“Oh shut up! Would all of you just calm down and do something?” I yell, losing my temper.
“Who is he?” Logan asks suspiciously and I roll my eyes, knowing no help will come from that quarter.
Despite his broken heart Lo is a total romantic and since he’s looking at Devon like he’s the next coming or something I don’t think he’s about to help me out.
The other three clowns are grinning and egging their brother on, laying freaking bets for cripes sake! They remind me of my own brothers and I feel a grin pull at my lips till Logan whips out a hundred and gets in with the action.
“Oh for God sakes! Dillon is my-”
“Say it and I will put him through this fucking wall imp.”
“Friend.” I go with the safe option since the look on Devon’s face tells me how very little he’s fucking around right now.
“A little more than that.” Dillon protests, wincing when Devon shoves him back into the wall. “Alright, alright! Becky, do something.”
“Well, this is decidedly awkward but I quite enjoy it. Indeed I do. Are you still going to beat his face in old man? I have a hundred on you and I’m aiming to win. Any popcorn imp?”
That’s David.
“Don’t be a bloody animal Davy lad!” Garret mutters, punching his shoulder. “You eat popcorn at the cinema, wanker. Got any Lager for this imp?”
What!
“Shut up both of you and stop egging him on. Devon, put him down. Now. Garret, you and the terrible two go sit on the sofa and Logan, I swear to God if you go on laughing and don’t help me I will skin you.” I hiss, stomping my foot impatiently.
“Now imp, don’t stomp my seed loose from its perch. In your womb. Where I planted it. Please.” Devon growls, giving Dillon one last shove before walking my way and pulling me to the sofa, the one not occupied by three, nosy idiots who make me want to smile.
I end up squashed into Devon’s side, one of his arms anchoring me close which no amount of struggling can change so I give up with a snort and stick my nose in the air. Logan follows and takes the chair, his eyes twinkling when Dillon huffs and flops down on the beanbag left over from college.
“Okay, so let’s get things straight before Goldilocks gets eaten by papa bear. One; you’re planted with his kid. Ah, ah ah, shut up Goldi. Two; you’re going to marry the father of your kid or I’m calling mama and telling her what’s up. Three; looks like you just got yourself a family. Hey Goldi, do me a favour and hit the road so I can go home.”
This is all so, so-
“Hey! This is my apartment and my life, if I wanna marry Dillon I will!” I yell, doing my damnedest to wrestle out from under Devon’s arm.
“Uh, scampers, I think you may wanna wait till the guy’s safely out of reach before you piss Dev off.” Logan warns, bumping his chin at the ogre keeping me pinned to his side.
I’m so pissed off right now I could spit nails, after chewing them to dust, but one look at the fire raging in his eyes has me stepping back for a re-evaluation.
“Er, Dill go home. I’ll call you tomorrow.” I chirp.
He shrugs and grins, giving Devon a chin bump before going to the door.
“Don’t wait by the phone; she won’t be seeing you again.”
“Devon-”
“Rebecca! Choose your battles imp.”
I sit back with a huff and try not to snuggle into his heat. The scent of his citrusy aftershave wraps around me and calms the racing of my heart as the five guys sit quietly, waiting for what I don’t know.
“Can you all go home or something?” I say when the silence gets uncomfortably long and Logan keeps grinning at me like he’s won a bet or something.
“Yeah hun, just as soon as ya go pack a bag so we can get home. Don’t relish taking this tosser home without ya.”
“What? I am not going home with you people! Get out of my apartment now.” I growl, shoving at his arm when it tightens around me.
Davy shrugs and winks at Ryan while Garret rolls his eyes and gives Logan a chin bump.
“Did her mum drop her when she was a baby?”
“Because she’s playing dumb.”
“And throwing in some attitude that this situation just don’t need mate.”
The three of them chirp, finishing each other’s sentences were the last left off. I should be mad and kick all their asses but the truth is I am so taken with these boys I can’t think straight for the need to laugh.
That doesn’t mean I’m letting them walk all over me so Devon can get what he wants, but I have to say I really like them. All of them. A lot.
“Shut up you cheeky buggers. Go wait in the car while I pack some things and talk to my woman. Thanks Logan, Grey said you’d be a better bet than him. Looks like he’s right. Now bugger off the lot of you.”
I watch slack jawed as the three boys hop to, followed closely by a grinning Logan and I’m soon left alone with a grinning Devon.
“Don’t start.” He warns, lightly slapping my hip where his hand rests. “You have two options imp. Come home with me so we can start planning a wedding or come home with me so we can start planning a wedding after I go see your parents and tell them you’re trying to marry another bloke and keeping my child.” He warns and it’s only now that I see the anger he’s been holding back in front of Logan.
“What about the third option!” I yell, flinging his arm away and jumping to my feet. “What about what I want! You think you can make me feel like something dirty and walk away and then just pop back in here when you want your child?” I ask, breathing heavily through the lump of anger wending its way through me. “I am not going to be a casualty just because of the baby.”
I stomp to my room and start running a brush through my tangled hair and throw on a pair of low riding jeans and one of Grey’s Henleys that I stole-one of many.
“You are not-”
“Spare me okay. You didn’t give me a moment’s thought until I called you and told you I might be pregnant and then next thing I know you’re on my doorstep with your pack of misfits and you’re proposing.”
That seems to hurt him and he draws back, looking at me in a way that seems more hurt than angry.
“You don’t want the lads?”
“No. Yes. Of course I love them dummy; they’re exactly like my asshole brothers. That’s not what I meant. I’m saying you can just decide you want me all of a sudden just because of this.” I mutter, waving at my belly.
Chapter Fifteen
Dev
I want to say something to her like ‘I want you for you’, ‘I’ve been fighting myself since I sank my dick in you’. Maybe something romantic like ‘you’ve ruined my dick for other women’, because I haven’t so much as tried to sniff at one since I made love to her.
Love, I snort at that and shake my head. What the fuck do I know about love? The one woman I wanted to try with just told me she’s marrying some other wanker while carrying my child.
My first instinct is to close myself off and barrel right over her, take what I want without giving anything in return. But I won’t. I want to love this woman, want her to love me and build something with me.
So I’ll just have to be sneaky about it and get her to fall for me. After I’ve put a ring on her finger and have her in my home.
“You have two minutes to gather some things and be in the car or I’m ringing you father and telling him everything.”
I walk out and slam the door behind me, ignoring the feelings of guilt as I make my way downstairs and to the car waiting for us. I can’t win her if she’s not with me and having two teenagers with dicks for brains and a college student with ambitions to become the next Don Juan, I already have my hands full.
And then I still have to run my business.
So she absolutely has to be with me, even if it offends her delicate sensibilities.
“Where’s our lass?” Garret asks, looking out the window as I slide in behind the wheel.
“Coming, she nee
ded some time to get her things together.” I grumble, unsure and starting to sweat buckets as the minutes tick by with no sign of her.
“Don’t think she’s coming old chap.” Davy huffs, glaring at me from the back seat. “Told you, you should have let us talk to her. You’ve got absolutely no game old man.”
“Shut your yap. She’s coming.”
“Uh, if by that you mean she’s driving away in a little Fiesta, then certainly, you’re right.”
And then all three jackasses pack up and start howling when I do indeed see my imp fleeing from the scene of what I will henceforth be considering her crime.
“Fuck.”
***
Becky
“No! Absolutely not.”
I scowl at Dillon where he’s lounging on the patio of his swanky penthouse apartment, doubled over with laughter even as he shakes his head and studiously ignores my pout.
“But Dill, he’s gone all possessive psycho on me!”
“Which means he’ll cut my freaking balls off if I let you do this. Really Becky, just stop being so damned difficult and give the guy a chance. We both know you wouldn’t have married me anyway so you can’t use that as an excuse.”
“That’s not true!”
“We both know it is or you would never have called him to tell him Beck. You want him to father his chid and that’s totally understandable and right. You’re just scared of letting him back in there.”
What a freaking understatement.
“No, I just thought he had a right to know. Are you going to marry me or what asshole?”
I’m half kidding since I know I can’t in all good conscience go through with it. Not only because it would hurt that nut sac Devon but because about thirty seconds after agreeing to Dill’s hairbrained scheme I’d started thinking about how he’s shortchanging himself.
He deserves to find someone, or someone’s as the case may be who he will love and who will love him in return, wholly and completely, not as a friend.
So yeah, he’s right, we can’t do this but I’m taking an inordinate amount of pleasure out of knowing Devon Baxter is squirming and has no control over this situation.
As for marrying the man, that is a total hell no! I can see getting to know his family and sharing my baby with them, heck I love the shit out of just the thought of seeing the guy with his kid-oooh tingles-but as loath as I am to short change Dill I am even more loath to do it to myself.
And that’s exactly what will happen if I just give in to the man.I’m not one of those naïve girls-well not completely-and I know that love isn’t always on the cards. Some people get married in lust, some just want security and some have to get married because of little hiccups like the one I’m experiencing.
I’d much rather have my wedding be for the sake of something as crazy as being head over heels in lust with someone than to have to wake up every morning knowing the only reason I got a rock on my finger is because of the nugget taking up space in my uterus.
Call me nuts, but I want to be wanted for me and me alone.
“That would be a no. The only reason I taunted the guy was to show you how hot he is for you, lucky bitch. Now it’s time for you to put on your big girl bloomers and decide what to do from here. You either make a go of things with him-I choose that option by the way, that man is fine with a capital F-or you go home and start-”
“He’s probably called dad by now.” I pout, swirling my lemonade around in my glass. “If I step foot out of your place they’ll be on me like white on rice. And dad still doesn’t know about my job or that I’m quitting my studies.”
Yeah, that is so going to be a fun conversation coupled with the fact that his unwed daughter got herself knocked up. Not.
“Becky, what is it you want? What is it you feel?” he asks when the silence stretches with nothing but my sighs to fill the air space.
“I want to be happy, for once in my freaking life, that’s all.. I spent college in my dorm room and the lecture halls. I spent three years working at something I hate and studying for something I hate even more and now…can we just play the engagement out till I have everything squared away?” I beg, not caring that I sound desperate and pitiful.
Dill sighs and runs a hand through his blonde locks, his expression so serious all of a sudden that I pause and raise my brows in question.
“The thing is that I really like you Becky, a lot. While we aren’t ripping each other’s clothes off with lust I am also not averse to doing you in any position my kinky mind can conjure. Marrying you won’t be a hardship and I certainly wouldn’t mind taking advantage of your vulnerability right now to do it. But you have to decide what you want first. So let’s leave this thing standing but I want you to at least go talk to Devon before we make definite plans.”
“Huh?”
He laughs and I feel my cheeks redden even as a giggle tries to bubble forth.
“Hell yeah Slade, you’re like bueno hot baby and very do-able. Plus, if my parents get wind of this…explaining shit might make things harder for me than they already are. So go, talk to your guy and if you can’t bring yourself to walk that path I’ll be here. Your very own sacrificial lamb, waiting to sex you up. Hey, is it true pregnant chicks get super frisky?”
“Oh shut up!” I laugh, throwing a potato chip at his head.
We laugh and I relax back into the lounger beneath me, but the pose is a mockery of what I truly feel inside. Inside I am tense and scared and a little empty at what I’ve done.
I snuck away like a thief, a coward and now I have to find him and…and I’m not sure that if I see him again that everything will okay, because the truth is that I have more than the hots for my baby daddy and I am terrified that if he tries hard enough, I’ll take whatever crumbs he’s willing to throw my way.
I don’t want crumbs, I want the whole loaf and a side order of cupcakes.
Greedy.
Chapter Sixteen
Dev
I want to howl in frustration, break something, tear something, someone apart with my hands. I want to drop to my knees and rip my hair out. I want…I want imp.
That’s all. But I can’t have her, not yet and the thought, the need for her is so intense I can hardly breathe for it.
“Cheer up old man, she’ll come ‘round.”
“Yeah, but if she don’t you can always do what dad did to mum and carry her off till she admits she wants you.” Garret says seriously and I smile for the first time since she ran and left me with three very obnoxious gits.
I smile because the story of how dad got mum is no lie. He’d seen her, wanted her and determined to have her. When she’d run, as most women are won’t to do when they’re the target of a very serious, commitment minded bloke, dad had snatched her and holed up with her in a hotel room till she’d admitted to loving him back.
I don’t tend to think about what they did in that room since they’re my parents but the possibilities, yeah, I really like having an option when it comes to my imp.
“Or I could just go and blab to her mum and have this sorted by nightfall.”
That earns me three stinking looks and a bread roll to the head from Ryan.
“Yeah, nothing makes a bird hot like having you tattle on her to her mum” Davy says, rolling his eyes. “Nah mate, just use what little charm ya have on her. Hell, that will never work. Tell us what you did and we’ll come up with a full-”
“I’m not helping him with shite if he’s only doing this to get his hands on the babe. She’s a good lass that one.”
I nod and toss the roll back at Ry.
“I want her, a lot. I want to love her too, but…I’m not there. Yet.”
I have never been dishonest with them, never, so I figure telling them the truth now will either have them against me or working that much harder to help me. I’m hoping they go with the latter since four Baxter men should just about do the trick in charming my imp’s socks off.
“Right then. Davy lad, you go ring
the lass up and get her over here while Garret and I do this tosser a favour by teaching him how to talk to a girl. Bleeding older generation has no clue.”
I spend the next hour listening to and taking insult after insult as the bastards rib the hell out of me and teach me exactly the opposite of what I would ever consider doing with a mature woman.
“No. Imp is a woman not some teenage girl looking for a hook up with the Rugby team, she’s a woman and, and-”
“And women are simple, wonderful creatures Dev. All it takes to make one happy is honesty, fidelity and love. That’s it.” Ryan murmurs softly, his eyes locked on some unseen point. “Dad told me that the year I cried because Annie Roland dumped me. I’d texted another girl and she found out and dumped me. When I whined about it he said ‘women are gifts lad. You cherish what you have and show them honesty, respect and love and they’ll give you everything in return’.”
The silence that follows is profound, filled with emotions and the memory of the man who’d taught us all to be men. Good men.
“He was a good father, he raised good men.”
“He raised one good man and laid the ground work mate. You raised three good men and don’t ever forget it. Now listen, you have one shot here and while we love you I agree with Gar; don’t go after Becky just because of what you want, you have to promise that you’re taking her because you’ll give her what a real man can.”
That’s the real question then isn’t it, will I love imp? I can honestly say I will give it everything within me to trust enough to give her love but I can’t promise it, not even to myself.
But if there’s one thing I know it’s that my brethren will not allow me to hurt a woman they consider theirs. There is where the loyalty ends. Baxter men defend the weaker sex. Always. So I have to be somewhat creative in the way I answer lest they go nuclear and threaten me with bodily harm.
Seems that one irate snarl from imp has stolen their hearts and they’re as caught in her spell as I am. Bleeding ninnies.
Miah (Lane Brothers #2) Page 76