Ruthless Sinner (Ashby Crime Family Romance Book 8)

by KB Winters

  Retail therapy was my best friend these days. At forty weeks pregnant and still growing, I didn’t get out much, so I bought things. All kinds of things.

  Things for the house like black and gold dinner plates and a brand new vacuum. Things for the baby like a miniature soccer kit with goalposts, for when he was older, and a Lamborghini bed for when he’s at that age where he loves all things cars.

  I bought new jeans for Jasper because the stress he’d been under, thanks to a new threat to the family, and constantly worrying about me had caused him to lose a few pounds. The new jeans cupped his ass magnificently if I do say so myself.

  And I do.

  “Okay, this is just disgusting,” Maisie said as she held up the parts of a breast pump. “Who did this?”

  “It’s a breast pump.”

  “Pump,” Maisie pouted. “I’m just going to squeeze.”

  I stood to explain what the pump was used for and why it was important, but nothing came out. Not out of my mouth, anyway.

  “Sorry to steal your thunder, Maze, but my water just broke.

  Maisie froze. Kat froze. Vanessa froze. Sadie stood slowly and stepped down the small dais that was set up underneath the tent beside the hot tub.

  “Another baby. I really do think the universe is rewarding me for good behavior.” Sadie looped her arm through mine and spun me back toward the door. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”

  I shook my head, breathing in slowly and out slowly to keep from panicking. “I’m suddenly not ready.”

  “We’re never ready for this, honey. That’s why God made them so damn cute. Just keep breathing, and we’ll get you through this.”

  She escorted me toward the door, the other shower guests helped me up into the car.

  My heart clenched at Sadie’s words, the affection she bestowed upon me as if I was truly a part of the family. I’d been worried about how Sadie would take the news about me and Jasper as a couple, but when we told her, she only smiled and told us both that she was glad we’d gotten our heads out of our asses.

  “I’m breathing. I’m breathing. Where’s Jasper?” He promised he would be at my side when the time came.

  “That’s not breathing,” Sadie admonished with a smile as she slid behind the wheel and started the Range Rover. “The boys are at Kat’s, so he should be out any second now.”

  A moment later, Jasper barreled out of Kat’s place and headed straight toward Hulu’s car to retrieve my pregnancy bag. It was a comical sight, Jasper’s big body carrying a colorful Coach bag that held all the things to get me through the next day or two.

  “I’m driving,” he growled at Sadie.

  “You’re sitting in the back and holding your woman’s hand. She needs support, and your hands are bigger than mine.”

  “Then get Oliver over here. You can’t drive yet.”

  “I can, and I will.”

  With a sharp nod, he hopped in the back with me and wrapped an arm around me to position me between his legs, and started massaging my shoulder. “How are you feeling, babe?”

  I smiled over my shoulder at Jasper, pretending not to see the fear swimming in his eyes. “I feel like your child is trying to kick his or her way out.”

  He laughed, something he did more and more these days. I didn’t know if it was because he was just happier with me or if it was because I told him he was never sexier than we he laughed. Either way, the sight of his smile never failed to make my heart stutter. “That’s the Ashby way.”

  I rolled my eyes and laughed. “And what of this baby’s Caffrey side?” My words came out short and choppy as a contraction tore through me.

  “A double Irish child? Must be our punishment for being such hellions. We’re lucky he’s not shooting his way out.”

  “Once you’re holding him in your arms, you’ll change your mind,” Sadie assured me as she pulled to a stop in front of the hospital.

  “Don’t worry,” I said as the contraction eased, “I’m so ready to meet him.”

  The next few hours were a blur, but the thing I’d remember for the rest of my life was Jasper clasping my hand in the delivery room, trying his best to be supportive by using a slew of comforting profanities. No one dared check him for his language, and when I wasn’t screaming, I laughed my way through my seventy-minute labor session.

  The room filled with Ashbys, all of them showed up to see my baby boy, to welcome another member of the Ashby clan. They were loud and beautiful, boisterous as hell as they filled the room at once, instead of two at a time like the hospital mandated.

  “He’s so fucking cute,” Virgil growled as he held his nephew. “Can’t be Jasper’s kid.”

  Jasper took our son, Cillian Alistair Ashby, back in his arms and kissed the top of his head.

  “Look at him, he’s unmovable, unshakable, ice cold. That’s my boy through and through.”

  “Pretty sure he’s my boy, too” I offered up, my voice weak, my body exhausted, but a smile on my face. My family was here, gathered all around me and my little unit, wishing us well. This wasn’t even a part I knew to add to the fairytale, but at this moment in time, I was happy to enjoy the surprise of it.

  It wasn’t the fairytale I’d dreamed up. Instead of the white picket fence, it was a metal security gate. Instead of a house in the burbs, it was a mansion under constant surveillance by one of the government alphabet groups. Instead of the ring, I got, well, I got Jasper. We would probably never get married and some days it pained my heart; other days I was determined to love the life I had. To be present in it. To stop wishing for more.

  Vanessa accepted Cillian in her arms, and snuggled him close with a sweet smile. “He’s got your blue eyes and Jasper’s hair. Watch out for this one.”

  “Glad you guys made it back.” She and Emmett had slipped away to the Virgin Islands and eloped while on honeymoon for vacation. “You’ve got a glow that I doubt is from the sun.”

  Nessa smiled and shook her head, sniffing his head because my baby boy was the sweetest smelling baby in the hospital. The baby started to cry, and Nessa laughed. “He’s got Virgil’s volume control.”

  Everyone laughed, including Jasper, the quietest of all Ashby brothers. I used to think Cal was the quiet one, but since Sadie was released from the hospital, he was a new man. No longer sullen and angry. He was upbeat, eager to please, and contributing actively to the family businesses. I still couldn’t tell if he and Molly were a thing or not, but she and I had become good friends with all the time she spent at the Manor.

  Jasper scooped Cillian back into his arms and kissed his cheek, melting my heart with that one uncharacteristic move. He was still a hard man, a ruthless man, he had to be for the life he lived, but there were glimpses of marshmallow that showed me the man he couldn’t show the world. But with our baby boy, he was all gooey inside. “This is for you.”

  I took the small box Jasper set on my lap and looked up at him with a question in my eyes.

  “What is this?”

  I knew what it wasn’t, and I was okay with it.

  Really, I was.

  “A baby gift, obviously.”

  He rolled his eyes, and did a little swaying bounce move when Cillian started to fuss.

  I slowly opened the box and gasped at the sight of the white gold band with three rows of rose diamonds. I smiled up at him.

  “This is a little much for Cillian. Maybe in a few years, he’ll like it.”

  “I’m asking you, Maureen, to be my wife. I want to marry you with vows and all that good shit. In sickness and in health. In madness and in chaos. I love and in war. All of it. I want to be at your side when it goes down. Successes and failures, it’s you I want to hold in my arms at the start of every day, the end of the night. I love you, Maureen, and I want you to be my wife.”

  My heart stuttered to a stop, and I struggled to breathe as his words sank in, every sweet but gruff word of it. He wants to marry me. Holy shit, Jasper wants to marry me. To be my husband. To make
it legal. It definitely wasn’t the proposal I dreamed of for all these years, but those were expectations of a little girl.

  Those words, inelegant and spit out harshly, but they were Jasper’s words. They were the most beautiful words I had ever heard, and coming from his lips, the words I longed to hear.

  “That’s good to know because I want it with you too, Jasper.”

  There was a brief moment of relief, but it quickly passed, replaced with satisfaction because Jasper wanted what he wanted. And right now what he wanted, was me. “Damn straight you do.”

  I laughed as he slid the ring on my finger and leaned in to kiss me, the scent of newborn baby between us. “I love you, Jasper.”

  “Good, because I love you too.” He stole another kiss while Thomas grabbed Cillian and snuggled him close. We kissed, and though it felt like the world around us had stopped, the background was filled with the sounds of a rowdy, raucous family.

  The kiss ended too soon, and Jasper sat beside me on the bed, one arm flung around me as if we’d been a couple for years as we looked out at the room filled with family.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for giving me a family.”

  “Thank you for loving me.”

  I cupped his face, and looked deep into his eyes, my heart so full of love I felt like I was having a panic attack. “I’ve loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you, Jasper. Now that I have you? Just try and stop me from loving you.”

  I enjoyed this moment. This flash of happiness that we often took for granted. Times like this wouldn’t always last, they couldn’t with the way our family did business, but that made it even more important to celebrate these moments. New life brought into the world. Two lives being joined at any age. These were the reasons, I now understood, that we came together every week and sat around the table, talking business and shooting the shit.

  Just being together.

  Tomorrow wasn’t promised, not to any of us, and we enjoyed every blissful moment that happened in our lives. This moment was incredible; it was golden. We were all happy, and today, that was enough.

  I didn’t know what else I could bring to this family besides more Ashby babies, but I could do this. I could make sure that we had more days like this, happy and laughing, than days spent patching wounds, locking down the house, and looking over our shoulders. Those days were part of being in this amazing family, but so were these days.

  I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. I got the man. I got the family. I got the ring.

  I got it all.

  Thank you so much for reading Jasper and Mo’s story! This is the last book of the Ruthless Ashby Family. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I loved writing it!

  Did you know this WHOLE SERIES started with Max and Jana in Beautifully Broken?

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  Be safe and happy reading!

  KB xoxo

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for reading my books! I appreciate all of you! Thanks to all of my beta readers, ARC readers and Facebook fans. Y’all are THE BEST!

  And a very special thanks to Helen. You are a Godsend. Thank you for making my words make sense.

  And a huge thanks to my family who has to put up with me.

  Y’all are the true champions.

  About the Author

  KB Winters is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling Author of steamy hot books about Bikers, Billionaires, Bad Boys and Badass Military Men.

  Just the way you like them.

  She has an addiction to caffeine, tattoos and hard-bodied alpha males. The men in her books are very sexy, protective and sometimes bossy, her ladies are...well...bossier!

  Living in sunny Southern California, this embarrassingly hopeless romantic writes every chance she gets!

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