Sex, Vows & Babies: Wedding with a Baby Bump (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Heather Hiestand

“Good thing, because I’m the last you’re gonna ever have, honey,” he said, rocking into her even more deeply.

  Her head fell back as friction slid along her clit. She was so close. “Oh,” she moaned. “Elias.”

  His hands snaked up her torso as he thrust again, pushing up her bra. He pinched both of her nipples simultaneously. She screamed, losing it completely, convulsing around his rock-hard cock.

  “Good girl,” he said, rubbing circles around her nipples as she shuddered against him. “That’s one.”

  That sounded like a promise of so much more, but she couldn’t form a question.

  He stilled inside her until her breathing had slowed from desperate pants. “Ready?”

  “Oh, you didn’t have to stop.”

  “I want you ready to climb again, Shelly.”

  She used what little oxygen she had to respond. “That’s really thoughtful.”

  He chuckled and kissed her damp temple, then slid his nose down her cheek. The sensation was just this side of itchy, and she wriggled against him. He slapped one generous globe of her ass and pulled back, then thrust hard.

  She lifted her arms to the roof of the car, pressing her palms against it to stay in position as he gave her the ride of her life, using his large hands to pull her up and down on him. He sucked a tender point on her neck until she was utterly wild with desire, shrieking, completely lost to sensation.

  Then, he pushed his hand between them, and reached for her clit. “Come for me, Shelly.”

  And oh, did she obey. Stars exploded behind her closed eyes. She felt warmth flow into her as he spent himself, her pussy’s contractions milking him dry.

  She rested against him, absolutely drained, completely peaceful. “If I didn’t think we’d freeze to death I could stay here all night,” she murmured against his shoulder. “Am I ever going to see you again?”

  “As if I could let you go.” He gently pulled out.

  “No,” she protested.

  “Tell you what. I’ll follow you home. Or would you rather go back to my hotel?”

  She winced. Some kind of adult life she lived. “Um, I live with my grandfather.”

  “My hotel it is. Do you want to drive your car or just come in my truck?”

  “I’d better drive. My family would get nervous if they see my car here and me missing.”

  “What about your grandfather?”

  “He won’t notice I’m gone until morning.”

  “So we just need to make sure you’re up in time.”

  She smiled. He wasn’t judging her. “Exactly.”

  “Good. We need a round two. And a round three.”

  She giggled. “You’ve just made my entire year.”

  “Your entire life,” he corrected. “Now put your clothes on and let’s get going.”

  “Okay, and…” she hesitated.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want you to think I’m at anyone’s beck and call—I mean, other than my job. Yes, I cook for my grandfather because he never learned how, but that’s it.”

  “You’re a nice girl, and you obviously have a close family,” he said. “But your grandfather is going to have to make other arrangements someday. You get to have your own life.”

  “It’s hard to imagine.” Wistfully, she remembered her college days, when she didn’t answer to anyone outside of her classes and her waitressing job. “But as long as I go home in the morning and do about forty minutes of meal prep, I’ll have the rest of the day free.”

  “Perfect. You can take me out. I want to know where the deer and elk are hiding out at this time of year.”

  “Why?”

  “Cougar license, remember?” He nuzzled her neck. “It will be fun. We’ll go for a hike.”

  What was it about him that made her trust him already? It would be wise to tell her grandfather what she was up to. “So you want me to plan where we are going?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll text a couple hunters I know when we get to your hotel.” And she’d leave all that information for her grandfather. Elias was smart to give her control over their plans. It made her feel safe.

  ~

  Elias walked into the Woodland Post Office on Monday morning and checked the post office box that had been set up for him. Inside, he found one package. He ripped it open as he left the post office, discarding the packing material in a garbage can on the property. Inside was a burner phone. He tucked it into his jacket, protecting the electronics from the steady rain.

  Justice, his controller, wanted to speak to him. Since his trip to the post office had been scheduled, Justice was standing by, waiting for his call. Elias climbed into his truck, thigh sore and aching after the workout he’d given it over the previous couple of days, and drove down the street to a tree-edged church parking lot. He pulled into the deserted area behind the meeting hall and parked before dialing the one saved number on the phone.

  “Justice.”

  “It’s Flash.”

  “How is it going?”

  Elias heard papers rustling, and visualized Justice leaning back in his chair in DC, closing file folders. He wished he’d grabbed a coffee before making the call. The truck hadn’t exactly warmed up with his mile and a half drive from the hotel to the post office. “I made contact with our friend Dale.”

  “I saw you’d already loaded a couple of faces into the database.”

  “Yes. We met at the Stans’ bar. I updated the file with what I knew about Kenny Stan and the other man, Robert Critter.”

  “Your source?”

  “Shelly. I mean, Angela Stan, Kenny’s half-sister. She took me out yesterday on a hike. I wanted to quickly establish my hunting cover.”

  “You went hiking with a woman? Why do I think there is more to the story?”

  “Yeah.” Elias pulled off his ball cap and ran his fingers through his short-cropped dark hair. “You remember the first time you saw Evie?”

  “As if I could ever forget.” Justice’s voice warmed with the mention of his wife.

  “Well, it’s like that.”

  “With this Shelly or Angela Stan?”

  “Yes. Shelly is the nickname I gave her.”

  “I don’t care if you play, as long as you build the database. How is your leg holding up?”

  He rubbed his thigh without thinking. “Half-dozen or more escapades with my new lady, and a six-hour hike. It aches like a mofo, but I’m still standing.”

  Justice chuckled. “New lady, huh. Didn’t see her face in the database.”

  As if. Elias only held back his growl because he was speaking to his superior. “She’s not a part of whatever is going on. Eight years younger than her brother, focused on bartending and caring for her grandfather.”

  “Leaving this Shelly aside for the moment, let me catch you up to date.”

  Back to business. “Of course.”

  “Only a trickle of Syrian refugees have come into Washington state,” Justice said. “So we’ve been able to keep a pretty close eye on them. Unfortunately, a couple have gone off the radar. None of these folks came in well-documented, so we don’t know what we’re dealing with. Simple homelessness, a desire to live off the grid, or something more sinister.”

  “I haven’t heard anything about Syrian ties with Stan’s crowd. Dale did say one of his buddies has a Pakistani mail-order bride. We’ve seen how they can be a problem.”

  “Name?”

  “Connor Blake. Dale must have a file on him, but I haven’t seen him yet.”

  “Spent all your time with Shelly, I take it. And I get it, man, but now that you’ve established yourself, it’s time to get cracking. We need you back in Jerusalem as soon as you’re healed up enough to be on the streets.”

  “Still limping,” Elias said with a laugh.

  “Yeah, because you’re going for broke with your dick,” Justice said caustically.

  “Here’s the thing.” Elias swallowed hard. “She’s ‘the one’ and I’m going to have
to lock her down before my next overseas assignment.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I’m already naming our kids,” Elias confirmed. “Sometimes you just know. The mere thought of another man touching her has me wanting to howl at the moon.”

  “I trust you to stay focused on your mission despite your lady, Flash. While you're thinking about banging her, walk around town and take pictures of anyone who doesn't seem to belong there.”

  “Got it.” He stared through his window at leaves blowing around the parking lot, drawing a mental map of the surrounding area.

  “All is not lost. Being Angela Stan’s boyfriend gives you a front-mirror view of Kenny Stan’s life. Hang around that bar. Catalogue everyone. Get invited to the Blakes’ house and search it. You’ve got a couple of weeks to heal completely. I don’t want you limping your way through the Middle East. Too noticeable.”

  “I’ll do my rehab every day.”

  “I know you will. I’m more worried about you taking the rest you need. I’d advise some of the less-athletic positions with your new lady.”

  Elias chuckled. “Understood, sir. Two weeks.”

  “Very good. I look forward to seeing the database populate, and if you can find our missing Syrians, our superiors will be most appreciative.”

  “I’ll have Shelly register for some really expensive baby presents after I plant our baby in her.”

  “Perfect,” Justice said dryly. “Check your account in an hour. The information we have on the Syrians will be there by then.”

  “Yes, sir. Discarding this phone now.” He turned the phone off and dropped it out of his truck window, then drove back and forth over the phone until it was a pile of rubbish. After that, he ducked through the rain to dump the remains into the church’s dumpster. If there had actually been anything of value on the phone card he’d have used a magnet on it, but it only had the one secure phone number.

  He decided to get breakfast at the most promising-looking local diner, then do his workout. That evening, he’d head over to the pub and see if he could make contact with Kenny Stan or one of his friends. With any luck he’d run across Kenny or Robert, the other face he knew, at some point during the day.

  ~

  Angela wrapped her bar apron around her waist and checked her lipstick in the small mirror in the dank bathroom off the pub’s storeroom. If she was someone else looking at herself, she’d wonder if she had a fever. She was really flushed, probably from the total embarrassment about her outrageous behavior of Saturday night all the way into the wee hours of this morning. She’d finally driven home at two a.m. so she could get a good night’s sleep since she had to work tonight. It was hard to get up at seven to make Grandpa’s hot breakfast, but she went back to bed after that until almost noon. Thankfully, his developing cataracts meant that he couldn’t see her clearly enough to notice much.

  She adjusted her turtleneck to ensure the love bite Elias had left didn’t show. Grandpa might be half-blind but no one else was. Other than that, nothing showed, but she felt alternatively sore and extremely loose. Nothing in college had prepared her for two nights and a day of making love with a real man. Between the crazy amount of sex and the long hike, they’d both been talking about needing massages last night. So they’d stopped at a grocery store and bought takeout and lotion, then thoroughly rubbed down each other before making love another two times.

  Would he be done with her because she had made it so easy for him? What if he’d only been looking for a good time? She’d be crushed. Because she knew, no matter how long she lived, that she’d never have another experience like this weekend. Unless it was with him.

  Unlike normal, she kept her cell phone on and in her back jeans pocket, just in case he texted her. “Don’t be desperate,” she said aloud. But she was already calculating when she could contact him if he didn’t get in touch first.

  Given that she’d left in the middle of the night, she couldn’t fault him for not suggesting additional plans. If only he’d contacted her at some point in the seventeen hours since she’d left.

  “You’re late,” her father snapped as she stepped behind the bar.

  She frowned at him, seeing no hint of a welcoming smile under his salt-and-pepper mustache. “Not unless my cell phone has mysteriously stopped working. I’m exactly on time.”

  “You’re usually ten minutes early,” he muttered. “I have somewhere to be.”

  Not again. “I thought you were working with me until eight?”

  Her father pulled tips out of his apron, shoved them in his pocket, then untied the strings and dropped it to the floor. “Nope. See you later.”

  As her father vanished into the storeroom, she took stock of the current patrons. She would have trouble managing this many people alone. In a normal family, a brother might help out, but even as the crowd grew Kenny stayed by the dart table, playing games. At least his loser friends, who maybe stopped by to see him, drank, some of them heavily.

  “So busy. I hope we don’t run out of fries,” said Vicki, their waitress, at five-thirty, blowing her bangs out of her face as she passed by. “Fight night. We’ll have plenty of orders.”

  “Kenny should have stocked up yesterday,” Angela said, letting up on the beer tap. She set the foam-topped glass on the counter in front of a customer, then began making another round of Jack and Cokes. Rare that a customer requested anything fancier than that here.

  “I’ll check with Steve before I take any more orders.” The waitress disappeared into the back room, leaving Angela all by herself in the pub. While Vicki and Steve, the cook, were both Angela’s second cousins, their only connection was by marriage, and Vicki had such a bad crush on him that she made hanging out in the back room a good part of her job. At least they only served food from five to eight at night. Steve worked part time at one of the grocery stores to make ends meet, but Vicki waited tables until ten at night, when things slowed down.

  “When does the fight start?” Connor Blake waved to get her attention. One of Kenny’s creepier friends, his wife, Fatima must not have known what she was getting herself into when she left Karachi for here. Angela felt sorry for her. Fatima, of course, was nowhere to be seen. Connor didn’t waste his money buying her pub food, and she didn’t drink alcohol.

  “Six,” she said. “But the pre-show is already on.”

  “Cool. I’ll take a Miller.”

  “Yep.” She grabbed the bottle and handed it to him, knowing better than to make him wait while she finished what she was doing. He was the kind of jerk who would start swearing spasmodically under his breath if he wasn’t catered to immediately, and that made elderly customers really uncomfortable.

  “Put it on Kenny’s tab. He owes me.” Connor walked off with a smirk.

  Angela shook her head, pressing her lips together. Her father would not be happy about that. She quickly wrote it down in a notebook. When she looked up, her gaze connected with a bouquet of hothouse roses, complete with feathery fronds of baby’s breath and white tissue paper around the base. She recognized the work of the local upscale grocery store, though she’d never received one of their bouquets herself.

  “Well, hello, Elias,” she purred, inwardly dancing a jig. He’d shown up again, and in style.

  “This place is slammed tonight,” he said, handing her the bouquet. “What’s going on?”

  “You shouldn’t have. They’re so beautiful.” She cradled the flowers, drinking in the sight of her new lover, sexy in a brown leather jacket and black cargo pants, with his ever-present shades seated dashingly over his eyes. ““Big pay-per-view fight. Half an hour. Oh, wait, twenty minutes now.”

  “I see. I hope you like the flowers. I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

  Vicky reappeared from the back just as another eight customers appeared. She scanned the tables and rolled her eyes at Angela. “You’d better call your grandfather.”

  Reluctantly, Angela forced herself to focus on her cousin. �
�No, my dad made him work a couple nights ago. He’s not up for it.”

  “What about your mom? I can’t do this all by myself.” Vicky tilted her head in the direction of the new customers.

  Angela set down her flowers whipped out her cell phone. “She’s down in Roseburg again, visiting. I’ll text your sister. Maybe your mom can watch her kids for a couple of hours.”

  “Fine,” Vicky said, then angled her way through the tables toward the incomers.

  “Want some help?” Elias said. “I bartended my way through school.”

  “Yeah?” Oh, she couldn’t take advantage of him. Or could she?

  He nodded. “Seriously.” He flexed his hands.

  She couldn’t help but remember the way those talented fingers had played her body so recently. “Are you sure?”

  He grinned and walked around the bar. “I’ll put these roses in some water for you and find an apron.”

  “Okay.” She stared dreamily at him, admiring his round backside as he half-filled a pitcher in the sink.

  “Angela!”

  “Oh, sorry.” She smiled at the owner of the local Thai restaurant. “What can I get you, Mr. Lau?”

  ~

  Elias glanced at the clock on his computer on Tuesday afternoon. He logged off the database and shut down his laptop. Playing bartender on fight night had netted him a good thirty faces for the database. He’d even managed to learn about half the names. Dale would be happy to have a new photograph of Connor Blake, though it sounded as if the mail-order bride didn’t go out in public much. What hadn’t gone over so well was relating to the rest of the Stan family. Kenny had been positively nasty to him, despite his lack of interest in helping his sister with the busy bar. His poor Shelly took the brunt of her family’s laziness on her own narrow shoulders. They’d only made love once in his hotel room before she’d fallen asleep the night before.

  Tonight he hoped to get her out of there at a more reasonable hour. While he was completely convinced she was the one for him, he didn’t have much time to persuade her of the same. Soon, he’d have to be back on the road again.

  He walked into the bar at seven, knowing her father normally worked until then, if something more promising hadn’t come up. Much more empty than the night before, the bar’s two large-screen TVs showed the evening news.