The kid didn’t answer, just let his eyes slide away. Havoc laughed. “Didn’t think so. Need her okay, too, before you get it back. Hey—we good?”
Nolan sighed and looked him over. “She’s been really sad, Hav. Everything’s always been hard for her. She loves you. She misses you. But don’t make her sad anymore. Promise, and yeah. We could be okay.”
“I promise. On my life, kid. On my life.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Cory wasn’t in the mood to cook, and she was too distracted by what was going on in Nolan’s room to trust herself with sharp objects, so supper was going to be macaroni and cheese from a box. She had a bag of pre-mixed salad, too.
She’d stood the colander in the sink and was just turning the burner off under the boiling pasta when Havoc came out of Nolan’s room. She stopped and watched him cross the living room and come to her.
“I fixed it. We’re okay. We okay?”
She looked over at Nolan’s door; it was open, and he was sitting in the middle of his room, stuck in that stupid chair. Even from across most of the house, she could see his bright blue eyes. Her eyes. They just held that gaze for a couple of seconds, and then he shrugged and smiled, just a little, one corner of his mouth lifting like a twitch.
She bowed her head to her son and then turned back to Havoc and looked up into his dark eyes. He looked different. She hadn’t seen him at all since the night he’d turned and left her in the hospital. The day his sister had died. She’d only been back to work for not yet a week, but now he was avoiding Valhalla, too. So she was surprised by the changes in him. There were new lines on his face. Weariness around his eyes. He looked like a man carrying a burden.
He had changed a lot since he’d left them. Truly, he’d changed a lot in the six months that she’d really known him. Then, he’d been a sexist jerk who was nothing but skin deep. Now he was still a sexist, could still be a jerk, but he had depths of compassion and pain, of vulnerability and love, that she would have thought impossible when he was just the asshole getting an eyeful of her tits.
Could she trust him? That was the question. He was the father of this new child she was carrying. But he’d left them—he’d run at the news that he was the father of this child. She’d already struggled through years with a man who could not face his responsibilities. She’d watched her son struggle through the knowledge that he was too much for his father to bear. She’d seen the way abandonment had stunted Nolan’s heart, turned her sweet, open, sensitive boy into a young man suspicious and quick to anger. She did not want another child to live that pain.
But she didn’t want to lose a chance for her children to have a father. To have a real family. Love. She didn’t want to lose that chance for herself, either.
“You have to stay. Hav, you stay. No matter what, you don’t leave your kids.”
“Or you. Cory, I’m here. I swear. I love you.”
When it came right to it, it wasn’t even that hard a choice.
“I love you, too.”
He touched her then, his hands coming up fast to cradle her head, and she realized that he’d been fighting the urge to do exactly that since he’d come into the room. He brought his head down and kissed her—not his usual ferocious claiming of her mouth, but a sweet, soft brush of his lips over hers, his beard soft on her skin. She sighed and let her body relax toward his, and then his arms were around her, holding her tight. When he pushed between her lips and found her tongue, she moaned.
He stepped back. “Too much? Was I pushing too hard on the baby?”
She laughed at his innocence, such an odd fit on a hard man like Havoc. “No, hon. The baby is the size of a marble. You weren’t anywhere near him.”
“Him?” His eyes went wide.
“Or her. I don’t like to say ‘it.’ That sounds weird to me. So I’ll say ‘him’ until I know—that won’t be for a few months yet.”
He put his hand flat across her belly. As it had when he’d done it earlier, the gesture made her heart lose its tempo for a few beats.
“Fuck. I hope I don’t fuck…him up.” He looked into her eyes again. “You sure you trust me with all this?”
She looked over toward Nolan again, but he wasn’t watching anymore. He’d turned away, to his desk, and was sitting sidelong, as he had to in his wheelchair. He was writing or sketching, or just carefully ignoring them. She smiled, realizing that he’d probably turned away during the kiss.
Turning back to Havoc, she said, “You tell me you’re here, you’re with us, and I’ll trust you.”
“I’m here. I’m with you.” He kissed her again, more like his usual, enthusiastic self, and this time his hand went under her top to spread over the bare skin of her back. Her core tingled and went wet, and she pushed him back a little.
“Hey. We’re gonna have soggy macaroni if I don’t get these noodles out of the water. Plus, you know. Nolan. We need to bookmark this until later.”
“Sorry.” He let her go, then lifted his hand and combed his fingers tenderly through her hair. “I broke your head. We can’t—can we?”
“It’s just a hairline fracture. With the baby, I’m not even taking anything but Tylenol for it. I’m supposed to take it easy, and I have been.” A thought occurred to her, and she cocked her head and smiled, making it as coy as she could. “I think we could…if you can be sweet. Can you be sweet?”
“I can be what you need me to be, honey.”
~oOo~
He stayed with them the rest of the evening. Feeling tired and emotionally drained, Cory went to bed early, leaving Havoc and Nolan sitting in the living room, talking about bikes. Her boy was on the road to the Horde. That scared her—a lot.
She knew that Sophie had been killed violently. Bonnie was full of rumors about the details, which ranged from carjacking to some kind of revenge thing. Bonnie, who’d lived in Signal Bend her whole life, held the opinion that it was revenge. In the past two weeks, during her Havoc Hate-a-thon, she had told Cory a lot of things about the Horde. Not very savory things. They took care of the town and the people in it, and they kept order, but according to Bonnie, they could be really brutal when they were crossed.
But Havoc had been honest with her. She couldn’t say he’d been forthright—he was tightlipped about a lot of details about what he called “club business.” But he was honest and clear about where the line was, what he would tell her and what he would not. And she had decided that she would trust him. She didn’t need to know the details. As long as he didn’t baby her, and he made sure she knew what she needed to keep her kids safe, then that was enough.
A voice inside her head—Lindsay’s voice, actually—told her that it shouldn’t be enough. That the Horde was into dangerous business. Business that had gotten women and children hurt. She knew the history, or at least as much as everybody knew. And now, with Sophie killed, maybe it wasn’t just history anymore. Maybe by being with Havoc she was putting her kids in the crossfire. Maybe that was reckless, irresponsible. Stupid.
She didn’t think so. Maybe she was rationalizing, but she looked around at the world at large, and at the life she’d had already, and she thought that danger and risk and betrayal and death and disease and hate—all of it—was just all around them, no matter what. She thought of Lindsay and Alex and their absolutely perfect, glossy-magazine life, doing everything right, and she hated it. She was growing to hate them. The judgment, the narrowness, the superiority. And that was the high road, ostensibly. She trusted the low road more. Maybe that made her a bad person. Maybe it made her a bad mother. But her son was happier—she was happier—in this life, with this man, than they’d ever been.
And that, Cory thought, was enough. That was worth the risk.
Maybe safe was a state of mind.
When Havoc came into the bedroom, she was reading. He closed the door and just stood there, watching her, his backpack hanging off his hand. He’d been eyeing that thing all day, like it contained a bomb or a wild animal or someth
ing. She knew it had a gun in it—Nolan had had a gun!—but she didn’t think that accounted for Havoc’s obsessive attention.
“What’s with the backpack?”
He blushed. Cory sat up. She was quite sure she’d never seen Havoc blush. She wouldn’t be surprised to know he’d never blushed before in his life. “Hav?”
“Got a Christmas present for Nolan in it. Not sure when to give it to him. I didn’t want it to come off like a bribe.”
“What is it?”
“Laptop. New one. The box wouldn’t fit in my pack, but that’s at the clubhouse.”
“Wow, Hav. That’s so great. You should give it to him. He’ll love it.”
He nodded. “I will. Tomorrow.” Bringing the backpack with him, he came and sat on the bed. “Somethin’ for you, too. But I want to say somethin’ first.”
Curious, she cocked her head. “Okay…”
He cleared his throat and looked down at the comforter under his leg. “I’m not a good guy, Cory. I’ve done bad things. Killed. A few times. And I’ve put hard hurt on more people than I can count. That’s my job, in a way. I’m not a thinker.” He chuckled a little. “Or a talker, much. I’m the guy you go to when you need somebody bloody. Or dead.”
When he brought his eyes to hers, she understood what he was doing, and she felt dizzy. Her hand curled into a fist, clutching the comforter. He went on. “I’ll never give you details about the club. That’s not for you. And I won’t tolerate you pushin’ to know more than I say you can. But you need to know that what happened to Sophie—that’s on me. On the Horde. She got killed because somebody wanted to hurt us. I know we talked some about this before, but I need to know you get it. That you get it and you’re with me anyway. I say I will protect you with my life, and fuck, I never meant anything like I mean that, but I failed Sophie. I could fail you, too.”
He stopped and let his head fall, his bearded chin resting on his chest. For several weighty seconds, they were both silent. Cory wasn’t sure what to do. And then a drop hit his leg, making a faint plop on the taut denim over his muscular thigh.
A tear.
“Hav. I love you.” She went to him, crawling over the comforter, putting her arms around him and pulling his head to her shoulder. He didn’t cry more, but after a second he relaxed and let her hold him, comfort him, and they stayed like that for several minutes.
Finally, she whispered, “I love you. I’m not scared.”
“You should be scared. It’s stupid not to be scared.” He spoke against her shoulder.
She lifted his head and looked hard at him. “It’s too late for a warning label, Hav. We’re yours. We’re having a baby. We live in this world now, and there is no other.”
He turned his head and kissed her palm. “Then marry me.”
Though she’d sensed that he was heading in that direction with his big speech, the words still made her pulse pound and her eyes widen. As she was about to answer, he set her aside and reached for his backpack. He pulled a small velvet box out of the front pocket.
“I got this on Main Street, so by now the whole fuckin’ town knows I’m doin’ this. If you say yes, there’ll be no holdin’ off to tell people. Or you could put some real humiliation on me if you wanted.” He opened the box. “It’s antique, I guess. I just thought it was pretty and different and suited you.”
It was obviously antique. A gorgeous oval solitaire ringed with tiny diamonds, the band embedded with more tiny diamonds. Set in rose gold. A plain, delicately slim rose gold wedding band was bedded next to it.
“Even though it’s kinda pink, Stella said it really was gold.”
“It is. It’s perfect, Hav. Amazing.”
“You gotta answer me, honey. I’m feelin’ a little sick here.”
She opened her mouth to answer, but then she stopped. “I have to talk to Nolan first.”
Havoc grinned, his face lighting up like the sun. “I already did. Got his blessing. After he threatened to shoot me again. Maybe I shouldn’t teach the kid to shoot, after all.”
“You should teach us both to shoot, I think.” She smiled, but her statement was serious, and she looked hard at Havoc, her brows up, until he understood.
“Yeah. I will. Throw a punch, too. But not you until after the baby. You gonna answer the question, Cory?”
A sudden thrill of puckishness came over her. “I don’t think you asked a question. You’re kind of a bully that way.”
Confusion wrote itself on his face, and then erased, and he smiled again. “Shit. Chicks. Fine. You want a knee, too?” Before she could answer, he dropped to his knee at the side of the bed and held the boxed rings up. “Better? Will you marry me, Corinne Hawes?”
“Yes. Of course I will.”
He came back up onto the bed and slid the diamond on her finger. The fit was a little loose, but her fingers would be puffy soon enough, and she could get it sized after the baby. He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Now, I want to be sweet.” He set the box, still holding the wedding ring, on her nightstand and moved over her, his hand sliding around to hold her ass and pull her flat to the bed. Then he kissed her—softly, slowly, his mouth and tongue moving with hers.
He wasn’t good at sweet. He got impatient quickly, always, and then they were grunting and sweating and clawing at each other and sometimes he was spanking her, and then she was bruised or inflamed, sometimes even bleeding a little. And it was sizzling hot, always.
But she liked sweet, too, and she loved that he was trying.
She was wearing an old, soft t-shirt and a pair of loose yoga pants—her usual winter sleepwear. As he kissed her, he pushed her shirt up over her breasts. She crossed her arms between them and grabbed the bunched fabric, breaking the kiss to pull it over her head. He moved away from her mouth, lightly kissing her jaw, her neck, the full length of her collarbone, his tongue tracing the point where it rose from her shoulder, then down, down until he was at her breast. He lightly ran his tongue in a circle around her areola. Her breasts were hypersensitive and still just a little bit on the sore side, and she gasped and flinched at the intensity of his touch.
He looked up. “I hurt you?”
She put her hand on his head—he needed a shave; his scalp was covered with dark, pepper-and-salt fuzz. “No. But go light. They’re super sensitive. They really hurt at first, but that’s mostly gone now.”
“You want me to leave ‘em alone?”
“No. I want you to be sweet. Gentle.”
With his eyes on hers, he bent back down and very lightly let his beard graze the tight, erect tip of her nipple. Oh. Moaning quietly, she arched her back and clutched at his head.
“Like that?” His quiet chuckle made a light ripple of breeze over her sensitive skin, and she squirmed a little.
“Oh, yes.”
“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful to me.” With that, he kissed her nipple, drawing it slowly, gently into his mouth to suckle just slightly. The feelings his touch was generating confused her—almost too sensitive in one respect but not quite enough in another. Whimpering with every exhale, she brought her other hand to his head and held him to her breast, pushing herself against his mouth.
Letting her go and pushing up against her grip on his head, he looked down at her. His eyes were dark, his breath was heavy. “I thought you wanted sweet, honey. You’re getting me worked up, all that squirmin’—and those little noises you’re makin’.”
“I do want sweet.” She felt too fragile, emotionally and physically, to be taken over the way he did, no matter how wonderful that was. “Please be sweet.”
“Then be still.” He pushed his hand into her pants and between her legs. When his hard fingers slid over her clit and into her folds, she couldn’t suppress the gasp or the flex of her hips.
“Fuck, you’re wet. I missed this. You need to be still, woman, or I’ll go outta my head. Don’t think I ever went so long without before.”
That pulled her out of her building reverie, and she put her
hands on his shoulders. “You didn’t…at the clubhouse?” She’d been sure he would have availed himself—he was Havoc, after all. Now that she was a town resident, she’d heard some of the gossip about him, even if the women clammed up when she came around the end of the aisle at the market. His reputation for voraciousness in the clubhouse was practically legend.
He took his hand away and rose up, looming over her on his extended arms. He was angry. “No! ‘Course not. And fuck you for askin’.”
“It’d be okay, Hav. I guess. If you thought you were done with us. I thought you were done with us.”
His expression softened. “I’ll never be done with you, Cory. It’s been nobody but you since that first night in Hemsburg. I told you then. You’re mine.”
Before she could respond to that, he sat back on his knees at her side, hooked his hands into her pants, and pulled them down. She brought her legs up to help him get them off her. Then he pulled his hooded sweatshirt over his head, exposing the wide, hard expanse of his amazing chest. She reached out to touch him, but he caught her hand.
“Be still, woman. Be still.” He moved between her spread legs and stretched out, sliding his hands under her ass and around to hold her hips. At first, for a long time, he simply nuzzled and kissed her belly, from hip to hip and back again. It was almost like he was getting to know the baby inside her. The thought made Cory smile. And then he moved lower, kissing a trail from her navel downward, over her mound. When he got to her clit, she felt him open his mouth, and then his tongue was on her, flicking lightly, slowly over the bud of bunched nerves.
He wanted her to be still, and she tried hard to be. But he was tending to her in ways he had never before. He had touched and kissed and suckled every part of her, but never with this profound, focused attention. Knowing how aroused he was himself, his patience meant all the more. The emotion she felt, the love, intensified every firing of every nerve. She felt his mouth and tongue on her, his beard brushing against her thighs, and then his hands moved up from her hips and gently cupped her breasts, his thumbs moving lightly over her nipples, and she couldn’t be still. She couldn’t. The pleasure was too much. The love was too much. It was all crashing inside her.
All the Sky (Signal Bend Series) Page 27