Dirty Aces MC: Box Set #1

by Hart, Lane

  “No naked women have been inside since then,” I confirm.

  I take a seat in one of the black leather recliners and place the baby seat down on the floor in front of me while Naomi hesitantly lowers her ass down on the sofa.

  “So, can I hold her or what?” I ask before I undo the strappy things crisscrossing over the baby to yank her out.

  “Not yet. You can’t wake a sleeping baby. Are you crazy?”

  “Occasionally,” I answer truthfully. “What are we supposed to do until she wakes up?”

  “Wait,” Naomi responds, leaning back a little further on the sofa.

  “Okay.”

  I have no fucking clue what to say to her. How have you been is a ridiculous question since she knows that I already know how she’s been – shitty. I refuse to resort to small talk about the weather; and talking about the MC will only result in talking about Fiasco, which I would rather avoid.

  “I need a smoke,” I mutter mostly to myself.

  “Of course you do,” Naomi huffs. “But you’re not smoking around her.”

  “I know that.” How dumb does she think I am? “I’ve actually cut back to less than a pack a day, which is why I need one.”

  “That’s good, I guess,” she replies, sounding less than impressed.

  And to tell the truth, I have no goddamn idea how to impress this woman anymore, if I ever even did. She liked my dick and my tongue well enough months ago and just tolerated the rest of me.

  “What are we doing here, Malcolm?” Naomi finally asks, getting straight to the point.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her truthfully. “I wanted to see you and the baby.”

  “You just wanted to see us?”

  “Yes. I just wanted to see you and talk to you, and here you are, which makes me think you want the same damn thing.”

  “We’re not going to sleep together again,” she says flatly.

  “Sleeping wasn’t what I had in mind for you when I get you back into my bed,” I joke, which doesn’t go over well when Naomi rolls her eyes and gets to her feet. “Sit your ass down, honey. I was joking! Mostly.” She glares at me. “Sit! Please?” Finally, she does what I asked. “We already know we’re good together in bed. Maybe I want to try and see if we could be good together out of it too.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” she huffs.

  “It means what I just said!” I tell her. “Trying to move on and forget you didn’t work. I don’t want to be without you anymore. Or the kid.”

  “Why should I trust you?” she asks without looking at me. “You didn’t trust me, and you hurt me…”

  “I told you I’m sorry. Or at least I apologized to you in my head a million times. Either way, I’m sorry, Naomi. I fucking miss you. Hell, I even miss the kid, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen her.”

  “I’m not sure if you’re good for her yet,” she admits softly. “She’s innocent and fragile; and if I can help it, I’m not going to let anyone ever hurt her.”

  “Good. That’s good,” I tell her. “I don’t want anyone to hurt her either. Or you. And I know I’m asking a lot of you to trust me on this; but at the same time, I think you always wished you had a dad around, just like I did.”

  “I never wanted Harry around,” she argues. “But yes, the idea of a father figure, I longed for it as a kid. Every Christmas I asked Santa for a father, not toys. What I got with Harry wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  “Tell me about it,” I mutter. “My mother used to love telling me how I could never be a good boy because of what my father said about me. He told her I was born of sin and didn’t stand a chance at ever being a decent human being.”

  “What do you mean?” Naomi asks.

  “My father was not only a married man but also a man of god. He knocked up my nineteen-year-old mother one morning on a pew right in the middle of his church before Sunday school.”

  “Holy crap. How do you know all of that?”

  “She told me. Several times, unfortunately. And she said he blamed her for dressing so slutty and being a tease. Told her it was her fault he gave in to temptation even though he was the one with a wedding band on his finger.”

  “What an asshole.”

  “Yeah. I never met him because she didn’t just like to tell me the story of how I was made. She also liked to repeat the fact that my father paid her five hundred dollars to get an abortion when she told him she was pregnant. But since she thought she could get more cash out of him if she had me, she didn’t go through with it. He sent her a few hundred dollars a month to keep her quiet, so that his wife, and a few years later, their son, wouldn’t find out about me, his bastard first born.”

  “Jesus, Malcolm,” Naomi whispers.

  “I’ve never told anyone that before,” I admit. “And the reason I’m telling you now is not because I want your sympathy. I don’t. I was fine without that fucker in my life. But I don’t want to ever be anything like him. I never should’ve blamed you for getting pregnant or offered you money to end it. It was my fault for not putting on a rubber, not yours. I’m finally able to take responsibility for that, something my father never did.”

  “No, you trusted me, and I let you down. I never meant to…” she starts and then gets choked up.

  “I know. So how about we just forget it and move on? Start over, even though I know it won’t be easy and that I have a lot of work to do to try and make it up to you and to Honey.”

  “That…that sounds good to me,” she agrees with a half-smile that I’ve missed like crazy. “I missed you, even when I didn’t want to.”

  The breath I didn’t even know I had been holding comes pouring out in relief.

  Naomi

  * * *

  Our visit with Malcolm is actually going better than I anticipated. He’s being…nice and sweet, which is unexpected. He even came right out and said he misses me, us, and wants another chance…

  “She’s awake!” he says so suddenly that Honey fusses. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I say as I get up from my seat to unbuckle her and lift her out of the car seat. “Still want to hold her?”

  “Yeah,” he replies, so I place her in his arms and take a step back.

  In true Malcolm fashion, he doesn’t dare ask me to confirm if he’s holding her right. He just acts like he’s done it a million times before. And he’s actually good at it too, cradling her and protecting her in his strong, tattooed arms. This may be the first time he’s actually held her, but already I can tell that he’s falling in love and wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.

  “Now I get why you looked so happy in the hospital even though you were crying and had been in so much pain,” he says softly. Guess Nancy was right about Malcolm being at the hospital after all which is… surprising.

  “I can’t even remember the pain now,” I admit. “Once I saw her, it was like it all disappeared. I was just happy my daughter had come into the world healthy. Holding her made me feel whole. And before that moment, I didn’t know if I could be a mother. But those doubts went out the window because I knew I would do anything for her.”

  “Yeah,” Malcolm agrees as he stares down at her.

  I hate admitting that he’s even hotter holding our daughter. It’s not fair. I’m not prepared for the onset of new emotions that bombard me, pushing aside some of my anger and resentment toward him. Some, but not all, by any means.

  A few minutes later, when Malcolm finally looks up at me, he asks, “Do you need anything?”

  Is that a trick question? What I needed months ago was for him to not be a dick and push me away. I needed him, not his money, and I sure as hell didn’t need his insults.

  “No, Malcolm, we don’t need anything from you.”

  “Don’t be like that,” he says. “You may not want my help, but you need it. You needed it months ago when you told me you were having my kid, but I failed you back then. Let me try to make it up to you now. At least let me hire some guys to fix your
air conditioning and make sure the house you two live in doesn’t fall down around you.”

  “The house is fine.”

  “Yeah, well, fine isn’t good enough for me. I would sleep easier if I knew it was safe.”

  “Sleep? What’s that?” I joke. “All I get are naps, no more than two or three hours.”

  “The babysitter doesn’t help?” he asks.

  “Beth is there with Honey while I’m at work, but I’m her mother. It’s my responsibility to get up with her all hours of the night.”

  “If I were there, I could help.”

  A bark of laughter escapes me. “You wouldn’t last a night!”

  “Try me,” he says, face serious.

  “I’m not leaving her with you overnight!”

  “I didn’t ask you to,” he replies. “I’m telling you to let me stay at your place at night.”

  Of course he tells me and doesn’t ask. “That would be too much right now,” I tell him. “I need you to give me some time and take things slow.”

  “I don’t know how to go slow,” Malcolm says. “But I’ll try to learn how for you.”

  “Okay then,” I agree, even though I’m not entirely sure what I’m agreeing to.

  All I know is that it sounds like Malcolm genuinely wants to be with me and Honey. His reassuring words are one thing, although I’m not sure I’ll buy anything he says until he backs up his words with his actions.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Malcolm

  * * *

  “First order of business,” I tell my brothers who have gathered around our table in the Dirty Aces chapel. “I want to thank all of you for putting up with me these last few months. I know I’ve been an asshole and that this has been a difficult time, what with two successful mergers, and the deal we have with that fat prick Harry. I didn’t make shit easier with the Naomi drama.”

  “Ah, shit, prez, that’s all behind us now,” Fiasco scoffs.

  “Well, maybe not as far behind as you might think,” I say as I size up everyone at the table. “I remember how everyone reacted when I told you Naomi ended up pregnant. I’ve thought a lot about it these past few months, and she and I have decided to try and give it another go, for the sake of our daughter.”

  “Really?” Silas scoffs. “You need to just buckle down and pay your monthlies, like Fiasco here, and put that whole situation behind you.”

  “I knew you would feel that way,” I nod to Silas. “And some of you, or hell, all of you may agree. But it’s not your decision who I’m with, and it won’t affect my ability to lead the MC. This isn’t a club matter. It’s my fucking life. Naomi won’t be working for us, and she won’t have anything to do with our business. This is just between us. You know I wasn’t right in the head for a while, and a big part of that was because she wasn’t around. I’m not going to sit at this table and talk about my feelings to you sons-of-bitches, so let’s just leave it at that. Now I know I want to be with her, and that’s how it’s going to be. I expect you to treat her like any other ol’ lady when she’s around, and to respect our relationship. Other than that, you can feel any damned way you want about it. Sound good to everyone?”

  “Yeah,” Devlin says.

  “Of course,” Wirth agrees.

  “Do what you want,” Silas snorts. “I said my piece.”

  “It’s all cool with me, too, prez,” Fiasco nods. “I am over all that drama, and don’t even want to look back. I’m thinking with my head, just like you said.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Nash says with a grin. “I’m on board with this too, Malcolm. To be honest, seeing how close you two were when you were together, I couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous. I had something like that once a long time ago with my ol’ lady, and the truth is I still miss her.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Silas gripes. “Don’t we have anything else to discuss before one of us gets our period?”

  “Hell yes, we do,” I confirm with a smile. “We’ve got three more clubs to consider for a patch over, and I want to go over our future plans for profiting off our relationship with Naomi’s fat dipshit father. I’ve had some time to get things straight in my head, brothers, and I think you’re going to like what I’ve got planned. I think you’re going to like it a lot.”

  “We going to piss the fucker off?” Fiasco grunts.

  “Hell, or at least make some decent money?” Devlin asks.

  “There will be plenty of both things, boys. I’m talking enough money to keep everyone’s pockets nice and full. My idea is to keep building up a tight working relationship with Harry’s speed supplier and then eventually convince them to cut out the fat middleman, which means all of Harry’s profit would be ours.”

  “You wanna screw him over, blindside his business after he gets comfortable?” Nash asks with a smirk.

  “Let’s just say that we are gonna do him dirty.”

  “Here! Here!” the guys all shout their agreement.

  Epilogue

  Malcolm

  * * *

  A few months later…

  * * *

  When Naomi gets back from shopping, she has to stop her car out on the main road, as the driveway leading up to her old farmhouse is full of big trucks from the contractors I called.

  “What is all this?” she asks me as I open the door to her old rust-bucket for her, leaning down to steal a kiss.

  “This is the crew that is going to put some shine back on this creaky, old house of yours, so the city doesn’t end up condemning it.” I grin down at her before helping her out of the car. “How is my Honey-Bear doing back there?” I ask as I lean back into the car, getting a smile and a coo from my daughter, who is gleefully trying to devour a squeaky giraffe.

  “Dammit, Malcolm,” Naomi huffs. “You didn’t have to do all this, spend all this money on me and Honey. And you could have at least consulted with me about the changes before doing them!”

  “What makes you think I’m doing it for you two?” I ask her in mock surprise. “No, no, these boys are here to install a man-cave for me. If I’m going to be hanging around this rickety old farmhouse, I need a place to get away from all the racket you two make.”

  That gets a smile out of her; and I know that once she’s grinning, the battle is already won.

  “What are they really doing, Malcolm? Tell me the truth,” she sighs.

  “I’m serious, they’re fixing the place up. Not with a man-cave; though, now that I think about it, that’s not a bad idea. Naomi, this place needs serious repairs for our daughter before she starts crawling and walking! You know I’m right.”

  “What happened to if you’re going to be spending more time here?” she asks me with an arched eyebrow.

  “Well, I mean, when you’re ready for us to take that next step. I’m not trying to rush you after everything…” I stammer a bit before she bursts into laughter.

  “Grab Honey, you big jackass, and then help me get these groceries inside. I’ll make dinner tonight if you’ll promise to stay. Deal?”

  “You want me to stay? I mean, if you’re ready for me to sleep over….” I trail off as she laughs at me again.

  “Yes, Malcolm, I’m more than ready. Honestly, I’ve been ready for quite some time. I was just waiting for you to get your swagger back and pin me to a wall or throw me on the bed. You really have been taking things slow, trying hard to do everything right, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, I really have,” I agree sincerely, because I’ve never wanted anything more than Naomi and Honey.

  “Well, let’s get one thing straight then,” Naomi says around two bags of groceries. “Pinning me to a wall or throwing me on the bed is now, officially, perfectly okay. Do you understand now, Mr. President?”

  “Oh, I understand, honey,” I agree. “Come on, Honey-Bear, let’s get inside and get you settled down. Your mother and I have some very serious catching up to do tonight.”

  “You bet your ass we do,” Naomi agrees. “You have no ide
a how bad it got while I was pregnant. Those hormones will drive you out of your damned mind.”

  “Speaking of driving people out of their minds,” I grin at her as we struggle up the stairs with the groceries and the baby. “I should probably talk to you about what these guys are doing to our house. Oh, and um, maybe give you a few details about the plan I’m working on for your dear old dad.”

  “Please tell me you’re finally going to be karma driving a Mack truck and mowing that horrible man down,” she says when we make our way into the kitchen where she sits our groceries down and I lower Honey’s car seat.

  “Don’t worry. We are going to make Grandpa Harry a very, very unhappy man,” I tell her.

  “In that case, you, Malcolm Hyde, have made me a very, very happy mama,” Naomi says when she winds her arms around my neck and kisses me.

  “There’s something else in my pocket that might make you happy,” I tell her.

  “Ooh, kind of hard to miss that,” she says when she grinds herself on my cock.

  “Not that. Well, not just that,” I amend before I reach down and pull her repaired necklace out and dangle it from the tip of my finger.

  “My necklace!” she exclaims when she snatches it up. “I thought you may have thrown it in the trash!”

  “Fuck that,” I huff. “Do you have any idea how much those diamonds are worth?”

  “Diamonds?” Naomi gasps as she brings the locket closer to her eyes. “No way! I thought they were cheap gemstones. The yellow and black are…”

  “Both diamonds.”

  “Wow, Malcolm, you really shouldn’t have,” she says as she unhooks the clasp to put it around her neck. “And I mean, you really, really shouldn’t have.”

  “You’re the first woman I’ve ever bought a diamond for, and I want you to be the last,” I say when I grab her hips to pull her body flush with mine.