This time, though, as I heard my bedroom door open, he didn’t bark.
He was awake, because I heard his excited claws clicking on the floor as he turned circles on the hardwood floor.
I didn’t turn over.
My heart, however, was pounding.
My fingers went damp, and my mind was whirling.
I’d done some snooping over the past few weeks, and what I’d found had staggered me.
Nico was in witness protection.
I’d learned that when I bought a bug online and planted it in not just Luke’s office, but Luke’s cell phone, Michael’s cell phone, as well as each other member of the SWAT team’s house, office, and cell.
I’d spent nearly five grand, but it’d been worth every penny to know that Nico was alive.
It didn’t take the sting away, however.
Nico visited me nearly every night now.
I assumed he didn’t know that I knew he was alive, but Nico knew everything, so maybe he did.
I felt the covers pull down slowly from around my shoulders, and then a warm, hard, naked male body slipped underneath them.
Nico’s strong arms wrapped around me tightly, one going under my neck to cup my breast, and the other going around our child.
Nico’s child reacted the moment he felt his hand by kicking it with all the force that his six and a half month developed legs could muster.
I didn’t know if it was a boy or girl, yet. I only knew that it was ours, and that’s all I cared about.
“You really shouldn’t tell Hamburger all of my secrets,” Nico whispered into my hair.
I laughed a watery laugh and turned over in his arms.
My large belly was wedged between us, and I couldn’t get as close as I used to be able to, but it was nothing less than heavenly.
I hadn’t felt these particular arms in 152 long days, 3,648 hours, 218, 880 minutes.
And I would know the particular numbers, because I counted them. Religiously.
“Did you plant a bug on my dog?” I whispered into his neck.
He snorted. “It’s no different than what you did to the men on my team.”
I shrugged unapologetically. “They shouldn’t have kept this from me.”
He sighed. “I couldn’t tell you, baby. There’s someone still out there that I saw, and the Feds are pretty sure he’s the boss over this region. Until they catch him, I’m supposed to stay hidden so I can testify.”
A sob caught in my throat. “I miss you so much.”
His arms pulled me in tighter, and his leg hitched to push between my thighs.
“I know, baby. It wasn’t supposed to be this long, but the man’s gone underground. Just stay strong for me,” he whispered into my hair. “It won’t be much longer.”
I nodded against his head. “Just promise me one thing.”
“Anything,” he answered instantly.
“You’ll be there for the birth of our child,” I said quietly.
He didn’t say anything for a few long moments, but then he rolled until he was on top of me. Big fists planted in the bed on either side of my ear he said, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Then he kissed me… or tried to, but my belly stopped him about three-quarters of the way, which caused him to laugh.
“This was easier the last time we did it,” he recalled.
I pinched him on the ass.
“The last time we did it, I was on top,” I teased.
He growled and rolled until I was straddling his hips.
His hard cock pressed against the lips of my sex, and his hands were on my hips.
My belly was resting on his, and all he could do was stare at the sight.
“God, I love you,” he said, finally looking up into my eyes.
I smiled and rocked forward, the head of his large cock lining up perfectly with my entrance.
It would’ve gone in, too, if I hadn’t been wearing panties.
Something he fixed moments later by ripping them from my body and throwing them to the floor.
I gasped, “Those were really expensive, Nico!”
He chuckled darkly. “They were ugly anyway.”
I shook my head. “They covered my belly, I don’t care if they were ugly.”
His hands ran up my sides, skimming his palms up until they came to a rest on the outside of my breasts.
His thumbs swept out, catching the edge of my nipple with the tops of his nails.
My entire body jerked in surprise at how good it felt. “Holy shit.”
He chuckled as his mouth moved to the other breast.
As he was doing that, he fumbled in between my legs and lined his cock head up again with the entrance of my pussy.
Then I slowly sank down, engulfing him in one smooth stroke.
We both groaned at the exquisite sensation.
“Mother fucker,” he gasped as I started to gyrate my hips.
My muscles were already pulsing.
I’d dreamed of this nearly every night.
And I’d not touched myself nor had an orgasm since he’d been gone.
Needless to say, it didn’t take long before I was slamming down on him.
My heavy breasts smacking against my big belly with each bounce as I rode his cock.
His hands went behind his head as he enjoyed the view, and I kept riding him.
And when my vaginal walls started to clamp down hard on his cock, his back arched in pleasure as he came with me. Both of us falling down, spiraling into the depths of our orgasms.
I went backward instead of forward, falling between his splayed thighs.
I could feel his release as it poured out of my entrance and I, of course, had to say, “At least you can’t get me pregnant.”
He laughed roughly. “No, I guess I can’t.”
Our nights continued like that.
He’d arrive after eleven, and I’d make love to him, or he’d make love to me.
Then he’d be gone when I awoke the next morning.
It sucked, but it worked.
What was the hardest, though, was keeping this information from his family.
They were all grieving, just as much as me, and it was torture to keep it away from them.
Although it wasn’t perfect, I was happier than I’d been in months.
I should’ve known, though, that life didn’t always give you what you wanted.
It gave you what it did, and it was up to you to make the best of it.
Chapter 21
Don’t piss momma off, because when momma ain’t happy, you’re never going to forget it.
-Note to self
Nico
Day 231
“You’re fucking joking,” I said, shaking my head.
Agent Lawrence shook his head in response. “Not one single bit.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
Agent Lawrence opened up a file folder and slid it across my temporary kitchen table.
The place where I’d been residing, when I wasn’t working to find this dumb fuck, was not the nicest, by any means, but it was enough for now.
Everything was in shades of brown. I hated tan. I hated chocolate brown. I hated wood.
In fact, I now despised anything that reminded me of this house and what I was missing by living here.
Brown signified my imprisonment.
“This,” I said, waving my hands at the folder after reading the first two pages. “This is where he’s at?”
“According to all the information you gave me, and thanks by the way, I’d have never thought to look at the gravesite, this is where he’s residing. He’s been there for over a month and is apparently the man who is the actual father of Anita’s baby. His name is Andre Fima. Thirty-two years old. His father is the big cannoli of the Southern Russian crime family. Big wig’s kid who thinks he’s hot shit,” Agent Lawrence explained.
I no
dded and read as Lawrence kept going. “He tried to get custody of the kid the old-fashioned way, but he was denied because he was A. Too young, and B. Not married nor did he have a ‘stable job.’”
I snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure Russian mob bosses’ son wouldn’t look good on an adoption application. And he couldn’t come out as the kid’s father without bringing his identity to light.”
He nodded. “You, though, he hated. He used the Sergeis to try to adopt the kid. When that didn’t work, his next step was to steal the child, but the wounded vet saw to it that that didn’t go over so well. His final ploy was to talk to the Artem’s. That’s apparently what he was doing, according to the wiretaps on his place. His next step was to get that girl to go back to her job now that the kid’s with the chief of police. Andre’s not giving up, though. Even though the chief’s place is guarded, he plans to raid it with around fifteen men later tonight.”
I smiled. “Well that’s just a shame that we know about it, now isn’t it?”
***
I unstrapped my vest alongside my team.
It’d been a long nine months, and I was glad to be a part of them again. It was even nicer to see that two of my favorite people were now there as well. It was like our old team again.
Miller. Foster. Bennett. Me. Luke. Downy. James. John. Michael.
That was if you didn’t count Luke. He was, after all, a Marine.
Marines were all together inferior to SEALs, and it was a damn shame that he couldn’t be like us.
We worked well together.
The raid had gone well, and all parties had been arrested without much of a fight whatsoever.
Andre Fima was arrested with the attempted murder of Kilgore’s chief of police, as well as the suspected attempted murder of me, and the actual murder of the young officer who’d been driving my car earlier in the year.
Our new team worked well together, and I’d been surprised with how easily I slipped back into my old role.
Michael looked at me from his spot across the room, and I watched him as I used to do as we unwound from the day’s events. Our lockers faced each other, the way they used to, I didn’t let him know that his stare was unnerving.
Michael’s hands were hanging on to the locker door above him, elbows up by his ear.
The man had nearly translucent blue eyes, and the sheer amount of tattoos covering his body was incredibly disorienting. I could never decide on what to look at. Literally, from about wrists up, and neck down, he was covered in tattoos. You wouldn’t know, however, if he had clothes on.
There was a new one, though.
And it made my skin tingle just looking at it.
“I would’ve gotten it removed, but in part, you did die. It’s been a hard, long seven and a half months, and I’m glad you’re back,” Michael said, as he saw what my eyes were looking at.
In his last remaining free spot, underneath his left arm, on the inside sensitive skin, was a badge, and across it was a thick band of black with a thin strip of blue running through the middle of it.
It made my throat clog, but in a good way.
I still felt like a royal shit, though, for deceiving them.
I nodded and started to unvelcro my Kevlar vest.
My gun was next to be strapped to my leg, and I followed it up shortly by hooking my badge on the front of my vest.
It felt good to have it back.
I’d been lost without it these last few months, and I was glad that the Chief held onto it for me.
Just as I was about to pull my vest over my head, the phone I’d stolen back from Georgia rang in my locker.
I looked at it in dread, knowing in my heart what was going to be heard when I answered the phone.
Bringing it up to my ear, I answered. “Hello?”
I heard panting in the background and Georgia’s sweet voice growling at the other end. “I’m in the throes of a contraction, and we’re still not married. You better fix this, by God, or I’ll kill you for real.”
With only one option left to do, I turned to the remaining men in the room and said, “Who wants to help me get married?”
***
The electric headrests slapped down against the back of my head for the fourth time. I clenched my eyes shut and pushed the headrest back into position. Then, I looked up just in time to see my mother hit the button that brought them down, again.
It was funny the first time, but after the fifth, it was just annoying me.
I was in the back of a Suburban heading straight to the hospital.
The priest would be meeting us at the chapel in less than twenty minutes. All I had to do was run up and grab Georgia, who’d refused to get married in her room.
Which also meant she’d refused pain meds.
I’d been on the phone when the nurse had said that she was too far along to go down to the chapel. Luckily, I’d lost signal right around the time Georgia had started yelling about ‘heifers’ and ‘stupid bitches.’
When I’d called her back, she’d been apologizing to the nurse saying that the ‘devil made her say it.’
It was actually pretty funny, because, normally, Georgia was one of the most laid back women I’d ever met. She’d yet to yell at me about how I’d left, even when I’d deserved it.
“Alright, boys,” my mother said. “Here’s your stop.”
She pulled up under the ER entrance awning and waited patiently for the men to pile out of her Suburban.
When it finally cleared out enough, I looked at my mother.
“I love you, Mama,” I said softly.
Her eyes closed, and when she opened them again, tears were pouring out of them a mile a minute. “You really hurt my heart, hijo.”
I looked down at my hands, resting on my lap. “I know, Mama. I didn’t have a choice, though. If I hadn’t left, one of us could really be dead now.”
That’s about when I felt the headrest hit me in the back of the head again, and her eyes started twinkling.
I just shook my head and laughed. The woman deserved a medal for dealing with my shit. She could hit me in the back of the head as many times she wanted if it helped her not cry.
There was literally nothing worse in the world than knowing that I made my own mother cry.
“Te he echado de mi hijo,” my mother said as I started to exit the car.
I stopped and turned, looking her in the eyes when I said, “I missed you too, Mama.”
She smiled. “Now get in there and make an honest woman of my daughter-in-law. I’d hate to have to tell the women at church that your child was made and born into sin. I’ll see you in a moment. Just have to park the car first.”
I clenched my teeth and got out of the car before I said something to my mother about what sin really was.
And having a child out of wedlock didn’t even compare to the sins I’d performed in my life. In fact, I saw it as a blessing. A way to repent, and I was going to take full advantage of proving to God and everybody that I wasn’t the bad man that I was made out to be.
Then men were waiting for me inside the entrance as I finally made my way to them, and they walked behind me as we made our way to the chapel.
We got tons of looks.
We were all still decked out in our SWAT gear. The only thing we didn’t have on were the neck guards and the riot shields.
We hadn’t had time to strip. Or, at least, I hadn’t given them the time to do so.
“How do you get to the fucking chapel?” I asked in exasperation four minutes later as we took yet another wrong turn.
A small woman, about the size of my left thigh and as tall as my shoulder, cleared her throat.
We all looked at her and she visibly shrunk as she received all of our attention.
“The c-chapel’s that w-way,” she stuttered, pointing down the hall.
I nodded and started jogging toward the door, opening it up just as a smothered scream started
to escape the closed door.
“Oh, my God! This kid is fucking ripping my uterus apart!” Georgia screamed.
“I’m so going to get fired for this. She shouldn’t have left her room. I had to run down the hallway after her. And by the time I caught up, we were in the elevator,” a frazzled nurse yelled to the priest.
The priest smiled serenely at the two of them, and then I watched in horror as some clear liquid started to decorate the floor at Georgia’s feet.
“Well, fuck me. I think my water just broke,” Georgia exhaled.
I walked up behind her, careful not to slip and fall on the fluid that used to reside inside my soon-to-be wife’s body, and wrapped my hand around her mouth. “Shhh, you shouldn’t say stuff like that in front of a man of God.”
Georgia’s body slumped into me and I had to really try hard not to let her drop on the floor when she gave me all of her weight.
“Oomph,” I grunted.
Then she had her legs planted firmly again, and she snapped, “Get on with it, man. We don’t have all day. That is, unless you want to go ahead and get our baby baptized after he pops out at your feet.”
My eyes widened, and I heard choked chuckles at my back from the men who’d followed me in here.
“Georgia!” I reprimanded.
“She can’t help it. She’s on drugs,” the nurse said.
I turned my head to take in the young woman who was holding on to Georgia’s IV pole and asked, “I thought she said she wanted to do this drug-free?”
She shrugged. “A lot of women say that before they’ve actually experienced the pain. They change their minds really quick. She’s on some narcotics as well as a tranquilizer. She really should be sleeping, not getting married.”
Although the reprimand wasn’t malicious, it was there nonetheless.
Georgia ignored it, though, and turned around to face me. She looked up into my eyes and said, “Marry me.”
I grinned down at her. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Who gives this woman away?” Father Matthew asked.
I looked up just as the doors to the chapel closed, and smiled as my father and mother, as well as my sisters and Georgia’s brothers made their way down the aisle.
Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set Page 37