by Leela Ash
Now that she had officially knew there was a baby on the way, knowing for sure that there was a product of the love she felt for Jax, she felt overjoyed. They would be a family through it all, and maybe, when times were tough, they would be able to inspire each other enough that they would pass quickly.
Jax was heading into the kitchen to bring out the beer, whistling pleasantly to himself. Layne couldn’t have any, which he had briefly forgotten, but she that was fine with her. She was sick of it anyway after all the years of having it as her only hobby and friend, but the other three were thrilled to be celebrating on her behalf.
Jax told Tobi and Sam all about the community he had found up north, and they spent the rest of the night together, laughing and drinking, making plans for the future and catching up on the past. Everything felt like it was going to be okay and they all got to know each other a little bit better, forgetting that they had ever worried about anything at all.
Layne was just about to let herself relax when a sudden knock at the door made her blood run cold. Everybody stopped what they were doing and looked around fearfully.
“Did somebody follow you?” Layne hissed, her heart beating rapidly.
“I don’t think so,” Jax said, standing up and getting the rifle out of the closet. He aimed it, bracing himself as he opened the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Jax, long time no see,” a familiar voice said.
“Kelsey?” Jax asked in confusion, eyeing Tobi’s ex.
“That’s right!” she said, taking the opportunity to shove past him and knock the rifle out of his hands. Kelsey grabbed it and darted through the cabin until Tobi was in her sights. She aimed the rifle and shot it at her, knocking her back onto the couch.
“What the fuck!?” Sam yelled.
“That’s what you get, you cheating whore! And look who I found – the man everyone’s been dying to see. We got them, boys!”
Suddenly, two men from Hex were pushing through the doorway, gripping Jax by the arms and pulling him outside.
“Shark Tooth is going to love this,” the first man said. He was bald and stocky like a body builder. Jax didn’t recognize either of the men, and struggled hard to release himself.
Layne tackled Kelsey, who shrieked as they tugged the gun back and forth.
“You cheated on Kelsey?” Jax exclaimed as he tried to free himself.
Tobi was clutching her arm, which was bleeding profusely.
“Well…it was Sam,” she said weakly, shrugging. Sam and Tobi exchanged a look, which made Kelsey bellow in fury.
Jax shook his head, maneuvering himself so that he tripped one of the men. The bald man fell hard, and Jax was able to squirm out of his grip. With his free hand he struck the other man, who was also burly and had a bushel of thick brown hair.
The women were still grappling for the gun and Kelsey punched Layne in the face. Layne staggered backward and Jax growled in fury, kicking the man who still gripped his arm and twisting it in one of the martial arts moves he learned at Hex. A sickening snap pierced the air and the man howled, releasing Jax, who stumbled and pulled his knife out of its sheath.
Sam was terrified, but tended swiftly and expertly to the gunshot wound on Tobi’s arm. She cried out in surprise when Tobi leapt off the couch and gripped the gun before Layne fully released her grip on it, staring Kelsey.
“Leave her alone,” she hissed.
“Shut up!” Kelsey wailed, breaking down into sobs.
Tobi groaned and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. She had the gun now and wasted no time in shooting the man on the floor, who was groggily coming back to consciousness and reaching for Jax. He fell limply to the floor and Jax jumped away from them. He crouched at Layne’s side, helping her off the floor. Tobi shot the other man for good measure and he fell to the ground. She tossed the gun back to Jax, sinking down onto the floor with Kelsey, who was inconsolable.
“I can’t believe you followed me here, Kels.”
“What else was I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Seriously? Stalking me is the answer? You know as well as I do that you didn’t love me anymore.”
“But you were still mine,” Kelsey glowered.
“That’s not how it works. And I already told you I left you. I wasn’t joking. You didn’t love me. You don’t love me. This is all spite. Just go home, Kelsey.”
“But…”
“If you really did love me, you’d let me be happy.”
Kelsey stood up, wiping her tear stained face.
“I just don’t know what to do without you.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Tobi sighed, walking Kelsey to the door.
“I just miss you,” Kelsey sighed.
“I think we should kill her,” Sam interjected. Kelsey shot her a bitter look, but said nothing.
“I think so, too,” Layne said, nursing the bruise on her face.
Jax and Tobi exchanged looks. Kelsey was a good person at heart. But she had been too full of grief to think clearly. Still, she was a liability.
“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” Tobi said, looking into Kelsey’s eyes. “Is it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d almost rather die than feel this way.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Jax said. “But don’t make me regret letting you go. You could just as easily end up like those two. Tell them you guys ambushed us on the road and we got the better of you. Not a word about anything else.”
“All right, Jax,” Kelsey sighed, stepping over the bloody bodies on the floor. “I’m sorry about all of this. Oh. Sorry for shooting you, Tobi.”
Tobi laughed scornfully.
“Get out of here and keep your mouth shut or I’ll return the favor,” she said. “Oh, and I think you should probably talk to Loretta…I’m pretty sure she’s had her eye on you since you arrived.”
“Really?”
Tobi nodded and Kelsey looked thoughtfully at the ground. She smiled privately to herself, and with that, Kelsey took off running through the forest, heading toward home.
***
“What the fuck was that?” Sam exclaimed when Jax and Tobi returned to the cozy living room.
“I can’t believe you two just let her go,” Layne agreed.
“She’s mostly harmless,” Tobi sighed.
“It’s true. We were all really good friends back when I was in Hex. I think it will be all right.”
“I think you guys made a huge mistake,” Sam said, shaking her head.
“You never liked her anyway,” Tobi teased, laughing before she winced in pain.
“Shut up and let me take a look at that,” Sam said, changing the subject.
As Sam dressed Tobi’s wounds, the small group sat in silence.
“What are we going to do now?” Tobi finally asked.
“Layne mentioned a place up north,” Sam said.
“There’s no way you can make it up there right now,” Jax said quietly. “Tobi is injured and the weather was unforgiving when I left. I can only imagine it would be worse now.”
They sat in silence and Layne finally spoke up.
“What if you stayed here with us?” she said, snuggling the little puppy close. “We could fix the shed up and make it a nice little house for you two.”
“Are you serious?” Tobi asked, wide-eyed. “Jax, you don’t have to agree to that. It’s a huge risk to take. We can figure something out. Seriously. We may not be welcome back at Hex, but we can find something.”
“Actually,” Jax said, “I think it would be great if we stuck together. There’s safety in numbers after all. And I missed you a lot. Besides, if we’re going to be having a baby, I’d love for it to have a big family.”
“What do you think about it, Sam?” Tobi asked.
“Anywhere is better than the bigots at Hex,” she said, looking down at the ground. The group sat in stunned silence as it became clear that a new arrangement had been made. Sam and Tobi were there to stay.
With Sam and Tobi cozied up in the small living room, keeping the puppy company that night, Jax examined the bruises on Layne’s face.
“I hate seeing you hurt,” Jax said, his eyes stormy. “It’s worse than you can imagine. I don’t mean to treat you like a little kid. I’ve just never loved somebody so much that their pain felt so much like my own.”
“Well you’re going to have to get used to it,” Layne said softly, pulling his strong hand toward her belly and pressing it firmly over it.
Jax gazed at his beautiful lover. She had never seemed more vibrant than she did now as her gentle eyes held his gaze.
“I guess I will,” he agreed, the reality of parenthood now seeming more real than ever. “I don’t want to mess up.”
“We can’t mess up any more than our own parents did,” she laughed. “Who knows what will happen. We just have to do our best in the here and now.”
“Speaking of the here and now,” Jax said, eyeing Layne with a gleam in his eye. “I’ve never wanted you more.”
“We’d have to be really quiet,” she laughed softly. Jax was surprised. He was used to outright rejection.
“Of course,” he said with a grin, pulling her shirt over her head and revealing her perfect body. She was glowing golden from the candles that were lighting the bedroom, and she gasped as his mouth hungrily found her neck, sending sensual shivers down her body. He cupped his hand over her breast, gently stroking her nipple before planting hot kisses down her torso.
Her body filled with longing, a friend she had been missing in the first weeks of pregnancy. She felt bad leaving Jax unsatisfied, but she finally felt ready for him. She wrapped her arms around him and laughed softly as he briefly lifted her, scooting himself between her legs. He easily pulled himself out of his loose pajama pants, and she held back a groan as the head of his penis started massaging her middle, sending shivers all throughout her body. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as he gently stripped her until she was naked, splayed before him. It had been so long since she’d been touched that she was shaking. He rubbed her arms in his strong hands.
“Are you cold?” his deep voice whispered.
“No…”
“Oh,” he said. “Good.”
He lowered his mouth over one of her breasts and tugged it softly with his teeth. She moaned softly, despite her effort to hold back her noises, and squirmed beneath him. He slipped himself up and down her hot folds until his shaft was shimmering with the liquid testament of her longing.
Every inch of her body was on fire as he pushed himself inside, and she gripped his shoulder tightly as his strong, capable thighs pressed against hers. She loved the way he felt. Even when she was mad at him, his body felt unbelievably good against hers. It was impossible to hold a grudge when he made her quake with desire and sent her to a state of bliss she had thought was purely fictional until she met him.
She exhaled softly as he began dragging his shaft slowly in and out of her. It was as if he could sense her urgency, and her desperate desire to come just made him want to tease her more. She buckled against him, silently begging him to go harder, faster, anything that would take her to her climax, but he grinned confidently down at her, his handsome face flawless in the golden glow of the candle. His broad, muscular body paused inside of her for a moment and she closed her eyes. She could feel him pulsing inside of her, and she knew he enjoyed the feeling of her walls closing in on him. It was delicious torture, until finally he rammed hard inside of her and her body was electrified by an unexpected shockwave of pleasure.
“Shhh,” Jax reminded her, a sly grin lighting his handsome face up. She stroked his hard abdomen, letting her fingers linger on his tight muscles as he paused inside of her.
“You don’t mean that,” she said, moving her hips up and sliding herself along the length of his shaft. “You want me to beg and wake up the whole house.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” he whispered, holding back his own moan of pleasure as she moved her body against his stiff cock.
“Not gonna happen,” she said, shaking her head.
“Not if you just take what you want like that, no,” he replied, suddenly on top of her, pinning her wrists to the bed and pulling himself out of her. She squirmed underneath him, silently pleading for him to enter her again, but refusing to speak. The power was out of her hands and now she would have to wait for it.
“Is this punishment for not putting out for so long?” Layne asked with a grin.
“Nah,” he replied. He allowed his pulsing cock to hover lightly against her, and she pressed hard against it, inviting him inside. He wanted to see how long he could hold out, see if he could make her ask him for what she wanted.
He lowered his hot lips over her nipple and sucked, sliding himself against her clit until she was moaning out loud despite her impressive self-restraint. Finally, her voice, clear and sweet, whispered into his ear.
“Please.”
That was all he needed. He plunged inside her with his full force, lifting her hips off the bed with his hands so he could hammer inside of her as hard as he could. She gripped his shoulders, biting one of them to keep from screaming as waves and waves of pleasure crashed over her body. She could feel every inch of him hard and unbridled in her body, and let him use her however he wanted to.
He rammed his powerful hips against hers until she began to shudder under the force. His strong arms held her still as he felt the hot rush of her orgasm engulf his shaft.
He was still going strong though, and flipped her over onto the bed so that he could see the curve of her back and enter her from behind. She moaned when he curled his arm around her waist and massaged her clit with his broad fingers as he began to slip gently inside of her once again. She hissed in pleasure as his cock burst into her, putting her immediately on the brink of another orgasm before she had fully finished the last one.
She closed her eyes in bliss as he released the pent up frustration he’d felt over the past few weeks, punishing her body with his until she had quaked around his shaft again. Her body squeezed his mercilessly as she came again, until he couldn’t help but hiss. He squeezed her ass as his cock trembled inside of her, and she closed her eyes, uttering a deep moan as his orgasm burst inside of her, enhancing the pleasure of hers. He stayed inside of her, thrusting hard until every last drop was inside of her, and then they collapsed in the bed together breathlessly.
“I really missed you,” Layne said.
Jax kissed her forehead.
“I missed you too,” he replied. “At least with Sam and Tobi here, it’s never going to be so lonely again.”
She smiled at the thought. She really seemed to be hitting it off with Sam, and it was nice to see Jax loosen up around his old friend. Things had definitely just gotten a lot more interesting.
THE END
The Story continues in Books 4 and 5…available on Amazon…
Highlander Time Travel Romance
Into the Highlander’s Arms
Samantha Leal
Copyright ©2015 by Samantha Leal. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Thank you so much for your interest in my work!
1.
Zoe rolled over and turned off her alarm. It was 7:00 am and it had been blaring at her for half an hour. Even though she’d been determined to get up early, she found herself repeatedly hitting the snooze button and dozing under her quilt.
The cold nipped her skin each time she moved the blanket and she knew the second she actually got out of bed she was going to be miserable.
It was mid fall and the days had gone from sunny and mild, to murky and cold within the space of a week. She was resisting giving in and turning on her heating for fear of her
bills rising too high too early in the year… She liked to save those kind of luxuries for the dead of winter.
Zoe rubbed her eyes and looked across the room to the door of her bathroom. She could drag the quilt with her and turn on the shower, letting it all get steamy and warm before getting undressed, but she was already running late and she couldn’t make a bad impression on her first day. She sighed and quickly threw the cover off herself, jumped to her feet and ran into the bathroom. With as much speed as she could muster for someone still half asleep, she flicked on the shower and whipped off her clothes before climbing over the side of the tub and dancing about in the warming water.
It wasn’t quite how she had envisioned her first day of her new job, but at least she was up and running.
After Zoe showered, she dried her hair and tied it into a tight ponytail. She moisturized her skin and made her lips dewy with gloss before she slipped into a pencil skirt and a tight cardigan and tied a red scarf around her neck. In her mind’s eye, she would look intellectual, perfect for her first day at work in one of the city’s oldest libraries, but in reality, as she looked at herself in the mirror, she looked more like a flight attendant. She scrunched up her face with disappointment and flashed a glance up at the clock. She didn’t have time to change, so it would have to do. She grabbed her coat and her keys and trotted out of the door of her apartment and into the cold autumn day.
The job at the library had been one of Zoe’s steps to begin again after her latest failed relationship. When she met Ross, she thought they were meant to be, but after just a short time, she learned that he wasn’t the man she thought he was. He’d broken her heart, even though she would never admit it to him, and after stewing for a few weeks, she decided that she needed a clean break and to mix things up. Her life had been stagnant for too long, and she wanted new and exciting experiences. She had quit her job as a receptionist at a law firm and landed the job at the library as an assistant librarian. It was something completely different to anything she had done before and she was sure it would open her mind to a whole other world of possibilities. She day-dreamed about meeting a scholar from Harvard or a professor who would be there researching and poring over ancient tomes. Maybe she would even be inspired to go back to college and take up a new subject. That was the magical pull of an old library—there was so much information under one roof, she was never going to be bored.