by Paula Cox
If this were Eric, somehow allowing her to link her life to Jax’s, this was the moment when the other shoe was bound to fall, when the Big Boss would take his turn before the groom had a proper chance. It wasn’t Milo, it couldn’t be. But Lena still quivered as he pulled her close to his chest.
“Isn’t every old lady who goes through the wringer like that.”
Even Aggie nodded as Milo continued.
“So I’m saying thank you. And here.”
He wound his jacket around her shoulders, and Lena smiled widely at the feel of the leather covering her skin.
“And you have my word that no one will ever mess with you again.”
Lena smiled and flung her arms around Milo’s neck.
“I’ll say thanks, too,” she said. “But someone else need to…”
She eased her husband, the word bubbling in her brain as she took Jax’s arm, and turned his face to Milo’s.
“Tell him you’re grateful,” she whispered.
Jax tensed, and she could feel his need to fight and lay claim in spite of the ring on his finger. The last thing she wanted was for him was for him to scrape for some side of the mountain that Milo was sure to keep safe, and she reached for his ringed hand as Jax stepped from his side and stared into Milo’s dark eyes.
“Any time things get hairy,” Jax promised. “I’ll have no problem if you need me.”
“When, Kid,” Milo said as he slapped his back. “Might even call on both of you one day.”
Hands clapped again, and Lena thanked Milo with a small smile as she pulled Jax into her arms.
“But not tonight,” she said. “I want you all to myself.”
Easier said than done when the room danced around them and the music hummed. Lena let Jax waltz her into a corner, and he took her face in his hands.
“Did you mean it?” he asked.
“Mean what?”
“Do you just want me?”
“Jax…”
She had only wanted him from the moment she saw them, when they were children. His heroics in a stinking bathroom only turned her heart softer, and recent days put the point on it.
“I want you,” she said. “I want to…”
Lena teetered on the verge of an explosion and started to kiss him when she pulled back and shook her head.
“Come with me”
Probably the height of bad manners to leave a party in her honor, but Lena still abandoned the clubhouse. She smiled as the soles of her shoes pounded against the pavement, and looked up at him with a sly smile.
“Jax, I---”
“Jesus Christ. Just let me kiss you.”
She offered no protest and moaned under his mouth, his lips only parting from hers so he could touch her veil.
“It’s in the way,” Lena insisted. “Let me.”
Pulling it from her hair like it was nothing of consequence, Lena fell into his kiss.
“Better?” she asked.
“I like seeing more of you.”
His hands surrounded her breasts, and Lena moved to meet more of his touch when she suddenly pulled back and spied the bike over Jax’s shoulder.
“Can we go for a ride?” she asked.
“Now?”
“You going to deny your wife her wish?”
Kissing him again, she heard the party going on without them. No way she would let that linger indefinitely. But first she had to show him….
“Come on, Jax. Let me hold you like this.”
Jax kissed her at the edge of his bike and started to pull her back towards the party when she pressed her palms to his chest and shook her head.
“Let’s ride. I want that almost more than anything.”
Chapter Forty-Three
“In that dress?”
Lena smiled shyly as she hiked of the tulle skirt and rested her fingers to his wrist.
“Call it a jump start on the wedding night,” she teased. “I have to tell you something.”
Jax glanced back at the reception, his shoulders starting to sag even as he took her into his arms.
“We can’t just leave them like this,” he said. “After all this trouble---”
“We’ll come back,” she promised as she kissed his neck and cuddled close to his chest. “Pretty sure Artie wants to slip the garter off my leg.”
“After you toss the flowers to Viv.”
Lena smiled as she nodded her head. Seemed logical that they would be next, and the way Milo looked at him at them put the point on the fact that the pair had their blessing. Artie would have to spend the rest of his life treading lightly, but to be with Viv almost made it a fair trade. Maybe Aggie and Brutus would fall into place next. Anything was possible.
“I wouldn’t miss that,” she promised. “But right now…please?”
Jax honored her request and lifted her onto his bike. As soon as he mounted before her, Lena winded her fingers against his chest, clasping him close as she sighed into his neck.
“Take me away, Jax.”
He pumped the pedals and took off towards the falling sun as Lena threw her head back and started to unwind the braid surrounding her crown. One lock after another hit the wind, and Lena drank in the air flashing across her face. Deerfield looked different now. No longer small and stifling, a place that she was desperate to break free of at the first chance. Mac Arnold’s joint seemed as good a place as any to grab a cup of coffee, and she dreamed of their children stepping into the high school without a care in the world. Would have been nice for them. But there was no way to turn back time.
“This the spot?”
And it was the time to move forward.
As soon as the creek came into view, Lena let Jax lift her off the bike, and she melted into his arms. Before her heeled feet hit the ground, he brought her close for a kiss and twirled her hair around his fingers.
“Did I tell you looked beautiful?” he asked.
“I think so. But you can say it again.”
He responded with a kiss, and Lena kicked off her shoes, sighing at the feel of her feet hitting the smooth grass as she rested her ear to his heart.
“This works, too,” she said. “Come with me.”
“I’m okay right here, Lena.”
His hand reached under her skirt, and she smiled when he touched the silk between her legs.
“I like it more when there’s nothing here,” he muttered.
“Then tear it away,” Lena said. “I won’t mind.”
Jax honored her request with the deed, and she savored the soft breeze running up her legs as the heat from his fingers rivaled he pulse of her pussy and the need to have him inside her.
“Jax…”
She was ready to fall to the grass and spread her legs, eager to accept all of him and feel his smile mirroring hers on the cusp of a kiss. But she had to bite back her desire, if only for a few more moments.
“Soon, Jax,” she promised. “But first…”
“Don’t tease me, Lena. We’re married now. I can do whatever I want with you.”
He seemed so sure, and Lena pushed back as she narrowed her eyes.
“So that’s it?” she asked. “A few vows, and I’m you’re property?”
Not that she minded the idea so much if he was the one holding the soft chains, but she still thought… hoped that he---
“No. I’m your slave.”
Lena was stunned when he slipped to his knees and took hold of her hands. Kissing around her new ring, Jax eased her to his body and looked up at her with wonder in his eyes.
“I’m in charge then, Jax?”
“So you are. Come closer, Lena.”
Their mouths met, and Lena cradled the back of his head as she drank in the sweet sigh of his kiss. He moaned around each curl of her lips, and when he had to come up for air, Jax clasped her body closer and whispered into her hair.
“I’ll take it now,” he said. “You really gonna make me wait?”
She shook her head and pushed his fingers f
arther up her skirt, sighing when his touch lingered around her stomach.
“It’s almost enough,” he said with a small laugh.
“I think it’s more,” she said. “Jax, you’re not just touching me.”
His eyes squinted in confusion, and she pressed her lips close to his ear.
“This is your son, Jax,” she crooned.
Jax’s amazed eyes were given voice by the gasp leaving his parted lips, and she kissed him hard and moaned at the feel of his arms tightening around her body.
“A baby? A boy? But you’re…I can’t even tell.”
“Oh he’s in there,” she promised. “Forgive me for finding out on my own. But I…”
Lena kissed him again and laughed as his lips met hers.
“I wanted to tell you like this. Just us. Jax?”
Her throat tightened as he stared at her belly like something he was too terrified to touch.
“Not because I wanted you to look at us like this,” she assured him. “I just---”
“It’s a boy, Lena?”
She nodded as she stroked his cheek.
“And it’s ours?”
“You know I haven’t been with anyone else.”
The truth still seemed to take some time to work its way around him mind, and Lena held his hand as he caressed her tummy and sighed softly.
“I don’t even know what to say.”
“Say that you’re happy.”
He nodded at the suggestion, and she cuddled closer to his chest as her fingers moved down his cheeks.
“Happy? Lena…”
He kissed her lips, and Lena moved for more when Jax suddenly held back and pushed his hands behind his back.
“Jax? I thought you’d be---?”
She crawled across the ground, paying no mind to the grass staining and smearing her dress when she finally met his face and rubbed her hands down his stunned face.
“I am so happy, Lena,” he said. “But what if I can’t keep you…”
At the sight of him starting to break down, Lena gathered him in her arms and kissed his hair as she sighed against his skin.
“We’re safe now, Jax,” she promised him. “All of us.”
He pulled her close as he peered up into her eyes.
“Just that… even with the ring. Sometimes I still don’t think that I’m worthy of you.”
“Because they said that you were white trash in leather?”
“You said it, too, Lena.”
“When I was mad. I’m not mad now, Jax.”
They fell to the ground, and she stroked his cheeks with a soft moan.
“We’re worthy of each other,” she promised him. “And I’m proud to be your wife.”
Jax hesitated as she peered into his eyes, but Lena kissed him again and slowly started to loosen his tie.
“A son and a wife in the space of one day,” he said. “Like to see how you’re going to top that.”
Her eyes sparkled as she kissed up his chest and rested her lips just beyond his.
“I think we should call him Nathan,” she said. “High time your true dad had a namesake.”
Jax smiled through the tears that he struggled to fight back, and Lena squealed as her lifted her off the ground and twirled her around in his arms.
“Don’t want to name him after me?” he asked.
Lena kissed his cheeks and shook her head.
“No. You’re one of a kind, Jax.”
He seemed to like the sound of that and gently lowered her back to the grass. Jax found her thighs and moaned his delight when she brought his hand back to her cunt.
“It’ll be different,” he warned her. “Sure that you’re ready?”
“I went through fire and back for you, Jax. This’ll be a breeze.”
Jax held her to the grass, kissing every bit of her exposed flesh. His lips paused close to her breasts, and he propped his body up on his elbow as he stared down at her.
“I’m happy you came home, Lena.”
This was home. The way it was supposed to be. Milo would call on him; there would always be a kind of danger. But it didn’t matter when he looked at her like this. Nothing else did.
“Me, too, Jax. And know this: I – we – always have your back.”
THE END
Read on for your FREE bonus book – OUR SURPRISE BABY
OUR SURPRISE BABY: The Damned MC
By Paula Cox
The biker’s thickness gave me morning sickness.
I thought I could rescue him from a life of crime.
But the bad boy biker didn’t want anything I had to offer.
Instead, he wanted to give me something of his own:
The baby I’m carrying in my belly.
It was my job to talk him out of his way of life.
But Rust was playing me all along.
He didn’t want my help.
He just wanted my body.
Now, he’s dragging me into an underworld that I’ll never survive.
But I can’t say no to him.
His touch, his scent, his power…
It’s all too much to resist.
I’m a good girl librarian, not a rebel biker chick.
But when I’m on the back of Rust’s bike, I feel like the whole world is ours.
I’ll be whoever he wants me to be.
His ride or die.
His old lady.
And the mother of his children.
At least, until his enemies come for me and our baby.
Chapter One
Allison
My life could have taken many different roads, I reflect as I walk through the city, a spring in my step. In one hand I clutch coffee in a travel mug, and the occasional sip keeps me smiling. In the other, I have pamphlets advertising my social work services at the community library. My services cater for those in dire need; in my experience, there’s no other feeling quite like knowing that you’re making a difference. I’m sure I’m making a difference—or, at least, I hope to. Given time. I dream, as I walk, that one day the library will become a real community center. I see myself wrapping my arms around a small boy and telling him everything is going to be okay, see myself laughing with an old man and promising him we’ll get his second chance, see a group of kids offering me a thank-you card. Maybe that last one’s a little self-centered, but a girl’s allowed to be just a little self-centered now and then, isn’t she?
I stop by the Department of Labor first, a tall, white, smooth building with a uniform look about it: a mundane building, though the work they do is anything but. I go into the main reception area, where the receptionist, a young man with a tuft of brown hair and a freckled face, offers me a smile. I return the smile. I’m slowly beginning to make contacts, slowly becoming a regular face. People are already starting to redirect cases my way, and that feels great. I drop off a few leaflets, ask the receptionist to hand them out, which he promises to do, and then I’m back on my way, toward my car.
As I drive toward the homeless shelter, I think about Iowa, where I came from, and where I’d still be living if I hadn’t done something about it. I didn’t get into social work because of any past trauma. It was not that I was beaten, or neglected, or hurt. It was not that I remember feeling threatened or afraid or wanting for food or clothing or shelter. By any reasonable measure, my childhood was excellent—on paper. My father was an accountant and my mother worked in a bakery. We lived in a small town in Iowa; from about the age of seven my father would talk to me about the benefits of accounting as a career, how stable it was, how safe and secure, and from the age of about fifteen my mother would hint to me about Joseph Norwood, the boy who lived next door and seemed to be doing very well, whose mother my mother would have tea parties with. I could see it, clearly, as though they’d already recorded my life on video and were just getting ready to press play: a house on the street on which I’d grown up; a husband chosen and packaged by my mother; a few kids and a safe, regular, humdrum life. There’s nothin
g wrong with a safe, regular, humdrum life, but I always wondered: what else? Surely there must be something…
I laugh to myself, glancing around my car as I slide into the parking space: the open makeup bag on the passenger seat, the contents spilling over, the cardboard boxes in the back, full of books and pens and pencils for my creative writing program at the library; a soccer ball and a basketball rolling around loose. Most girls would have tried for California, Hollywood, or else New York: somewhere women went for lives of glamor and stardom, somewhere you could feel like a rocket ship, constantly going up. But no, I’d chosen Detroit, Michigan, and the wrong side of the tracks, too, the sort of places my father used to warn me never to walk alone.