Lowering my head and chest, I twist her head around so that I can press my lips to hers. “I love you, sunshine,” I murmur against her mouth.
“Let’s go home, Soar,” she whispers.
“Soar?” I ask in surprise.
She grins, pressing her lips to mine before she gently jerks her head back so that she can look in my eyes. “Yeah, Soar. My Old Man, my husband—mine. Let’s go home, to where we belong. This life, it isn’t us.”
“You sure?”
Imogen cups my cheek, and I feel her cool fingers against my face before she speaks. “We’re Soar and Genny. Imogen and Sloane checked out a long damn time ago. Soar and Genny have an awesome life full of ups and downs; but it’s also full of laughter, love, and good friends. I like them.”
“Fuck, sunshine, I like them, too,” I grin.
After only being at her parents’ party a total of one hour, we say our goodbyes. My mother asks if she and Calvin can come and visit us next week. She then informs me that they’ll be flying out to spend some time with Kip.
She wants to mend their relationship and introduce him to this man she’s so obviously into. I’m happy for her. She deserves someone a lot fucking better than my father was. My mother and I won’t ever be perfect, but maybe we can be more than just family. Maybe we can be friends.
Imogen hugs her mother and tells her goodbye before joining my side. I turn and look back at all of the people. I know most of them, I grew up with them, but Imogen is right. These aren’t our people anymore. This isn’t our life. We’re Soar and Genny.
I don’t bother saying goodbye to my father. I don’t know if we’ll ever be anything more than cordial to each other. He’s done too much to try and tear me down and tear Sloane and I apart for nothing other than his personal gain.
I have so much more to look forward to in this life that I can’t hold onto shit in the past; I can’t hold onto hope that my father will change. I know it’s possible for people to change—Sloane did, and each day he proves it to me.
“We going straight home?” Sloane asks as we get a little closer to town.
“There a party tonight?” I ask.
He nods with a grin. “You want to party?” he asks.
I shrug. I don’t really want to party, but I do have an announcement to make. It’s all brand new, but, If I know my Sloane, my Soar, he’ll want everybody to know. So it will be easier to tell them all at once.
I don’t expect the lights in the rearview mirror. “Fucking shit,” Sloane growls as he pulls the car over. I glance in the side mirror as the officer exits his car, and I groan.
“I’m getting really fucking tired of this asshole,” I whisper.
Sloane smiles, though it doesn’t reach his eyes as he rolls the window down.
“Officer Houston, how may I help you?” Sloane calls out with both of his hands on the steering wheel.
“Hey there, boy, where are you coming from on this fine evening?”
I don’t know how this douchebag seems to be everywhere, but I’m getting really tired of seeing his slimy face and cold eyes. I think about that one officer that stopped him from abusing me, and wish he were here right now.
“Went to a family party, sir,” Sloane grunts.
The officer grins before he talks into the radio at his chest and then turns back to us. “I think we’ll do a little search of your vehicle right about now. Hop on out.”
I don’t bother looking at Sloane, I don’t need to. I can feel the anger radiating from him. I open the door and get out of the car. Standing to the side, I watch as Houston puts cuffs on Sloane’s wrists. Then he slowly saunters over to me. He rests his hand on the belt at his hips before he tips his head so that he has Sloane in his line of sight.
“You let your wife dress like one of the whores, people are going to assume her pussy is up for grabs,” he chortles.
I take a step back from him. Sloane growls, but I can’t look at him, all I can see is this asshole who has a taser and a gun at his fingertips.
“He doesn’t let me do anything. I’m an adult, officer Houston. I can do what I want,” I state.
His eyes heat, and I see his smirk turn into a full-fledged grin. That’s when I know that I’ve made a mistake. A colossal mistake. I take another step back, stumbling on a rock and almost falling on my ass. Houston stalks toward me, and Sloane grunts behind him.
I can’t look away from Houston. The evil darkness in his eyes has me frozen in fear. Taking another step back, my foot twists, and I cry out as I fall to the ground. Houston laughs. “Perfect, less work for me to do. Why don’t you take those panties off for me too, sweetheart?”
“Fuck you,” I whisper.
I open my mouth to scream when the sound of a bike’s roar pulls up. Houston’s head swivels to the side and he freezes. Looking around him, I see Camo, Torch, and Texas pull up. “The fuck,” he whispers.
I can’t stop the smile from curving on my lips, but I don’t say anything.
Staying planted on my ass, I watch as the guys get off of their bikes. Camo and Texas walk toward Houston and me, and Torch makes his way toward Sloane.
“Didn’t realize this was your jurisdiction,” Camo murmurs as he walks closer toward us. Texas’ eyes flash at me, and I see anger in his gaze.
Houston grunts, “It’s a road, and I’m an officer of the law. I can do whatever the fuck I want to.”
“Wrong, you dirty fuck,” Sloane’s voice rings out.
I watch as Houston’s body jerks, and then he falls forward. Sloane walks over to him, his hands now free of the cuffs and a gun in them. I jump as he pulls the trigger three more times, emptying bullets into the back of his head.
Sloane turns to me and my gaze clashes with his. “Get up, sunshine,” he orders.
I scramble as ladylike as I can and try to stand on my shaky legs and high heels—a combination that isn’t the best.
“Come to your man.”
His tone is one that invites zero room for argument, and I close my eyes as I step over the now very still, and extremely dead body of officer Houston. Sloane reaches out when I’m within arm’s length and tugs me against his side.
“I’ll call a cleanup crew,” Camo mumbles as he and the other men walk away.
I don’t look at them. My eyes are focused on the man in front of me, the man whose chin is tipped down and his jaw is clenched.
“Are you okay?” he whispers.
Lifting my hand, I cup his cheek, feeling his stubble before I lift up and press my lips against the side of his. “I’m fine, Sloane. You make me feel so damn safe.”
“How in the fuck do you feel safe? That piece of shit has been gunning for you to hurt you,” he rasps.
I smile up at him. “I feel safe because you protected me. You kept me safe, again.”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “You good to get in the car? I need to talk to the guys.”
“I’m good,” I whisper.
I kiss him one more time, then I hurry toward the car and slide inside, completely ignoring the dead body on the side of the road. I watch as Sloane talks to his brothers, for about twenty minutes before he jogs back to the car and slides inside of the passenger seat. I’m completely stoic. I feel like I should be panicking, screaming, or feeling something—anything. I feel, almost numb.
“Everything okay?” I whisper.
Sloane jerks his chin up. “Yeah, he called in when he was here. The guys have to cover those tracks. Nothing to worry about. They have it handled. Ready to party a little?”
“You still want to go?” I ask. I want to go home and silently freak out. I want to forget all of this ever happened.
He smiles. “Yeah, baby, we’ll have fun.” We don’t say anything else as he drives us toward the club. We ignore the entire situation that just happened. Once we pull into the parking lot, Sloane looks over at me with a frown. “I don’t want you to worry about what just happened. You’re good, right?”
I tip my head t
o the side as I give him a small smile. “He was planning on hurting me, Sloane. It was self-defense.” He grunts at my words as though he doesn’t believe me. Thankfully, he drops it.
“You look too fucking sexy still. You should go change first,” he mumbles.
I slide out of the car and start to walk toward the front door when he runs up behind me and scoops me in his arms. “Can’t ruin those expensive as fuck shoes now,” he grins as his lips touch mine.
Looking into his clear, green eyes, I decide, not for the first time, that yes, sober looks good on my Old Man.
Once we’re inside, everything about the past hour disappears. He sets me down, and I look away from his face to see that the room is focused on us. It’s still early, the music isn’t too loud, and the naked bodies aren’t on display yet.
“I have an announcement to make,” I shout. I feel Sloane stiffen behind me. “There’s going to be another baby Devil in eight months or so.”
Sloane’s hands reach out and wrap around my waist before he spins me around to face him. His face is pale and his eyes wide as he searches mine. “Are you fucking with me?” he rasps.
“No, I’m pregnant. I just found out,” I whisper.
“Holy fucking shit. Holy goddamn fucking shit,” he breathes before he smiles and looks up to face the room. “I’m going to be a dad,” he calls out.
The room erupts in cheers, and the men come up to him, patting him on the back and congratulating him, then me.
“Oh, my god, this is so amazing,” Mary-Anne says as she hugs me. Her belly is in the way, but she does her best to embrace me just the same.
“How many babies does that make in less than a year?” Teeny asks, looking around. We count, “Five,” she states.
“A new generation of Devils,” Ivy says with a smile.
“Shit, this world is in serious trouble,” Mary-Anne laughs.
We spend the rest of the evening with our friends, our family, and I’ve never been happier than I am in this exact moment. Sloane wraps his hand around my waist and tugs me against his side as his lips brush mine.
All of the drama forgotten, and although I’ll probably have some kind of guilt about it later, there is so much to be happy and thankful for right now. I push all of the scary shit aside.
“Love you, sunshine,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“I love you so much, baby.”
He places his hand on my stomach and his grin widens as his eyes almost sparkle. “Have I made up for my years of bullshit yet?” he asks softly.
“You’re getting there,” I whisper.
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
I watch, from across the street, with a sick satisfaction as my father-in-law pulls up into his driveway from a long day at work. His clothes are strewn all over the lawn, and a very expensive looking television has been thrown in the middle, beat to shit with a hammer.
It’s completely out of character for my mother-in-law, but I can’t help but smile. He steps out of his car and walks over to all of his shit in the middle of the front yard, his hands on his hips as he tips his head to the sky as if to ask—why me.
“Brother, his television?” Torch asks from my side.
“He threatened to practically sell off Cleo, and hired a cop on the hook to put your ass away, giving him permission to have his way with her, what would you do?” I ask with a frown.
“Burn his house to the ground after I killed him,” he shrugs.
I laugh. He would do that, too. I personally don’t like murder. It’s a little too messy, and it means he wouldn’t be living with the consequences for his actions for too long. Like with Graham and Houston, the satisfaction of their deaths were just a little too hollow. “I prefer watching him suffer from afar.”
“How’d you know he was cheating on his wife with his secretaries?” he asks as we walk toward our bikes, which are parked a block away from my father-in-law’s estate.
“Man like that? Man that threatened to do what he tried to do to his own daughter, my woman? He had skeletons for sure. I just had to figure them out. Plus, I walked in on him fucking a secretary not too long ago,” I shrug. “It wasn’t that he was cheating, she probably knew that already.”
“What was it then?” he asks.
“It’s that he was keeping several of them, putting them up in fancy as fuck apartments in the city, spending time with them, taking them on vacations. He was giving them wife privileges.”
He snorts. “Don’t fuck with Soar.”
“Bet your fucking ass,” I grunt.
It only takes us a few minutes to walk to our bikes. Torch waves as he goes in a different direction, and I head toward where I need to be. I’ve been gone for too long, anyway. I need to be back in that room with her. Walking into the building, I hurry to her floor and I stop dead in my tracks at the sight before me.
Imogen is sitting up, her hair unkempt, yet gorgeous, and my son is at her breast. His blond hair is the only thing I can see of him as he’s swaddled in a blue blanket. Genny looks over at me, and I can see just how tired she is; but when her brown eye’s catch mine, she smiles.
“How you feeling, mama?” I ask as I make my way toward my wife and child.
I place my hand on Everett’s head. Everett, a name Imogen chose. She said because we were both so wild, he’s destined to be the same, and that’s what it means. The difference with him and us is that we won’t ever try to tame him the way our families did us. Fuck, yeah. Rett. It’s a perfect name for our little man.
“I’m tired, but he’s hungry,” she murmurs softly.
I lean over to press my lips to hers. She’s my goddamn hero, carrying him and then safely bringing him into this world to share with me—a fucking hero. With my lips still touching hers, I whisper that as soon as he’s finished eating, I’ll change and hold him.
“Thank you,” Imogen sighs.
“Where’d you go?” she asks as soon as he’s finished eating and I take him, throwing a cloth over my shoulder to burp him.
“Had something to do. Nothing for you to worry about, okay, sunshine?”
“Mmm,” she hums. I look over to find that she’s fallen fast asleep.
I smile and take Everett over to the plastic bassinet. Changing his diaper, I’m slow and scared I’m going to hurt him; but he just looks at me the entire time, as if he’s trying to figure out exactly who and what I am. When I’m finished, I wrap him back in his blanket and walk him over to the shitty recliner they leave for us dads.
I lay him against my chest and I pat his back as I talk to my little man.
“You’re going to be a good man, you hear me? You aren’t allowed to do half of the shit your old man has. The other half, I’ll teach you about,” I laugh when he makes a gurgling noise before he sighs. “Never thought I wanted a little man like you. Waited thirty-nine years, and here you are. Aside from your mama, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Rett,” I whisper.
A knock on the door interrupts our bonding, and I watch as my little brother walks through the door, my mother and her new husband, Calvin, trailing behind.
“Oh, my god, he’s absolutely gorgeous,” my mother coos, careful not to be too loud.
They all three sit on the sofa. As much as I should probably hand him to my mother, I hand him to my baby brother instead.
I place him in Kip’s arms, “Here, Uncle Kipling, meet Everett.”
“Holy shit, something this perfect came from my dumbfuck brother?” he asks with a laugh.
“Hey, he’s mine, too,” Imogen says, her voice raspy from the bed.
I walk over to her and sit on the edge next to her, taking her hand in mine.
“He’s perfect, Genny,” Kipling says, unable to take his eyes off of my son.
“He is, isn’t he?” she asks in a grin.
“He absolutely is, and so are you,” I murmur as I lean down and press my lips to hers again.
Imogen smiles and she squeezes my hand. “Are you happy?”
she asks.
“Have I made up for my years of bullshit, yet?” I ask. It’s a question I’ve asked periodically throughout the past year.
“You’re really, really close,” she grins.
“What else do you need, baby?” I ask as I run my thumb over her bottom lip.
“More of this, all of it.”
I smile widely. “You got it sunshine. A whole fucking lifetime of it.”
Rough & Real
NOTORIOUS DEVILS #7
It is official.
I’ve let myself go.
I know it. My husband West knows it. Hell, the entire Notorious Devils club, including the whores, know it, too. I see the way they dismiss me as their eyes always lock onto my husband’s.
My Old Man is hot. He’s been mine since I was twenty-one years old. Now, fifteen years later, I think he looks even better than he did the day I met him. Unfortunately, time hasn’t been as kind to me. Three children, twenty pounds, and the overall mom-look isn’t a gorgeous sight to see when you look at yourself in the mirror.
It doesn’t help that I’d overheard West talking about me just last night. I guess he didn’t realize that the bedroom window was open. He was outside talking to one of his brothers, a newer guy they call Tinker, who had been telling West that he was thinking of making some girl his Old Lady.
“Don’t do it brother,” West chuckled.
“Why’s that? You got an Old Lady,” Tinker points out.
“Yeah, few years down the road, after a few kids, they let themselves go, man. That sexy as fuck bitch that’s on the back of your bike, now? She’s gonna be a member of the PTA in mom jeans and an oversized sweatshirt, carrying around an extra thirty pounds from kid number three that she’s too fuckin’ lazy to lose,” West states.
I sat in our bedroom, the bedroom where we made our three children, and I cried. That was last night. Today, I make a change, and not for him—for me.
I didn’t know he thought of me that way. How could I? Certainly, not when he told me more often than not that he loved the curves of my body, knowing his babies put them there, while he fucked me.
Rough & Rich (Notorious Devils Book 6) Page 30
