“I will for eternity.”
He turns his attention to Tessie.
“Will you, Tessie, cherish Andy as your lawfully wedded husband, protecting him, tending to his needs through illness, disappointment, and all of life’s challenges?”
“I will,” she replies as she smiles at me.
“Will you strive to understand him, giving him comfort when he seeks it from you? Will you try never to say in anger that which you wouldn’t say in friendship? When night falls, will you sleep with thanks for his presence at your side and renewed love for him in your heart?”
“I will for eternity.”
I want to kiss her. I want to hold her to me. I want to take her home and show her just how much I love her. Forget the guests and ceremony. I am bursting with love for this woman, and I want nothing more than to join together as one with her body as much as we are joining our lives together right now.
The officiant looks to me, opening the time for us to recite the vows we have chosen to write ourselves.
As a tear falls from her face, I reach up to wipe it away with my thumb. She lays her face gently into my hand, and I lose all of my thoughts.
“Tessie, baby, I love you. I honor you. I cherish you. I promise to love you more tomorrow than I do today. I promise to honor you for always in all ways. I promise to cherish you, not only for the woman you are, but the woman you once were and the woman you will become as time changes. I promise to endure all things with you.
“It hasn’t always been easy for us apart, and it won’t always be easy for us together, but I promise you won’t be alone. I promise I will be your strength when you have none. I promise to be your shelter when the storms rage on. I promise to give you the best of myself and ask no more of you than you can give. I promise to accept you exactly as you are. I love you for the woman you are and the woman you have yet to become. I promise to be open to you. I promise to grow alongside you. I promise to be willing to face life as we both change in order to keep our relationship alive and thriving.”
I bring both my hands up to cup her face, wiping more tears with my thumbs as she stares into my eyes and straight to my soul. I want so badly to kiss her, but I know I have to wait. “I promise to love you in good times and in bad, with all I have to give and in the only way I know how … completely. It’s you and me, baby, for eternity.”
With shaking hands, she reaches up and holds my wrists as I continue to cup her face and wipe her tears. It may not be effective, but I need this connection to her, and not just holding her hands.
“Andy. Where do I begin? I love you. I honor you. I cherish you. I promise to love you more tomorrow than I do today. I promise to honor you for always, in all ways. I promise to cherish you, not only for the man you are, but the man you once were, and the man you will become as time changes. I promise to lean on you in times of trouble and in times of celebration. I promise to endure all things with you. I promise to give you the very best of myself and ask no more of you than you can give. I promise to accept you exactly as you are. I promise to hold on tight when the ride isn’t smooth. I promise to cherish you, your cars, and your Harley.” We all laugh as my woman lightens the mood.
“I promise not to shut you out. I promise to let you inside to my fears, feelings, secrets, and dreams. I promise to grow alongside you. I promise to be willing to face life as we both change in order to keep our relationship alive and thriving.” She grips my wrists tighter and blows out a breath. “I promise to love you in good times and in bad, with all I have to give and in the only way I know how … completely. It’s you and me, baby, for eternity.”
As we conclude our vows, the officiant adds, “You are promising in front of all of these witnesses that you want to be with each other and only each other for the rest of your lives. You are committing to do everything in your power to honor the promises you are making here today.”
I slide my hands down to link behind the back of Tessie’s neck, rubbing her jawline with my thumbs.
“Since our couple has chosen not to exchange rings today, it is with great honor that I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride.”
And kiss her I do.
Chapter
8
Ride On
~Rex~
“You want to do what?” I ask Shooter.
“Let’s all go to Disney World for the honeymoon.” He is completely serious, and I think he may be insane.
“Have you lost your fuckin’ mind? You just married the woman of your dreams, and you want to go to Disney World! Asshole, take your woman to an island and fuck her until she doesn’t know her name. That’s why women take their man’s name—if you fuck ‘em right, they can’t remember.”
I laugh at him. “Shut the hell up, Rex.”
“Seriously, take Tessie some place nice, just the two of you. I’ll take Axel and Gigi home and handle them until you return.”
“Man, haven’t you heard the saying ‘happy wifey, happy lifey’? Wifey wants to take her son to Disney. She wants your ass there so neither of you miss his first trip to the land of magic. Bottom line, Tessie doesn’t ask me for much. She wants this; she gets this. So we’re gonna suck it up and go.”
“Think of the pictures, Rex. You and Shooter in your Hellion cuts and mouse ears!” Tessie laughs from behind him.
“No fuckin’ way. I’ll go on this little adventure if this is what you really want, but no way, no how am I wearing some damn mouse ears.” I put my hands on my hips, trying to look firm in my resolve.
“We’ll see about that.” Tessie smirks at me.
“You really want me to go on your honeymoon? I think there is something seriously wrong with our family dynamic,” I question honestly.
“I want to do something that includes Axel. I don’t want him to think he’s losing me. If Shooter and I go off on a honeymoon, then he loses me on only day two for how many days? I was a mom before I became his wife, and Axel has enough change right now.”
“Woman, you aren’t mine, never were met to be, but damn you are the best mom for our kid. Thank you, Tessie, seriously.”
My ex-lover blushes at me. There was a time when making her blush was the highlight of my lonely days. The life I lead is not one made for a family. Never really thought about a future and having someone by my side until Tessie was attacked. Then, finding out about Axel… Well, it rocked my world at first. Now, I can’t imagine life without the little hell raiser.
I have two weeks free before Tripp has me going away for a negotiation. I guess the first week will be spent with mouse ears. Maybe I can find a princess to fuck my time away with. I would rather be balls deep in ‘Lux,’ but she has to get back to work. It doesn’t help that she refuses to give me the time of day. She only challenges me to want her more. Fight it, baby. I am not afraid of working for my rewards. In the meantime, a man has needs, ones I need filled.
Having her here for the wedding was the first break she has taken in the last few months. According to her, she has taken on two new clients, trying to move her way up to a head accounting position so she doesn’t have to continue to be an assistant. Yeah, an assistant to the asshole causing her trouble, but she left that part out. Her naivety is going to get her in a bad situation. The douche she works for is not going to back off just because she gets a different position. No, that sick fucker will only start imagining more compromising positions he plans to have her in.
The thing she needs to learn about the Hellions is that you can’t ask us for help in a moment of panic and then turn us away. We protect what is ours. Like a dog with a bone, we don’t let go. Tripp and I know too much now. She needs me more than she realizes, but she keeps refusing my help. I wish she would understand my lifestyle, my club and my family. She needs to learn that, with the Hellions, we are along for the ride, no matter how dangerous, bumpy, or long.
My dick twitches thinking of her. The ride with her may just be the challenge of my life. The ride for her may just
be exactly what I need.
Things are a little clearer for me now. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen. I will take this week with my son; however, when I get home, things are changing for me and for her situation. She once asked me if my intentions in helping her were innocent.
Lux, there is nothing innocent about the ride I plan to take you on.
~The End~
Until the next ride…
Innocent Ride, The Hellions Ride #4, coming January 25, 2015!
Desert Ghosts MC used with permission from author Theresa Marguerite Hewitt, Ricochet, book 1 of the Desert Ghosts MC series coming soon.
Savage Outlaws MC used with permission from author Emily Minton. Beautiful Outlaw, book 1 of the Savage Outlaw MC series is available now!!!
Bonus Story
This short story takes place in Jessie Lane’s Ex Ops Series after the second book, Stripping Her Defenses, featuring the main characters from the first book, Secret Maneuvers.
If you love Special Ops military men and second chance romance then this is the series for you!
Copyright ©2014 Jessie Lane
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.
Mission Delivery
Bobby Baker is a man with new lease on life.
He is engaged to his high school sweetheart, and he is bonding with the fourteen year old son he wasn’t aware of a little less than a year ago.
But there’s more. The love of his life is pregnant with their second child. This time, he’ll be there to witness the birth of one of his children instead of missing out on it.
Or will he?
Belle unexpectedly goes into labor a month early while Bobby is coming off a mission half a world away. Will he be able to make it home in time for the birth of his second child?
Or will he miss this delivery, too?
Chapter
1
“We should have put a bullet in that asshole’s body for every woman we found in his basement before we killed him.” Lucas’s low, angry voice echoed through the unusually silent van we were riding in.
I could not blame him for his disgust. I wished we had filled the deranged pervert with a hundred bullet holes, made him look like bloody swiss cheese. Circumstances required us to do otherwise, though, to save an innocent life.
We had closed in on a Russian diplomat’s house, taking out his security team, and then infiltrated his residence, looking for a kidnapped woman supposedly sold to him as a sex slave.
What we had found as we descended into his expansive, custom-made dungeon was the stuff of nightmares. It was a literal playground for a twisted man who lived to inflict pain and suffering on others for his own satisfaction. Metal chains and shackles hung from ceiling beams and were also bolted to the floor in a few places. A Saint Andrew’s cross sat in the corner, covered in blood splatters, the shades ranging from a fresh red to a dried dark brown. The amount of blood on the piece of equipment was sickening. Pulling my eyes away from the ominous cross, I crept stealthily along after my teammates.
Along the back wall hung a comprehensive collection that made my stomach roll. Whips, crops, floggers, chains, ball gags, restraints, dildos, and a number of other things that I didn’t recognize, nor did I want to know what they were.
The area was expansive enough that we had to split up into two teams. I went left, following Riley and Arturo, while Lucas, Jaxon, and Chase went right.
As I passed one of the couches towards a hallway on the left, I saw a bridle and butt plug with an attached tail to it. Apparently, someone was into pony play.
I was never going to be able to look at the horses on my dad’s farm the same way again.
Without an in depth inspection of the residence, the only things we could see were all of those implements that had been meant for pleasure yet had been turned into something deviant and ugly. What the fuck would we have found if we dug deeper?
I didn’t want to find out.
No, I wanted to get in, see if our missing woman was still alive to be rescued, and then get the fuck out and go home to my woman—my very pregnant woman who had been way more understanding than I had expected when I disappeared for weeks at a time during the last four months while working these missions. What kept me going during the mission was the thought that, the faster we found the woman, the faster I could get home. It was the only thing that kept me from waging my own bloody path of destruction in my search for the sort of monster who would torture women that way.
When we had gone nearly to the end of the hallway, the sound of flesh slapping flesh reached our ears from the last doorway on the right. Riley tried to quietly turn the doorknob yet found it locked and ended up kicking it open instead. I had barely made it into the room when the situation deteriorated to life or death.
Our target had grabbed the woman he had been abusing and pulled her in front of him as a human shield with a knife against her throat. That knife of his had evidently been very busy before we arrived.
The woman he held was covered in weeping cuts, a red trail from her breasts to her thighs. The scary part about her obvious torture was that the tears streaming down her face were silent. She didn’t even whimper when he roughly hauled her by her hair in front of him to save his sorry hide. It was as if he had trained her to keep her misery to herself. Anyone who had lived through that kind of hell didn’t deserve to die when freedom was standing right in front of them.
For a few seemingly endless seconds, I looked into the woman’s green gaze, seeing only my wife.
My gorgeous Belle had been kidnapped eight months prior by a ruthless cartel drug lord we had been investigating for black market weapons deals. Belle still carried scars from a mad man’s knife, much like the silent, defeated woman in front of me would carry for the rest of her life.
As I watched between one blink and the next, Riley took the kill shot, splattering half of our subject’s head on the wall behind him. The woman collapsed to the floor in a heap of sobs; however, those cries had not been ones of sorrow. No. With a look of relief shining in her eyes, she shed tears of joy. Of freedom.
It had taken four months—four long months —to track down the women a Cuban Don named Lazaro Sandoval had sold over the last couple of years. It had not been easy, but with this mission, we had finally ended our recovery of the women. One by one, we had located them, dead or alive.
To our dismay, most of the women had been found dead. Their bodies were buried or burned to ash by their tormentors and left somewhere in a place their owner thought would never be discovered. The only reason we had found their remains was because Arturo was creative with that knife of his. It didn’t take long after he took it out and the blood started flowing before each of the men started sobbing the information we were looking for.
Thankfully, Sandoval had only been a seller in the sex slave underground for a couple of years. In that time, however, he had documented the transactions of over a hundred thirteen women, all of which we would have never known about had it not been for Brett 'Ice' Grady. He was a former Green Beret who had worked with Lucas. He was the President of the Regulators Motorcycle Club that owned strip clubs, one of which ran a small time brothel out of the back in Miami, Florida. Although, Riley had confided to me after our mission in Miami that he suspected Ice, and possibly the rest of the Regulators, were a hell of a lot more than just outlaw bikers.
Almost a year’s worth of investigation had finally come to a close tonight. An investigation that had started with Belle in Texas, working as an ATF agent on a black market weapons case. If not for Belle’s kidnapping by the Mexican Cartel leader Rivera, the Ex Ops team would have never stumbled on the sex slave ring.
That mission had almost cost me the life of my woman.
From there, we had been led to Ice in Miami, where Riley, Lucas, and Declan had gone undercover to pose as members of the Regulato
rs MC. That leg of the mission had cost us the lives of two of our teammates and put Declan temporarily bedbound with a spinal injury. We ended up leaving Miami to head back to our headquarters in Virginia to bury our dead and regroup without catching the man responsible for both our losses and the missing women.
Ice and his boys had stepped in to figure out the rest. If not for them, we would have been delayed getting the information on the kidnapped women who had needed to be rescued for far too long.
Now it was over, and I could breathe a sigh of relief. I prayed that I would never have to look into another terrified woman’s face again, imagining that was what my fiancée had felt while being held hostage. I had nightmares over almost losing her. And Belle had nightmares over almost dying and leaving our teenage son Seth behind. Between the two of us, we could keep a psychiatrist busy for years. However, instead of going to a head doctor, I chose to show my fiancée and son how much I loved them every day that I was with them. The rest of it would heal with time.
I looked back over to Lucas, who still sat seething over the traumatized and violated women we had rescued out of the Russian diplomat’s house. Besides the woman we had initially saved when Riley had killed the bastard, there had been another nine malnourished women in cells on the side of the house that the other half of the team had split off to cover.
“They’re safe now, man. We pulled them from certain death, and now they have a second chance at life. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to put this mission behind me. The faster we go back to taking out terrorists, the closer I get to leavin’ all of this behind,” I told Lucas.
He nodded his head. “You’re right. I just can’t help thinking of my little sister every time we find these women. Won’t tell you how bad it fucked with my head when we didn’t find them alive.”
“I know exactly what you mean. Made me relive pulling Belle’s half dead body out of Mexico, and I see that shit enough in my sleep. It never leaves me.”
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