by K. M. Scott
Hovering over me, he planted his forearms on either side of my head and kissed me long and deep as he slid in and out of my pussy. Slow strokes gave way to faster stabs into my body, and he grunted with each plunge into me.
“Come for me, baby. Come for me and let me feel your cunt tighten around my cock.”
My nails scratched across his shoulder blades, and I arched my back as the first moments of my orgasm began. Ryder sensed I was close and bore down, fucking me hard.
In his ear, I pleaded, “Don’t stop. Fuck me. Fill me up.”
He looked down at me and winced. “Fuck, I can’t hold back when you talk like that.”
Tugging his hair hard, I came and moaned, “Don’t hold back. I want to feel you come, Ryder.”
I got my wish a few seconds later, and he collapsed on top of me, his sweat-drenched body pressing against mine. Thoroughly exhausted, we said nothing for a few minutes as we recuperated from our lovemaking, both of us completely satisfied.
Finally, he lifted his head and kissed me softly on the lips. “No one would believe such a pretty mouth could say such filthy things. I love it.”
“Only for you.”
Propping his head up on his hand, he kissed me again and whispered against my lips, “Everything for you, Serena.”
He closed his eyes and a smile formed on his lips, making him look even sexier. I loved him, and even though it wasn’t the best timing, I quietly said, “I know about what happened to that fighter, Ryder.”
His eyes opened wide and he stared in confusion at me for a moment. Finally, with an expression that looked like he was in pain, he said, “Who told you?”
“My father. He found me with Cayden out in the garden today and seemed all too eager to tell me because he thought I didn’t know. I tried to pretend like it wasn’t a secret, but I think he knew you hadn’t told me.”
Ryder hung his head and sighed. “I’m sorry, Serena. It wasn’t meant as a lie, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Oh no! That’s not what I was thinking at all,” I said, cradling his face so he would look at me. “I just felt terrible that you were dealing with that all on your own. Is that what the nightmares have been about?”
He nodded. “Yes and no. I don’t like that he used that to try to cause problems between us. He’s never going to let us be together and be happy, is he?”
Pressing my forehead to his, I reminded him of the truth of who we were to each other. “I’m your wife and you’re my husband, Ryder. He can’t stop us from being together because we’re together without the need for anyone’s permission. And we don’t need him to be happy. We have our own happiness with each other and Cayden.”
He smiled and kissed me. “I know, but I hate that he thinks he can cause problems between us like that. He’s never going to let up.”
I rolled him onto his back and curled up against his body, resting my head on his shoulder like I used to when we lay in the bed together right after he came to the estate all that time ago. “He’s going to be who he is, and I’m not sure there’s anything we can do about that other than stay clear of him and keep our son away from him. My father’s day of reckoning is coming. I have no doubt about that.”
Ryder wrapped his arm around me and held me close. “I hope you’re right.”
I did too.
Chapter Twelve
Ryder
“We’re out of diapers.”
Those four words were the last thing I wanted to hear Serena whisper to me in the middle of the night. I would have preferred to hear her say, “Take me now, Ryder,” or anything else related to something I wanted to do at two a.m. instead of giving me the news I had to get up, get dressed, and drive to the only store open at this time of night ten miles away.
I opened my eyes to see her standing by the side of the bed with a completely naked Cayden dangling from her arms, his penis aimed straight at my head. Scrubbing the sleep from my face, I rolled over to avoid the possibility of a direct hit.
“I get that we’re out of diapers, but why are you aiming him at me like that?” I asked into the pillow.
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to give him a chance to air out a bit until you got back with them,” she said with a chuckle.
How she could be so cute minutes after being so rudely awakened baffled me. Sliding out of bed, I walked over to where I’d thrown my pants hours before.
“You know, since both of us are naked, you should be too,” I joked as I held the pants out in front of me so I could step into them.
She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “You’re not naked anymore. Be sure to get the right size this time and get the ones with the special leg holes that give him room to move.”
All this flowed into my brain and got trapped between the sleep that still ruled there and my intense desire to not be putting on a shirt to make a diaper run. “Got it. Size medium with nice legs.”
Serena walked toward me and stopped to kiss me on the cheek. “It sounds like you’re ordering a woman.”
I kissed her and kissed Cayden, who was wide awake and squirming in her arms. “I already have a woman, and she’s got great legs, by the way. I’d like it if they were wrapped around me.”
“Shhhh. Not in front of the baby,” she chastised me, covering my son’s ears.
Opening my eyes wide, I bent down and looked at Cayden. “You know, he doesn’t understand what we say. I could tell him that I’m pretty damn pissed off about having to go out in the middle of the night for his diapers and he wouldn’t know a thing if I kept this cheery voice going the whole time.”
“Don’t be cranky.”
Cayden reached out his chubby little hand to grab my nose, adding insult to injury, and I stood up to face Serena giving me her irritated look. “And you want to have more kids?” I asked, unsure at that moment how I felt about the idea.
“Lots more,” she answered in that sweet voice that either meant she loved me or she wanted to kill me because I hadn’t gotten back with the diapers yet.
“Maybe we could get a nanny, if that’s the case? You know, someone who could drive in the middle of the night for diapers or maybe even someone whose job it is to make sure we never run out?”
“No nanny,” she said, frowning.
Clearly, that conversation would have to wait until I had my wits about me. For now, I’d table that discussion and do what I had to.
Get the diapers.
“I’ll be right back. Cayden, hold it in, buddy.”
“Love you,” Serena said sweetly. “Be careful.”
The grocery store at two a.m. was full of sleepy fathers and drunks. At least that’s how it seemed as I roamed the aisles looking for those roomy leg-holed size medium diapers for my son. I hadn’t asked Serena, but as I shuffled my tired body toward the baby section, I had to wonder why anyone who couldn’t even walk yet would need more room to move. How much room did he need to lay there?
I headed down the diaper and baby wipes aisle and felt the presence of someone behind me. Something told me it wasn’t another half-awake father on a diaper run, so I turned around and saw the two FBI agents from the parking garage. They weren’t dressed in their usual dark suit look, but even wearing street clothes, they stuck out like sore thumbs in a suburban store in the middle of the night.
“Did you two piss someone off to get hours like this?” I asked as I headed toward the diaper selection.
They said nothing but still continued to follow me. I grabbed a package of size medium diapers with the leg holes just like Serena wanted and turned back around to face them again.
“Has it crossed your minds that you look pretty obvious following me through the aisles of the store in the middle of the night?”
The one who’d given me his card stared straight ahead and said flatly, “We’re hoping someone notices and tells Erickson.”
Looking around to see if anyone had noticed, I saw no one else. “You think he’s having someone tail me?
You don’t understand how he thinks. I’m one of the two people who just gave him a grandson. You guys haven’t done your homework.”
In all honesty, I had wondered myself if Robert had been having me followed. He knew Alita was still in hiding somewhere and I’d helped her to safety, so he probably had assigned at least one of his guys to tail me.
And my bullshit claim to these FBI guys that I was in the clear because Serena and I had given him a grandson wasn’t anything I believed. He’d have me killed in a second if it suited him.
It simply hadn’t yet.
“How’s this sound for homework? You were basically homeless living in Erickson’s warehouse in Baltimore fighting in the underground fight circuit he runs when he found you and took you to that estate you live on now. You remained as a fighter until he had another fighter beat you so badly you ended up in the hospital. Caught you doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing, right?”
I didn’t appreciate this FBI fuck giving me the sad rundown of my life as I stood there wishing I was home in bed next to my wife. “So you know some things. Good for you.”
Turning to leave, I heard him continue with the history lesson of my life.
“After you recovered from that beating, you went to work for Erickson as one of his men. Nice job there, by the way. Beating guys up, threatening people, even some killing. I’ll tell you what, Ryder. The mafia’s got nothing on you and Erickson.”
I wanted to ignore him, but as we reached the end of the aisle and more customers appeared in front of me, I stopped and walked back toward him.
“So what do you want from me?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Then there’s the prostitution, which you had no direct part in, except for the girl. What’s her name? Kitty? But that relationship ended the second Erickson’s daughter came back, didn’t it? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Isn’t that how the old adage goes?”
Was he saying Kitty was working with the FBI against Robert? I took a step back as my brain processed the possibility.
“So you got a stripper to talk to you. Did they teach you that in FBI school, guys? Go after the weakest link? I could have told you Kitty would tell her tale of woe to anyone who’d listen.”
The usually quiet FBI guy stepped toward me and shook his head. “She’s not the weak link. Want me to continue?”
“Can I stop you?” I asked, feeling particularly smart ass standing there in front of the strained peas.
“But the relationship with Erickson’s daughter is a confusing one, Ryder. Maybe you can clear some things up for us. You see, you’re definitely a bad guy in this whole thing, but she’s nothing like her father and you.”
Rage built up inside me from how he spoke about Serena. “No, she’s not. And stop talking about her. Now.”
“She’s obviously in love with you, although I’m having a hard time figuring out why. So now you two have a baby and you’re married. You’ve become everything your father-in-law could ever want in a son, wouldn’t you say?”
“If that were the case, why would he have me followed? I think you need to go back and think this through a little more. I expect better from the Feds, though. You guys are slipping.”
My cockiness got under his skin, and he quickly said, “How about that fighter you beat into a coma up in West Virginia? How’s our thinking on that one?”
A rush of fear washed over me. I should have known Robert didn’t have the power to cover up my beating of Justin. And unlike everything else I’d done for him, there was proof of my guilt anyone with an ax to grind could find to put me away for what I’d done out there.
And when they did, there went my life with Serena and Cayden.
As that possibility settled into my brain, my chest began to ache. I couldn’t live without them. “Why don’t you just arrest me then?”
The other FBI guy took a deep breath in and let it out slowly as he looked at his partner. Turning to face me, he said, “We don’t want you. We want Erickson. And you’re the one who’s going to give him to us.”
So that’s how it was going to go. I could stay with the devil, or I could jump into the deep blue sea.
“You’re asking me to do something that’s probably going to get me killed.”
“We’re offering you a choice.”
“What choice?”
“We can always make sure the police in that small West Virginia town decide that you should pay for your crime. You hold your future and your family’s future entirely in your hands.”
My future would be lost if Robert found out I was working with the FBI against him. He’d have me killed and then what I’d feared would happen to Serena and Cayden would come true.
He’d make sure she became some other man’s wife and my son would be brought up as another man’s child. The mere thought of either of those things happening made my stomach churn so much I wanted to throw up.
“All I want to do is stay with my wife and son, and you’re not giving me any good choices here. Either he kills me or you send me away. That’s pretty much the situation, right?”
My dilemma didn’t seem to affect either one of the men in front of me. They looked like I’d just recited a shopping list, not explained the grim realities of my situation.
“We don’t think he’ll kill you, to be honest, so that’s probably not part of the equation,” the FBI guy who seemed to dislike me more said matter-of-factly.
“Equation? This isn’t fucking math, man. This is my life. My wife’s life. My infant son’s life. Our happiness I’m talking about here. You want me to turn on the one person who would kill me for doing that. The only numbers I know in that situation are the two shots to my fucking head that are going to happen when he finds out.”
“Then don’t help us get Erickson and go down for any number of the crimes you’ve committed, including the assault in West Virginia.”
They didn’t offer a whole lot of options. The devil or the deep blue sea. Take it or leave it, and by the way, if you take it, you’re putting your life in danger. No fucking big deal.
I had nothing to say to the threat, so they began walking away, but as the one who gave me his card passed me, he said in a low voice, “He’s going down, Ryder. You seem like you’ve turned over a new leaf because of your wife and your son. Don’t you want to keep that life? Protect it with everything you could? Would they want you to go down with him?”
That question I knew the answer to. Serena would want me to choose her and Cayden. I wanted to choose them. Fuck, they were everything to me. I loved them more than life itself.
But if I turned on Robert and it didn’t go as the FBI believed it would, I’d be a dead man walking. It wouldn’t matter where we went. If Robert was still free, he’d see to it I paid for the betrayal I knew would finally be too much for him to forgive.
For the first time, I began to think I might have to do as they wanted. That time of reckoning I’d always trusted would come for Robert had come for me too. I could either save myself and the ones I loved, or I could go down with him, the man who was responsible for every good and bad thing I had in my life now.
Serena sat curled up and fast asleep in the rocking chair in Cayden’s nursery. Wearing shorts and one of my t-shirts, she looked like the girl I met that first night in Robert’s office.
Innocent. Sweet. Gentle.
Her tanned legs hung off the front of the chair, her feet bare as always since getting away from Oliver. I watched as her bottom lip poked out in a tiny pout like Cayden made when he slept and couldn’t help love how cute she looked.
I looked down into Cayden’s crib and saw him staring up at me, wide-eyed and naked, just like I’d left him nearly an hour before. Feeling the sheet around him, I found it dry, thankfully, and picked him up into my arms.
“You know, I didn’t really expect you to hold it in, but thanks,” I joked as I placed him on the changing table.
He kicked his legs out one and then the another, and
I had the sense he was getting ready to let loose, so I quickly ripped the diaper package open and threw a diaper across him so I didn’t end up drenched in baby pee. I’d had a bad enough night so far. I didn’t need that too.
“Take it easy, little guy. You have to learn to control that thing. Don’t let it control you, or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
He looked up at me with those dark green eyes of his and smiled as he proceeded to soak the diaper while I held it over him. At least he waited so he didn’t soak his dad.
“Satisfied now? I guess I should be impressed. You waited a long time there,” I said as I folded the diaper and tossed it into the trash.
Grabbing a second one, I held it under my arm while I wiped him clean, and in seconds, he was wearing a new diaper with the roomy leg holes. I didn’t place him back in his crib, but instead walked him over to the window to look out.
He made a loud squealing noise I was afraid would wake his mother, but she slept right through it. “Hey, let’s keep it down, okay? Mommy’s sleeping.”
As if he understood me, he turned toward the window and focused his attention quietly on the scene outside. His nursery overlooked the part of the estate that had nothing but grass, but in the distance I thought I could see the mountains there in the dark.
I pointed and tapped on the window. “Someday you, Mommy, and me are going to be far away from here. Maybe in the mountains up there. What do you think of that?”
He bumped his head off mine when I turned to see how he liked that idea, so I kissed him and pulled him close before he started to cry. “It’s okay, little man. We’re going to be okay. I promise.”
When he stopped crying, he opened his mouth wide to yawn. I placed him back in his crib and pulled up the blanket to cover his legs. “And I want you to know I’m going to be around to see you grow up. You can count on that. Somebody’s got to be the one to lay down the law, and I think we both know it won’t be your mother. You’ve already got her wrapped around your finger. Nope, it’s going to have to be me, so you better believe I’m going to be around to do that for you.”