Inked Babies: Epilogue to Inked Brotherhood

by Jo Raven

  And I should know better. I may lack the Mohawk, but I’m even taller and wider that Zane, and I couldn’t even save myself from my own dad when I was younger, much less Ash.

  “Motherfucker,” I hear Dylan mutter. His face is unreadable, but cold anger is burning in his blue eyes, and as for Rafe… I flinch at the look on his face. Where Dylan’s anger seems cold, his is burning. His eyes look like flames.

  “Anything else?” I force myself to ask.

  Zane blinks, his gaze empty. “I remember his car. He’d just come out of his car in the parking lot. White. A sedan.” He rocks slightly, back and forth. I don’t think he knows he’s doing it.

  Dammit, can’t remember ever seeing Zane like this. Sure, when his sister had been sick he’d been riding an edge of despair so sharp he’d act like a cornered animal most of the time, snarling and biting and hiding from the world, drowning in booze. It wasn’t that long ago, and this second hit…

  This second hit seems to have bulldozed over him, crushing him. Can’t remember ever seeing him so gaunt and exhausted. It ain’t right. Not right that I hadn’t noticed until now how bad off he is.

  Yeah, I’ll blame myself until I see him happy again, no matter what it takes. Just like I’d do for Ash. Just like I’d do for Erin, and my kids.

  Because he’s my brother, too.

  “I saw that car or one just like it a week ago,” Zane is saying, still rocking, his eyes blank, tracking something none of us can see. “Not far from there.”

  “How would you know it’s the same one? Lots of white sedans out there.”

  He glances at me, and for the first time there’s a spark in his dark eyes. “One side is dented and scratched, marked with yellow paint.”

  All right, then. “We’ll find out who this guy is,” I tell him. “And who the guy in the foster house was. I’ll do my very fucking best to find out the truth, Z-man, you have my word on this. We will protect you. We will do all we can to set things right.” I hold his dark, heavy gaze, hoping he sees I mean every word. “You can count on us. We have your back.”

  This Brotherhood is strong. We’re family.

  Now and always.

  Part II

  Asher and Audrey

  Scars Are Beautiful

  Chapter Eight

  ASHER

  “How many lines do you see?” Audrey asks.

  “I’m not drunk, you know.”

  “Maybe I am. Humor me.” We’re both kneeling on the cold tiles of the bathroom, but can’t seem to move from the spot.

  “Two. Red. Lines.” I lick my lips. “And that means?”

  She punches me in the shoulder. It’s like a kitten pawing at me. “Ash.”

  “What?” I grin.

  “You know very well what it means.” She starts to laugh, covering her face with her hands, and she sounds kinda hysterical. “Oh my God, Asher Devlin.”

  I can’t stop my grin from widening. “We’re having another baby.”

  The pregnancy test is positive. I knew it in my gut for weeks now that she was pregnant, and here’s proof. I feel sorta proud, and scared, and happy at the same time.

  I whoop and draw her into my arms to kiss her mouth. “I love you, Auds.”

  “Love you, too, but…” She trembles a little in the circle of my arms. “So soon? Scott is not even two yet. He’s still breastfeeding, for God’s sake.”

  I lower my hand to her still flat tummy. “And he’ll love a brother, or a sister to play with.”

  “It will be hard.”

  “We’ll be fine. We’ll do this together.” I bite my lip not to laugh at the look she sends me. “Well, I’ll help as much as I can. Rub your feet and all. Rub anything you need rubbed.” I lift my hand to cup one of her breasts, and yeah, I had thought her tits were heavier, and look, I’m right.

  “It’s your fault,” she mutters, that mutinous look still flashing in her green eyes. “You and your… your cock.”

  “It’s a super cock.” Apparently. I glance down where my dick is starting to rise to the occasion, tenting the front of my briefs. All this talk of baby making and the feel of her breast in my hand are giving it ideas. “Super Cock would like to say hi to Super Mommy.”

  “Stop it.” She punches my shoulder again, and I brush my thumb over her hardening nipple, making her gasp.

  Wow, her tits are almost spilling out of her fine-laced bra, and all I wanna do is drag her to our bed and sink into her.

  Looks like she’ll need some persuading first, though. Her fine brows are knit. “I’ll never finish my studies, not with another baby. Oh God…”

  “Hey. Auds.” I put my hand under her chin, tilt her face up until she’s looking at me. “Yes, you will. This baby wasn’t planned, hell, the previous one either, but we’re in this together. I meant it when I said it. I’ll help. We’ll find a way, and you’ll do everything you’ve ever dreamed of, okay? I promise.”

  She nods, her eyes filling up, but she’s smiling. “I want your babies, Ash. All your babies. I trust you.”

  My girl. I brush my mouth over hers, tasting her sweetness. “I hope I never give you cause to regret it.”

  “You won’t.” She smiles at me, and her expression turns dreamy, just like it did the time we found out she was pregnant with Scott. Her hand covers mine over her tummy, and I try to imagine us with another baby.

  A sudden stab of panic hits me, and I swallow hard. “Am I… Am I doing this right, Auds? With you and Scott? Am I…?”

  “You’re the perfect daddy,” she whispers, calming me down like every time my fears flare up. “You’re amazing, and I’m yours.”

  I gather her closer, burying my face in her sweet-smelling hair, and her arms come around my neck, holding me until my pulse slows down.

  I’ve come a long way in my confidence since Scott was born. His complete faith in me, his reliance on me, his smiles and rosy face make me feel I can take care of my family and not screw up—but hey, after having had an asshole for a dad, it’s been hard not to worry.

  And now another baby.

  I pull back and kiss Audrey again, to reassure her I’m okay. I’ve had my moment of insecurity, and now I need to bring on my A game and take care of her, because if anyone’s going to have a hard time of this, it’s her. I saw her with Scott’s pregnancy—the mood swings, the nausea, the changes in her body, and then the birth.

  I’m in awe of her, and I’m amazed she didn’t shoot me between the eyes during birth. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever witnessed. I hate seeing her in pain, and the actual birth scared me half to death, but the fact she smiled afterward, handed me our baby to hold and told me she loved me, that… That was the greatest gift of all.

  “I should stock up on thicker condoms,” I whisper to her, lowering my hands to her waist. “It’s the fourth time one has burst in these two years. No matter how much I love feeling our babies in your belly, meeting them and watching them grow up, you can’t put your dreams on hold forever. Two kids are a good number, right?”

  She laughs softly and pulls back to look at me. “Ash… I may have panicked a little, too, but listen. I promise you, my one dream ever since you moved into my neighborhood when I was little was to be with you. Back when we climbed trees together, scraped our knees and you put Band-Aids with little animals on them and told me scars are beautiful… I fell for you then.”

  “Auds…” My chest feels so full when she says this stuff, and she does, a lot. Almost makes me believe I’m worth it, that I deserve being with her.

  “I wasn’t thinking of wedding bells and babies back then,” she says, “but I sure as hell knew that the most important thing in the world for me was you. I wanted to be by your side. And that hasn’t changed. My studies can wait. Anything else can wait. I only need you and our babies.”

  I kiss her again, and again, my love hot and burning me from the inside out, twisting with desire. “I want you.”

  “That’s what got us into trouble in the first p
lace,” she giggles, nodding at the pregnancy test resting on top of the closed toilet lid.

  “Good trouble,” I tell her, “and now it’s done, so we don’t even need a condom anymore.”

  Her eyes darken and when I pick her up in my arms and tiptoe past Scott’s half-closed door to our bedroom, she’s already kissing me hard, licking at my mouth, setting me on fire.

  Like every single fucking time.

  ***

  I move inside her, slowly, gently. I kiss her, trail my mouth down the silky skin of her neck where her scent is strong, filling my senses.

  “Am I hurting you?” I whisper, hissing when she lifts a leg to wrap around my thigh, drawing me deeper. “I’m—”

  “Ash.” She puts her hands on my face, lifting it off her neck. “I swear to God, if you don’t make love to me properly, if you don’t go faster, fuck me harder and make me come, I won’t talk to you again.”

  I gape at her for a long moment, because dammit, she looks serious. “But the baby—”

  Her gaze softens. “I know. You’re concerned. But the baby’s fine where she is, and I’ll be perfectly fine. Even better if I come.”

  A snort escapes me, despite everything. “Auds…”

  “Love me, husband.” She arches her back and licks at my chin. “Like you mean it.”

  A challenge. “I always mean it.”

  “Trust yourself.”

  I suck in an unsteady breath. “I was worried about you,” I whisper.

  “But I’m fine. More than fine.”

  Grinning, I crush my mouth to hers and give it to her the way she likes it, pulling out of her until only the tip of my cock is buried inside her, then slamming back in. She mewls her pleasure, moaning in my mouth, and wraps her other leg around my hip.

  So fucking good.

  I’d been worried about her. I thought she might be pregnant when she was dizzy and nauseous, but then she’d told me she didn’t think she was, and worst-case scenarios flashed through my mind one after the other. I thought she was sick, something serious that might take her from me.

  Call me paranoid. In my life I’ve lost people important to me– my mom, my dad, Tyler—though he eventually came back.

  And then there’s Zane, my concern for him making me tense, distracting me in everything I do these days.

  Good thing Audrey is so sexy she won’t let me get distracted for long. Her long legs tighten around me and she clenches around my dick, wrenching a gasp from my throat.

  “You with me, cowboy?” She winks, and I shake my head at her.

  “Feel this?” I snap my hips, pounding into her and capturing her cry with my mouth.

  Oh fuck, yeah. Balls-deep inside her, her heat surrounding me, her pussy slick and tight around my cock, I give her everything I got. I thrust inside her, and we rock together, our ragged breathing filling the early morning silence.

  Her nails leave red marks down my arms, and the pain ratchets up the pressure, the need. My total and endless need for her.

  I lift a hand and play with a nipple, hard and straining between my fingers.

  She lifts her hips. “Yes. Like this.”

  Hell. “Auds…” I grind out her name again and again as I let go and bend over her, fucking her hard, fast, deep. “Auds…”

  Her eyes are wide, her mouth falling open as she comes apart, her wild red curls fanning around her face and white shoulders as shudders wrack her body.

  The sight, the knowledge I’ve made her come so hard, pushes me over the edge in a split second, and I groan as the pleasure hits, jerking my cock and unloading my cum in her pussy. The urge to fill her up is so strong, I press into her even as my seed spills out of her, trickling down her creamy thighs.

  So soft. She’s so soft under me, around me, her warm breath feathering over my neck as I struggle to keep my weight off her.

  I manage to push myself up on my hands, looking down at her, our bodies still connected. She smiles at me, sated and sleepy, and I lean in for another kiss.

  That’s when something alerts me to another presence in the room, and I have a fraction of a second to tense before a small hand touches my naked thigh.

  “Dada?” a tiny, familiar voice says from beside the bed, startling a curse out of me, and I turn my head to find our son standing precariously, clutching at the edge of the mattress, giving me a gap-toothed smile.

  Audrey starts laughing, and I gasp because my dick’s still trapped inside her, and every shake of her body jolts me.

  Which makes her laugh harder, and I pull out of her so fast I almost fall back on my ass on the bed.

  “Dada,” Scott says again, reaching for me, clearly delighted to find us both awake so early.

  “Come to Mama, cutie,” Audrey says, lifting him on the bed, giving him that sweet smile I love. She cuddles him to her side as she covers herself up with the sheet. “Aren’t you Dada’s little clone?”

  “Da,” Scott agrees.

  “The whole family’s on the bed now.”

  I blink at her words.

  Holy crap. The whole family. All four of us. And I can’t stop grinning at the thought even as tiny sparks of panic still fire inside my chest. Because, God…

  I’ve never been happier in my life.

  ***

  I’m still reeling from the news of Audrey’s pregnancy as I shower at the gym after a good work-out, then sit on the bench to pull on my clothes, thinking.

  About the future. About my family and how to best provide for them.

  I mean… Jesus, two kids, and I still haven’t chosen a major. I have my scholarship, and I’ve taken a part-time job with children at a local school. The scholarship pays for the college tuition and some extras, but the rest has to come from me.

  No money left by my parents. The house was sold to pay back the debts good old Dad had accumulated with his drinking and gambling habits. He didn’t leave me and Tyler a single cent.

  Which I was sort of glad for, until now. Didn’t want anything from the bastard who hurt Ty so much, who almost killed me. I’m glad he’s not around my children, even though I find myself thinking of him sometimes. Remembering older times, when he’d been kind, and playful, and a good dad.

  Before Mom died. Before he started drinking and hitting his own flesh and blood.

  I shudder as I pull on my shoes and tie the laces. Yeah, well. Maybe I was glad he left me nothing to remember him by apart from the scars on my back—but my family needs money, and I need to find it. I already promised Audrey and the Brotherhood I’ll never go back to illegal fighting, so that one’s out.

  Can’t say I’ve missed the blood and pain and danger of the Mafia world. It was such a relief to walk away from that.

  I know I should talk to Tyler, but he’s already been helping me out with money from his graphic design business, ever since he moved back to Madison. Money I’d been hoping to give back some day. I mean, hell, he has kids of his own, and it’s not like he’s making millions.

  So… I’ll talk to Dylan first, I decide. He’s pretty much in the same spot as me. He may not have kids yet but he has his little brothers, and he’s on a fellowship like mine. Maybe he can get me a better job than the one I have—maybe at the gym where he’s currently working after hours.

  And to Rafe. Rafe has a good business mind. He may have ideas. About a job, about a bigger place to stay with enough room for the kids, although the first person I’d talk to would always be… Zane.

  Zane, dammit.

  I rub at my eyes, suddenly more exhausted than the work-out warrants. A bone-deep exhaustion that has to do with the state my best friend is in. The pain he’s in.

  The unsolved as yet riddle of his past and the way it has intruded into his present, haunting him and hounding him. Making him sick and desperate. The image of him downing the whiskey Tyler poured him the other night won’t leave my mind.

  It keeps getting tangled up with the image of him lying unconscious as we found him almost two years ago, after h
is sister’s death. In a coma from alcohol poisoning. Vomit drooling from his lips. An oxygen mask on his face as the paramedics whisked him away.

  Fuck. I thought that mess was behind us. I thought we were all happy and doing well, but Zane… I’d fight anything for him, and right now I’m turning in circles, unable to see where the attack is coming from. What use are fists when there’s nothing fucking solid to punch through?

  Grabbing my light summer jacket, I check the time. Damn, I’m running late.

  Hurrying out of the gym, I nod at the owner and jog outside. I said I’d babysit Scott while Auds helps with the organizing of the upcoming weddings of Tyler to Erin and Rafe to Megan. At least she doesn’t have morning sickness like she did with Scott, thank fuck for small mercies. Watching her suffer through that almost broke me.

  Not as much as the birth, though. Christ. The birth broke me, and now she’ll go through that all over again, and I…

  Her smile flashes through my mind. “Trust yourself.” I can hear her words echo in my ears. “I only need you and our babies.”

  She’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. After the pain comes happiness. Audrey, and my life, taught me that, and I’d better not forget it.

  Chapter Nine

  Audrey

  Another baby.

  I’m walking on clouds as I kiss Scott’s rosy, rounded cheek and pass him on to his daddy—then get distracted for a moment watching those strong, muscular arms as they lift our son in the air, as those pretty pale blue eyes crinkle in the corners with laughter, as Ash—my Ash—laughs and makes faces.

  Looking so happy. As happy as I feel.

  I’m so frigging lucky. I’m married to the boy I’ve loved all my life, and have the most precious kid in the world. If you’d told me we’d be here two years ago, I’d have pepper-sprayed you and called the police.

  When I’d first moved back to Madison, I thought I hated Ash. Hated his dad for killing mine in a car crash while he was drunk, hated Ash for giving me the cold shoulder at school for years before that.