do you want one?” I ask, placing my water on the coffee table.
“I could lie to you and say no, the thought ain’t even crossed my mind.” He places a hand on my knee, still giving me the same thrill it did the first time he touched me. Only a few days ago, I remind myself, but it seems so much longer. The period after Arsen’s death, the period of nothingness, that seems like the few days; this has been months. “But I won’t do that. The truth is, my body’s screaming at me for a shot of whisky. And that’s what my mind is tellin’ me, too, just a shot, just one shot … but I know the truth. You’ve let me see the truth. I can’t just have a shot. It ain’t possible for me, at least not right now, and I want to be here for you and the kid. So even though I want a drink I ain’t gonna take one, no way.”
I place my hand atop his hand. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“Don’t thank me.” His voice cracks. He tries to laugh it off, but there’s a single tear in his eye. “I don’t know what to make of this, is the truth of it, ’cause when you look at it one way, we barely know each other, but when you look at it another, I love you more’n I’ve ever loved anyone in my entire life. Make sense of that.”
“You love me?” My voice cracks, too. More than a single tear slides down my cheek. “Do you mean it?”
He grabs my hands with his, cupping them, enveloping them. “Of course, I do,” he says. “I love you so much I ain’t gonna touch whisky for ten goddamn years, twenty, thirty. I don’t need it when I’ve got you.”
“I love you too,” I tell him, jumping to my knees and leaning into him. “So much.”
Our kiss is softer than we’ve ever touched before, a bare brushing of the lips, as much emotion as physical touch. Then he lays me on the couch and pulls my pants down, but he does it slowly, kissing my belly and then my inner thigh, stroking his finger against my pussy. Both of us are breathing with the heavy animalism that marked our last lovemaking, but we’re both too emotionally charged to just rush into it. We take our time. I lift my legs, looking up into his face, and he looks down into my face, a connection that, for a moment, transcends the physical.
Then he leans over me and it becomes crushingly physical, his cock pressing against my bare pussy, sliding deep up inside me as our eyes stay locked on each other. I grab his back, feeling his immense muscles, the impossible strength of him. He promised to protect us and he did. He’ll never let anything happen to us.
“Oh, oh …”
His cock is fire-hot, pushing slowly inside of me and then pulling slowly out. I feel every tiny movement, every shift in the massive eleven-inch presence of him. He leans down and kisses me softly on the lips and I kiss him back, completely losing myself in the immutable moment, in the realization that this is my man now, that I never have to worry again because no matter what, I have Xander and Xander has me.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “Oh, fuck. You’re so fucking beautiful.”
“You’re so fucking handsome,” I counter, kissing him again and again.
When the orgasm comes, it’s soft and velvety, a blanket instead of a hard force. It wraps me up and warms my entire body. Cormac kisses my breasts as he buries himself inside of me, so close we could be one person, collapsing endlessly against each other. My pussy tightens, twists, but it’s more than mere pleasure. It’s like my body is giving parts of myself to him, and he is doing the same: literally, now, as he arches his back and thrusts one final time inside of me, looking down at me in the final moments of pleasure, the light touch of a smile on his lips.
He rolls aside and I rest my head on his chest, both of us breathing softly.
“Goddamn, Kayla, but I really do love you.”
I kiss him one final time. Then my eyes fall closed, sleep taking me.
Epilogue
Xander
Life has a funny way of working out sometimes. That’s what one of the fellas at the AA meetings said to me a while back, when I first started going. When he said it, it sounded like complete horseshit. It sounded like the sort of thing a fella says so he doesn’t have to think about all the mistakes he’s made or the bad choices he mistook for good ones. But as month one became month two and month two became month three, I started to know what he meant. Sometimes, life does have a funny way of working itself out.
“I’m so proud of you,” she says, touching my hand.
“Be proud of me when I reach a year,” I retort.
She wriggles her hand into mine, stroking the three-month chip. “I’m proud now.”
“If
we’re gonna start this emotional complimenting stuff,” I say as I lift Cormac from the car and help her get him into the pushchair, “then maybe I ought to tell you how proud I am.”
“Of what?”
“Your job, for one.”
She rolls her eyes. She shouldn’t do that, not when we’re in public. She knows how crazy that look can make me. “I work at a daycare center. It’s not exactly rocket science.”
“Don’t be stupid.” I pinch her on the arm, something she both loves and hates if her swearing smiles are anything to go by. “You’re gaming the system. You get paid to hang out with Cormac all day. Look me in the eye and tell me that that ain’t your dream job.”
She rolls her eyes again, but she can’t hide the blush spreading across her cheeks. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s get to it.”
We walk into the cemetery and I’m nervous as hell. I’m not nervous for the reason I maybe should be, though. I’m nervous ’cause I’ve been carrying around this engagement ring for a week now and I’m starting to think she’s onto me. She keeps acting weird, saying weird things about looking at houses, stuff like that, things that make me wonder if she hasn’t seen the ring. We walk up to Arsen’s grave and stand there a while, staring down at it. I reckon I’ve come to terms with being with Kayla now, so much so that if Arsen returned, I wouldn’t step aside for him; she’s my lady. I don’t know if that makes me a good man or a bad man. All I know is that I love Kayla.
We don’t stay for long, since the autumn has brought a chill with it that Cormac isn’t a huge fan of. We return to the car, but I just stand next to it as Kayla gets Cormac sorted out, and the weird thing is Kayla just stands there, too. We both stare at each other. She must know something.
“I have something to say.”
“You do?” she says, acting surprised. Although if it is an act, it’s a damn good one.
“I ain’t a man for fancy words. You know that. But what I can say is that I’m so damn happy you found me that sometimes I get nightmares about what my life’d be like if you didn’t. I reckon we make each other better. I reckon we’re a partnership now, forever. And I reckon I want to make that official.” I fall to one knee, take out the ring box, and open it. “Will you marry me?”
She giggles, shaking her head, and then hops up and down on the spot.
“That wasn’t exactly what I expected …”
“No!” She reaches into her pocket and takes out a stick. It takes me a moment to realize what it is: a pregnancy test. “Of course it’s a yes, you big biker fool!”
THE END
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Books by Naomi West
Click any of the covers below to go straight to the book page!
Stud: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Cobra Kings MC)
They said I couldn’t have her. I told them to try and stop me.
The bad boy stud has wandered into dangerous territory.
MC President Bishop Blaine thought bedding a pop star would be the story of a lifetime.
He gets what he came for, and then some…
When the diva ends up pregnant with his baby.
LOLA
I thought outlaw bikers were supposed to be tall, dark, tatted—and dumb as rocks.
But Bishop Blaine is only three for four.
And unfortunately for my sake, he's managed to outsmart every member of my security team to get to me.
It’s true: he’s got his own selfish motives in mind.
Like laying his sinful, inked hands over every inch of my body.
But it turns out Bishop got to me just in time.
First, we're ducking a spray of bullets.
Then, next thing I know, he has me out back behind the bar…
Pinned to the wall beneath him, as he lets far more than his eyes travel my forbidden figure.
BISHOP
Lola is famous. Off-limits. Totally uninterested in a rebel biker like me.
Until I make things interesting for her.
Granted, I've had help.
Someone's out to kill her, and I smell a rat in her inner circle.
She can't trust those who are already closest to her, so I plan on making myself as close as possible.
I’m gonna run my filthy hands along those lush curves until I make the little pop starlet shiver and beg for more.
But I should’ve known it would all lead to trouble.
As I discover, it isn’t just a killer we have on our plate.
Because Lola turns up pregnant – and she swears the baby is mine.
This was never supposed to happen.
I’m an outlaw with a motorcycle club to run, not a whipped baby daddy to a famous actress.
Until, all of the sudden, that’s exactly what I am.
But we’re from two different worlds.
She walks red carpets and wears expensive gowns.
I ride choppers and keep my club kutte on my shoulders at all times.
Having a baby together is sheer madness.
But despite all that…
There’s something in my gut that says I have to protect these delicate creatures now – my woman and my baby.
I'm going to catch this falling star and make her mine.
And if the man hunting her thinks he’s gonna lay a finger on my family...
He’d better be ready for war.
He Doesn’t Care: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Motorcycle Club Romance (Fourstroke Fiends MC)
HE DOESN’T CARE THAT I’M ENGAGED TO ANOTHER MAN.
Nothing will stop him from claiming me.
He’s not the kind to stick around after he’s had his fill.
But then something happened, something we never expected…
I got pregnant.
Owen Flynn is a dark prince from the wrong side of the tracks.
Tall, tatted, ripped – and utterly, completely wrong for me.
I’m your classic rich girl stereotype:
An art student with overprotective parents.
They want me to do the right thing:
Graduate and get married to a wealthy S.O.B. whose name alone makes me nauseous.
But Owen had other ideas.
He owned me from the second I saw him.
My knees shake and my heart shivers whenever I hear his the rumble of his Harley approaching.
And when he touches me…
I lose all control.
He knows what he does to my body.
He knows I can’t resist him.
He knows I can never be with him.
I’m supposed to be a banker’s wife.
Not a biker’s woman.
But the bad boy rebel just does not care.
Because once he finds out I’m carrying his baby, all the rules go out the window.
He says I’m his family now.
So, like it or not… we belong to him.
Ride Dirty: Vegas Vipers MC
I’LL RIDE HER DIRTY WHILE THE WHOLE WORLD BURNS.
The last thing I need is a distraction.
But how can I say no to a naked stripper tempting me to her bed?
I should’ve known that Honey would be trouble.
I should’ve known she was telling lies.
I should’ve known, deep down, that she was somehow responsible for the chaos tearing apart my city and killing my men.
But I let my guard down and I let her distract me.
So, now…
It’s time to make her pay.
Baby Blues: Satan Seed MC
I’VE GOT THE PERFECT CURE FOR HER BABY BLUES.
Putting my baby inside her will be heavenly.
But keeping them both alive will be hell on earth.
The only question is…
Will that be enough?
Baby with the Savage: The Motor Saints MC
IF SHE WANTED SOMETHING SAFE AND NORMAL, SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD A BABY WITH THE SAVAGE.
