Jace (The Black Hornets MC Book 1)

by Savannah Rylan

  Then, she finally spoke.

  “It had to be done,” she said.

  “I know,” I said, nodding.

  “I was going to kill him, you know.”

  “Trust me, so was I.”

  “No, I mean, I’d made up my mind that I was going to.”

  I furrowed my brow as a hefty sigh poured from Leti’s lips.

  “There was this peace that overcame me at the moment. I blacked out, but I knew what I was doing. And I didn’t try to do anything to stop it. I knew I was going to kill Sebastian, and my body was okay with it. My mind and my heart… they were all okay with it. And I don’t know what kind of person that makes me.”

  I started massaging her neck, feeling the tension rise in her muscles as fresh tears poured over her cheeks.

  “You should have let me kill him, Leti. I was going to do it anyway. I just wished you didn’t have to bear this burden for the rest of your life, beautiful.”

  “My god, I’m a killer,” she breathed.

  “You’re a defender. There’s a great difference. You avenged your brother’s death. Anyone of us would have done that,” I said.

  “I killed him, Jace. I’m a murd--I’m a--a--.”

  After what seemed like ages, her sobs finally filled the space around us. She pulled away from my grasp--away from my body--and curled up into a ball. She stuffed her face into her knees while her shoulders shook with her sobs, and at that moment, I realized something. I realized that, no matter what, I’d do anything for her. I’d do anything to keep a smile on Leti’s face. I’d do anything to take care of her. To help her. To protect her.

  She was my one and only. The one person I’d compromise every single premise of my life for.

  And she wasn’t going to cry alone.

  I slipped my feet from the bath and quickly tugged my clothes off. I slipped into the tub behind her, opened my legs so she could fall back. And the second I opened my arms to her, she scrambled into them. She turned around and straddled my pelvis, planting herself directly into my lap. She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face into my shoulder, unleashing her sobs.

  “It’s okay, Leti. I’ve got you. You’re safe with me,” I whispered.

  I rocked her side to side in the tub. I didn’t try to calm her tears or wipe them away. Water sloshed around us as bubbles popped against our skin, and I pressed kiss after kiss into her shoulder. Up and down her neck. Along her cheeks. On top of her eyes. I lightly fisted her hair and brought her face to meet mine, my eyes dancing along her saddened features.

  “How do I ever come back from this?” she asked.

  Her eyes opened, and the anguish running behind them was too much for my heart to bear.

  “You don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “The only thing you can do is move forward.”

  I brought her lips to mine for a comforting kiss. One I didn’t expect to do anything but provide her with a little bit of relief. But the second she pressed deeper into my body, I felt myself come alive. Leti’s tongue shoved itself between my lips, commanding my body and begging for a distraction. And I was all too eager to give it to her. My arms cloaked her back, and my cock rose between her legs. It sought its home between her pussy lips as her hands raked through my hair. Her curves blanketed me. Her chest pressed deeply into mine. I felt her hips roll as her thighs contracted, and my dick throbbed against her warm pussy.

  She rose up just enough to capture the tip of my swollen girth against her entrance. And like the two of us were meant to be connected, she slid down my shaft and enveloped me in her warmth.

  “Fuck, Leti,” I whispered.

  “Make me forget, Jace,” she whispered back.

  My hands fell to her ass, and I rolled her into me. My lips kissed down her body as her head fell back. I commanded her movements. Stroked my cock with her body in all the ways I knew we both enjoyed. I fisted her ass. Left my fingerprints behind on her body as the water rocked with us. I ghosted my lips down her neck. Nibbled at her pulse point and kissed along her beautiful shoulder. I traveled down her breasts, hearing her gasp as her body rolled quicker against mine.

  “Holy shit, Jace. Fill me up.”

  I wrapped my tongue around her nipples, stroking them to engorged peaks. They rose for me. Puckered against my ministrations as my hand migrated between us. I parted her pussy folds just enough to allow her clit to peek out. Just enough to let my wet curls brush against her throbbing mound. Her hands gripped my hair. She pressed me deeper into her chest as I bit down playfully onto her nipples. The water sloshed with our movements, becoming more frantic the more we thrashed about. I sucked marked against her tits. I rose my hips to meet hers as my sock kept getting swallowed down by her pulsing walls. I lost myself in her while she lost herself in the moment of it all, and my mind came to a grinding halt.

  All except one thought.

  And it was a thought I wouldn’t go another second without expressing.

  “I love you, Leti.”

  I grunted it into her skin, and I felt her stop immediately. Her head snapped back up before her forehead came into contact with mine. I released her nipples, looking up into her eyes as I held her against my hips. My cock pulsed within her. Her pussy walls clamped down onto me in anticipation of what was to come. My hands slid up her back, pressing her deeper into me as our eyes connected.

  “What did you say?” she asked breathlessly.

  I captured her lips within mine, feeling her fall into the warmth of my embrace.

  “I love you, Leti,” I murmured into our kiss.

  I felt her lip tremble against mine as she pulled away, her amber eyes finding mine.

  “I love you too, Jace. Holy hell, I love you so much.”

  She bucked her hips, and I lost control of my body. We thrashed against one another, pouring water over the sides of the bathtub. I slammed up into her, bouncing her tits for my viewing pleasure as her hair wafted around her shoulders. She clung to me, her nails digging into my skin as her head fell back. I wrapped my hand up into the softness of her hair. I guided her lips back to mine as my toes began to curl. My balls pulled up into my body, and the movements of my hips stuttered, and all at once I felt that telltale ripple massaging the underside of my dick.

  “I love you. I love you. I love you, Jace. Oh shit. Oh, yes. Don’t stop. Jace. Please. Yes!”

  “I love you, Leti. More than I’ve ever… loved… anyone…”

  We met our end against one another, our lips sealed in a sloppy kiss. My cock exploded against her falls, filling her until it seeped into the water around us. Her pussy held me within its vice grip. Tugging me deeper into her body as my hands pressed into the small of her back. I filled every part of her, just as she wrapped herself around every part of me. And when the two of us collapsed back into the tub, I felt Leti panting against the swell of my shoulder.

  I was wholly in love with this woman.

  And I knew I’d do anything to make sure she’d be okay.

  Chapter 25

  Jace

  Three Months Later

  “Good morning, my princess.”

  I rolled over and kissed Leti’s cheek as my hand slid along her stomach.

  “Mmm, good morning, my king,” she said.

  My lips fell to her neck as the two of us kissed ourselves awake. Her naked body succumbed to me, as it did every morning. We made love in the sunlight that streamed through the small window in my lofted bedroom and wrapped ourselves in one another. I’d woken up every morning like that for the past month. Encased in Leti’s scent and enveloped by her curves. But after the news she granted me last night, I was doing an extra tidbit of celebrating.

  “I love you so much,” I whispered.

  “I love you… too… Jace… I’m so close.”

  She came around my cock twice that morning. She unleashed her beautiful body onto mine, and I filled her with my essence. My lips pressed against hers. Our bodies writhed until we collapsed back onto the bed. It was a bli
ssful Saturday morning. The fifth of many I wanted to spend with her.

  I pulled her into my arms and cupped her stomach in my hand, protecting the two most important thing in the world to me.

  “I still can’t believe you’re pregnant,” I murmured.

  I kissed her bare shoulder, eliciting a giggle from her lips.

  “I still can’t believe it either. I mean, I don’t feel any different.”

  “Well, you’re not very far along at all. We’ll get more details at the appointment today, but I’m sure you aren’t feeling much because you’re so early on.”

  “So, you’re not upset?”

  I furrowed my brow at the question. She’d asked me that the other night as well. After she came out with the test in her hands with tears in her eyes. After I picked her up and swung her around. After I kissed her tears of fear away and made love to her against the walls of my living room, she had asked me that question.

  I smoothed my knuckles against her tears, watching her skin turn red with her frustration.

  “Talk to me about what’s going on in your head,” I said.

  “I just… don’t want you to be angry,” Leti said.

  “Why would I be angry at something like this? I’m having a child with the woman I love. Nothing could be better than that.”

  “But I’m a--.”

  I stiffened. I’d been getting on her about that lately. About the way she viewed herself. She still regretted taking Sebastian’s life. Even though the two of us agreed that it was better a man like that was wiped from the face of the planet. Every once in a while, when she doubted the moves she took and the motive behind it, she called herself that disgusting word.

  She called herself a ‘murderer.’

  “You’re not a murderer, Leti.”

  “I took a man’s life, Jace.”

  “You defended the honor and life of your brother. You defended yourself against the man that attacked you. It was self-defense, all the way.”

  “Not at that moment. He was tied down. There was no way he was going anywhere,” she breathed.

  I brushed away her tears before pulling her into my body.

  “Come here, sweetheart. I’ve got you,” I said.

  She was at a stage that took me months to get to after my first kill. It took me months to start feeling regretful for it. To start digesting what I had done. I stuffed it away like the tough man I wanted to be instead of dealing with it the way a real man needed to. Leti was having nightmares. Processing the emotions flooding her senses. And what I had to do was let her ride out her emotions, cope with what happened, and hold her through the more intense moments.

  “The worst part is part of me doesn’t even feel bad,” she said through her sniffles.

  “As you shouldn’t. That man was the scum of the earth. God only knows how many countless people he’s harmed in his lifetime,” I said.

  “Part of me doesn’t even feel bad that he’s gone. Part of me even feels relieved. What kind of person does that make me?”

  I crooked my finger underneath her chin and tilted her gaze up to meet mine. Like I had done so many times before, I dragged her beautiful amber eyes up to meet mine. It was a habit I had every intention of breaking within her. This idea that she had to bow her head to someone. I gazed into her eyes as her tears fell, unadulterated and unphased by the world around her. That was one of the things I loved about Leti. It was her unfettered access to her emotions that impressed me so much. After everything she had been through and endured, she still swept me off my feet with how genuine and real she was in everything she did.

  “Do you want me to tell you what kind of person it makes you?” I asked.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  “It makes you the kind of person that knows right from wrong. It makes you the kind of person that stands up for those you love. You weren’t willing to do anything to that man when he was simply coming after you. But the second you knew he came for your brother, the narrative switched. The story changed. You didn’t care what he did to you, Leti. But you did care what he did to someone you loved. And do you know what that’s going to make you?”

  She shook her head as another tear met its death upon the tip of my finger.

  “It’s going to make you one hell of a mother,” I said.

  I gathered her in my arms as she turned around and held her until her tears subsided. I closed my eyes and traced my fingertips along the stomach that would grow and morph with the life of our child. As we laid there in my bed--the bed she had taken up home within over the past month--I closed my eyes and dreamt of my life. A life with her, where we brought our child home from the hospital and raised him or her to be as strong and as capable as Leti was. She was an incredible woman. One I saw spending the rest of my days with. And as her tears subsided and her ass pressed into me, I pulled the covers up over our bodies.

  Both of us could use another hour or two of sleep.

  Leti and I had been in the middle of figuring out what to do about a place for her to live when we found out she was pregnant. And then, it became a no-brainer. I wasn’t going to allow the mother of my child to live anywhere except with me. She wasn’t going to be any further from my grasp than she had to be. With me--carrying my child--she’d had the full protection of the crew. Not just because she was a client, but because she was now family. All of us had made a vow to her to take out the cartel. All of us had taken on this case, especially after Sebastian’s looming threat.

  Because if there was a sinister force in this town pulling strings, they needed to be flushed out as well.

  Plus, I wanted to keep Leti safe. Especially since we knew the cartel would eventually retaliate for Sebastian’s death. The threat of the cartel looming over the town was one thing, but we knew it was only a matter of time before they figured out what really happened with Sebastian. Even though my guys cleaned up that scene and disposed of the rest of the bodies like professionals. We left no survivors, but we knew the cartel always had their ways. They always had their eyes peeled in corners of the room where no one thought they were lurking.

  I was honestly surprised we’d gone two months without hearing from them.

  In the morning, I woke up before Leti. With her naked body tangled up in the sheets of a bed, we now called our own, I slipped from the covers and pulled on some pants. I made my way downstairs with my cell phone and called up Dean, ready to have a talk.

  President to Vice President.

  “How’s that woman doing’?” Dean asked.

  “She’s getting along. Still feels ashamed,” I said.

  “Means she’s a good one. Keep her around.”

  “Trust me, I have every intention of doing it. But, we need to talk, Dean.”

  “That’s why I called earlier this morning’.”

  “You know the cartel has got to know of Sebastian’s death by now.”

  “There haven’t been any issues, but I agree, it’s concerning me that no one has tried to come after Leti.”

  “What’s the plan, then? Should we get the guys together?”

  “With there not being’ any issues, I don’t see the point. But I have been looking’ into this whole ‘other force’ bullshit that man was spouting’ off before your woman stepped up to the plate.”

  “Yeah, let’s not mention that in front of her. At all.”

  “I’ve got more class than that, Jace.”

  “Do you, Dean? Do you really, though?”

  The old man laughed as I started making myself a pot of coffee.

  “For now, we lay low. I’ve got Maverick in on a couple things. Just keep your eyes peeled and keep your wits about you. Sleep with one eye open. That sort of shit,” he said.

  “Always do, Dean. But if you’re sure we shouldn’t meet up, then I’ll follow your lead,” I said.

  “Good. Now, go spend time with Leti. Lemme know if I can help her in any way.”

  “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

  �
�Yep. Any time.”

  I hung up the cell phone and started making up a bit of breakfast. And by the time I had the plates settled onto the table, I felt a soft pair of hands run along my stomach. Leti’s fingertips rumbled against my abs, curling into my skin as her lips pressed into the middle of my back. I picked my arm up and wrapped it around her. I pulled her into me and kissed the top of her head. She sighed into my skin. A thick, heavy sigh after getting the exact amount of rest she needed.

  “Feeling better?” I asked.

  “Always nice to take a nap after a good cry,” she said.

  “You hungry?”

  “A little bit. I hope you didn’t make anything too big.”

  “Eat what you want and you know I’ll eat the rest.”

  “Always an appetite for the both of us.”

  “You know it,” I said, grinning.

  “So, I’ve been thinking.”

  “About what?” I asked as the two of us took a seat.

  “Names for the baby.”

  I grinned at her from across the table as I picked up my fork.

  “Oh really? Isn’t that usually something we talk about once we figure out the gender?” I asked.

  “Well, I was thinking about both girl names and boy names. I wanted to run some of them by you. See what you think.”

  “Hit me with ‘em.”

  “What about… Sarah for a girl or Samuel for a boy.”

  I crinkled my nose. “Not a fan. You got anything else?”

  “What about… Lexi for a girl or Levi for a boy?”

  I shook my head as I took a bite of my eggs. “Try again.”

  “Raphael for a boy or Rachel for a girl?”

  “You really want to name our boy Raphael?”

  “What?! It’s a pretty name,” she said.

  “What if we name the baby after your brother?” I asked. Leti stared at me with her big beautiful eyes in shock.

  “You’d really want to do that?” she asked quietly.

  “Of course, I would,” I said honestly. “I was thinking of naming the baby Nicole if it was a girl, or Nicholas if it was a boy.”