Mason's Resolution

by Kristine Allen

  When the ridiculously bubbly tech rolled the machine in and was setting up, the voice I had hoped to hear over the phone boomed from the doorway.

  “What the fuck? What’re you doing to my old lady? What’s going on in here?” Shit. Mason had stopped in his tracks a couple steps in the doorway at the sight of the unfamiliar machine in my room. His expression was one of mixed anger and fear. His eyes flitted franticly from the tech to me then Steph. I could tell he was going to lose his shit if I didn’t intervene soon.

  “Umm, can you give us a few minutes, please?” My eyes pleaded with the tech and Steph to understand. The poor tech stuttered a “uh, yeah, sure, I’ll just go, uh, to the bathroom, uh, and be back,” before she rushed out of the room, avoiding Mason in all his menacing glory, like the plague.

  Steph leaned over and kissed my head and squeezed my hand. Her expression and small, reassuring smile told me to be strong. As she walked past Mason, she placed her hand gently on the leather vest covering his chest. She looked at him, though his eyes were still boring into mine, and gave him a supportive pat before telling us she would be back in a little while.

  “Becca? What the fuck? What’s going on? Are you okay?” His voice wavered slightly, giving away the deep emotion he was holding at bay. He still hadn’t moved, and I held my hand out to him, wordlessly calling him to my side. He seemed to shake himself loose and walked closer to me, sitting by my bed before gently gathering me close. Even that slight movement created pain in my ribs, but I ignored it as best I could. My head rested on his shoulder, tucked under his chin, with his arm supporting my back, and I inhaled the familiar smell of leather, cologne, and motorcycle exhaust for fortification.

  “Mason….” The rest of the words were lodged in my throat. His one hand smoothed my hair while the other gently squeezed my arm where he held me. Shit, I didn’t know what to say.

  “Baby, what is it? What’s going on? Are you okay or not? Did they find something else? Whatever it is, we’ll get through it. You hear me? Together, baby, we got this.” His soothing words calmed me slightly, and I prayed he remembered them after I told him the news. I pushed him back from me slightly so I could look him in the eyes. Where my hand rested on his chest, I felt his heart beating in time with mine.

  Who was I fooling? I was still crazy about him. He was my sun and moon. The question was whether he was going to freak when I told him and bolt.

  Taking a deep, painfully fortifying breath, I spoke. “The night I was… taken…” Shit, this was hard. “That day when Steph came over…”

  “Baby, you’re worrying me. Just spit it out. There isn’t anything we can’t deal with together.” His beautiful light hazel eyes met mine, and before I became totally lost in them, I blurted out what should have been said the same day I found out.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Total silence.

  Like, I’m talking… crickets. I thought time may have briefly stopped as neither of us breathed, nor did the usual hospital noises intrude from the background. His breath finally escaped in a rush and his eyes closed tight.

  “Say something. Please.” His heart raced under my hand, and I felt him inhale a shaky breath. My hand slipped up to cup his cheek, running my thumb along his bottom lip. “Baby?”

  “Are you sure? Fuck, Becca, you were hurt so bad. Oh God, what if it… Shit. Holy Crap. Becca. I’m going to be a dad?” His eyes looked to mine in hope, concern, and confusion.

  “Yes, I’m sure. And they did an ultrasound when I was first admitted after my labs showed I was pregnant. The doc said everything seemed fine, the heartbeat was strong and steady, but they wanted to get another one to be sure.” I nodded toward the ultrasound machine. “Which is what you walked in on. I tried to call you to see if you were coming back soon. I was really hoping to talk to you before the tech got here so I could see if you wanted to be here for it, or if you wanted to be with me at all. We haven’t really talked, and I wasn’t sure where we stood, let alone how you would feel about a baby. So much has happened, and I was afraid you would be angry, or that you were waiting for me to get better to tell me you decided we were a mistake…” My rushed words trailed off as I ran out of breath.

  “Fuck, Becca. How could you think I had changed my mind about you? I love you. You’re my baby girl, and there is no way I would let you go or risk what we have for some skank like Cherry. What you saw was not what you thought, but we can talk about that later. When I first looked at our house, all I could picture was you with our babies in every room I walked through. I wanted to fill that big house with the patter of little feet, and I wanted to plant my babies in your belly as often as I could to show everyone you were mine. Maybe that sounds crazy, but I fucking love you, woman. I’m not letting you go. Ever. You have made me the happiest man in the world with this gift. I’m just sorry about everything that happened to you because of the club, and I pray that you don’t think we, or our baby, are mistakes.” His lips brushed across mine gently, before his tongue pushed its way between my lips to tangle with mine. He leaned back, breaking the kiss, and tucked my hair behind my ear.

  “Now where is that tech? Holy Fuck… I wanna see my baby.” His grin was infectious as I felt myself smile.

  There were few moments in a man’s life where he truly felt humbled and awestruck. Seeing the little fuzzy image on the screen and hearing someone call it “your baby” would definitely qualify as one of them. Becca was squeezing my hand and covering her mouth with the other as we sat mesmerized, listening to the tech point out the little head, arms, legs, fingers, and toes. It was hard to wrap my head around the fact that I was going to be a daddy, let alone that we had pretty much missed the first three months or so of her pregnancy.

  When the tech asked if we wanted to try to see the sex, our eyes collided. Shit. We never even thought about that, but there wasn’t much time to really talk about it.

  “Ummm, isn’t it too early to tell?” Becca questioned the tech.

  “Well, ordinarily, yes, but this is a 3D Ultrasound machine, and it’s much easier to tell. Well, that’s if you want to know.” The tech looked at me nervously, making me feel bad for scaring the shit out of her when I first came in the room.

  “Mason, do you want to know?” Becca bit her bottom lip, and her brow furrowed. Fuck, she was cute. And hell yeah I wanted to know, but not if she wanted to keep it a surprise.

  “Well, what do you want?”

  “I want to know, but not if you don’t…” Her cheeks took on a rosy blush over the fading bruises. Grinning, I looked at the tech.

  “Yes, ma’am… please let me know if I have to worry about one dick in town or all of them. I need to know if I have enough firepower at home.” The pretty tech blushed when I winked at her after my answer. Funny that before Becca, I would have probably tried to get this girl’s number, and now it just felt good that I could still make a female blush, because the only pants I wanted in now were Becca’s. Obviously, I had done a pretty good job of it too, and my swimmers were more potent than her birth control. I laughed to myself.

  “Well, Mr. and Mrs. Kannan, it looks like you better pick out some boy names because he definitely has boy parts!” Mentally, I did a fist pump. Nothing got a man feeling incredibly caveman-like than finding out he made a boy. Not that I would have loved a little tiny Becca any less, ’cause I wanted a few of those too, but hell, I needed to make sure I had the big brother first to watch out for assholes messing with his little sisters when I wasn’t around. And I didn’t give a shit that the tech called me by Becca’s last name. We were gonna rectify that, though…

  “Fuck yeah!” Okay, oops, that totally slipped out. But hell if I regretted it. I was proud as fuck right about then. Becca was laughing at my antics, and I kissed her loudly on the lips before I kissed her on the top of her beautiful head.

  “But are you sure?” I questioned. “It looks awful tiny.” My skepticism crept in upon closer inspection of the still frame she had on the screen with a li
ttle arrow with the words “IT’S A BOY!” pointing at the tiniest little stem I had ever seen.

  Becca laughed… “Considering he is only about the size of a peapod or a lemon, that’s probably about right, babe.” I looked at her in disbelief.

  “Are you serious? How do you even know that? And there is no way. My boy is at least as big as an avocado.” I was trying to be serious in the face of Becca’s uproarious laughter. She seriously had tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, she was laughing at me so hard, and I failed to see the humor in this. This was my son we were talking about.

  “Here you go. I printed out several of the pics of little junior for you guys.” The tech was grinning wide as she handed the strip of sepia-colored pictures to us. She appeared to be over being afraid of me and my pissy mood I was in when I arrived back at the room. “I’ll leave you to battle out the particulars of your little man. Congratulations, you two!” As she wheeled her machine out of the room, I snatched the printouts from Becca’s still laughing ass. I shot her a glower intended to make her quit, before studying the pictures closer.

  Of course, her ass still laughed.

  “Stop it. The nurse said they took your catheter out. You’ll pee yourself, and I’m not cleaning your bed.” In her defense, she did try to hold her laughter in, but when she burst out laughing before she held her ribs and groaned again, I frowned at her in mock annoyance.

  “Baby, I love you. And I’m sure he is just fine in his man parts. Now, let me see the pictures of our son.” Whoa. If that wasn’t ice water to the face. Our son. Never thought two little words would hit me with such a gamut of emotion. Happiness. Pride. Love. Fear. Excitement. All just hit the tip of the iceberg. And who knew a little lemon would have my heart so tight in its tiny-fingered grasp?

  “Our son. Holy crap. Becca, this is our son. You’re giving me a son. I saw his heart beating. He moved and wiggled. After everything you went through, he’s okay. You kept him safe, baby. Thank you. God, I can’t thank you enough. Shit. I need to call my parents.” At my last words, my beautiful girl’s smile dropped from her face. “Baby? You okay?”

  “My parents… shit. I haven’t even really talked to my mom since I’ve been here. I’ve talked to my dad, but not a lot. I don’t want them to know about what happened to me. Please, Mason. Promise me you won’t ever tell them. I’ll tell them about the baby after I get home and I’m all healed up. Okay?” She was grasping my hand in a near death grip. Damn.

  We had talked a little about what had happened between her parents and her when she told them she was leaving dickface, and I thought it was fucked up that they wouldn’t be in their own daughter’s corner, but I didn’t say anything at the time.

  “Baby, it’s fine. You tell them when you’re ready. And I’ll be here for you when you do. I’ve got your back, baby… always.” After giving her a quick kiss, I pulled out my phone to call my mom. She was going to absolutely shit. My heart raced a little in excitement.

  A dad. I was going to be a dad. Fuck me.

  It felt like forever since we had entered our own house. Well, shit, I guess it had been quite a while. Honestly, I hadn’t come home once since she’d been taken, because I couldn’t bear to see the memory of her in every room. Yeah, this house was mine, but who was I kidding? It was hers. Totally hers. Just like my fucking heart.

  Walking into the bedroom, we set her plastic “patient belonging bags” down on the floor. We could deal with them later. Pretty sure she would want to burn everything in there anyway. She stood looking out the window with her arms wrapped tight around her middle and clutching her sides. Curling my body around hers from behind, I gathered her in my arms and pulled her close. Silence enveloped us as we stood melded together.

  My brain was running in crazy circles wanting to know what all had happened to her, yet terrified to have my worst fears confirmed. Instead of pushing her to talk, I allowed her to just absorb my strength as I held her close. Experience had taught me you couldn’t force someone to dump their emotional burdens on you, but it’d also shown me how destructive it could be to compartmentalize one’s feelings and stuff them away in the darkest corners of your mind.

  My lips placed gentle kisses at the crown of her silky burgundy tresses and trailed along the side of her neck. This wasn’t an attempt to be sexual, just to connect to her and absorb everything sweet that was just… Becca. When I bent to kiss her shoulder, I felt and saw her break out in a wave of goose bumps as a soft moan slipped from her perfect lips.

  “How are you feeling, baby?”

  “God, I just want a shower. Join me? Please?” Hell, she didn’t have to ask me twice. She turned in my arms and slipped her hands around my waist. Briefly, her head rested on my chest before she untangled herself from my arms, and I followed her to the bathroom. Allowing her space, I quietly watched as she set the water temperature in the shower and then wasted no time in peeling off my clothes. When I reached for the button of her jeans without thought, she jumped and a startled squeak escaped her. Tremors consumed her body.

  “Sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Her pulse raced under my lips as I kissed beneath her jaw. Kneading her tense shoulders, I rested my chin over her head, attempting to ground her. She reached up and covered my hands with her shaking ones.

  “No, I’m sorry. It… it startled me, is all. When he…” Her voice trailed off to a whisper, and rage ripped through my soul at the thought of anyone violating her in such a way. The need to kill him with my bare hands nearly devoured me from the inside out.

  Guilt consumed me because I knew, deep down, this happening to her was my fault. Her connection to me and the club was the catalyst to her abduction. If she had never come here and gotten involved with me, she would have never been in that position.

  Not to mention she was carrying our baby at the time. Had I known, not only the woman I loved but my son as well, were both nearly ripped from me, I may have went out of my mind while we waited. Even now, the thought sent waves of despair over me at what could have happened. My heart felt shredded. As I had done while she was still in the hospital, I told myself she would be better off if I let her go and sent her home to her parents.

  Just thinking about losing her nearly brought me to my knees.

  No, fuck that. She wasn’t leaving me. She was mine.

  She suddenly reached up, cradling my face and pulling my lips to hers. What started as a soft, tentative kiss, quickly evolved into a passionate twining of tongues as we tasted and consumed each other. We broke apart, our breathing coming uneven and gasping. She quickly divested herself of her clothing and backed into the shower, her passion-glazed eyes never breaking contact with mine.

  Telling myself I needed to give her time and let her just heal, I closed the door behind me after stepping into the shower with her. Despite my resolutions to keep this detached and to only assist her with strictly showering, our bodies drew together like the strongest of magnets, and our lips connecting was like lightning striking. My hands hesitantly slid down her smooth skin to grab her lush ass in both hands, squeezing her as I lifted her body to mine, and she wrapped her legs around my waist.

  Her sudden intake of breath reminded me her ribs were still sore, and I tried to break free and set her down, but she only kissed me deeper with a slight shake of her head as her legs gripped me firmer. My cock was hard and aching to feel her slick heat wrapped tightly around me. It made me feel like the worst kind of asshole.

  “Please, Mason,” she whispered. Every tightly clutched shred of resolve I had unraveled, and with a tilt of my hips, I rubbed the tip of my cock in her slick folds before I broke free from our kiss, resting my forehead to hers. My chest heaved with the effort to breathe in enough oxygen to keep me conscious.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, baby,” growled out of me. Her answer was to grip my waist even tighter with her legs, raising herself slightly before sliding down and sheathing me deep inside her luscious warmth in one single stroke. No matter ho
w fucked up the world may seem… no matter how fucked up in the head I felt… connected to this woman, I felt centered and invincible.

  By the time we were done in the shower, the water had grown cold and we were sated and sleepy. In worshipful silence, I gently dried every gorgeous inch of her body, cataloging every fading bruise and placing loving kisses over each one, before quickly drying myself. Wrapping a towel around her wet hair, I cautiously scooped her up in my arms, climbed in the bed, and held her against me.

  My eyes grew heavy after I heard her breaths slow, even out, and deepen. Pulling her closer to my body, careful not to crush her healing ribs, I wrapped her in my arms with her head resting on my chest and one leg curled over my own. Contented, I slipped off to sleep knowing this was exactly where she belonged.

  IT HAD BEEN JUST shy of two weeks since I had come home from the hospital. Heavens, it was so good to be in my own bed, but I was sleeping like shit. In my dreams, I relived the torment of being beaten over and over. It was becoming the norm to wake up screaming with Mason holding me and trying to soothe me each night.

  Sitting at the table drinking orange juice, I knew I needed to go back to work soon, but I was terrified to leave the house. What the hell was I going to do? There was no way I wanted to give up my job. I loved it. I loved my little kiddos.

  A knock at the door had me jumping and spilling my juice in my lap. Shit!

  The doorknob rattled and my hands shook as my heart raced, wondering if they were coming for me again. After another several knocks, I slowly crept to the front door. At the sound of Steph’s shout from outside to open the door, my relief was palpable. Fingers trembling, I quickly unlocked the door and opened it with a shaky smile. Steph’s confused look met me as I opened the door fully to admit her, Remi, and Wyatt.