Bad Apple (The Uncertain Saints MC #4)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I liked the way she felt in my arms, so soft and warm in all the right places.

  She didn’t put her arms around me, but I could feel that she wanted to.

  Her arms partially lifted, and her head tilted back to look at me.

  Instead of them curving around me, though, her hands went to the side of my shirt and clutched it tightly.

  “You need to give me space. When I’m ready to talk to you, I’ll tell you, okay?” She trembled.

  I leaned forward and placed my lips on her forehead, lingering as long as she’d let me before she pulled away.

  “Go.”

  I went and was outside on the porch and walking down the steps when her scream had me turning around.

  “The bug!” She squealed.

  I stifled a chuckle and shuffled back through the window.

  She was pointing at the wall above my head.

  Once through the window, I turned and saw the ‘bug’ she was talking about.

  It was a water bug.

  A massive one at that.

  “Give me that,” I pointed at the rolled up wrapping paper she had standing in a corner of her room.

  She hustled to it as much as an eight-month pregnant woman could, and tossed it to me.

  I caught it one handed and immediately brought it down on top of the bug.

  A resounding ‘crunch’ had me wincing.

  Kitt made a gagging sound as I pulled the paper tube away, and then ran into the bathroom, coming out moments later with a wet wad of toilet paper in her hands.

  “Here,” she thrust the wet mass at me.

  I rolled my eyes and handed her the tube, which she took with the utmost reluctance.

  I heard tearing of the paper as I wiped the wall clean of bug guts.

  “Here.”

  She took it and the wadded up paper and went to the bathroom.

  While she was in there, I took my leave, knowing she’d want me to.

  At least I thought.

  I’d gotten nearly to my bike when she appeared at the window.

  “Apple!” She cried, not seeing me in the dark where I’d parked.

  I turned and studied her for a long moment, taking in the stricken look on her face that showed she wasn’t happy with me leaving without her knowing.

  “What?” I asked, coming forward out of the shadows.

  Relief washed over her face once she saw me standing there.

  “Come back tomorrow for dinner,” she ordered.

  I nodded.

  “I can do that,” I told her.

  “And don’t be late,” she said.

  I smiled.

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  “And wipe that look off your face. You didn’t win,” she ordered with a smile in her voice.

  I rearranged my face so my smile didn’t give away my excitement.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Chapter 13

  Life is too short for boring socks.

  -Kitt to Ridley

  Kitt

  I smiled as I finished making tacos.

  Looking at my watch, I decided to chance a shower so I could smell good for Apple.

  That and I had things that needed shaving.

  I hadn’t shaved the upper half of my thighs for about a month now, since I could no longer see them.

  Not seeing the hair, and not having a man, definitely kept me from caring.

  Not to mention I’d been a bit depressed over the last seven months.

  It’d gotten so bad that some days I didn’t want to get out of bed.

  That was the good thing about having my brother, though. Not to mention those stolen moments with Apple when he went to my doctor’s appointments with me.

  Those two hours would be the best two hours of my entire week, and I’d spend the rest of my days counting down the minutes until the next doctor’s appointment.

  I’d also gotten on disability.

  The impending doom of having a seizure at any time, and in any place, had made it almost impossible to hold down a job.

  My doctor had signed the papers I needed to file for disability, which then had fed my hermit status.

  I wasn’t sure I’d gone out of the house for anything but doctor’s appointments and my weekly grocery runs for well over six months.

  I also didn’t want to make it harder on the people I counted on. If it made it easier to stay at home, then I’d do it.

  I’d just slipped my shirt off over my clothes and hung the t-shirt over the camera I now knew was in my bathroom when I got the expected phone call.

  Sighing, I answered with a barely disguised, angry, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Kitt. It’s Jake,” the jovial man on the other end of the line said.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m taking a shower.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m just instructed to call just in case. How are you doing today?” Jake spoke.

  I gritted my teeth and barely contained the urge to hiss at him.

  “I’m doing fine, thank you,” I said stiffly. “Is there anything else?”

  “Sure, now that you mention it. Some man came through your window last night. I reported it to the account holder, and he said it was fine. Is that fine?” He chirped jovially.

  I shivered.

  Jake gave me the freakin’ creeps.

  And I hated that he watched me twenty-four hours a day.

  I hated even more that Ridley gave him permission to.

  When I’d asked Ridley to see about getting a new reviewer, he’d looked at me like I’d grown a second head.

  “They have multiple people watching the feed every week. Which man is it that you don’t like?” he asked.

  “The one that calls here every time I cover my bathroom monitor,” I replied.

  He looked at me.

  “You realize, right, that they’re professionals?” He’d asked. “That they are supposed to call to make sure you’re okay?”

  After that I’d just ignored Jake and the uncomfortableness I felt each and every time I knew he was on the clock.

  “Thank you, Jake. Have a nice night,” I hung up.

  Ignoring the way my skin crawled at the thought of that man watching my every move, I got into the shower and sighed when the scalding water touched my skin.

  I loved hot showers. The hotter the better in my opinion.

  The water sluiced down over my body, and I giggled happily when the baby started to move.

  She loved the water, too.

  That, and she liked that I wasn’t hunched in a sitting position, which allowed her to move freely without any constraints.

  I pushed in on my belly and smiled when she pushed out moments later.

  “You’re going to be so much fun,” I whispered to her.

  “Who are you talking to?” Apple asked from the other side of the door.

  I squealed in surprise.

  “Jesus, Apple!” I exclaimed. “You scared the dickens out of me!”

  His dark eyes peered at me through the clear glass.

  “Did you just say ‘dickens’?” He teased.

  I splashed water at him.

  “What are you doing in here?” I narrowed my eyes. “You’re still in the dog house.”

  He smiled then.

  “Yeah, I guessed that. But Ridley got a call from the surveillance people saying that you had a camera out in the bathroom and I just wanted to come check on you…just in case,” he said, his eyes watching the water as it slid down my body.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Fucking Jake,” I growled.

  “What?” He rumbled, his eyes snapping back up to mine.

  “I said I’m fine. Now, why don’t you go eat while I finish my shower?” I asked.

  “But I want to wait for you,” he grumbled.

  “Okay,” I conceded. “But you can still get out.”

  His eyes took one last long look
at my body, and then he disappeared just as silently as he’d arrived.

  My body shivered at that long look.

  I was happy that he still found me attractive. Especially if that hard-on in his pants indicated anything.

  Rubbing my hands lovingly over my belly, I finished with my shower, shaved my insanely long leg hair, and walked out into my room without thinking about the camera.

  Mainly because, once my feet hit the soft rug outside of the shower, I saw that Apple had left the door to my bedroom open.

  I also saw that his long legs were stretched out on my bed; he was asleep.

  I’d been fifteen minutes longer, at most, and I’d obviously given him too much time alone without proper stimulation to keep him awake.

  I wrapped the towel around myself and made my way to the bed, letting my gaze linger on his tired face.

  He was probably beyond exhausted due to how much he did.

  On top of him working, I saw him nearly every night until I went to bed. Once my light flipped out, I’d hear his bike start up and head home.

  Most nights.

  Other nights, I would watch him watch me through the open window.

  I still wasn’t sure why he’d gotten into the habit of watching me.

  Or why he wouldn’t just come inside instead of staying outside.

  But I guess that was answered last night, wasn’t it?

  I wanted to yell at him. Scream my indignation.

  How could he keep us apart for this long over a look he thought I’d given him?

  Seriously? Who did that?

  But as I saw the bags under his eyes, I realized then that his wounds weren’t superficial. They were deep, and they wanted to hold on and dig deeper.

  And he’d been letting them fester.

  He’d been letting them get so rotten and infected that he didn’t even realize how bad they were because he couldn’t feel them.

  All he knew was that he was hurting. He just didn’t know how badly.

  “How long are you going to stare at me with your towel wrapped precariously around yourself?” Apple asked with a rumble, his voice thick with sleep.

  I smiled at him and walked to the dresser that was holding my underthings.

  I thought about going into the bathroom to get dressed, but I chose to test him.

  If this wasn’t real…he’d leave. The moment my towel dropped to the ground, he’d be gone, and I’d know if he was serious about staying with me or not. About giving us a chance.

  You just can’t hide emotions like that.

  And the moment I dropped my towel, my back to Apple, I heard his swift intake of breath saw into his lungs.

  “Ah, God,” Apple groaned. “You’re trying to kill me. I know it.”

  I laughed at him, tossing him a look over my shoulder that clearly said ‘yes.’

  “I knew it,” he crowed. “That look you just threw at me was confirmation enough.”

  I grinned and bent over, giving him a clear view as I lifted one leg to put my panties on.

  The sexiness fell out of it, though, when I had to catch and steady myself on the dresser.

  My belly really didn’t offer me very much stability lately, and now that I was so far along, it was getting worse.

  “I usually have to sit down to do this,” I told him when he started to laugh.

  Apple groaned as he got up, and I was attempting a second try at putting my foot into the hole on my panties when he was there.

  He dropped down to one knee and my hand automatically went to his shoulder as he helped me get my panties on.

  Pulling them up slowly, he leaned forward and placed a kiss on my still growing belly.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he whispered.

  My eyes closed in pleasure as he let his hands slip from the waistband of my underwear to move up to my belly where he cupped it as best as he could with both hands.

  “I’ve been dying to do this,” he pressed another kiss just under my belly button.

  And our daughter, the playful little thing that she was, immediately kicked out where he’d pressed his lips, and Apple’s eyes lit with pleasure.

  “I never thought I’d see your badass self on your knees for me,” I whispered to him, letting my fingers play along the length of his beard.

  It’d gotten longer over the last couple of months.

  Where before it’d just barely been a slightly overgrown beard, probably only days past needing trimmed, now it was blatantly grown out…and I fucking loved it.

  I wanted to feel that beard on my skin as he kissed every single inch of my body.

  “Your eyes are on fire,” he looked up at me. “What are you thinking?”

  I turned my face down to study his eyes, and I liked how he couldn’t stop his gaze from falling down to my unbound breasts before he tried to look me in the eyes again.

  I had mercy on him and reached for a sports bra, one of the only things I found comfortable anymore, and pulled it on over my head.

  “I think we need to get out of my room before this goes further than we should be going right now,” I told him honestly.

  He laughed and pressed his thumb in, getting another nudge from our daughter.

  “Are you excited?” He asked my stomach.

  I assumed he was asking me that and not the baby, because I was sure that the child we’d made together never wanted to leave. She loved being exactly where she was.

  Especially seeing as she was still head up, and I wasn’t dilated or effaced a single tiny bit.

  According to my doctor, if she didn’t turn, they wouldn’t risk me trying a natural birth. He’d go straight to a C-section because he didn’t want to cause me any undue stress and accidentally throw me into a seizure.

  Which would be bad.

  I wanted to be awake for the birth of my child. Not in the comatose state that I always ended up in after my seizures.

  “What are you thinking about up there?” Apple interrupted my worries.

  I looked down at him and lifted my hand to run over his head.

  His hair had a crease in it from where his cowboy hat sat atop his head for the entire day.

  He was also still in his uniform, meaning he’d come over here directly after getting off of work.

  “I was thinking about my birthing options,” I said honestly. “Yes, I’m excited, but I just hope it all goes according to plan, and I don’t have to end up having a C-section.”

  His eyes shuttered as did his body as he stood.

  Our baby had fallen asleep in the last couple of minutes of play, and I wanted to roll my eyes.

  The kid did this every night. She slept for the hours before I went to bed, and then proceeded to keep me up for over five hours in the middle of the night while she rolled, kicked, and played.

  Apple’s hands came up to cup my face, and he leaned in to place a kiss on my lips, but my phone rang.

  He ignored it in favor of kissing me, and I couldn’t say I was upset about that.

  His tongue pressed between my lips, curling up to tease the tip of my mine.

  My hands tightened in his hair, which I hadn’t let go of when he stood, pulling him even closer into me.

  His big body was bowed around mine, curling around my belly and pulling me as close as he could.

  And when he finally let me go, my brain was fuzzy.

  “Food,” I whispered, moving away from him to gasp in a breath.

  He smiled just as my phone started ringing again.

  “Guess someone’s looking for you,” he murmured.

  I shrugged.

  “Ridley knows you’re here,” I shrugged. “He wouldn’t bother to call to check on me.”

  Apple grinned as he let go of me only long enough to grab my phone off the dresser that I’d brought with me from the bathroom, and answer it without looking at the caller ID.

  I let go of him a
s I grabbed a t-shirt from the dresser drawer, smiling when I found my favorite on top.

  I slipped it on over my head and turned just in time to see Apple’s eyes narrow.

  “Who is this?” Apple asked.

  His brows furrowed and mine rose in question.

  “Who is it?” I asked him, bending down to the bottom drawer and grabbing a pair of shorts.

  These were ones I hadn’t worn in a while, but with everything else dirty, I either had those or nothing.

  So I chose those while watching his face to gauge his mood.

  Which wasn’t good.

  “I can assure you that she’s fine. If you’re unsure, feel free to call the cops and the owner of the contract,” Apple barked into the phone.

  My brows crawled up into my hairline as I sat on the bed and pulled my shorts on.

  I then had to laugh when I saw how tight they were.

  They were also digging uncomfortably into my belly, so I rolled them down until they came to a rest underneath it.

  Apple growled and hung up, turning to survey the camera that was in the corner of my room.

  “Let me guess,” I said, standing up. “It was Jake?”

  He looked over at me and nodded.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Because Jake’s a douche, and he gives me the creeps. He calls me each and every time I go into the bathroom and cover up the feed,” I lifted my lip in a silent snarl.

  His brows furrowed.

  “There’s one in the bathroom?” He looked ill.

  I nodded and took his hand as I passed, taking him to the one in the bathroom and pointing to my shirt over it.

  “Sometimes your brother annoys the shit out of me,” he said. “Why would he put one in the bathroom?”

  “Because he’s worried I might fall out and die,” I repeated Ridley’s exact words. “But there’s no way, now that I know about them, that I can take a shower in the bathroom or use the restroom while that’s on. The majority of the time it stays covered until Ridley comes home and takes it down.”

  “Well, if someone’s here with you, there’s no reason for you to have it up. Tell him that next time,” Apple replied angrily.

  I smiled, knowing that I, at least, had Apple on my side.

  “Let’s go get dinner before I decide to ride to wherever that motherfucker is and fuck his face up,” Apple growled, walking up to me and taking my hand.