by Rose, Lila
“Yeah, precious, that’s who’s fucking you. I’m the only one for you from now on.”
“God, yes,” I panted.
He moved, sitting down on the edge of the bed. When my knees landed on the mattress, I pushed up and then back down. Reaching around, I rested my hands on his knees, lifting up and down, riding his cock like it was made for me, because it was.
Mine. All mine again. Forever.
Travis smoothed his hands over my lower stomach, slid them up until each hand cupped a breast. He played, pinched my nipples, and then leaned in to suck one into his mouth.
“Close,” I muttered, lost in the feeling of him inside of me.
“Yes, Lettie. Come on my cock.”
“God.” I threw my head back just as Travis kissed my neck, sucked my skin between his teeth and bit. I came, crashing, milking, and rocking down on his dick.
His hands slapped down onto my waist, helping me to keep moving. “Lettie,” he yelled, swelling and squirting deep inside of me.
When I slumped against him, he laid us down with him still inside of me, as if he didn’t want to lose the connection we’d just made, and I was perfectly fine with that. His hand roamed over my arse, my back. God, I’d missed his touch. Having it back was amazing, so much so, tears welled in my eyes.
Clearing my throat, I ignored my emotions and asked, “How long do we have until Izzy gets home?”
“A couple of hours.”
I hummed and kissed his shoulder. “I could do that again.” Getting to my hands beside his arms, I looked down at him. “Think you can?”
His eyes darkened. “I know I can.”
* * *
Travis wrapped me in his arms, walking me into the kitchen glued to my back. We both froze. Sitting at the dinner table was someone I didn’t expect to see, especially since Travis’s property was guarded.
“You wanna fuckin’ tell me what the fuck you doin’ with my sister?” Talon demanded as he stood, crossing his arms over his chest.
I snorted and went to step forward, but Travis quickly pulled me behind him. I slapped his back. “He’s my pain-in-the-arse brother. I’ll deal with him.”
“No, Vi,” Talon said, making his way around the table. “Travis and I gotta sort somethin’ out.”
“I don’t think—”
“Lettie,” Travis said softly. Glancing over his shoulder, he shook his head. He looked back to Talon. “I know you hate me—”
“Fuckin’ oath.”
“But your sister cares for me, and all I can do is promise you I’ll never hurt her again.”
Talon stopped. His hands fisted down at his sides. He found my eyes over Travis’s shoulder. “You want him in your life?”
“Yes,” I stated.
“Fuck.” He sighed. He looked back to Travis. “You ever cross her in any goddamn way, she won’t stop me from huntin’ you down and makin’ you pay.”
Travis nodded. “I wouldn’t want it any other way, because if that ever happened, I know I would deserve it.”
Talon studied him. He nodded and walked by, hitting his shoulder into Travis’s. He stopped in front of me. “Love you, sister.”
I thinned my lips, so I didn’t cry. “Love you, brother. Even when you’re a pain.”
He grinned then. “I’ll tell Zara you said hey.”
“Do that. She doing okay?”
His face softened. Yeah, my brother was completely in love. “Yeah, she’s good.” He kissed my temple and exited the room. “Wait,” I called. “Travis’s people?”
“Unconscious, but alive. Got the brothers watchin’ them.” He waved over his shoulder and walked out of the house.
“Seems to run in the family,” Travis commented.
I turned to him. “What?”
“Knocking out my employees.”
That was true. I grinned.
Epilogue
Travis
Waking, I automatically curled Violet closer to me. It had been three months since she took a chance on us, and things were going smoothly. There’d been little things that got her back up, or mine, but we worked through them. Together.
“Morning,” I said, kissing her neck.
She stretched. “Morning.” Then she shot up to sitting. “It’s morning. Shit, Travis, you should have woken me. What happens if Izzy comes in and finds me here?” She slipped out of bed quickly and threw on her jeans and tee. No bra I noticed.
Lying flat with my hands behind my head, I asked, “Don’t you think it’s time she knows we’re together? Something I’m sure she’s cottoned on to already.”
She spun my way and glared. I smirked in response. Her hands went to her waist. “She wouldn’t have cottoned on if you’d stop touching me or kissing my neck and cheek around her.”
Chuckling, I climbed out of bed naked. Her hands dropped, her eyes raking over me, and it was fucking amazing to see them heat from looking at me.
I walked around the bed, pulled her into my arms, and told her, “One day soon we’ll have to tell her.”
She nodded, leaning back into me. “We will.”
I kissed her neck. “Let me get some pants on and I’ll see you out.”
“All right, but be quick.” She turned to slap my arse when I moved off. “I love that arse.”
Chuckling, I said, “I know, just like my cock.”
She grinned wide. “This is true.”
Smiling, I went into the walk-in robe, grabbed a pair of jeans, and slipped them on. My ears picked up a certain sound. I strode into the room just as the bedroom door came flying open.
Violet froze, a look of shock on her face as she stared at a beaming Izzy in the doorway.
“You stayed. Yay, now we can start our girls’ day early.” She skipped over to Violet, who still seemed in shock and was frozen to the spot. “Can we do my nails first? Then I’ll do yours, and after that, we can paint that mud stuff all over our faces. We need to cut up cucumber. Bethany told me she does that with her mum, so we need to, too.” She giggled, only to stop and look at me. “Daddy, what’s wrong with Lettie?”
Laughing, I walked over, wound my arms around Violet’s waist, and gently shook her a little. “Nothing, princess. She’s like this every morning without coffee.”
“Ah,” she muttered, like she understood. “Daddy, is Lettie going to sleep in your room every night now?”
Huh, since Violet was in a state of… I was still going with shock, or it could be panic, I told Izzy, “She sure is.”
“Yay. She’ll be like my mummy.”
Violet hiccupped. I rested my chin on her shoulder and caught her bottom lip trembling.
“Oh no, she really needs coffee, Daddy. Looks like she might cry.”
“You could be right, my princess. How about you head down there, grab out the milk and sugar ready for me to make her one.”
“I will.” She smiled. She turned and skipped out of the room singing some song.
“How are you handling it?”
She sniffed and spun so quickly I had to drop my hands and straighten. Her palms planted to my chest and she shoved me. “You told her I was sleeping here every night.”
“Yes.” I nodded, smiling.
Then she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. I wrapped her up again in my arms. “She didn’t care I was here. She said I’d be like her mummy. She really likes me.”
“No, precious. She loves you, like I do.”
“If you ever stop, I’ll kick you in the balls.”
Chuckling, I told her the truth. “I’ll never stop.”
She sniffed again, pulled her head up and said, “And I’ll never stop.”
“Stop what?” I asked on a growl.
“Stop loving you, you jackarse.”
Grinning, I kissed her.
“Yuck,” came from the doorway. “Daddy and Lettie sitting in the tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes…. Daddy, how are babies made?”
Coughing
, I turned Violet and moved her forward, as if she could protect me from that question. Only she was too busy laughing, probably at my fearful, wide eyes. I quickly told her the first thing that came to my mind. “Come back to me when you’re thirty. I’ll tell you then.”
“Okay.” She gave me the thumbs up.
“I thought you were getting out the things for coffee.”
“I am, but then I had a question.”
“What was it?”
She paused. “I forgot.” She giggled. “I’ll go get the stuff out so Lettie doesn’t cry.”
“Thank you,” Violet said.
Izzy ran over to her, hugging her tightly. “Anything for you.” A second later, she ran out of the room.
Once alone, I asked, “So you’re moving in?”
“I don’t think I was actually asked, more told.” She smiled.
“That was me asking,” I offered.
“Then yes, I’d like to move in.”
“I guess having you naked in bed is out of the question.”
“Travis,” she cried. Shaking her head, she made her way to the door. Glancing over her shoulder, she said, “Tonight, when Izzy’s in bed, since I’ll be staying.”
Christ, my chest grew warm. “That you will.” She went out the door and I called her back. Her head poked around the edge. “You’re my world, Violet.”
Her eyes softened. “You’re mine too.”
* * *
Violet
I never thought I could be so full of happiness and love, but I was. It had to do with the man in the bedroom and the little girl in the kitchen. Life wouldn’t be all perfect for us. There would be times when I wanted to throttle Travis, but I wouldn’t change what we had for anything.
They were mine and I was theirs.
Forever.
Acknowledgements
Amanda Berry, this novella wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for your begging. Thank you for wanting Vi and Travis’s book so much.
Lindsey Lawson, thank you for everything you do.
To my unwavering, amazing readers, thank you for your help, support, and belief in my stories.
Sneak Peek — Holding Out
Hawks MC: Ballarat Charter: Book 1
Chapter 1
With a bloody nose and legs, a split lip and wild tremor going through my body, I picked up the phone and called the one person I knew would help me.“Hey, wench, you never call from the house phone… what’s wrong?” My best friend’s voice had started out happy, then suddenly taken on the edge of panic.
“I-I, Dee, I need your help,” I whispered and looked over my shoulder to my passed-out husband on the bed.
On the bed where he had just beaten and raped me.
Yes, we were married; still, no meant no. Cries of pain meant something was wrong. Screaming meant that the one who caused it should stop.
But he didn’t.
My husband invaded my body and mind, ruining me in so many ways. I wanted him to pay for what he did. I wanted him to hurt.
But I was scared, and I only saw one way out of it all.
To run.
“I’m coming, Zara,” Deanna uttered into the phone and then hung up.
Knowing my husband was so high and drunk that he wouldn’t wake, even if the house exploded around him, I started to pack.
Deanna must have heard the urgency in my voice; the journey that would usually take half an hour only took her fifteen minutes. My husband knew nothing of Deanna, and I was glad I’d kept it that way. He hated me having friends; he hated me doing a lot of things, and stupidly I had listened to him at the start. Because back then he was different, he showed me the world and told me that he and I were going to shine through it all.
It took him a year to change, to become his true self, a man I would never have married if I had known how cruel he was. He liked things his way or no way at all.
Deanna came running into the bedroom; I had given her a key months ago, worried something like this would happen. She looked from me to the bed.
“That motherfucker.” Her hand went behind her and when she pulled it back around it held a gun.
“No,” I cried, my hand going around her wrist as she pointed it at David.
Deanna turned her hard gaze to me. “Look at what he did to you, hun. He—”
“Please, Dee. Please understand I don’t want his death on my conscience. He will be more hurt and pissed if we let him be and he wakes finding me gone. I need to get out of here, honey. I need to find a place where he can’t find me.”
“I want to hurt him, Zara. I want to gut the fucking pig.” Tears filled her eyes as she noticed the blood running down my thighs from under my short nightie.
A sob tore through me. “I want to make him pay in the worst way…and me leaving, escaping him when he thought I couldn’t and wouldn’t, will be my revenge. Please, please, hun.”
“Jesus,” she snapped, shaking off my hold on her arm and reaching for my cases. “Are you okay to walk?”
“Y-yes.” I sent her a pathetic smile and started for the door.
I wouldn’t look back. David was now a part of my past, and he deserved nothing from me from that day on. No thought, no tears…nothing.
Deanna was my guiding light. She had been since I met her at the library in our book group. From that night on she was more so. She took me from that house to hers; there she helped me clean up and after we started to make plans.
From her computer I emailed my parents, telling them I was now out from under David’s thumb, but I needed time to make sure things would be safe for all of us. I couldn’t and wouldn’t risk my parents’ or brother’s lives going back to them. So I moved, with Deanna, to another state. It was there I found out David had left me with last parting gift…I was pregnant. And I would say gift, because when Maya was born my heart couldn’t think of her as anything but special. She was my new world and I would do anything to keep her safe.
Six Years Later
I was enjoying the walk home in the afternoon sun. My boss had an assignment and she kindly gave me the rest of the day off. Maya, my six-year-old, was attending the school sleepover for her grade. So I picked myself up some chocolate, a DVD, a bottle of wine, and Chinese takeout for dinner. Even better, my best friend, Deanna was coming over later to help me make the most of my relaxing night in.
I rounded the corner to my street and froze. My annoying, but hot neighbour was standing out the front of my other neighbour’s house talking to the Campbells’ nineteen-year-old daughter, Karen. I hung my head, ready to stride past, humming a tune along the way to cover their voices. Still, her high cackle broke through, as irritating as always. I was close to freedom and just past them, deafening myself with my out-of-tune hum when someone grabbed my arm and spun me back around.
“Kitten,” Talon said.
My eyes closed of their own accord to cherish the sound. It happened every time I heard his deep grumble of a voice.
“Uh, what? Oh, Talon?” I blushed and bit my bottom lip.
He laughed. “I asked where Maya was.”
“Oh, um, she’s at school. Her class is having a sleepover,” I informed him. Though I didn’t know why.
“Right. So….” he began but stopped to look into my shopping bags. “We’re watching 27 Dresses, eating Chinese, and drinking wine. Sounds like a plan. What time do you want me to come over? I could bring dessert.” He grinned mischievously.
I looked around him to Karen. She huffed something and stomped off. I then turned my gaze back to the hunk with his messy, needs-a-cut black hair and dark brown eyes.
I’d never forgotten the day I moved onto the street and into my three-bedroom weatherboard home two years ago and learned that I was living across the road from the local biker compound, with their head honcho right next door to me. I had just moved with Maya out of Deanna’s house after being there for four years. I was feeling frightened and overwhelmed, as well as a little inebriated after having a few welcome-to-
the-new-house drinks with Deanna. Deanna left and I was in bed, but Maya kept waking up from the loud music being played next door. After she drifted back to sleep for the third time, I went—armed with the confidence of the alcohol—next door, dressed in my pink nightie with a kitten on the front and combat boots. I banged on the door. A short, hairy guy opened it and raised his eyebrows at me.
“Who is the freaking owner of this place?” I demanded.
“Yo, boss,” the man called over his shoulder.
And I swear my heart stopped when Talon walked his broad, muscular form my way dressed in jeans and a white tee with a leather vest hanging open over it. Everything but him faded into the background.
“Whadup, cupcake?” He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest.
My eyes closed. Until I remembered, I was there for a reason, and that reason was more important than Mr Hotness.
Upon opening them, I went straight into a glare that could scare most young children. His mouth twitched. “I just moved in next door. I thought ‘wow, what a nice place to start anew! That was until your bloody stupid music started blasting on a freakin’ Monday night. I have a daughter who is starting her new school tomorrow.” I stepped up closer. “Turn down the music. Now,” I hissed.
“Wow, boss, you have a fuckin’ wildcat living next door,” someone said from behind him. Manly chuckles began. I ignored the others and kept my glare on bossman.
“More like a wild kitten.” He smiled, looking down at my nightie. “Don’t worry, kitten. I’ll turn down the music. But, it’ll cost you.”
I blanched and stepped back, all confidence gone. “Wh…what?”
The men laughed louder.
“Just one kiss, babe.”
“Talon!” A woman growled from somewhere behind the laughing crowd.
“You’re a… pig,” I said and walked away. Not long after that, the music was turned down.