by Marie James
“To the bus station,” I tell the cab driver as he pulls away.
I cry all the way, Jasmine holds my hand, comforting me until the driver pulls up outside of the bus station. My first day as an adult responsible for a child and she’s the one helping me hold it together.
Chapter 40
Dominic
My head hanging in my hand, I wait for the ringing in my ear to be answered.
“Hey, brother.” Kincaid’s voice through the phone isn’t the one I want to hear, but calling Makayla’s phone only led me to where she’d left it in the guest bedroom.
“Dom?” The concern in his voice is thick and laced with apprehension.
“She’s gone,” I mutter.
He’s the silent one now.
“That was quick.”
“She couldn’t get out of here fast enough,” I explain.
“I thought she’d give it a few days. Get a plan together. Do you know where she’s heading?” he asks.
“Not a clue. Fucking Scorpion gave them new identities. She wouldn’t even tell me who she’s going to be now.”
“That’s easy enough to get from him,” Kincaid offers.
“You giving me permission to beat the shit out him for the info? I already want to gut him for killing Grinder.”
“He stole that from you,” he says with understanding.
“You can easily solve this, brother.”
“She rejected me.” Damn, that’s hard to say out loud. “I laid it out, asked her to stay, and she turned me down.”
“And you’re going to take no for an answer? Doesn’t sound like the man I know.”
“She’s afraid I’ll stop loving her, that she’s a burden.”
“She’s got that kid now, Dom. She kind of is a burden.” He’s baiting me, and he knows it.
Fuck if it isn’t working.
“They’re not a Goddamned burden, Kincaid. I want what she has. I want her pain and her feistiness. I want to raise that little girl as my own.” My voice is rising with every word, and if he were here right now, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t punch him in his damn face for saying such shit about Makayla and Jasmine.
“Yet you’re sitting alone in the house, talking on the phone with your asshole brother?”
I’m on my feet pocketing the keys to the SUV before I can even talk myself out of it. I know they went to the bus station. It’s the only way she can travel. The weight of those duffel bags means there’s a lot more than clothes in them. Scorpion may not openly love his sister, but handing over a wad of cash to help them get on their feet speaks volumes of his concern.
“And when she turns me down again?”
Kincaid laughs. “I’d say find a dark room and do what you do, but that little girl is with her. If she walks away again, wait a few weeks and go to where she is, try to convince her then.”
“Let her walk away and travel to God knows where with a child?” The idea sinks like a brick in my stomach.
“I know it’s not ideal, Dom, but she’s a strong girl, has a good head on her shoulders. She’ll be fine.” I agree with him, but it doesn’t mean I have to like knowing she doesn’t need me.
“Talk later,” I tell him.
“Good luck, brother.”
I end the call as the garage door opens and I climb inside. The bus station is only ten miles from the house, but I know it can take up to half an hour to get there depending on traffic. I back out of the garage and don’t even wait for the door to close before I’m peeling off. My bike would be faster, but it would be impossible to transport all three of us back to the house. My mind considers Jasmine. If I can convince them to come back, she would probably need a booster seat since she’s so damn tiny, but I can’t focus on that now.
The drive seems to take forever, as I try to think of a different way to tell her how I feel, a better way to explain how much I need her.
The sight of the bus already outside of the Navajo Trading Company makes my hands tremble, but it’s the pink haired woman I know I’ll love for the rest of my life, waiting in line to board that nearly makes my heart stop.
I pull directly in front of the bus, parking so close the passenger door won’t even open.
“You can’t park there,” the driver yells as I exit the vehicle, his hand pulling from the suitcase he was about to lift and load onto the bus.
I ignore him, opting instead to keep my eyes locked on the woman that’s watching with widened eyes as I step on the sidewalk. I pause, taking in her gorgeous eyes and tear stained cheeks. Leaving me hasn’t been easy for her. I’m an asshole knowing this will work in my favor, but at this point, I’ll take all the help I can get.
“Dom?” she whimpers. “What are you doing?”
I shake my head. “You didn’t think I could just let my two girls walk away from me, did you?”
“Please don’t,” she says squeezing Jasmine’s hand so much it causes her to wince.
“You said that last night,” I remind her. “Told me to stop loving you. I’ll tell you again, baby. I’ll never stop loving you. Are you really going to do this, walk away from the man you love, the man who wants to give you the world?”
“And a pool,” Jasmine says softly.
“And a pool,” I repeat to her stubborn older sister.
Makayla looks down at Jasmine, and I know she can read the hopefulness in the kid’s eyes.
“I saw ducks outside yesterday,” Jasmine bargains as if those filthy fucking creatures sweeten the pot.
I know then that I’d spray shit off the docks for hours a day, every day for the rest of my life if it means they came home with me. If that isn’t true love, I don’t know what is.
“How do you know I love you?” Mak asks.
“If you didn’t this wouldn’t be hard for you. You don’t cry for a guy you just sorta tolerate.” She grins a little, a small smile twitching the right corner of her mouth. “If you didn’t love me you’d be on that bus.”
She looks over, realizing for the first time that the bus, unhindered by my parking job, just backed up a couple of car lengths and drove right around my SUV.
“There’s another one coming in an hour,” she counters.
“By that time we’ll be at the hardware store, picking out paint for Jasmine’s room.”
“Turquoise,” my new teammate insists as she releases Mak’s hand and picks her side by stepping closer to me.
“Two against one,” I tell her with a wink.
I hate the tear that forms and runs down her cheek because I don’t know what it means. This can go either way. I take two steps closer to her. She leans in closer, rather than pulling away.
“I do,” she whispers only loud enough for me to hear. “I love you.”
My eyes soften, but I can’t celebrate just yet. The look on her face is still one of indecision.
“Go with that,” I urge.
She shakes her head. “I can’t choose a man over my sister because it will make me happy. She’s been second her whole life.”
“She deserves to be number one,” I agree. “She will be.”
She glances from me to Jasmine who’s watching on with eager eyes. “Don’t break our hearts.”
She’s in my arms a second later, her tears wetting my shirt. Mine wetting hers.
“Fuck, baby,” I mutter. “You had me worried.”
“I’m glad you came for us,” she sobs. “Saved me from having to pay a cab back to your house.”
I pull her away from my chest, staring into her eyes, wondering if I’d heard her wrong.
“You were coming back?”
She nods, a wicked grin on her lips. “The driver was taking our bags off the bus, not putting them on.”
I kiss her then, crush my mouth on hers until Jasmine clears her throat at our public display of affection.
“I’m going to spank your ass so fucking hard tonight,” I warn before pulling away and reaching for their bags.
“I can’t wait,” she
teases.
With the world back together and future looking bright, we make our way back to the SUV while Jasmine begins to bargain with what kind of dog she’s going to get.
Epilogue
Dominic
1 Month Later
“You don’t even want to tell Khloe?” I look at my wife warily. Kid’s woman and she have become best friends. Toss Itchy’s weird ass into the mix, and they are the strangest triple threat you can picture.
“No,” she says again. “We still have some time. Besides, Misty and Shadow just announced her pregnancy. I don’t want to steal their thunder. It’s rude.”
“I want everyone to know,” I insist.
“You probably told them last night when you couldn’t keep your hands off my damn stomach,” she says with a grin.
“Swear jar,” Jasmine says from the breakfast bar where she’s been working on homework.
“Damn isn’t a horrible word,” Mak says.
Jasmine raises her eyebrow. “Can I say it?”
I laugh when Mak doesn’t answer her but pulls a dollar from her purse and shoves it into the jar on the counter.
“Happy?” she snips playfully.
“I’ll be happy if you cuss a lot more. Motorcycles are expensive. I’ll never get my own if everyone keeps watching what they say.”
“Jasmine,” I warn as Mak hisses and turns glaring eyes back to me. “You can’t keep a secret for shit.”
Jasmine smiles and points “Swear jar.”
“You are not getting her a fucking motorcycle,” Mak yells.
“Swear jar,” Jasmine sing-songs again.
I glare at my eight-year-old daughter before turning back to my wife. “Stress isn’t good for the baby, baby.” I pull her close and put my hands on her flat stomach. I lean in close to her ear. “She’s purposely riling us up, so we fill the jar faster.”
Mak chuckles, but doesn’t see me glaring over her should at our little girl. I give her the ‘you sure as shit ain’t getting a damn motorcycle now’ look, but she just grins at me.
My life is perfect. A wife that married me the week after I picked her up from the bus station. That’s how she tells the story since she was on her way back to me. I have a little girl we’re in the process of making official through adoption, and the baby growing in her stomach. The baby we’d created at the clubhouse a week before the shit even went down with Grinder. My skin still crawls when I think about everything I could’ve lost that night.
Every vision I have of my future includes exactly what I have and more babies if Mak’s willing to let me keep her pregnant for the next ten years or so.
“What are you thinking about?” my obsession whispers against my lips.
“What makes you think I got anything on my brain?” I ask against her neck.
“Your cock is pressing into my stomach, not fifteen feet from our daughter.” Our daughter, man I love how that sounds.
“The things I’m thinking can’t even be put into words. Last time I mentioned your tits and how much I couldn’t wait for them to grow heavy from the pregnancy, I ended up tied to the bed.”
She chuckles against my lips, the memory making my cock grow even more.
“You loved it,” she argues.
“My dick was sore for days,” I remind her.
“I kissed it and made it better.” That memory makes me groan.
“Done,” Jasmine says, oblivious to our embrace.
She’d mentioned before that she likes that we’re so in love, and how much of a change it was from the things she’s seen before. Some of the stories she’s told the counselor she’s seeing would make a grown man blush. We had to explain more than once that the home she came from is not the home she lives in now. It’s a work in progress, but she’s making great strides.
I smile against Makayla’s mouth. “You know what that means?”
She nods, turning so her back is to me, giving me the time I need to settle things down low.
I clear my throat and step around her when I’m good to go. “Did you decide which one?”
Always a neat little girl, I watch as she puts her school books away.
“I’m thinking the girl. I think her and Ollie will make beautiful puppies.”
“Oh lord,” I mutter. “I sure hope Kincaid doesn’t mind becoming a granddad so soon.”
I laugh and follow my world out into the garage to pick up the puppy we promised Jasmine earlier in the week.
Another Epilogue
Makayla
7 Months Later
I can’t stop the hot tears streaking down my face as I watch my amazing husband hold our little girl. Less than an hour ago, Sofia Gayle Anderson entered the world with lungs so strong I was sure the walls were going to collapse around us. She didn’t stop crying until she was bundled and placed in her father’s arms, and that’s exactly where she’s been the entire time.
My husband, the strongest man I’ve ever met, hasn’t once wiped at the tears that began falling the second the doctor told me I was ready to push. He fought wars for twenty years, has been through hell and back, and yet a tiny, six and a half pound little girl brings him to his knees. It’s the most amazing sight.
“She’s perfect,” he whispers, not looking up from her. His voice is filled with awe and vulnerability.
“I wouldn’t know,” I tease, trying to lighten the mood.
His lip twitches when he finally looks up at me. “You want to hold her?”
“Please,” I say with my hands reaching out for her.
He sincerely looks torn between allowing her mother to hold her and his arms being empty. I couldn’t ask for a more dedicated man than the one I have.
“Why don’t you spend a little more time with her,” I offer. Patting the bed beside me, I urge him closer. “Just sit here so I can watch her sleep.”
He obliges, looking like a giant with such a tiny little bundle in his arms. I feel protected, safe, knowing Dominic will protect our family at any cost.
“Jasmine?” I whisper, sleep nearly taking over after such an exhausting day.
“Kincaid and Em took her back to the clubhouse. She was asleep in the waiting room,” he explains. “They’ll be back in the morning.”
“What time is it?”
“Four in the morning,” he’s answers softly keeping his eyes on Sofia. “They thought labor would’ve gone quicker.”
“Me too,” I mumble as my eyes flutter closed.
“Get some sleep, beautiful.”
I smile, letting the warmth of his body wash over me.
So many things have changed since I came back with him from the bus station. He took to parenting Jasmine like it was his destiny. She took to calling him dad like it was the most natural thing in the world. He got rid of the photo album he’d been holding onto for decades the same day he removed the guns Scorpion sent with Jasmine. The money went into a savings account for Jasmine, and we never looked back.
Dominic, once broody and mad at the world, seemed to come to life. He released his past as if it hadn’t controlled all of his adult life. He loves me with a fierceness I never imagined was possible, and every day I’m thankful for the new lease on life he’s provided for me.
We haven’t heard a word from the Renegade MC, just as my brother promised. Precarious ties between the two clubs have been broken, severed eternally, which I know is a relief for Dom. With that gift, I’m able to raise my children in safety, happiness, a life filled with love and devotion rather than pain and tears.
I fall asleep to the sound of my husband softly singing to the little girl he’s never allowed himself to dream of.
Snatch
Cerberus MC Book 5
Releases July 2017
TBR IT
UNEDITED SNEAK PEEK
Prologue
Snatch
Blackness surrounds me when the power to the building we’re infiltrating is cut. Somehow tipped off, the insurgents knew we were coming and prepared in
advance. Back to the nearest wall, I’m so pissed I want to kick my own ass. Both Itchy and Kincaid urged me to wear night vision, but I waved them off. The green tint, even with the infrared gives me a headache that lasts for days. Besides, we’ve been watching this place for almost a week and it has always been lit up like the fucking Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.
“I’m blind,” I whisper yell into my mic.
“Fucking told you,” Itchy taunts. “Just stay against the wall, pretty boy. Let the men handle this sh—”
His word is cut off the exact moment gunfire echoes around us. I crouch low to the ground tucking my chin to my chest so my Kevlar helmet is facing the action, making myself as small as possible, and hold. I’m no use to them, having to wait until the dust settles before I can move without risking getting my head blown off.
The sound of bullets hitting the concrete walls as well as small explosions to my left reverberate off the walls. The guys communicate through their mics on where the threats are and systematically take each one out. I know I’m going to catch shit over this once they’re done, and Kincaid will never let me opt out of the night vision headset again.
The same sense of calm I always feel in these situations is with me even without being able to see what’s going on around me. The only difference is the guilt I feel because I know that they’re taking care of the combatants as well as making sure I don’t get a bullet in my melon since I’m practically a sitting duck. It leaves them distracted; Itchy especially.
I shake my head, refusing to run the last two years through my head, refusing to let my own stubbornness take hold while in the middle of a deadly combat.
I don’t initially freak out when I hear Kincaid come over the mic. “Itchy’s been hit.”
We sometimes take a shot to the chest, that’s why we wear the best Kevlar money can buy. It isn’t until Shadow yells that makes my blood runs cold.
“Right leg!” Shadow screams. “He’s down, Snatch. Eight meters up and six to your left. I’ll cover you but you have to go now.”
Without thought, without consideration of my own safety, I crawl toward him. I slip and nearly face plant when I get within a foot. I realize immediately when I pull my hand from the wetness, that it’s covered in blood. My best friend is fucking bleeding out and I’m blind, wrapped in a darkness that grows more ominous with each passing second.
