Divinely Living (Surviving Series)

by Courtney Cross

  “We have new memories, baby. You’ve already erased what he did to you by yourself.”

  I shifted to my back and Jonah nestled between my thighs supporting his weight on his lower arms beside my head. “You left his memory behind a long time ago, sweetheart,” his head dipped to my throat. “I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure his memories never return. And if that means resisting your divine rear, then so be it.”

  I clasped his chin with two fingers and brought his face up to mine. “I must have been a saint in a previous life to deserve you in this one.”

  He smiled that heart stopping, panty wetting smile that drew me in from the start. “We all get what we deserve in life. Alex got his, so did Mason, and now I,” he reached beneath my knee, wrapped my leg around his waist and penetrated my sex with one full thrust, “am going to get what I deserve.”

  And boy he did. For the next two hours.

  ***

  Mason’s large hand held mine tightly as we stood before the vulgar but extortionately expensive resting place of my mother. A sombre blanket of sadness cocooned us both but being there with my father, at least eased the pain of being so close to Gina yet further apart than we’d ever been. Mason’s reaction when he saw me as he picked me up from the hotel earlier had made me smile. I purposely wore my hair down so the loose curls hung to my lower back and kept my make up light. Gina often wore her long auburn hair loose and always kept her makeup to a bare minimum. Emerald green, the colour of both our eyes was her favourite colour and she dressed in various items of clothing, in that very colour, often. Hence, the colour of the silk shirt I chose to wear paired with my customary black denims and converse shoes. He stood in the doorway silently staring; the emotions warring in his eyes almost had me regretting my choice. I dressed this way for Gina. The reflection in the mirror before I left was my mothers. It was my way of being a part of her, feeling a connection to her. And from Mason’s expression as he eventually pushed off the door frame and walked towards me there were no regrets to be had, because I had definitely made the correct choice after all.

  “You are a true vision, baby girl. Your mother would be so proud of you if she saw you today.” He took my hand and kissed the back before placing his palm over it.

  “Parts of me are proud of her too,” I replied truthfully. “I still don’t fully understand her and I have many questions that will never be answered but talking to you yesterday helped to lay a lot of the hatred I felt towards her, to rest.”

  “Whatever Gina did, I believe in my heart she always loved you and wanted only the best for you.”

  I shook my head slightly and linked my arm through his as we left the room. “She left me Mason, that wasn’t doing the best for me, or an act of love.”

  “Maybe life just proved so hard for so long in the end it dragged her under.”

  “Who knows why she did it,” I leaned my head against his muscular upper arm. “I just wish she hadn’t.”

  “Me too, baby girl,” Mason replied with a squeeze of my arm. “I wish that too.”

  We stood in a comfortable silence for a long time. Both of us were caught up in our own, personal memories as we gazed down on Gina’s grave. I had never set foot in the cemetery since the day she was put in the ground and now I felt regret for not doing so. I mentally blocked out the monster buried beside her and focused entirely on Gina. Jonah was right. Alex was no longer important in my life because I refused to let him be. This moment was about me, my mom, and my dad, and Alexander Matthews was not going to ruin this for the three of us. Mason stepped forward and placed the single red rose we picked up from a store nearby, on top of the mound of earth that concealed Gina’s body. He dropped to one knee and placed his hand on the dirt, his head bowed and eyes closed. I stood quietly and allowed him some private time with the woman he still loved and lost the same as I did. When I saw the slight shake of his shoulders I couldn’t fight the urge to kneel beside him and slip an arm around his shoulders.

  “Such a waste of life,” he muttered. “I should have been there, Ava. If I’d found her sooner I could have saved her.”

  “You found me in time,” I held him tighter. “And you saved me. I think that makes you debt free where Gina and I are concerned.”

  He slipped his hand in mine, where it lay on his shoulder. “I just wish we could all have been reunited before she decided to take her life. I would have spent the rest of my days making it up to you both.”

  Resting my head against Mason’s, I felt nothing but forgiveness in my heart. “You were a victim as much as we were, dad. You need to start forgiving yourself for what was taken out of your control when you were still a child.”

  Beautiful brown eyes brimming with tears stared straight at me. “Do you forgive me, Ava? More importantly, can you forgive your mother?”

  I answered honestly and without hesitation. “Yes, I can’t believe I’m actually saying this but yes, I do forgive Gina. And as for you,” I smiled broadly. “There was never anything to forgive. So stop beating the hell out of yourself okay? Believe me, being my dad won’t be an easy ride for you. Just ask Jonah.”

  We stood, arm in arm gazing at the floor. “Jonah adores you,” he squeezed my shoulder. “The way he looks at you is exactly the way I used to look at your mother. Like you’re the centre of his universe, just as she was mine.

  “The feeling is completely mutual,” I rolled my eyes in feigned exasperation. “I’m such a girl when I’m around him.”

  “And you’re the most wonderful girl I know.” Turning me to face him, Mason placed his hands on my shoulders. “You’re my baby girl and the centre of my universe too. I just hope you give me the chance to prove that to you.”

  Lacing my fingers around his neck, my fathers’ muscular neck, I pulled him in for a hug. His arms immediately grasped me at the waist and hugged me tightly.

  “You’re my dad. You automatically earn the chance to prove it. It comes with the DNA we share.”

  He was silent as I stepped out of his hold, turned back to Gina’s grave and remembered everything I could, about the woman who still remained an enigma to me, but who now, after twenty two years, I was starting to understand. I never really knew Gina Dawson Matthews, at least what I believed for so long I knew about her only scratched the surface of the woman she was, it seemed. I only had her for eight years before she ended her life but it seems she lived more than a full lifetime in those short years. Maybe what I saw as weakness in her was her way of securing my future. Maybe I was the driving force behind her endless search for a man able to provide me with the life she believed I deserved. Who knows? I would never understand her completely and there were gaps of her life missing and unknown to anyone but her yet, none of that mattered to me now. Mason had brought me as much closure as I was ever going to receive where my mother was concerned and that was more than enough for me now. As sad as I was for losing her, finding my dad was an equally profound feeling. I finally had a place, felt like there was someone out there with the same genetic profile as myself, who I belonged to. And nothing could replace that. And I never wanted anything to do so.

  “I miss you, Mom,” I whispered into the earth. “But I forgive you. Rest in peace, Gina Dawson and just know that your daughter loves you.”

  “Rest in peace, gorgeous girl,” Mason spoke quietly, his eyes trained onto the exact same spot as mine. Clutching hands, we said our goodbyes then headed silently back to Mason’s waiting car.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  “Come on, Ava, it’s been five minutes,” yelled Jonah from the other side of the toilet door. “I’m dying of anticipation out here sweetheart.”

  Sat on the closed toilet seat, I rubbed my hands nervously along my thighs and stared intently at the white pee stick resting on the side of the sink. I read the instructions on the side of the box for the tenth time and decided to give it one more anxious minute before taking a peak at the result. The visit to Gina’s grave with my dad left me with the ove
rwhelming need to know whether our suspicions were right, and I was actually pregnant with Jonah’s baby. On the ride to the hotel, I lied disgracefully to a concerned Mason who questioned why I wanted to stop at a pharmacy around the corner. Telling him I needed medication for a headache, I practically ran into the store to purchase the test that would give me the answers I needed, and quickly.

  I glanced down at my still flat stomach and tried desperately to feel something, something different, the slightest flutter or tiniest indicator that fate had intervened and decided to make me of all people a mother. I felt nothing. The nausea had stopped and my stomach was calm. I tried to recall my last period but failed. The last few months were slipping from my memory and had passed in such a blur even remembering what happened a week ago was difficult. Was I late purely because of stress? God knows I was a living ball of stress at the moment. This was probably my body’s way of telling me enough was enough and that now was the time for a more peaceful period in my life. Either way, simply staring at the white stick that could change my future completely, wasn’t doing my raging imagination any good. It was time to grow some balls and face the results head on. I was the new, stronger, unafraid Ava and now was the perfect opportunity to prove it.

  Standing abruptly, I straightened my green shirt, adjusted the waistband on my jeans and reached for the game changing piece of plastic. A thud on the door and Jonah’s impatient voice made me jump and almost drop the stick as I stared down at the lines showing in the result window.

  “Jesus Christ, Ava Matthews, if you don’t open this goddamn door right now, I’m coming in, by whatever means necessary. So please just open the door, for fucks sake.”

  With trembling fingers and disbelieving eyes, I reached for the handle and slowly opened the door. Jonah stood inside the doorframe, his chestnut hair mussed from the obvious raking of his fingers through it and his deep blue eyes wide and expectant. Thickly muscled arms bulged against the confines of a tight white t-shirt, as they lay crossed over his broad chest. Shoving the stick into his hands, he stared down at it as if it would burn him and then pinched his dark brows together in confusion.

  “Two blue lines,” I said in a quiet voice as the result began to sink in.

  “What the hell does that mean?” He continued to stare at the test and then drew his eyes up to mine. “Put me out of my misery, sweetheart. I’m going out of my fucking mind here.”

  “Two blue lines mean you’re going to be a daddy, Jonah. The two of us are definitely going to become three of us very soon.”

  “Are you sure?” he whispered, his lips slowly curling into a smile. “I mean, really, really sure?”

  I nodded and smiled back. “I’m really, really sure. The box says two blue lines means a baby is on the way.”

  He caught me to him and slammed me hard against his chest, his hand at my nape and the other vice like around my waist. Lifting my feet from the floor, he held me flush against his perfect body and took my mouth, his tongue lashing around mine. I could taste his love and happiness on my lips, his passion and joy in my mouth. He was all I could smell and taste, my favourite two senses in the world where this man was concerned and I kissed him back with equal force.

  “God, Ava, I’m going to be a father. I finally get my very own family,” he breathed across my lips.

  “We’re both all yours,” I smiled back. “The three of us against the world forever, baby.”

  “I wouldn’t want it any other way, sweetheart. I told you from the start, you’re it for me. And now,” he eased me to my feet and his hand dropped to my stomach, his long fingers splayed wide across it. “I have two of you to love. This is my happy ending Ava and I’m going to spend every day making it yours, and juniors too.”

  “Junior uh,” I raised a questioning eyebrow. “The test determines pregnancy Jonah, not the sex of the baby.”

  “Call it a hunch,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Since we started to think you might be pregnant, I’ve been having a recurring dream of a brown haired little boy with the most stunning green eyes just like his mother. A child so beautiful could only come from our gene pool sweetheart, so a son it is.”

  “And what if this dream of yours is seriously wrong and we are in fact having a daughter?” I pulled back my head and fixed him with a fake glare. “I might have been dreaming of a little red haired girl with wicked blue eyes who’s waiting to give her daddy hell, just like her mother.”

  Jonah lowered his head and sucked lightly on my throat. “Any daughter of ours can give me all the hell she likes. Especially when I’m locking her backside away until she’s at least thirty years old. There will be no insatiable, unworthy Irish man for my little girl. It will be only the best for our daughter.”

  My throat squeezed tightly with emotion as the meaning to Jonah’s words seeped into my skull. “If she meets a man like her daddy, she’ll be the luckiest girl alive. He’s the most worthy, undoubtedly insatiable Irish man either one of us could ever wish for. And she will love you for being so, as much as I do.”

  His palm rubbed across my stomach and his eyes glazed over. “Seriously sweetheart, I’m going to be the best father our child could hope to get. Infinitely better than my father and the father Mason would have been if given the chance.”

  “You will be amazing, Mr Jacobson,” I assured him with a chaste kiss. “I’m the one doomed to fail as a parent.”

  “I won’t allow you to fail, not that you will,” he returned the kiss. “You have so much love in your heart, Ava, you just haven’t realised it yet.”

  “God I hope you’re right Jonah,” I sighed and pressed my cheek to his heart. “For our child’s sake I hope you’re right.”

  His fingers tangled in my hair as he held me to his chest. “I’m never wrong sweetheart. Maybe misguided at times but in the end, I’m never wrong.”

  I pushed my face against the defined slabs of his pecs and inhaled deeply. He smelled of rich, warm masculine male and all things Jonah. He smelled like mine, the father of my child and my husband to be. Right there, right then, everything was perfect in the world and I was exactly where I wanted to be. He held me in his arms until my legs ached, and my lungs were almost devoid of air from being clutched so tightly. Kissing the top of my head, Jonah slowly pried his arms from around me and gently clasped my cheeks in his hands.

  “When do you want to leave for London?” he asked sincerely.

  I rolled my eyes and exhaled in a whoosh. “Everything with the damn company is still so in the air. I can’t leave until that mess is cleaned up.”

  “Leave that with me,” his voice was firm. “I promise you by this time tomorrow A.M Enterprises will be nothing but a memory and no longer your concern.”

  “If only that could be true,” I replied downheartedly. “I just don’t see any way of satisfying those assholes. They want a leader and I’m afraid I am most definitely, not it.”

  He silenced me with a finger on my lips. “No more talk of the company or the houses, the money, the cars or anything else to do with your inheritance from now on. My baby’s mother has more important things to concentrate on. Let me do the hard work from now on sweetheart.”

  “As much as I wish you could, Jonah, we both know it’s not that easy.”

  He dipped to my eye level, his hands on my hips. “Do you trust me, Ava?”

  The answer needed no thought. “Of course I do. I trust you completely.”

  “Then believe me when I say, tomorrow morning you start packing for home. I want you back in London as soon as possible.”

  I tilted my head to the side and narrowed my eyes. “What’s the urgency to take me home?”

  He rubbed his nose against mine, a gesture that I was starting to love. “Because my sweet, delectable, Ava, you’re pregnancy means the sooner I get you married and bearing my name the better. No child of mine is going to born while you still carry that fucker’s surname.”

  Frankly, I couldn’t have agreed with him more. “Consider it d
one. My bags will be packed and ready.”

  His tongue traced my bottom lip and fingers gripped further into the flesh of my hips. “Good. I’m glad to see you can do as you’re told occasionally.”

  “Don’t get used to it, Jacobson,” I swatted his upper arms playfully. “You’re the boss in the bedroom and nowhere else.”

  “I’ll settle for that,” he said seductively, his hand sliding to my ass pulling me against his hard and ready erection, straining against his sweats. “And as the boss in the bedroom,” he began to unbutton my shirt, “I intend to begin exerting my powers and command over you, right now.”

  Sliding my shirt open, he growled as he exposed my breasts, cupped in a black silk bra. Lowering his head, he ran his nose down my cleavage and inhaled my scent, then swept his tongue across the swell of my upper breasts. With one finger, he unhooked both fleshy mounds from their restraints and taking one of my nipples in his mouth with a soft moan sucked in the round point gently.

  “I can’t wait for your breasts to grow during the pregnancy. Christ, they’ll look so fucking hot when they’re sensitive, swollen and full,” he said, his breath fluttering across my skin.

  I cupped his erection in both of my hands and squeezed. “Your cock and balls are always sensitive, swollen and full. They’re the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  With a hand underneath my ass he lifted me from my feet. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I fisted his hair in my hands and brushed my tongue down his throat. The tip of his cock protruded from his sweats and nestled against me, applying direct pressure to my sensitive clit.

  “It’s been a few hours since you’ve actually seen my cock and balls, Ava. I think it’s time to reacquaint you and show you just how hot they can be.”

  “God, yes please,” I moaned loudly as he pushed me further into his thick and ready cock and carried me easily to the bedroom.

  ***

  Day and night passed in a blur of sex, sweat riddled bodies and tangled limbs. After countless orgasms and being filled with copious amounts of Jonah’s semen, which he licked from my sore and swollen sex numerous times, he finally had his fill of my body and granted me a few hours sleep. The man’s virility knew no bounds, my body was his, he owned me, and that meant I was never off bounds. A fact he reminded me of repeatedly as he made me scream his name and ownership rights time after time. Feeling more sated than I ever imagined possible, the call of slumber became too intense to deny. Spooning me from behind with his hand placed possessively across my stomach I drifted off.