by Zoey Parker
Then, he turned to Becca and picked up her hand. “I love you so much. Since the first moment you showed up, you were like an angel to me. Come to save me from death, then from a life of loneliness. I want to keep saving each other for the rest of our lives.”
She wiped tears from her eyes and leaned forward to kiss him.
“Will you marry me?” he asked again.
She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut. He kissed her forehead and picked up her hand to slide the diamond ring on.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “It looks exactly like the one I’ve always wanted.”
“Told you,” Emma said, taking a big gulp of her juice.
“You did?” Becca asked.
Rowan nodded. “I asked Emma if she knew what kind of ring you would want. She picked that one out.”
Becca looked at Emma with wide eyes. It had been months since they’d had that conversation. It was one day after they left Nick and before she’d met Rowan. They were in their apartment and Emma had noticed that Becca wasn’t wearing her engagement ring and wedding ring anymore.
“Where did your rings go, Mommy?” she asked.
“Well, those rings were from Daddy and since I’m not married to Daddy anymore, I don’t wear them.”
“Will I have rings when I get married?”
“Of course you will. There’s an engagement ring first, that’s when he asks you to marry him, then you get a wedding ring later when you get married.”
Emma had been so entranced by this idea that they’d looked on Becca’s phone and she’d shown her the different ring styles. She asked Emma which one she would want if she was getting married. She chose a square diamond with channel set diamonds beside it. Then Emma asked which one Becca liked. She’d pointed to a round cut ring with a halo of smaller diamonds around the edge. A ring just like the one now on her finger. How in the world had Emma remembered that?
“Does this mean you’ll be my daddy now?” Emma asked Rowan.
“Do you want me to be?”
“Yes.” She nodded her head enthusiastically.
“Then, I guess we’ll just be one big happy family,” he said. “Mommy, Daddy, Emma, and Polly.”
“That’s a good idea,” Emma said.
She crawled into her mother’s lap and Rowan put his arms around them. Everything he loved most was right here, close to his heart.
THE END
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CONVICT’S BABY: Black Dogs MC
By Zoey Parker
THE SEXY PRISON GUARD IS ABOUT TO HAVE THIS CONVICT’S BABY.
I’ve never been one to follow the rules.
But disobeying while I’m locked up might get me killed.
Too bad I don’t give a damn.
I’m gonna bend this guard over in my cell… and put my baby in her belly.
I deserve to be in here.
What I did was wrong.
But g*d*mn, it felt GOOD.
It’s been too long since I felt that good.
Jail is no walk in the park.
I need something in here to make me feel alive again.
To send that adrenaline through my veins.
I want to OWN something.
To break something.
Or better yet… someONE.
And lucky for me, Sarah is the perfect pick.
She’s a guard – I’m a prisoner.
But this time, the risk is worth the reward.
Because I’m not only gonna sleep with Sarah.
I’m not only gonna make her bed for my touch, my taste, my seed.
I’m also gonna put my baby in her belly.
Chapter 1
Kurt
The rainy, chilly night of December 18th was when the trouble started for Kurt “The Knight” Bellows.
Of course, there were plenty of people who'd claim that the trouble had really started on the same date one year earlier when his wife and ten-month-old son were killed by a drunk driver in a brutal car wreck. And there were even some who'd swear the trouble actually began the year before that, when Kurt—an enforcer for the Black Dogs motorcycle club—somehow allowed himself to believe that he deserved the happiness of marriage and a family, without karma swooping down and cackling and shitting all over it.
But no. Later on, Kurt would be able to insist with absolute certainty that it was this particular evening in December when everything began to go horribly wrong.
That night, Kurt's MC accounted for almost half the patrons in the Rusty Spur Tavern in Matador, Texas. The town was their base of operations, and even though the Dogs had initially established themselves as purveyors of weed and meth, they were celebrating a new business venture that had greatly increased their income—selling fake IDs, Social Security cards, birth certificates, and other identification papers. The clientele for this service varied from high school kids who wanted to buy booze to immigrants who'd crossed over from Mexico, and even desperate fugitives.
Ron Ribber, the president of the MC, was standing at the bar, grandly ordering rounds of drinks for his men and slapping them on the back. His niece Sarah Swanson stood at his side as she often did when she got off work. Her tiny frame was dwarfed by Ron's massive body as she laughed and traded dirty jokes with the bikers.
But Kurt was sitting alone at the back of the tavern, chasing shots of whiskey with beer and staring down at the tabletop morosely. The sounds of happiness and triumph were drowned out by the grief that clanged in his ears, ugly and insistent, like a fire alarm.
A year since they'd died. Did it feel like more time had passed? Less? Both?
When he closed his eyes, he could still see the tiny crinkles at the edges of Diana 's gray eyes, and the way her curly blonde hair would gently bounce back and forth as she shook her head and laughed at him. He could still hear her soft, mellow voice as she cooed and played with Alexander, their infant son. He could still taste her breath on his lips, sweet and warm, like a summer wind.
The rain pattered relentlessly on the roof of the bar, intruding on his memories. It had been raining the night she died, too. How long had she clung to life as the raindrops fell on the pavement around her? How long had she waited for the ambulance, holding Alexander's broken little body and watching her blood mingle with the puddles in the road? The cops and paramedics who came to give Kurt the news had said that they both died instantly and without pain.
Kurt wanted to believe that. But he couldn't.
He opened his eyes again, and for a split-second, he thought he was still seeing an afterimage of Diana. It caught him off guard before he realized he was looking at Sarah instead.
And she was looking at him.
Since Sarah was related to Ron and he was fiercely protective of her, all the men in the club made a point of treating her like she was “just one of the guys.” No one dared to look at her or talk about her in any sexual context, and this had always applied to Kurt too, since long before he'd met and married Diana.
But the way Sarah was looking at him now, it was hard not to notice how beautiful and sexy she was. He could see the short nubs of her nipples under her tight t-shirt, and her cutoff jeans revealed her long, tan, toned legs. Her thick, wavy hair was the same shade of blonde that Diana 's had been. Her eyes were blue instead of gray, but their shape was still similar to Diana 's eyes. She even bit her lower lip in the same hesitant, sensual way, like a little girl who knew she was about to do something bad but couldn't help herself.
And she was staring at Kurt as though he was the “something bad” she was about to do. There was seduction in those eyes—but there was tenderness, too, and compassion.
; He shot a glance at Bib, but the president was leaning over the bar to flirt with the barmaid and order another round. In fact, it seemed like he was making a concerted effort to look in every direction but Kurt's.
Kurt looked away and shook his head, trying to clear it. He told himself that this was silly. He was overcome with grief, he'd lost count of how many shots he'd swallowed, and if his brain was telling him that Sarah reminded him of Diana and that she was giving him the eye now, well, it just meant he was so drunk he was seeing things that weren't there. He decided to have one more drink, get up, go home, and pass out before he did something he'd regret.
But when he looked in her direction again, he saw that she was walking toward him, holding a fresh bottle and two more beers.
“May I join you?” she asked.
Chapter 2
Sarah
Sarah adopted a ridiculous French accent as she recited the punchline. “'Oh, monsieur,' the guide says to him, 'you dare not miss! For if you do...ze moose will fuck my brother Georges!'”
The bikers around her burst out into loud guffaws. Even Ron chuckled heartily, despite the fact that he'd heard the joke dozens of times—from Sarah, and from her father before that.
Sarah smiled, taking a sip of her beer. This was always the best part of her day, when she could forget her boring, low-paying job at the deli counter of the local grocery store and have fun with her uncle and his Dogs. She loved their crude humor, and the way they sang and danced badly whenever the right song would come on the radio. She loved the way they talked about their bikes, the way they always smelled of leather and motor oil, the way they drank until dawn while trading stories of the outlaw life.
But even though the Dogs were having their usual raucous good time, Sarah couldn't help but notice that one of them—her favorite one—wasn't partying with them. She briefly scanned the room and saw Kurt sitting in the corner, looking like a man who was slowly succumbing to a state of deep shock.
Sarah had been hanging out with the MC since she was in high school, and from the very beginning, she'd had a crush on Kurt. Back then, he'd just graduated from prospect to fully-patched member, and in the years since, she'd watched his meteoric rise within the club. He'd always been Ron's favorite, a surrogate son to him, and everyone knew that one day he was destined to take over for him as president.
When Kurt announced that he was going to marry Diana, Sarah congratulated him warmly, despite the guilty stab of jealousy in her heart. When Diana had a baby, Sarah fussed over it and gushed about how cute it was, trying not to let herself picture a life in which she and Diana had traded places.
Then the accident happened, and ever since then, Kurt hadn't been himself and Sarah had struggled to find the right words to say to him—until enough time passed that it wouldn't be appropriate to say anything at all about it anymore.
And now here he was, drinking shots of whiskey like they were water and looking like the loneliest person on earth.
Sarah glanced at Ron and saw that he'd been watching her with a bemused expression.
“It's the one-year anniversary, isn't it?” she asked quietly.
“Yep.”
“I feel so bad for him.”
Ron raised one of his bushy eyebrows, giving her a conspiratorial smile from behind his shaggy white beard. With that playful expression, he looked like some kind of biker Santa Claus about to disappear up a chimney. “From the look in your eyes, I'd say that's not all you're feeling about him.”
Sarah blushed. “Oh, come on, that's...I mean, I'm not...”
Ron laughed. “Don't bother. It's obvious that you've been carrying a torch for Kurt since you were still wearing braces.”
“Obvious?” Sarah groaned. “Really? So you've known about it the whole time?”
“Yes.”
“Do the other Dogs know?”
“Yes.”
Sarah blushed an even deeper shade of crimson, until her ears felt like they were on fire. “Does Kurt know?”
Ron shrugged. “Right now, I don't think Kurt knows much about anything except the ghosts fucking around in his head. You could help him with that, though, I think.”
Now it was Sarah's turn to raise her eyebrows. “Are you saying you'd really be okay with...that?”
Ron put a hand on Sarah's shoulder. “Look, I'm not gonna pretend it ain't weird having this talk with my niece, okay? But you ain't a kid no more. I love you, and I love Kurt, and all I want is for both of you to be happy. Watching him sink deeper and deeper into the mud over the past year has damn near broken my heart, and if you think you've got an honest chance at yanking him back out, then you owe it to yourself—and to him—to head on over there and take your shot.”
Sarah took a step toward Kurt's table, then wavered. “But he's drunk, and he's grieving, and... what if it's the wrong time? What if it just confuses things?”
Ron shook his head. “Drunk or sober, grief or no, trust me—these things can always be confusing. But they can be worked out later. And anyway, he looks like he's drowning, and you look like someone who wants to throw him a lifeline. Seems like the perfect time to me.”
She grabbed a bottle of whiskey and two beers from the bar. “Okay. Here I go, then.”
Ron smiled. “Just breathe, hon. You'll do fine.”
Sarah walked over to Kurt's table. As she got close, Kurt looked up at her with bleary eyes.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked.
He stared up at her for a long moment as though she'd just arrived on a UFO. Finally, he nodded, gesturing to the seat across from him. She took it, setting the whiskey and beers down between them.
“You looked like you could use a refill,” she said. “And maybe some company.”
Kurt laughed bitterly. “I'm afraid I'm not gonna be very good company tonight, Sarah.”
“Just because you're feeling sad doesn't mean I won't enjoy your company. I know this is a rough night for you, but you can talk to me about it if you want.”
“Trust me, you don't want to hear it.”
“Maybe I do want to hear it.” Sarah put her hand over his, looking into his eyes. She saw aching loss there, but there was something deeper, too—something primal and undeniable.
Attraction, she thought. He finally sees me as someone he can want, instead of just the club's little sister. But what if it's just because of the booze? What if he sobers up and goes back to looking at me like I'm just Ron's niece? Could I handle that?
To her surprise, she found that she was willing to take that chance. Her need to kiss him, to touch him, to feel his arms around her—she suddenly knew that she'd risk anything to make that happen.
Kurt pulled his hand away, and when he spoke, she heard his self-loathing quivering in his voice. “Well, maybe I don't want to hear it. Maybe I'm fucking tired and bored and sick of my own goddamn grief, and saying it all out loud will only make it worse. Did you ever think of that?”
Sarah considered getting up and leaving Kurt alone, since it seemed like he might prefer that. But then she realized that he was lashing out at himself, not her. She couldn't bring herself to desert him and let him tear himself to pieces inside. She reached out, taking his hand in hers again and gently pulling it back to the table.
“We don't have to talk,” she assured him. “And if you're sick of your grief, maybe I can help you feel something else tonight instead.”
Kurt rubbed his red eyes, looking at her like he'd never seen her before. “Sarah, I'm warning you. You're better off staying away from me. I'm a fucking mess.”
Sarah leaned across the table, brushing a strand of Kurt's brown hair out of his face and touching his cheek softly. “You don't look like a mess to me. And I don't want to stay away from you. I want to be right here with you. I want to be whatever you need me to be, whatever will make you feel strong and good and happy again.”
Kurt shook his head. “But what about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow will be tomorrow, no matter what we do.
So tonight, we may as well do what we want.” Before Kurt could open his mouth to protest, Sarah leaned in even closer, her lips inches away from his. “By the way, the stalls in the ladies' room are big. And there's a lock on the door.”
Kurt thought for a moment and nodded slowly. He took her hand and they stood, heading for the bathroom at the back of the bar.
Once the door closed behind them, Kurt pushed Sarah up against it, his hands and mouth all over her before she even had a chance to reach behind her and turn the lock. He was everywhere at once, surrounding her like a living whirlwind, and the scent of his sweat and aftershave and whiskey combined into a perfume that made her dizzy with desire.