Jailbait

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “You mind watching my kids for a moment, Hunt?” I asked as the court was dismissed.

  Hunt gave me a thumbs up and walked out the door with my kids in tow.

  They went dutifully, not complaining in the least that I stayed behind to wait for their mom.

  I waited, my shoulders resting on the shitty wood paneling that wrapped around the courtroom.

  She finally got to me ten minutes later, being the last one in the room.

  She smiled up at me and then leaned upward to press her lips against mine.

  My hand found her ass as I pulled her closer.

  “Husband,” she breathed against my lips.

  She pulled back, and I said, “Wife.”

  She smiled wide. “Where are the kids?”

  “They’re outside,” I answered. “With Hunt.”

  She nodded, her lips pursing. “We should probably go. They’re wild.”

  They were.

  At four years old, our twins were the wildest that I’d ever seen.

  I’d been around kids before. Hell, I’d practically raised Auggie. But to say that I was prepared for my two twin terrors would’ve been the understatement of the century.

  We’d just breached the courtroom door when I heard Swayze’s name called from down the hall.

  We both turned to see the judge crook his finger at her.

  She squeezed my hand and left me standing there watching her go.

  When she reached the judge, she smiled at him and said a few things, then her eyes went wide and her shoulder blades drew back in surprise.

  Just as she was nodding her head and looking back at me in surprise, my phone went off.

  I pulled it out of my pocket and absently looked at the readout.

  Lynn.

  Lynn: Sadler was killed today in a riot.

  I grimaced.

  That was too good of a death for him.

  I’d wanted him to rot in hell for the shit that he’d done to my wife.

  My wife who now limped because she had a bad leg on each fuckin’ side.

  My wife who didn’t complain in the least about her circumstances.

  She just lived and enjoyed life.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked the moment that she reached me.

  She blinked at me. “Um, the judge was just telling me that Ignacia was almost killed in a prison riot today.”

  I blinked and showed her my phone.

  She read the text and her mouth fell open.

  “Well that wasn’t a coincidence,” she murmured.

  No, it sure the hell was not.

  “Mommy!” Moore screamed from across the courthouse. “We got a slip n’ slide at Target! Daddy bought it for us!”

  “He said that we could ride it down the hill in the back yard.” Demi clapped her hands as she ran toward us. “Can we do that? Please, can we?”

  I raised my hand at Hunt in thanks, and he disappeared with his wife in tow toward his bike.

  Swayze’s eyebrows rose in curiosity as she looked at me in surprise. “Sure.”

  I grinned at her.

  When we became parents, Swayze was, unsurprisingly, the more authoritative of the two of us. She was the one that was stricter. More strait-laced, and more unwilling to bend. So the kids going down the hill in our back yard was actually a fifty-fifty shot because it was just as possible that she’d say no. Especially since Swayze had an irrational love of her grass.

  One time, a contractor had pulled into it because it’d been the closest spot he could take without having to park in the mud.

  She’d lost. Her. Shit.

  I’d seen her upset quite a few times.

  But seeing her tear that contractor a new asshole for parking on her grass had been the highlight of my life.

  Speaking of contractors…

  “There was a problem with the pool house,” I sighed. “They fucked up majorly, and there’s now a leak in the pool. They’re having to fix it, and that’s going to set us back another six months or so. At least.”

  Her mouth went tight.

  For some reason, she’d said that we needed a ‘pool house’ or bathroom/bar/kitchen area so that the kids and the adults didn’t have to come into the house when we were having gatherings. She’d then asked me to find a contractor, and apparently the contractor that’d bid for the job at the best price, and had the best reviews, wasn’t the right man for the job.

  For instance, a building that was supposed to take four months to complete was now going on eight.

  He’d blown past at least six deadlines, and now we were at the breaking point.

  “Just tell him.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “We’ll discuss this when the kids aren’t right here.”

  Meaning she was about to lose her shit, and she didn’t want to do it in front of the kids because they were like little sponges and soaked up every single word said.

  There was one time that she heard Six say something to Lynn, and the two of them had repeated it, verbatim, to us an hour later in the middle of a club function.

  It was along the lines of ‘I want to suck your dick’ and Swayze hadn’t been happy.

  Not that she hadn’t said similar things a time or two. But it was embarrassing to her since the kids had said it in front of quite a few people.

  “I figured that,” I said as I hooked my arm around her neck and tugged her close. “How are you doing today?”

  She looked up at me, her eyes narrowing.

  “Why do you ask?” she hedged.

  We both knew she was pregnant.

  When we’d found out she was pregnant with the twins, it’d been the day that we signed for our house.

  It’d been more than obvious to me that she was pregnant, too. My girl barely ever cried. But that day she’d been emotional about the grass. The driveway. How beautiful it looked from the street. Me going to work. Her talking to her assistant. A flower that she’d accidentally stepped on in the yard.

  And for the remainder of those eight and a half months that she was pregnant, the damn woman had cried over everything.

  And guess who’d been crying like a motherfucker lately?

  Her.

  “Umm…” She hesitated when I did nothing more than look at her. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m ignoring it.”

  My lips twitched. “This is the second time this has happened on birth control.”

  It was, too.

  We were religious about birth control.

  In fact, I’d never once fucked her without first making sure she was protected since the birth of our twins.

  Meaning, just like last time, something had gone wrong.

  Last time it’d been antibiotics and the pill.

  This time it’d been antibiotics and the pill.

  When would we learn?

  “I should’ve known better,” she admitted. “I did know better.”

  I did, too.

  But when she’d gotten sick last month and had to go on antibiotics for a cough she couldn’t kick, it’d been almost six weeks since we’d been intimate. The longest we’d gone since we’d first gotten together.

  Hell, even after the birth of our twins, we hadn’t waited the required six weeks. We’d waited two and a half.

  Whoops.

  But this time, the six weeks had felt like forever.

  And we’d gotten a little… excited.

  “Hopefully it’s only one this time, Mommy,” Demi offered up helpfully.

  “Why do you know what we’re talking about?” Swayze asked curiously.

  “Because Daddy and Uncle Hunt talked about it in the car,” she explained. “And then told us that we needed to keep our mouths shut until he talked to you about it. Since he just talked to you about it, we can talk about it now. That’s how it works, right?”

  Swayze sighed. “I guess that’s how it works, baby.”

  I looked down at Demi, who looked like the spitting image of my wife. Then I looked at my son, Moore.

>   He looked just like me.

  It was uncanny.

  I wondered who the next one would look like.

  “Your sister called while we were on break.” Swayze bit her lip. “Her and ‘Dazzle’ are getting married.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Perfect.”

  She squeezed my hand comfortingly. “It’ll be okay, baby.”

  I looked down at my wife. The woman that I’d sacrificed so much for.

  And I knew it would be.

  As long as she was there at my side at the end of the day.

  “I know, baby. I know.”

  “Daddy, give me a ride on your shoulders. I want to see over this roof,” Moore instructed, holding up his hands to me.

  I rolled my eyes but picked him up anyway.

  “Oh, me, too! Me, too!” Demi cried. “Me, too!”

  I picked her up, too.

  And together, we walked to the truck and got inside.

  That night, as I was making love to my wife, I looked into her eyes and said, “You make me happy.”

  She winked as she ran her hands up the length of my spine. “You make me deliriously happy, too.”

  I kissed her.

  Hard.

  Then I tugged her even closer and finished us both off.

  It was only as I was nearly asleep that she said, “It’s twins.”

  I groaned. “Fuck.”

  • • •

  I hope you enjoyed Trick and Swayze! Next up is Hunt and Wyett in Doin’ a Dime!

  Turn the page for a sneak preview!

  What’s Next?

  CHAPTER 1

  What’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever broken. If you say condom, you’re going to hell.

  -Wyett’s secret thoughts

  WYETT

  Three and a half years ago

  “You are seriously the most selfish little bitch I’ve ever met,” my aunt Stella sneered. “I gave you a roof over your head. I gave you food and care when you needed it most. I gave you a life, Wyett.”

  “You sent me to boarding school on my dead parents’ dime,” I countered. “That doesn’t fucking count.”

  “Language,” she hissed.

  My brows rose. “So, you’re allowed to say ‘bitch’ but I’m not allowed to say ‘fucking?’”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’m allowed to say whatever the hell I want, because I’m the elder here. You’re just a little pissy girl who doesn’t like when she doesn’t get her way.”

  I tilted my head to the side. “Is that what you think?”

  “That’s what I know,” Stella countered.

  I was already shaking my head.

  “Here’s what I’m really mad about,” I said, leaning forward on the couch that Stella had purchased with my parents’ life insurance policies. “I know that you wouldn’t have anything in this house if it wasn’t for my parents.”

  Stella’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

  It was true, too.

  My parents’ will stated that in the event of their death, I was supposed to go to my uncle Deighton. Only, they hadn’t planned on my uncle being with them when they died. They also never expected my aunt Stella to crawl out of the hidey hole she’d been brooding in for ten years because of some ‘slight’ my dad had made against her and petition my mom’s best friend for custody of me.

  Because, if they had, they would’ve gone above and beyond to name my mom’s best friend, Andromeda, as custodian of me in the event that my uncle Deighton died.

  Except, they hadn’t expected Stella to give a shit.

  Only, watching over me and taking me into her care also meant that I came with a shit ton of money, money which Stella did want.

  Needless to say, Stella’s lavish lifestyle was something in which she relished.

  Something in which I’d had no choice but to allow because I didn’t have control over my trust funds until the age of twenty-five.

  But, as of this morning at twelve, I was now not only twenty-five years old, but I was also kicking her ass to the curb.

  At least, I was trying to, anyway.

  She wasn’t taking too kindly to the change.

  She stared at the lawyer’s papers that I’d had drafted up at the age of twenty-two and had perfected over the last three years.

  It was, I hoped, iron clad.

  “I don’t have anywhere to go,” she said.

  I didn’t fucking care.

  “I know,” I said. “That’s why I’ve so graciously given you six months to find a place to live.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t have a job,” she countered.

  This is probably the part where I should feel really sorry about the fact that I’m kicking my jobless aunt out of my house. But I didn’t feel sorry, not one single bit.

  When she took me in at the age of fifteen, I’d done my level best to be the ‘good girl’ that she wanted me to be.

  Only, she’d hated me on sight.

  Why? Because I was the spitting image of my mother, whom she hated with all her heart.

  Why did she hate my mother so much? I had no clue. But I knew the hate my mother experienced every time that she was around Stella, because I had experienced the same damn thing every time I came close to her.

  At sixteen, I’d stopped coming home from boarding school during the holidays—something in which she was none too happy about paying for because, and I quote, I was ‘too damn expensive to keep alive.’

  I’d always held my tongue instead of telling her that she was lucking out on me being in boarding school, because if I was home with her I’d cost her more money.

  At least that way, I’d been in a school uniform all day, she didn’t have to buy me food, and she could pretend that I didn’t exist.

  That had all changed when I’d graduated high school and had moved back home with Six, my childhood friend.

  Then, not only had my life gotten harder, but my aunt had gotten wayyyy meaner.

  So the animosity present this day had been compiling for years.

  The last straw had been when she’d informed me that my father’s estate wasn’t meant to pay for petty things like advanced educations. Yet, it could pay for her to get her nails done, and her hair highlighted.

  Needless to say, I was really fucking excited about presenting her with this paperwork.

  “You may live here until six months after my birthday, which is when it’ll be going on the market to sell,” I said. “And, though this is all in the paperwork, I’ll give you the highlights version. If you wish to buy it, that’s fine, but not a penny of my parents’ estate will be touched. You have been removed from all accounts except one, in which a monthly stipend of a thousand dollars will be transferred. After six months, you will no longer get that. All furniture, knick-knacks, and every item down to every single spoon, has been accounted for. It is listed, item by item. Even the belongings in your room. You may take everything that is yours that my parents didn’t buy. And I’ll be generous and allow you to have your clothes. At six months, you’re either out of here on your own, or I call the cops and you’re out of here not on your own. Your choice.”

  My aunt’s face was purple.

  Literally purple.

  She was so fucking mad.

  I stood up and walked to the door. “I’ll be seeing you around. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  With that, I left the house that I hated almost as much as my aunt and headed to my beat-up car.

  A car that I’d had to purchase on my own.

  A car that, sadly, needed a new… something. Probably everything.

  However, instead of buying something new, I’d left it the way it was. Maybe I should have bought a newer car, because I knew that shit was about to get ugly.

  My aunt was about to use all the money that she’d squirreled away from me, anticipating this day, and she was going to go at me with everything she had.

  My accounts would be frozen, and anything that I’d
bought with my parents’ accounts would be red-flagged as well.

  Meaning that anything that wasn’t mine before this mess started likely would be put in limbo as well—at least that was what my lawyer had explained to me.

  Something crinkled under my butt as I plopped down into my seat, and I licked my lips nervously.

  Pulling out the paper I’d printed at the library, I stared at it with excitement thrumming in my veins.

  Live-in property & pet caretaker needed. Four-year minimum. Background check required. Generous compensation. Marriage of convenience required.

  I wasn’t exactly sure why this entire thing looked so… exciting to me. But the thought of having someone at my back, someone that may or may not protect me in the event that my aunt screwed me like I knew she was going to do, made me flitter with anticipation.

  I had these feelings. These feelings of the wrongness or rightness of a situation.

  I’d had them my entire life.

  That was how I knew that the lawyer that I’d chosen—one of three—had been the right one, and the other two had been the wrong ones.

  That was how I’d began to trust Six, my best friend.

  That was how I’d avoided my aunt’s first and second attempted ‘hit’ on me, too.

  Yes, you heard that correctly.

  My aunt tried to have me murdered.

  I didn’t have proof, no. But I knew, deep down in my heart, that she had.

  I wasn’t dumb. Brand new brake lines didn’t just ‘go out.’

  And people didn’t just ‘accidentally’ almost-stab you with a knife when you just so happen to turn twenty-five that day and your accounts are officially released to you.

  Anyway, the feeling that I had when I read that ad? It hit me in a way that nothing ever had before.

  That sense of rightness had only been associated with four people in my life.

  My mom, my dad, my uncle Deighton, and my best friend, Six.

  Nothing had ever felt ‘right’ like this in a long time.

  And that was why I was meeting the man in an hour and a half.

  That was why I’d agreed to his terms already.

  That was why, in the matter of an hour, I would be getting married and making this official as could be.