by Nicole Fox
I took the wedding ring and slipped it over her ring finger. Smiling, we glanced into each other's eyes as it slid down her slender finger and settled in place.
“Jace, I'm a prick and everyone knows it,” I said, pausing for the hoots and hollers of agreement to die down a little bit. “My ego's so big I should probably have a wide-load sign when I ride down the highway.” More laughter from the crowd as I gripped her hands tighter. “But, since I met you, I realized something. For a woman so little, you sure know how to cut a big guy like me down to size.”
I watched as she blinked away tears.
“We've both lost a lot in our lives,” I said, my voice as even as I keep it. “But I know that your momma, your brother Tommy, my Grandpa Xavier, and even old Gator Baldwin are up there in Heaven-”
“Don't be so sure about where Gator's cooling his heels!” cried a voice from the first floor, and the whole place erupted in cheers and laughter.
I turned back to the crowd, shouting, “Daddy's heels probably ain't cold, that's for damn sure!” The crowd roared as I turned back to Jace. “Like I was saying, though. All our family's looking down, watching us, and hearing what we're saying. And I promise, as much to them as I do to you, you'll be my one and only ‘til the end of time. I'll be by your side as you look out at the sunset, and I'll be your companion as we ride through life. I love you, Jace Spears. You're my ol' lady.”
The crowd cheered as I finished up my vows.
“Settle down!” Happy yelled down at the crowd. “We're almost done here, then we can get to the beer and brown liquor!”
More cheers of agreement, that soon quieted themselves.
“Love's a goddamned beautiful thing!” Happy exclaimed. “And, by the power vested in me by the Fire and Brimstone MC and the State of Louisiana, I pronounce y'all biker and wife! Now kiss that bride!”
The whole bar erupted in cheers and roars of approval as I pulled Jace into my arms and kissed her. We pulled back, both grinning up into each other’s misty eyes.
“Folks!” Happy called from beside us, his voice barely rising above the thunderous roar of the assembled guests. “May I present to you . . . Mr. and Mrs. Koen Baldwin!”
Needless to say, things kinda devolved from there. Bikers love a good wedding. And the best biker weddings are the ones where the owner of your favorite bar's the one getting hitched. The party kept rocking late into the night.
As we mingled with the crowd down below, and Fed, Benji, Jace, and I did a round of shots to celebrate, we got a real surprise. And the best wedding gift ever.
“Congratulations, guys,” said a familiar voice.
We all turned around from our spot at the bar.
“Well, well, well,” I said, grinning as I looked the out of place visitor up and down. “Agent Claire McKesson. Just slumming, or are you here on business?”
“Little of column A,” she said, smirking, “little more column B. Got good news, and I figured you'd like it in person. Volkov Arms is finished, and Aleksey's going down with it. Just got confirmation that, after he's charged here, they're sending him to the International Criminal Court. He's going down for War Crimes, guys, and we got you four to thank.”
Fed cheered and clapped his hands. It was the most excited I'd seen him in months. “Well, this calls for an even bigger celebration!” He reached behind him and grabbed the bottle and an extra shot glass. He poured another round, including one for our favorite FBI agent.
“To never having to fucking work with you again, Agent McKesson,” I said as I held the shot up in toast.
“Here, here,” she agreed, with a wink.
Together, the five of us downed our shots and tried to put the past that much further behind us.
Chapter Forty – One Year Later
Jace
I don't why I thought it was a good idea to have an outlaw biker's baby, but I had. “Goddammit, Koen! You can't take me to the emergency room on the back of your fucking bike!”
“What?” he asked, his eyes frantic and wild as he looked up at me, his foot hovering where it was just about to stomp down and start up his chopper. “Oh, fuck! I'm sorry, babe!” He hopped off the bike and fumbled for his keys as I waddled around to the passenger side of his Camaro SS.
He let me in and I settled into the passenger seat while he threw all our stuff in the trunk. Soon, he was hopping into the driver seat. He started up the car and threw it in reverse.
“Garage door, honey,” I said before he slammed his foot down on the gas.
“Shit,” he said, shaking his head. He punched the garage door button.
He threw the car in reverse as soon as it was safe, then laid down some burnt rubber as he took for the hospital. As he drove he peppered me with a thousand questions, all of them sounding frantic from the way he asked them. How close were my contractions? Did I need anything? Were the bumps too much for me?
“Koen!” I finally said, cutting him off. “Chill. The. Fuck. Out. We're having a baby, not trying to take down a Russian mob boss here. Just get me to the damned hospital, and we'll be fine. Okay?”
He reached down, grabbed my hand.
I squeezed the living shit out of it as I felt a contraction.
“We're gonna be fine,” I reminded him. “We're gonna be great parents, okay? Like we never had.”
“Yeah,” he said, finally, still wincing from my hand squeeze. “Yeah, you're right.”
# # #
Koen
As I looked into little Tomlin Xavier Baldwin's eyes, I realized that this was the dividing point in my life. The point where I'd be able to someday look back and point at it and say, “That's where I changed.”
My wife touched my side as I held little Tommy. “He's got your eyes,” she said.
“You think so?” I asked, grinning like an idiot as I turned to her. “He's got your nose, that's for damn sure.”
“The Spears nose,” she whispered, reaching up to tug at his toes.
I wouldn't be going back to work for a little while. Tommy's godfather Fed could hold down the shop, there. After all, we were just selling used cars. Wasn't like we were running guns, or anything.
But, still, as I looked down into my son's half-closed eyes, I knew that the road ahead was gonna be rocky.
“Shit,” Jace groaned from the bed, pulling me from my thoughts.
“What?” I asked, worried that something was really wrong.
“Just realized we're gonna have to do PTA.”
Even with all the shit this boy's momma and I'd pulled off in the past, the future held the biggest challenge we'd ever faced: being ex-outlaw parents.
THE END
***
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HELLFIRE: A Dark Bad Boy Romance [Bonus Content – Novel]
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He’s as hot as hellfire – and dangerous as sin.
Gunner Wilson is the human equivalent of a motorcycle – loud, dirty, and built to ride all night long.
He’s spent a night with damn near every girl in Texas.
Well, every girl except me.
I’m new in town, but I haven’t even been here for a full day before Gunner saunters over and starts tempting me towards his bed.
He’s hot as hell and I’m dripping wet just looking at him…
But I’m not that type of girl.
Silly me.
I might as well have just slept him.
But how was I to know the truth?
That, in just a little while, I’d be married to the bastard…
And pregnant with his baby.
Chapter One
“You’re killing me, Gunner.” The woman in the white tank top ran a hand through her thick, platinum blonde curls and stuck her ample chest out a little. “Sure you can’t just patch it?”
Cam “
Gunner” Wilson straightened to his full height of six-foot four inches, forcing his gaze up from the woman’s chest to her face again. He wiped his hands on a greasy rag and then flashed the woman — Peggy? Patty? Something with a P — a grin. “Gotta be replaced. That crack’s too deep and too wide. The whole thing could fall in on you if you so much as hit a pothole.”
Her expression was exaggeratedly horrified. “Jesus. How much is it gonna run me?”
Gunner leaned against the woman’s bright yellow Mustang, broad, tattooed arms folded across his chest. He glanced at the web of cracks in the windshield. “Depends. Anywhere from two hundred to a thousand.” He could feel Durango eyeing him. They’d never done a windshield replacement for more than four hundred.
The woman sucked in a breath, and Gunner met her pretty blue eyes once more. He recalled a wild night last year — the two of them, half drunk, fully loaded, soaking her twelve hundred thread-count sheets in their mutual sweat. “Shit.”
He tossed the rag aside. “Tell you what. I’ll try my damnedest to make sure you’re not looking at more than three hundred.”
Peggy-Patty’s face positively lit up. “Omigod, Gunner, that would be incredible.” She had a hot smile—full lips stretching back to reveal gleaming white teeth. Gunner almost wished he could recall the details of their encounter. Had those straight, perfect teeth latched onto his skin? Had her long pink nails raked down his back? Had she screamed his name? Probably. They all did.
She couldn’t seem to keep her gaze off his chest. His once-white sleeveless shirt was smeared with oil stains and clinging to him with the Texas humidity and was ripped in strategic places to show his ink.
He heard Durango snort, and tossed the fucker a glare.
He grinned back at the woman, unable to resist the temptation to flirt, even with a woman he’d already bedded. Hell, looking at her now, he was almost tempted to go in for round two. Except that wasn’t the way he played. And anyhow, she was a bit older than he liked them — had a kid who was in high school, he remembered suddenly, so she was likely in her late thirties. Still, she’d been a tiger in bed. Probably had some flabby-gutted loser of a husband who couldn’t give her an orgasm. Gunner was recalling more details—the way those firm, round breasts had bounced as she’d ridden him. Those legs that went on for days. His own deep growl as he came inside her…
Shit, he really was hard up if he was thinking about pissing on the same tree twice. But he’d made it with every available woman in this town. If Romedo didn’t get some fresh blood soon, he was gonna have to start going back for seconds.
“Gunner?”
Shit, she’d been saying something, and he hadn’t been paying a lick of attention.
“Yeah?”
“I’d really like to say thank you for this.” She nodded at the Mustang. “Maybe a drink sometime?”
Ah, shit. “Maybe sometime,” he agreed casually.
“You still have my number?”
Not a chance. “Sure. I’ll call you.”
“All right.” She winked at him. “Looking forward to it.”
He nodded, pulling a battered pack of Camels from the pocket of his worn jeans. He stuck a cigarette between his lips and tipped his head toward the car. “We’ll need a couple of days to replace that windshield. You got a ride home?”
“A friend’s picking me up. Well … more of an acquaintance. My new neighbor has a daughter — lovely young lady. We just met yesterday when she was moving in. She agreed to pick me up if the car had to stay in the shop.”
A lovely young lady, huh? How young we talkin’? He dug out his lighter and lit the cigarette.
Gunner didn’t go in for barely legal, but twenty and over, and he’d have to figure out a way to meet this girl. “New in town? Or just new to your neighborhood?”
“New in town. The father doesn’t say much, but he’s nice enough. The daughter — I get the impression she’s a bit lonely. Certainly was eager to talk to me.”
“She in school?” A neutral enough question. If Peggy-Patty was like,Yes, she’s finishing her junior year at MacArthur High, Gunner would know to quit sniffing around. But if this ‘young lady’ was at the University … fair game.
He got started on Peggy-Patty’s paperwork, trying to play nonchalant.
She didn’t answer, and he glanced up to find her eyeing him. “She’s a nursing student. Good Lord, you got a one track mind.”
He laughed and ashed his cigarette. “I didn’t say anything, ma’am. Just curious.”
“Ma’am?” She shook her head. “You’re making me feel like an old lady. Listen, I knew all about your reputation before I screwed you, but this poor gal’s still getting her bearings. Don’t go pouncin’ on her like a horny tom cat, you hear?”
Gunner wanted to ask what the girl looked like, but he had a feeling Peggy-Patty wasn’t about to give him measurements. “Fair enough.”
She looked him up and down, and her gaze rested just a little too long on his crotch. She shook her head again, a little ruefully, but with an amused smile tugging her lips. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Gunner Wilson.”
He grinned and dragged on the cigarette as he went back to work. He tried to keep an eye on Peggy-Patty so he could see when her ride came, but he got distracted doing some detail work on a Chrysler and trying to ignore Durango’s whispered jibes. Durango was his — well, it wasn’t like he had best friends; he wasn’t a fucking thirteen-year-oldgirl— but his closest pal. They were both members of the Horned Devils Motorcycle Club, working at J&J Auto by day, going out on whatever missions Silverback had assigned them by night.
“You fucked her, didn’t you?” Durango whispered.
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,” Gunner muttered around the cigarette, trying not to smirk.
“Aw hell. How old is she? Forty? Forty-five?”
He pinched the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and blew out a stream of smoke. “Jesus, she’s thirty-two if she’s a day. Look at the rack on her.”
“How was she? A screamer?”
“They all are.”
“You dog.” Durango laughed. “Seriously, you fuckin’ ass-sniffing, tit-humping old dog.”
Gunner snickered and stubbed out the cigarette. “Shut up.”
“Hey, man,” Durango said after another minute. “Did you think something was weird about Silverback last night?”
Cesar “Silverback” Ortiz was the Horned Devils’ president. A gruff old curmudgeon — hard to tell when something was up with him, since he always had a bug up his ass. But yeah, Gunner had noticed the old man had been particularly grim last night when they’d all been over at the clubhouse shooting cans in the backyard.
Gunner shrugged. “Dunno. Figured it was just the heat.”
Durango rubbed the back of his neck. “You think it could be Jaws’s boys again?”
“Better not be.” He glanced over at the woman, who was waiting by the curb. Kept his voice low, just in case she had good ears. Gunner and Durango tried not to discuss club business at work, but sometimes it was necessary. “We made it damn clear last time where the turf lines are.”
“You know Jaws, though. Like a dog hurling itself against a chain. He’s gonna keep testing us.”
“Well. If the dog keeps biting, we’ll have to put him down.”
Durango shook his head and grabbed a socket wrench. “Any excuse to pull out the big guns, huh?” He got on a backboard and rolled himself elegantly under the F-150 he was working on.
“What can I say? I like my toys.”
They worked for another few minutes in silence before Durango spoke again, from under the truck. “Ought to go for a ride soon. Maybe next weekend. Up into Three Sisters.”
“What for?”
“What d’you mean? Just to ride.” Durango sounded surprised.
“Not a bad idea,” Gunner agreed. “Who do we take?”
“Chev, if he wants to come. Anyone who wants to come, really.” He paused
. “Or it could be just you and me.”
Man, he and Durango hadn’t gone off on one of their rides together in a couple of years. The Horned Devils had gotten busy with local mission, and they’d let the more innocent aspects of the club fall by the wayside.
“Let’s do it,” Gunner said. “We can leave the others a note.”
Durango rolled out from under the truck and grinned. “Ran off together into the sunset.”
“So long, suckers.”