I was all set for a busy night of setting up orders for the month, double-checking the schedule, and starting the task of researching baby stuff.
I had no idea who texted me, but I found out seconds later.
A guy named Jared.
Who worked with Asher.
Part of me wanted to ignore Jared.
If Asher was in trouble, so what.
That had nothing to do with me.
That was one of the perks of not being with Asher. Just because we were having a baby together didn’t make me his caretaker or babysitter or whatever…
Trust me - he needs you
The text pissed me off.
If Asher needed me so bad, why didn’t he just text me? Or call me?
Well, that question I could answer myself.
Because it was Asher.
It was the reason why nothing between us ever happened before. Asher had been nothing but a fantasy. A stupid and wild fantasy. There was a good reason why he had always been just a fantasy to me.
I looked down at my belly and frowned.
The thought of me needing to protect my baby from his or her own father pissed me off more than that text message from Asher’s friend.
That’s when the pregnancy hormones decided to kick in.
I wanted to lift a car.
Eat four pizzas.
Cry at a commercial of a baby taking its first steps - or the one with the dogs kept in shelters that need a home.
Better yet…
I wanted to punch Asher right in the nose.
* * *
It was a bar, but at least it wasn’t a strip club. That played through my head, wondering how I’d tell the baby one day that I chased his or her daddy around a strip club to get him to love us.
The second I stepped into the bar, I regretted not calling Marissa.
She could have been the leader here for me.
I made it all of three steps before a man stepped in front of me.
“Lauren?”
“Who the hell are you?” I asked.
“Jared,” he said. He showed his hands. “I texted you.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“The glasses and… you know, you’re pregnant.”
I touched my stomach.
Was it that obvious? Did my stomach pop out even more?
I never came to bars or did the bar scene, but a part of me would have thought I’d get noticed for the way I looked. Like if I did myself up for a night out, guys would see that. A low cut shirt to take the distraction off my glasses.
Now it was all different.
It sort of hit me then that without Asher… there was no… physical attention…
“Wait a second,” I said. “He told you I wear glasses?”
“All the time,” Jared said. “He never goes without mentioning it.”
“So, he talks about me?”
“Yeah,” Jared said. “He’s, uh, not even drunk right now. That’s not like him. I can’t just stand by and do nothing anymore. He’s ripped up over this situation.”
“Situation?” I asked. “Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry. The baby. I mean…” Jared touched his chest and then shook his head. “This isn’t my problem. I’m going to go get a drink. You can go talk to him or leave.”
Jared slipped away.
I looked to my right and saw Asher.
Sitting at a high-top table with a beer in front of him. He looked miserable as his eyes moved around the bar, but never far enough to see me.
There was a story behind the man. And there was a man behind the beast. I always believed in that, even if I never saw it. I never saw it because it was never my problem. And maybe it still wasn’t my problem, but since I was carrying our child, I owed it to myself - and our baby - to push at Asher a little.
I walked toward him, wondering what I would say. Or what I would do.
I still wanted to punch him in the nose.
But I was tired. I felt alone. My body was changing by the second.
Asher finally turned his head all the way and saw me. He did a double take and jumped up. His eyes moved down to my stomach as he stared. I put my right hand over my belly and slowly slid it away.
There was no hiding it. There was no reason to hide anything.
Ever.
There was the sound of glass clanking and breaking, followed by someone laughing in a high pitched, drunk voice. From the corner of my eye I saw a guy rushing backwards. I tried to move but couldn’t. He bumped into me, hard enough that I stumbled to the left. I gasped and touched my stomach. Anger flowed through me as I hated that I was at a fucking bar.
“Oh, shit, hey, girl,” the guy said as he turned and realized he bumped into me. “Are you okay? I am so sorry for that, girl.”
“Don’t call me-”
Asher was right there.
His hands grabbed the guy’s shirt and he lifted him right off of his feet.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Asher growled. “She’s pregnant. She’s mine. And that’s my baby you just bumped into.”
“Jesus, man, I’m sorry.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” another guy yelled as he hurried over to help release his friend from Asher’s grip.
The other guy touched Asher’s arm.
Crap.
Asher threw the first guy into the second guy. He jumped at them, throwing fists like it was nothing.
“You ever go near her or my baby again, I’ll do worse,” Asher yelled.
Jared came running over and pulled Asher away.
“That’s enough, man,” Jared said. “That’s enough. You’ll end up in jail.”
Asher broke away from Jared and looked down at the two guys on the floor of the bar.
“You two stay there until after I leave. Count to fifty before you get up. If you get up before then, someone will call me. And I’ll come back. Before I go, apologize to Lauren and my unborn baby.”
The guy had already apologized.
My face turned red because the situation was just… crazy.
Everything with Asher was crazy.
All the time.
“We’re sorry,” the first guy said. “I’m sorry.” He looked at me. “I’m really sorry. I mean it. I’m…”
“Shut up,” Asher said.
He turned and closed right in on me. “What the fuck are you doing in a bar while pregnant?”
Oh, hell no, Asher… you’re not spitting venom at me.
“Looking for you,” I said. “Asshole.”
“When are you going to learn? How fucked up do you want your life, Lauren?”
I made a fist meant for his nose. But then I thought about the baby. My body. If I got too excited. If something went wrong.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
I slowly stepped back and away from Asher.
He stared at me, his lip slowly curling high into the air.
At the last second, he reached for my hand.
“I’m leaving with you, sweetheart.”
16
(Asher)
NOW
I wanted to kill that guy. The one who bumped into Lauren. The second I saw him accidentally hit her, my body felt ready to explode. It was the first time the thought of the baby really hit me.
The baby.
All the one second dangers that were forever present that never bothered me.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Lauren falling over or maybe landing on her stomach and then something terrible happening.
The instinct to protect Lauren and the baby was something I had never felt before.
Just like when she arrived home.
I could have watched her go inside and then drove away.
But I didn’t do that at all.
I climbed off my motorcycle and rushed to her car.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She slammed the car door and had the look of fire in her eyes. “No.”
“Hey, wait a sec
ond… I want to tell you something.”
“Fuck off, Asher,” she spit at me. “You’ve been gone for a while now. I’m alone. And yet I was dumb enough to come talk to you. Because your friend sent me a text.”
“Jared texted you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “And it figures… why wouldn’t I come looking for you? There never was a romantic dream for us, Asher, but at the very least, you could pretend to do the right thing for once.”
“What do you think I just did?” I growled.
“Oh? A bar fight? Wow… we should have taken a picture. For the baby book.”
She tried to take a step and my hand gently touched her side and moved to her belly. I had seen the little bump when I saw her at the bar. But now… feeling it… the way her skin felt hard, protective, creating a home for our baby to grow before it was born.
My mouth went dry for a second, which had never happened to me before.
“He bumped into you,” I said in a low voice. “All I saw, and thought was you falling over and getting hurt. The baby getting hurt. Something going wrong. I wanted to kill the guy. I still do.”
“So that’s my life?” Lauren asked. She adjusted her glasses. Why the fuck did I notice that? “What do I do with that?”
“Stay the hell out of bars, first off,” I said.
“You should try it sometime,” she yelled at me. She put her hands to my chest and shoved me. “Where the fuck have you been? You have…”
She lost her voice for a second.
She moved away from me.
“Give me a second here, sweetheart,” I said. “Let me just tell you something.”
Lauren started to walk away again.
My mind flashed images of the strip club. Starlynn. Ember. The other women. The women at the bar. Any bar. Pick a bar, pick a woman, there was my night to waste away. Everything I could have been doing and maybe should have been doing. But Lauren came looking for me. She needed me. Rightfully so.
I wasn’t used to being needed in a way that didn’t involve…
Lauren stopped and groaned.
I rushed to her side again. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“Fuck,” she whispered.
Then she threw up on my boots.
* * *
I crouched next to Lauren, my hand to her back.
“Let me take you to the hospital,” I said.
“Stop it, Asher,” she said, her eyes shut. Her cheeks were bright red. “Please. Just stop. Just leave.”
“I’m not leaving,” I said.
She opened her eyes. “Look at me. I’m a fucking mess right now. I just threw up on you. And in front of you. I think I even… passed gas… oh, god, this is horrible…”
My hand moved up and down her back. “Sweetheart, is the baby okay? Are you okay?”
She laughed. A snort. Another laugh. A harder laugh. She turned to get away from me and put her back to the tub. She looked tired. Drained. She looked beautifully confused about everything in life.
Why the fuck was I noticing this kind of shit?
“The baby is fine,” she said. “Morning sickness.”
“It’s almost ten at night.”
“You can get sick anytime. I mostly get sick in the morning. Well, I do get sick, every morning. At the exact same time. Every once in a while I’ll get sick at night. If I have… a bad day.”
“I made you have a bad day.”
“Stress. If I think too much about all of this.”
“All of what?”
“The baby, Asher,” she said. “You have no idea what this is like. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. Okay? Everything has changed and will keep changing. I need to get a nursery set up. I might need to get a new place to live. I have to figure out how to run a business and raise a baby. I’ll need new clothes. For me. For the baby. It’s just…”
Lauren gasped for a breath.
I leaned forward and put my hands to her legs. “Hey. One breath at a time.”
“Easy for you to say. While you drink every night. Fuck a new woman each night. You send your random three in the morning drunk text to me. You know how many times I’ve wondered if you were naked with another woman while you sent those?”
I rubbed my jaw. I shook my head. “That’s what you think of me?”
“What else is there to think?”
“I’m here right now.”
“In white socks, too.”
“What?”
“I mean, for a bad ass piece of shit like yourself, why are you wearing white socks?”
I laughed. “That’s what you’ve got? I make fun of your glasses and you make fun of my socks?”
“You didn’t make fun of my glasses,” she said.
I slowly lifted my right hand and put up four fingers.
Four eyes.
Lauren grabbed my fingers and twisted them. She pulled herself forward and looked ready to bite my hand.
Without hesitation, I threw my left hand out and slipped it behind her head. I pulled her toward me and met her halfway.
Our lips collided, then Lauren gasped and tried to pull away.
I kissed her again and she pulled away again.
“Sweetheart…”
“I threw up,” she whispered. “This is gross.”
“Ah, that’s cute. Do you think you’re the first woman I’ve kissed after she threw up?”
“Oh, I fucking hate you so much,” she said.
Then she kissed me.
It was hot and sloppy, the kind of kiss that told me she hadn’t been with anyone since me. I didn’t want to think about another man touching her. And the fact that she was pregnant… fuck it, she was mine. She was all mine.
I commanded her mouth with my tongue, writing all the dirty things I wanted to do to her body. She groaned and sank into me, leaning forward as far as she could.
Then she suddenly stopped.
She broke away and wiped her mouth.
The look in her eyes…
“I need you,” she whispered. “I need you to be the father of this baby. I need… a lot. But right now, … I just need you to fuck me.”
My eyes went wide. “Wow…”
“I bet you never heard a pregnant woman say that to you before, huh?” Lauren asked with a weak smile.
I simply just grinned. “Do you want me to answer that?”
She sighed. “I’ve never hated someone so much yet wanted to fuck them so much too.”
I touched her cheek. “I know, sweetheart, I know.”
* * *
My hands gripped over her jeans and panties and I stripped her right there on the bathroom floor. She reached for the tub to keep herself from sliding toward me. She let out a cry and I laughed. There was still something so innocent about Lauren. The glasses. The job. The way she acted when she got stressed out.
Hell, even though she threw up on my favorite boots, I still wanted to devour her body.
“Asher… my bedroom…”
I crawled toward her and kissed her, stealing the rest of her useless sentence.
She clawed at my shirt, pulling it over my head.
I put my left hand to the side of the tub, gripping tight, my right hand dipping between her legs. The second I touched her soft and warm center, she thrust and let out a gasp. I teased her for a second, not moving my fingers, but only for a second. Foreplay for me came in the form of orgasms. No need to tease when there was a goal here.
I sank two fingers into her slit, her tight warmth clenching tight against me.
Lauren let out a cry of relief and grabbed my ribs, her nails digging into my skin.
She put her head back and groaned as I twisted my fingers. She was tender and swollen, her body pulling at me to stay inside as I slowly inched my fingers out of her. I moved up to her clit and pressed. Her nub rolled against my fingers as I moved left to right with speed. Her hip jerked and rocked as she cried out again.
I lowered my mouth down to her neck, wanting more.
Needing more.
I bit at the top of her shirt and then said, “Off. Everything off.”
I eased away from her to watch her wrestle with her shirt. My fingers continued to move against her clit, inching down again and plunging back into her body with force. We were now playing a game. I needed to make her come before she could get her shirt and bra off.
I loved challenges.
Although, feeling the way her body reacted to my touch, this wasn’t much of a challenge at all.
She leaned forward and fought her shirt over her head.
I noticed her glasses had come off too.
She fumbled for her inside-out shirt for the glasses.
There was just something wickedly hot about her trying to put on her glasses while my fingers were deep in between her legs, feeling her sliding toward the edge of climax with no way to stop. The only thing she could do was put on her fucking glasses and stare into my devil eyes as she came, killing another piece of her innocence.
She reached back and unclipped her bra.
That’s when I pressed my thumb to her clit.
Her hands shot down and she put her palms flat to the floor. She lifted up and rocked harder than ever.
She looked at me. “Oh… fuck… Asher…”
I had her.
I had won.
I made a quick move with my left hand and forced her bra down enough to exposer her breasts. Her ass crashed to the floor and she moved her arms to let her bra fall to the floor. Then she put her hands right back to the floor and lifted up again.
My eyes wanted to see her breasts.
Thick, full, her nipples beautifully hard, sweet tasting…
But I looked down to her belly.
That subtle, yet very much there little bump.
I wasn’t sure what it actually did to me.
Lauren let out a whimper cry as she announced her climax for me and her to hear.
But I already knew she was coming.
I lowered my mouth to her left breast and took her into my mouth as she came.
She crashed to the floor again and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me tight against her chest, wanting me there.
My fingers drove forward into her as she squeezed and released, the warm rush of her release making the movement louder.
I nibbled at her nipple, testing her until she let out a cry and wiggled for me to stop.
LUCKY KISS Page 8
