by Bijou Hunter
Jodi gasped when I picked her up and started walking to the bedroom. Rebounding, she wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Is the bed comfy?” she asked, wearing a grin.
“Oh, it’s a solid bed. Only the best for my woman.”
Jodi laughed. “I love you.”
Resting her on the bed, I yanked off my t-shirt. “Do you like it here?” I asked, needing to hear what I already knew.
“I love it nearly as much as I love you.”
Grinning, I nipped at her bottom lip. “I’m feeling a little threatened now. I better make you love me more.”
Jodi laughed again. In Ellsberg, she laughed often. Everywhere we went, she smiled. Hell, even the grocery store made her happy.
She could have easily enjoyed her new life without worrying about my new club, The Reapers. Jodi viewed us as a team. I might do the heavy lifting, but she was my sounding board.
Jodi came up with the idea to make backyard parties a regular thing. Neither of us is the friendly sort, but she knew building loyalty was more than wearing the same patches. The fact was we’d be perfectly happy to spend our time alone. Now we were part of something larger, and I was in charge.
Most of the guys in the club came with old ladies and kids. Grilling on the weekends made our business situation into something built on trust and loyalty. If one of the guys got in a bind, he wasn’t on his own. He had a team of men willing to kill and die to have his back. Thanks to Jodi, I’d create a crew worth spilling blood over.
The guys and I got into a habit of taking long rides while checking out our expanding territory in Kentucky. We’d stop for lunch and bullshit.
The men were solid, but I was happy to settle in at home with Jodi. By Thanksgiving, she couldn’t get out of bed or chairs on her own. Jodi was all belly and sexy as hell.
A month after her eighteenth birthday and a week before her due date, Jodi woke up at three and said she was either in labor or dying. An hour later, she managed to give birth to my ten-pound son.
“My woman is a tough bitch,” I said, kissing her forehead as she held a red-faced Cooper.
“I think he got smooshed on the way out.”
“He’s tough like his mama,” I said, kissing her again and nearly crawling into bed next to her. “He’ll rebound.”
A tired and sweaty Jodi looked at me and smiled. “I could do this again.”
“Hell yeah, you could.”
“Cooper needs a little brother or sister to give him shit,” she said, caressing the quiet baby’s lips. “He’s too perfect. Without someone hassling him, life will be too damn easy.”
“Can’t have that,” I whispered, finally giving in and sliding next to her on the bed.
Jodi studied my face. “You look scared.”
“You just shoved a ten-pound kid out of you. I’m feeling more than a little guilty.”
“For helping me make a gorgeous kid?” she teased.
“That was impressive.”
“It was fast. My biggest fear wasn’t the pain, but it taking all fucking day and night.”
Cooper whined and shivered before falling silent. We watched him, and I struggled not to cry like a baby myself. Jodi and Cooper were more than I could have ever dreamed for, yet they were mine.
20 - Jodi
Cooper was a runner. If not for the fence around our rental home, he’d run out the back and keep going. I spent most evenings chasing him around the yard. Half of the time our new puppy, Mork, helped me corral Cooper. The other half, he tripped me so I couldn’t catch Cooper. The dog had some seriously shifting loyalties.
I tucked my blond baby into his crib and watched him doze off. Kirk soundlessly joined me in the room and took in the sight of our little guy. Cooper was a dream, and I was already cooking our second. Kirk swore this one was a boy too, and I was pretty sure he was right. Potential basketball team be damned, I’d keep popping them out until I got my girl.
Kirk and I shut Cooper’s bedroom door and retired to our own. I turned up the sound of the baby monitor before studying Kirk stretched out in bed. I admired the tattoos on his wrist with Cooper and my name.
“I’m sticky from the heat,” I said.
Kirk flipped through the TV channels for nearly a minute before his brain caught up with his dick.
“I should help you in the shower.”
Grinning, I hurried into the adjoining bathroom and turned on the water. Kirk was shirtless by the time he reached me. I sighed at the feel of his warm skin pressed against mine.
His fingers looped my shorts and slid them down. I giggled when his teeth nipped my butt cheek. Kirk stood up and tugged off my tank top.
“Let me look at these lovelies,” Kirk said after we stepped under the water.
My fingers went to his chest while his hands cupped mine.
“Jodi,” he said, teasing my nipples and sending unbearable heat to the spot between my legs. “How do I not spend every second of the day inside you?”
“You have a job and kid,” I murmured.
“That I do.”
I squirted soap into Kirk’s hand and then my own. We took turns washing each other until we were squeaking clean. I finished up by stroking Kirk’s thick cock. His lips sucked on mine as my hand moved faster. I didn’t stop stroking when he came. My mind was already imagining us in bed with him inside me.
Kirk stroked my nipples, and they were extra sensitive when I was pregnant. Squirming away from him, I hurried out of the shower without even drying off. I climbed on the bed and displayed my ass to him like a horny cat.
“In front of the mirror?” Kirk asked, his fingers sliding up and down my slit.
Facing a floor mirror, I took in the sight of all his tattoos on his tanned body.
Smiling at him through the mirror, I whispered. “I like watching you.”
Kirk grinned, but his expression was predatory. The man loved fucking me. I didn’t blame him. I was an enthusiastic lover. All of those months wanting and waiting made me forever desperate for relief. The six weeks after Cooper’s birth nearly drove me insane. Kirk didn’t help by holding our boy shirtless. Seeing him so sexy during daddy duty left me in a state of heat.
“I love you,” he said, sliding deeper inside me. “Never forget you own me.”
Our hips found a painfully slow rhythm. I ached to feel every inch of his cock sliding in and out of me. Kirk knew what I wanted without me asking. He always knew. It was why I loved him back in Chesterfield and why I’d love him until the day I died.
Forty minutes later, we stretched out in bed. I wrapped my leg over his and took in the sight of his sweaty forehead.
When I burst into laughter, he wrapped an arm around me and frowned. “What’s so funny?”
“Five years,” I said through my giggles. “You really thought you’d wait for five fucking years to be with me. If you weren’t so damn smart, I’d think you were an idiot.”
Swiping wet strands from my face, Kirk sighed. “Those were the noble efforts of a delusional man.”
“Look at you getting poetic, baby.”
Kirk smiled at me, and I knew he would never leave me. We might grow old and the exciting newness of our love might fade. Our family would grow, and we’d struggle find time alone. None of it would matter. Kirk and I made sense despite all the rules saying otherwise. We made sense from day one and we’d make sense until our final breaths.
Epilogue - Jodi
Some days, I forgot the dump I came from. Robin and the Princess Farms Trailer Park felt like a bad dream. Each year, those memories faded. I was Jodi Johansson. I had a strong and sexy husband. We built our dream house where we raised our four kids. Kirk ended up with a dozen dogs running around our property. Cooper and our second boy Tucker trained them all. I’d stand on our huge deck and watch my guys playing with those big Rottweilers. They were a sight I never got tired of seeing.
I finally got my daughter. Unlike her brothers who always wanted to run and enjoy their indepen
dence, Bailey was a clingy baby. She followed me around everywhere. I ate up the attention. While the boys looked like their dad, Bailey was a mini-me. Even if she didn’t look or act like Kirk, she adored her daddy.
Whenever we went out together, Bailey sat on Kirk’s shoulders. She’d always give me a smirk because she was hot shit above the rest of us.
Tucker and Cooper looked so much alike, and I imagined them to be twins. Except Cooper grew up to be a smart, serious kid. Tucker never stopped running around laughing at every dumb thing. He wasn’t the brightest bulb in our family, but he was loyal to Cooper. Kirk said if he had a little brother like Tucker that he might have made bigger moves earlier in life.
Our kids were wild and active, meaning they crashed early every night and left their parents to play. Kirk never slowed down when it came to his sexual appetite. Even if he hadn’t, we had a million experiences outside of the bedroom to keep us happy.
Ellsberg became our home quickly. We ate out a few times a week until we were regulars everywhere. By the time we opened up our bar Whiskey Kirk’s, the name Johansson meant power in Ellsberg. The Reapers quietly ruled, keeping order in the town and the expanding area.
Kirk and I got a surprise when I gave birth to another daughter long after we figured we were done. Sawyer was another spunky, curly-haired child who looked like me and kicked ass like her dad. Our family complete, we settled into a luxurious life in our dream house in the woods.
I never heard from Robin or anyone else from Chesterfield. While I didn’t miss them, I sometimes wanted to gloat about my good fortune. All of those years, Mom mocked my love of books. Now I regularly took classes at the nearby New Hampton College. The libraries in Ellsberg were filled with more books than I could ever read. I was living in a paradise, and everyone always said I’d never amount to shit.
Hell, I’d thought that too, but then I met Kirk Johansson, and my life was never the same.
Epilogue - Kirk
As a kid, I’d always wanted to see Mount Rushmore. I couldn’t believe men carved those faces into an actual mountain. I didn’t think about that urge until I had kids and decided to buy an RV. Our first summer road trip was to South Dakota.
Every year, I took Jodi and the kids on another trip. Our children grew up wanting for nothing. Those trips were eye-opening for Jodi and me. We grew up in a small, dirty world where no one amounted to more than their parents. Everyone and everything was shit, and everyone and everything was okay with being shit. Staring up at Mount Rushmore or seeing the Grand Canyon reminded me I was a man of the bigger world now. Jodi and I weren’t trapped either by poverty or own low expectations.
The Reapers were tight like the Chesterfield Vandals never would be. We worked hard, and our business wasn’t pretty, but it provided for our families. I trusted these men, creating brothers out of strangers. Being in charge was actually easier than being a disgruntled sheep. Win or lose, I liked calling the shots. One day, Cooper would run the club and our other businesses. He was as smart as his mom and as tough as his old man.
Even with my club brothers, Jodi remained my best friend. She knew me better than anyone and always had my back. I’d never understand how she put up with my shit all of those years. She was a kid when we met. Yet she knew what she wanted, and she never wavered in her dreams. Eventually, I submitted to her will and everything great in my life fell into place afterward.
How in the hell did I get this damn lucky? I never did anything to earn this woman and these beautiful children. I had a solid club in a safe town. I owned a big beautiful piece of land and was already making plans to build our dream house.
I was showered with all of these blessings because of a chance meeting with a spitfire on a Sunday morning.
About Bijou
Living in Indiana with my three sweet sons, three wacky cats, one super mom (and her ugly dog), I love writing, cats, Denny's, 1970's rock, Beanie Boos, and sitcoms cancelled before their time.
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Bijou Hunter Books
Damaged Series
Damaged and the Beast * Damaged and the Knight
Damaged and the Cobra * Damaged and the Outlaw
Damaged and the Dragon * Damaged and the Bulldog
Damaged and the Saint * In the Wind * Sunday Morning
Ramsey Security Series
Thunderstruck * Live Wire * High Voltage
Little Memphis MC Series
Little Memphis * Broken Memphis
Standalones
Gator * Used * Rebound Biker
