by Kane, Jessa
Drinking Jack Daniels, missing Ripley, replaying the moment I sank balls deep into perfection and fucking my hand until my cock had burn marks.
Probably should keep that to myself.
“Working on a bike,” I mutter, losing my battle with the need to turn around and look back at Ripley. But when I do, she’s gone and urgency boils in my stomach. I need to make things right. I need her. “Listen, I was thinking. Are you driving Ripley up the coast to get her settled before the semester starts?”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Couldn’t get out of it. She rented a U-Haul with Alana.” A television flips on in the background, the sounds of golf coming down the phone line. “My wife is making me follow them in my car so I can help them carry the heavy shit. Yada yada yada.”
I’ve never wanted to sock my brother in the jaw more than I do right now, even if this time, his asshole attitude is going to work to my advantage. What is more important than dropping your daughter off at college for the first time? Even if my brother and Ripley aren’t related by marriage, doesn’t he realize how fucking special she is? Who would willingly miss a second of the joy she brings?
I clear my throat to eradicate what’s left of my guilt over pulling the wool over my brother’s eyes. If things work out the way I hope, I won’t be doing that much longer. “How about I take the responsibility off your hands?” I ask. “I wouldn’t mind the ride.”
* * *
Roaring up the highway on my Harley, I can just about make out Ripley’s face in the rearview mirror on the driver’s side of the U-Haul. When I pulled up she was hugging her parents goodbye, getting ready to climb into the vehicle and leave.
She couldn’t have made it more obvious that she wanted nothing to do with me, tossing her fiery hair and strutting past me without so much as a word while my brother watched in confusion. Normally she would throw herself into my arms and ask where I’d been, if I’m working on any new bikes, if I like her dress. I’d be harnessing every ounce of my willpower not to kiss her or slide my fingers between her thighs.
Instead, she didn’t say a word in my direction. But it wasn’t the rejection that injured me. It was the pain in her eyes, the tremble of her lips. Seeing how hurt she still was is a dagger ramming between my ribs, pain radiating from the wound and infecting every part of me, especially the goddamn muscle in the center of my chest.
Make it right.
And as we near the gated community where Ripley is going to be living with her friend, the need to repair the damage between us is burning hotter and hotter. A world without Ripley is one-dimensional and bleak. A world where she raises our child without my protection every moment of the day makes me want to bellow like an injured demon. I’ve never been able to envision myself as a father. I’ve always assumed I wasn’t that blessed. That lucky.
I still can’t believe it.
But hell if I don’t already love the kid she’s carrying. I ache to see her belly grow, to watch her smile when the baby kicks in her stomach, my hand pressed to the swelling curve.
I can see us on the beach, Ripley leaning back against my chest while we watch our son or daughter build a sand castle. A life so perfect was never in the cards for a man like me, but now that it’s a possibility, now that I can be with this girl I love, I need it with every fiber of my being.
God, I need her so bad.
There’s a hole in my heart and it yawns wider every second she’s not in my arms.
When we pull up outside her simple, two-story, Spanish-style home, my course of action is set. First, get forgiveness from Ripley, preferably before the lack of her addictive sunshine kills me. Second, spend as long as it takes earning her back. Convincing her to let me back in.
Rife with determination, I climb off my bike and stride to the driver’s side, my cock already heavy with pressure against the fly of my jeans. Ripley jolts a little when she sees me standing outside the window, but she recovers and primly pushes the door open, sniffing. “Thank you for making sure we arrived safely, Uncle Mase. We can take it from here.”
Her words might be dismissing me, but she’s ogling the fly of my jeans and turning flush, twisting her lush bottom lip between her teeth, thighs cinching together on the seat.
Oh, she loved fucking me. That much is plain.
Want to spread your legs for this dick again, don’t you, sweetheart?
It never occurred to me that I could use our attraction to my advantage, but I’m willing to employ every weapon in my arsenal to make her forgive me. To get another taste. She’s already admitted she wants to be with me. She was willing to hide her identity and seduce me to make her point. So that means she’s willing to live with everything that comes along with the man she’s obsessed beyond recognition. There’s nothing holding me back.
Stepping back a little, I shrug off my jacket. “Hold this for me a sec?” I hand her the worn-in leather and she takes it, as if on autopilot, her eyes glued to my biceps now. Hiding my dark smile, I strip off my white T-shirt, shoving it into my back pocket as far as it’ll go, leaving the rest draped down my thigh. “Hot day for a move, right?” I wink at her. “Better get started.”
Leaving her staring after me with a dropped jaw, I can’t help but chuckle a little on my way to the back of the U-Haul. I unhook the rolling door and shove it up, climbing into the truck bed to get started moving the heavier items onto the sidewalk. Eventually, Ripley gets out and unlocks the door of their new home, letting Alana inside, before crossing the lawn to me cautiously.
“I hope you’re happy.” She crosses her arms over her beautiful tits. “There are, like, a bunch of women snapping pictures of you from their kitchen windows.”
Not really caring one way or another about the picture takers, I set down the wrought-iron headboard I’m carrying, leaning it up against the side of the truck. “What about you, Ripley?” I drag my tongue along the seam of my lips, unable to stop myself from looking at her stomach, to judge if it has grown at all. “You want to snap a pic, too? You’re looking hard enough.”
Temper flares in her eyes, doing nothing to help the escalating situation in my pants. “Are you really going to act like nothing happened?”
“That would be impossible, now wouldn’t it?” I step into her space, not bothering to hide the fact that I’m inhaling her scent like a dying man. “There’s only one female I want on the face of this earth. I finally got her beneath me and she was hotter and sweeter and tighter than I could have imagined. Then I behaved like a son of a bitch and ruined everything. Spanked her when I should have been kissing every sacred inch of her body.” I look into her rapidly widening eyes. “Yeah. It’s damn well impossible to pretend that didn’t happen.”
Ripley’s chest expands on a shaky breath, hands dropping to her sides. “I think I made it pretty clear…” Her voice falls to a hushed whisper. “That I’ve m-moved on.”
My hands start to reach for her, but I catch myself just in time, curling my fingers into my palms. If we have an audience like she says, I’m not going to lay a finger on her out here on the lawn or I risk taking it too far. “Can we talk inside?”
She seems short of breath. “What? Deprive all these women of your muscles?”
Already breaking my rule about not touching her, I tilt up her chin. “If you’ll recall what I told you in that room, sweetheart, I don’t give a fuck about other women. There’s only one that gets my cock hard and she’s a beautiful, redheaded troublemaker with freckles and suckable, little tits I can’t stop thinking about.”
“I seem to recall something about that,” she says shakily, tucking hair behind her ear with trembling fingers. “I-I suppose we can talk inside, but nothing has changed.”
Releasing her chin, I trail the tip of my index finger down the slope of her throat, feeling her gulp. “Lead the way.”
She turns on the heel of her white Converse shoe and I prowl behind her, devouring the sight of her luscious ass in cut-off jean shorts. We’re walking into a house together
and for the first time, her parents won’t be here to play buffer. To keep my desire in check. I’m extremely aware of that. Not to mention the fact that she’s a big girl now, pregnant with my kid, and we have privacy as she leads me to a back bedroom.
I follow her inside and kick the door shut, enjoying the awareness on her face as she backs away, her tits heaving at my purposeful approach.
I’d like to rip out the crotch of her jean shorts and panties, pin her to the wall and fuck her until tears of satisfaction—not hurt—roll down her face. But I have to stick to my plan and that means I apologize first, the way I should have done outside the drugstore.
Stopping in front of her, I cup her soft cheek, regret crowding painfully in my sternum. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. For coming down on you like that after we made love.” My apology emerges sounding raw. “For making you cry. I hate myself for hurting you, baby.”
She widens her gaze at my apology and ducks her head quickly. When she lifts it again, there is a light sheen of moisture in her eyes, the stubbornness ebbing from her posture. “I shouldn’t have tricked you. It was wrong. So wrong—”
“Ripley—”
“No, let me finish.”
I grind my back teeth together to stop from reassuring her.
Ripley squares her shoulders. “I’m sorry. There’s no excuse for what I did.” She starts to say more, but shoots forward instead, wrapping her arms around my waist. She buries her cheek in the center of my bare chest where she must hear my heart going a million miles a minute. “I miss you.”
I’m already groaning, walking her toward the wall. Her back hits it a split second later and my mouth is moving on her neck, kissing the sensitive patch beneath her ear. “Ah, sweetheart. I miss you like hell.” My hands rake down her hips, twisting the denim of her shorts in a desperate grip. “I’ve been fucking miserable not being able to hear your voice.”
“It felt so good…what we did together.” She gasps when I bite her earlobe, her fingers dropping to the fly of my jeans, wresting it open. “Will you do it again, Uncle Mase? Please?”
“Wait,” I pant, seizing her wrist and securing it to the wall above her head. My cock is harder than a goddamn crowbar in my jeans, pulsing with the need to surround itself in my niece’s tight little cunt, but I’m doing this right. We can have forever together if I don’t rush her into this—and God knows we rushed enough in the brothel. “I want nothing more than to give you a ride on this dick, Ripley, but not until I hear you say the words. You’ll let me be your man. Forever. You’re going to let me be involved in this baby’s life. Forever.”
With a frustrated sob, she breaks out of my grip, pacing across to the other side of the room. Not following her is hell, but I need to hear what she says. I need to know what she’s thinking. “I can’t make those promises. You stayed away from me for so long. You never offered to be with me…until now. When you know I’m pregnant. How will I know you’re not just accepting this responsibility because you have no choice? Because I gave you no choice?”
I tear at my hair, a humorless laugh leaving my mouth. “Did you miss the part when I brought a fucking picture of you to the brothel, because you’re the only way I get hard? Did you forget me admitting I haven’t been with another woman since I met you?” I cross to her in two long strides, grasping her by the shoulders. “Jesus, Ripley. Open your eyes.”
She’s so close to giving in, giving me a shot, but her shoulders sag, her teeth worrying her lower lip in indecision. “I don’t know…”
My instinct is to keep arguing, but I came here to play the long game, the forever game, and that’s exactly what I plan to do. As long as it takes. “All right, sweetheart.” I pull her into my arms, pressing my lips to her temple. “That’s fine. But I’m not budging until you do know that there is no one else for me. No other life I want but the one I can have with you. You’re the breath in my fucking lungs, Ripley.”
Her tearful eyes blink up at me, but I don’t give in to the hope that I’m finally getting through to her. Instead, I kiss her forehead softly, leave the room and move the heavy shit in off the lawn.
Patience.
7
Ripley
It’s pretty surreal to be on a date with my Uncle Mase.
We’ve had plenty of meals together at my house and celebrated a few milestones at various restaurants back home, but this is different. For one, he’s sitting on the same side of the table as me with his arm propped along the back of the booth, his fingertips brushing up and down my bare shoulder. As if that’s not making me breathless enough, our thighs are pressed together and I can see the outline of his bulge. I mean, it’s just sitting there like a ticking time bomb, all stiff and thick. How am I supposed to eat my sandwich?
I tried to get Alana to come along with us to the café located in a small square just outside our housing complex, but she wanted to explore the neighborhood with her camera. My best friend has been kind of pensive since the night in the brothel—and frustratingly tightlipped. I’m sure she’ll open up eventually about what happened with her customer, but for now, I have to let her process. And that leaves me alone with Mase.
Right where I’ve always, always wanted to be.
He’s holding me like I’m his girlfriend, daring every man that passes to glance in my direction. His bottle of beer sits next to my pink milkshake, probably making our age difference even more obvious to everyone in this restaurant. Not that I’ve ever cared about the age gap.
No, I have much bigger concerns now.
Like whether or not Mase is courting me now out of a sense of duty.
It hurts to think that might be the case.
That my pregnancy is forcing him to step up and do the right thing.
More than life itself, I want to believe the adoration I see in Mase’s eyes, but I already trapped him once. I refuse to do it again.
“You have to try and eat, sweetheart.” His lips brush my ear. “For our baby.” The words our baby make my core clench. I try not to let my breathless reaction show on my face, but he must notice, because he chuckles. His laughter dies, however, when a thought seems to occur. “You aren’t feeling sick because of the pregnancy, are you? I could ask for some ginger ale—”
“No, it’s okay.” To appease him, I pick up a French fry and chew on the end. “I keep waiting for the queasiness to hit. But maybe it’s too early.”
He relaxes somewhat. “So why can’t you eat?”
I swallow. “You’ve just given me so much to think about.”
“Good.” Determination flares in his face. “Keep thinking. Take as long as you need. I’m not going anywhere, Ripley.”
Relief floods me, despite my best efforts to keep it dammed. How long am I going to keep my resolve when he’s determined to prove he’s committed? “What about the shop?”
His eyes run down the front of me, lingering on my breasts. “I thought I’d spend tomorrow looking at garage space around here,” he answers gruffly, not so subtly adjusting the ridge in his jeans. “I’ll be back in time to pick you up from class.”
The very idea of Mase sitting on his Harley with his black, windswept hair when I emerge from the lecture hall makes my pulse clamor giddily. Still, he might just feel obligated. Or protective since I’m pregnant. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Have to?” He shakes his head. “I don’t think you get it, Ripley.”
“Get what?”
A beat passes. “That I would trade my last breath to have you climb onto the back of my bike.” His voice resonates with such intensity that I can’t help but hold my breath. “To have you put your arms around me, knowing I’ll keep you safe. Knowing I’ll be there again tomorrow.” He turns toward me in the booth, sliding his hand up my inner thigh, stopping just beneath the hem of the skirt I changed into for dinner. “To have Ripley depend on me, trust me, smile when she sees me. What else could a man want out of life?”
“Oh, Mase…” I whisper, letting him nuzzle our m
ouths together.
“I’m not here out of obligation, Ripley.” His hand disappears farther up my skirt, his knuckle driving softly into my folds to rub my clit gently. “I’m here because I can’t live without you. Not for one fucking day.”
Moisture rushes to the apex of my thighs, the noise from the restaurant nothing more than a muffled din around us. “Take me somewhere.”
“Not until you let me back into the sunshine.” His mouth skates up the slope of my neck. “I want my chance. I want us. You and me. A family.”
His touch is almost overwhelming me, but still, I hesitate. Everything is going so fast…
“Mase?” says a raspy male voice. “Is that you?”
My uncle goes very still against me, his hand going from seductive to unmoving between my thighs. He takes two centering breaths, then straightens. No longer is his hand under my skirt, but he tucks me even more protectively to his side than before. Blinking our surroundings back into focus, I notice two men standing beside our table. They’re wearing leather vests with their names stitched into patches over their hearts. Chavez. Clint.
“You’re a long way from home,” one of them drawls, his eyes dancing with amusement.
“I could say the same about you,” Mase responds with a chill in his voice. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Oh come on,” says the other one. “We couldn’t pass up a chance to meet your famous niece. Think of the bragging rights this is going to give us back at the club.”
Mase’s steel hold flexes around me dangerously.
Famous niece? What does that mean?
“Walk away,” Mase warns the men.
Chavez holds up his hands, palms out. “We don’t mean any harm.” His eyes glint wickedly. “But I guess the mystery is solved why you left the club for her. She’s a little more than just a niece to you, isn’t she, man?” He elbows Clint in the ribs. “Unless that hand up her skirt was an optical illusion.”