by Hazel Parker
And when she was on the bed, she was laid out waiting for me. I leaned forward and kissed her again, playing with her body and her breasts as I positioned my cock just outside. And then I slid in.
And holy fuck. Holy fucking shit. I didn’t care if this was a dream. It sure felt as real as any sex I’d ever had.
I pressed deep inside of her, feeling her pussy wrap around my cock. It felt like my eyes were going to roll to the back of my head for how good this felt. Her moaning only added to my pleasure, and I just started jackhammering away as hard as I could.
Her breasts pressed into my skin. Her mouth sucked on my neck. Her pussy enveloped my cock. Every part of my body was just doused in ecstasy and pleasure. I held her curvy body against mine, relishing every moment of it.
But this wasn’t enough. I sat up, put my hand around her throat, and gripped lightly. And she fucking loved it.
“Harder, Burke, harder!”
I did as commanded. My cock was swelling and reaching the point of no return fast. Only a matter of time before I gave in…
But no, I would do it on my terms.
I pulled out, flipped her on her stomach, stared at that magnificent ass, and took her doggy style. I grabbed her hair and pulled her in, squeezing her breasts with my other hand.
That was the magic trick. That got me to the point where climax was near. I felt my cock swelling, ready to explode. It was…right…fucking…
There!
I came into her as my body shook, and I let out a guttural cry of pleasure. My legs were shaking as I finished. I looked at her as she looked back at me.
“Just wait,” she said.
“Wait?” I said, half in the most blissful state ever, half trying to make sense of the real thing.
“Until the real deal.”
“The what?”
She pointed over my shoulder. Still naked, I turned around. The light was suddenly blinding. I could hear beeping again.
And I was back in the hospital room.
“Holy fuck,” I muttered to myself as I came to from my dream.
“Welcome back.”
Scott?
“Sounds like you were having a good dream.”
I grunted.
I tried to sit up, but I was in significant pain.
“Easy boy. You got shot in the chest and shoulder. Kind of a miracle you’re still alive.”
“And Snake?”
Scott bit his lip.
“Let me call Liam in here. We’ll go over details.”
So no. This battle isn’t over.
Not to kill Snake.
And not to get Emily.
Chapter 17: Emily
Two days later, and I still found myself stunned by what had transpired in the last few weeks. Everything had been such a whirlwind and as much as I wanted to I couldn’t get Burke off my mind.
All the same, by now, I was slowly starting to regain my sense of normalcy. I was pregnant. I didn’t know if both had taken, but at least one had.
In any case, I no longer found myself in the misery of my past self. I had now gone into the office multiple days in a row and found something of a groove. I’d worked out both days, losing myself in the jogs and bike rides I liked to take. Trying to create normalcy.
It was evening when I got a phone call from my doctor. I hurriedly grabbed the phone, now the only number that would have made me really move with anticipation.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Lorne, I’ve got news,” he said. “Your ultrasound results came back. Both embryos took. You’ll be having fraternal twins.”
Twins!
“Oh, wow, wow,” I said, repeating myself, at a complete loss of words for anything else.
Yeah, it was…it was something. I at least had told Burke, so any guilt I would have felt from before wasn’t as extreme here. There was a brief pain at the thought that Burke wouldn’t be there, but having already gone through that cycle once before, I mostly just felt relief at everything.
“Very exciting news. Congratulations!”
“Yes, definitely, thank you!”
I hung up shortly after, in something of an excited state. I’d literally gotten more than I had bargained for. I had hoped merely to have a child, and now I found myself having twins. Admittedly, there was a brief moment where I wondered if I was biting off more than I could chew, if I was positioning myself to suffer as a single mom, but it felt like a good problem to face.
I had money. I had time. I had resources.
The only thing I didn’t have was a man, but I could take care of that later. For now, I had to share the official good news with Kelly—and no amount of previous phone calls or anything of that nature would stop me from calling her.
I dialed her number immediately, and thankfully, the time zone difference meant she’d be wrapping up her day, not starting it out. I hadn’t spoken to her since Liam had gone off for a spell, so I could only hope that he’d returned. It would be making her life a hell of a lot easier.
“Emily,” Kelly said on the other end of the line. She sounded concerned, but not in a panicked way. Like she was expecting me to call with bad news or something.
“Kelly! I just heard from the doc, and guess what?”
“Oh my god! What?” Kelly said, now sounding very excited.
“I’m going to have twins!”
“Twins?!!”
Kelly sounded excited but also confused. I understood.
“I…yeah, I didn’t want to take the risk of only implanting one and it not taking. I felt like I had to do it.”
“Wow Emily, that’s amazing new. But twins? You’re crazy Momma! I thought you wanted one child.”
“I did, but…well, I went for it. Burke wasn’t very happy about it. He left papers and instructions so I can complete the transaction. It felt very cold and impersonal. I was hoping it could have been more. It felt like we could have… .”
“I…”
“It’s just bullshit. I just want to have him sit down and have a full conversation with me. Not this nonsense about legal docs and addresses and—”
“Emily.”
There was something unusually harsh and strong in Kelly’s words that made me stop dead in my tracks. Something ominous. I got a sinking feeling in my gut.
“Burke got seriously injured on their mission, Liam told me when he said why he wasn’t going to be home yet.”
Seriously injured…
Oh, fuck.
Was Burke going to…die? Was I finally going to have kids, only for their father to die before they even developed hearts?
“Where are they?” I said, almost afraid to know the answer.
“I don’t know,” Kelly said, sounding pained at how honest her answer was. “It’s all just…sort of a blur right now.”
“Seriously injured, like he might die?”
“Liam said ‘we almost lost Burke. He’s seriously injured.’ I wish I could say that meant at one point, he was in danger, but…”
But it was impossible to say.
Burke was still alive, but that could change at any moment. How tragic. How terrible. How gut-wrenching.
I was fully prepared to raise these kids alone, but that was now revealing itself to be a thought as durable as wet paper.
“That breaks my heart for a few different reasons.”
I wanted Burke around. I wanted him in my life. But I didn’t want a man who was in a dangerous job like this.
I just didn’t know. I just didn’t fucking know. I just didn’t want him to die.
“Keep me updated if you can, Kelly.”
“I will.”
We hung up right after. But I couldn’t say I felt any better about everything. If anything, the only thing I knew for certain was I hoped Burke lived.
Everything beyond that was as big a mystery as I had ever encountered.
Chapter 18: Burke
The grim expression on Liam’s face when he entered confirmed what I suspected without an
yone having to say a word.
We had not succeeded in killing Snake. And because of that, I had a bad feeling that things were going to get worse before they got better. Far worse.
“When you got shot, we thought you were a goner,” Scott began. “We were left with a choice. Pursue Snake and sacrifice you and likely ourselves, or rescue you and live to fight another day. You saw how dangerous it was. We didn’t think it was a worthwhile gamble. It does no good for us to ‘say’ we fought but failed. We’re only in this to kill Snake, not to die martyrs.”
“So we let him get away,” Liam said. “But we’re all alive. We can still fight.”
“For now,” I grumbled.
We might have escaped Snake’s clutches, but the only thing this guaranteed was that he would come back after us more pissed off than before. He’d hunt us down now one by one. Before Scott and Kaylie had been a thing, there was always a distance, but that distance had closed through the years.
Now, that distance was completely shut down. And now, Snake would be seeing red like a bull in ring. And a wild Snake thrashing about was a threat to anyone and everyone.
“So he’s going to come after us one by one.”
“That’s what I think too,” Scott said. “The most likely outcome of all of this is that Snake tries to hunt us one by one. This is personal for him now. He doesn’t have a tight-knit group by his side, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try and send people after us.”
I grimaced. I knew what this meant. It wasn’t just us that was in danger.
Their families were in danger.
Ours.
Not theirs. Ours. I technically have a kid on the way.
The thought lingered with me, even as Scott and Liam continued to discuss plans and consequences of everything that had happened. All I knew was that I needed to get to Miami and fucking fast. Unfortunately, while I needed to get back, I wasn’t willing to die because I hadn’t let my wounds healed properly.
“We’re going to get everyone up to the mansion in Maine to hideout,” Scott said. “We’re going to ride it out accordingly. Burke, I think you should get Emily up there.”
I chuckled. I didn’t know how I felt that Scott considered Emily as much a part of me as Kelly was to Liam. I suppose I should have appreciated it, but it just seemed kind of half-fucked up to me.
“Easier said than done,” I grumbled.
One, we weren’t together. Two, she had a job, something Kelly and Kaylie did not have to deal with. Three…of all the women, she seemed the least likely to listen to any of us. She was just as likely to tell me to fuck off as she was to give me the time of day.
And besides that, would Snake even know that we were a thing?
You really want to take that risk? You want to play with fire like that?
“I’ll see what I can do, but I wouldn’t count on anything.”
“Just do the best you can. Strength in numbers on this one.”
We talked a little bit longer about strategy. We all agreed that Snake was going to bring the fight to us now for everything that had happened. We understood that we needed to do our part to protect our women.
But Emily was not going to be so easily persuaded.
If nothing else, at least I had an excuse now to go and see her in Miami. But just as the last time I’d seen her had ended somewhat awkwardly, I had every reason to think it would be much of the same here.
One Week Later
“Well, I don’t know how you survived that, but you are free to go at any point.”
I nodded my thanks to the doctor. I hadn’t realized it before, lying in bed, but I’d also suffered enough damage to my legs that I needed to use crutches to get out. I fully intended to ditch those by the time I got to Miami to protect Emily—I couldn’t do much on crutches.
I was told to take it easy and let my wounds heal. Honestly, I intended to follow those instructions as best as I could. The problem was if Snake would allow me to have that time off. For that, there was no guarantee.
“Let’s get out of here,” Scott said in the doorway. “We’ve got a plane waiting to take you back to Miami.”
“And you?” I said.
“I’m taking Liam and his family with me to Maine,” he said. “The sooner you can get Emily up there, the better.”
“Fat fucking chance,” I said. “That girl wouldn’t go with me to Jacksonville if I tried.”
“Then it’s up to you to protect her.”
I nodded. We walked in silence to a car Scott had rented—or rather, they walked. I hopped on crutches. When we got inside, it felt like there was something unsaid.
Scott didn’t quite have his DOM fire like he usually did. Even Liam didn’t either. There was a certain sense of finality creeping in that I felt like none of us were willing to outright address, which was a damn shame considering. It needed to be done.
“Listen, Scott,” I said. “What’s the deal with DOM? I know we said we’re going to focus on Snake after this, and I agree, but man. I’m…”
I took a breath.
“I think once we kill the bastard, it’s time to dissolve everything and move on. You two are ahead of me in the family game but I have a kid coming into this world I hope to meet one day.”
Still feels weird to say, considering we’ve never even had sex.
“And while we need to kill Snake, no doubt about it, I think this group’s ready to hang it up.”
“If you weren’t going to say it, I was,” Scott said almost immediately. He hadn’t even needed to think about his words—they just came out. “I just don’t think anyone has had the balls to be first. But I’m with you. We kill Snake, and then we kill DOM.”
Wow.
It was that easy, huh? That was all that it fucking took to end everything?
And yet, by the same token, it felt so right. It was time. The other two had families. I see now it’s impossible to be a member of DOM and have a family.
In our twenties, we would have called ourselves sellouts. Now, I guess time had just changed things.
“Sounds good, boss.”
I realized I wouldn’t be calling him “boss” much longer if we closed DOM.
“Oh, by the way,” Scott said as we pulled up to the airport. “This showed up in one of the P.O. boxes we have.”
He handed me an envelope that would be used to send mail that couldn’t be folded. I opened it quickly and looked inside.
It was the signed parental agreement from Emily.
For something that I’d sent off and hoped would be signed as quickly as possible, it sure suddenly felt…empty.
I’d let my anger get the best of me before in an encounter with Emily. When I ran into her again—because let’s be real, it wasn’t an “if” question, not with Snake seemingly hell bent on personal revenge—I couldn’t let that happen again. Not if I ever wanted us to be something more.
“Everything all good?” Scott asked.
I shook my head.
“No, not really,” I said honestly. “But nothing I can’t fix.”
Scott nodded. I couldn’t blame Emily for the way she’d reacted. But I was determined to have her. I was determined to make amends.
I was determined to protect her from Snake at whatever cost necessary.
Chapter 19: Emily
It was a slow day at work, the kind in which I had plenty of chances to catch up on email and other menial tasks that I had missed from my week off. Occasionally, a direct report would come to my office and ask a question, but for the most part, the office was relatively quiet. I got to hone in on my duties with ease.
And it was wonderful. It was what I’d missed. Doldrum. Boredom. A quiet peacefulness.
So much of my life had felt like a chaotic mishmash of events that I had forgotten what it felt like to just be in an environment that wasn’t threatening to explode or implode at any moment. And wasn’t this what I wanted at the end of the day? Wasn’t it what we all wanted?
Yes, rais
ing kids would be hectic, but I didn’t think I’d want to live in the nightmare of constant trouble for the rest of my life. I suppose it was all for the best that—
“Sir?”
I looked up for a moment. One of my employees, Chelsea, was speaking to someone she didn’t know. I felt my heart sink and my adrenaline spike. So much for peaceful moments.
“Sir, you can’t be in here, sir!”
I stood up from my desk, reached under for some mace, and—
Burke appeared in the doorway.
And goddamnit, for as much work as I thought I had done in putting all of this in the past, I felt a warm glow looking at him. I couldn’t help but feel arousal and desire for him. I hated it.
And relief.
“Sir!”
“I’ll take care of this, Chelsea,” I said, coming around the desk to him.
“I—”
“Shut up and follow me,” I hissed. “You got a lot of nerve coming here.”
There was bold. There was audacious. And then there was just downright asshole, so much so that it bordered on making me furious—and that’s where Burke was right now. Coming to my fucking office? Making a scene? That wasn’t just affecting me personally, that was affecting me professionally.
“I needed to see you. You think an office is going to stop me?”
I shot him a scowl, but…
Fuck.
There was just something about Burke sounding so gruff and tough that made me feel like I was changing my mind on a dime. Call it the DOM Effect or whatever the hell you wanted to. Burke could make me see things in a way that I really shouldn’t have.
In fact, I now had to admit I secretly am totally and utterly turned on.
I walked him out to the lobby and to the stairwell.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I said as I took a closer look at some swelling and bruising on his face. “And what the hell happened to you? You look like you got in a bar brawl. And your chest…and your walk…”
“Fallout from work, it’s not a big deal. Listen, give me five minutes. OK? And then you can ask whatever they hell you want.”