by Nicole Fox
But I summon enough energy for one last effort, lifting myself up and riding with him until he’s squeezing my tits together and gasping, until he lets out a growling, moaning sound and thrusts into me one last time.
When we’re done, I lie in his arms, both of us staring up at the ceiling.
“I’m annoyed with myself,” I tell him after a while.
“Annoyed? Why?”
“I waited a whole week to do this with you. That was silly.”
“You had your own shit goin’ on.”
“Since when did you get so understanding?” I prod him playfully in the side.
He prods me in my breasts. “Since you told me I got a lifetime of these ahead of me.”
Then he has his face buried in them, making boat noises as I giggle and try to slap him away.
Epilogue
Yazmin
“Are you nervous?” G asks.
“Three years of study all leading up to this moment . . .”
The announcer calls somebody else’s name and they go onto the stage, accepting their diploma. The crowd cheers and claps. I hear parents calling out to their daughter and push down the urge to feel sorry for myself. Since giving birth and getting married, I’ve told myself I’ll never feel sorry for myself when it comes to parents. I am a parent now, and I won’t let how I feel affect little Toby.
“Yeah,” I say. “You could say I’m a little nervous. And you?”
I spin my wedding ring around and around, something I do when I’m feeling restless, like the time Toby was in the hospital with the chicken pox or when Spike went out on a ride to LA and didn’t come back for two weeks. I sat at the window for almost the entire time, twisting my wedding ring, wondering.
“I’m nervous,” G says. “Don’t forget, I’m just a lowly cleaner.” She waves at her graduation robes. “I shouldn’t be here, not really.”
I slap her on the arm. “Don’t be silly.”
G and I decided to go into the nursing course together, going to the same college and going to the same classes. The years have made us close. What happened with Dad and the Scorpions and Mom and Justin has become one of those stories we talk about every now and then but doesn’t rule our lives.
She smiles at me as another name is called. “It’ll be me soon. I’m C, remember. You have to wait for M.”
“Pity Spike’s second name wasn’t Cane or something. That way it’d be before Castle.”
She rolls her eyes. “This isn’t a race, you know. But I do think it’s going to make a huge difference when we start work. I’ll walk in there and say, ‘Look, did you know I got my certificate before Yazmin Macklin? I think that means you should hire me over her.’”
“Ha, ha, ha.”
We smile at each other as the line inches forward, and then somebody calls from the front, “Georgie, you’re up!”
“Oh, this is me.” She adjusts her cap. “Wish me luck.”
I wish her luck and then wait in line, cap in hand, listening as the names are called and thinking about the past. I think about the wedding at the clubhouse, Knuckles in his suit officiating. I think about the terror of the birth and how when they put Toby in my arms it didn’t matter. I think about the tears which slid down my face when he padded across the living room, smiling to me and mumbling, “Mommy! Mommy!” Most of all I think about having a family, a real family, and how even though I’ll always love Mom it isn’t so bad being an orphan if you can make something of your own.
When my name is called, I walk onto the stage with a swelling in my chest.
“We made it,” I whisper, when I see Spike and Toby in the crowd.
Spike
“Broom, broom!” Toby calls, grabbing onto my hair and driving me outside, where Yazmin is waiting. “Broom, broom, Daddy!”
“Broom, broom, little man,” I agree. “But I’ve gotta get you down now.”
“Why?” Toby demands.
“Because otherwise that door will take your head off.”
I nod to the door in question, which is too small for me to carry him through. He pouts when I lower him to the floor, but when I tickle him under the armpit he grins up at me with his gappy teeth. “Mommy looked nice,” he says. “Really, really, really nice.”
“She did,” I agree. “She looked incredible.”
“I love her lots.”
“So do I.”
In the courtyard outside the college’s function building, graduates and parents mingle, taking pictures on their phones or, for the fancier parents, big bulky photographer’s camera. I take out my camera from my pocket, a small digital, and join Georgia and Yazmin where they stand near the enclosed basketball court. Yazmin looks as gorgeous as the first day we met in her black graduation gear, her cap perched on her head. She looks flustered, too.
“I was so nervous,” she says, kissing me on the cheek. “All those eyes . . .”
“You did great,” I tell her. “Didn’t she, lad?”
Toby lifts his arms up for Yazmin to pick him up. She bends down, scooping him up. “Did I do all right?” she asks.
He kisses her on the nose. “Really, really good!” he cries. “Really, really good!”
Yazmin giggles and gives him a kiss in return. I quickly snap the picture. Yesterday I may’ve been in the city working over a couple of guys who thought they’d try and swoop in and pick up where Snake left off all those years ago, trying to funnel drugs into Sunnyside. But today I’m just a proud husband and a dad. I capture Yazmin kissing Toby on the cheek, and her face as she turns at the professor’s voice, calling them over to throw up their caps.
“I better go,” she says. “Wait for me?”
“Nah.” I grin at her, winking. “I reckon I’ll take the little man here and head on home. You’ll be all right without me.”
“You are so not funny.” She blows me a kiss and then disappears into the crowd, becoming one black robe in a sea of black robes.
“Daddy, shoulders.”
I lift him up and together we join the other onlookers. After searching the crowd for a couple of minutes we find Yazmin and Georgia near the back, smiling over at us.
“Daddy, are we happy?” Toby says.
“Why do you ask?”
“Mikey from town says being happy is a really good thing to be.”
“Okay, now, toss!”
A hundred caps fly into the air. A hundred cameras, including mine, snap photographs. A hundred graduates smile a hundred smiles, but Yazmin’s is brightest of all. Yazmin’s is the only one I see, really.
“Yeah, son,” I say. “We’re happy.”
THE END
***
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Books by Nicole Fox
Click any of the covers below to go straight to the book page!
Pistol’s Promise: A Motorcycle Club Romance (The Brethren MC) (The Outlaw’s Oath Collection Book 3)
I’m back to claim what’s mine.
If she wasn’t a mother by the time I came home,
I swore I’d give her the baby she wanted.
But Lisa forgot my promise and my face – until I stormed back into her life.
And she realized something about me is all too familiar.
PISTOL
She’s the unplucked flower from my broken youth.
And I’m coming to finish the job.
Lisa Tallbrook doesn’t remember me, but I’ve never forgotten her.
Time has treated her well.
Drew curves where none were before, painted a glistening sheen to her flowing hair.
Made her all the more delicious to look at and touch.
But the years haven’t been as gentle to me.
They’ve added tattoos to my back, scars to my fists, and s
ome bloody stains on my soul that will never go away.
In fact, Lisa doesn’t even recognize the boy who left her so long ago.
All she sees when she looks at me is a savage biker eager to score.
Hell, she might even be right.
I’m certainly hungry to bind her in my bed.
But she’s not just another notch on my belt.
She’s the prize I’ve been denied the whole time I’ve been on the road.
And I’m tired of waiting.
I’m back in town on MC business, but I think I can afford a midnight distraction.
Tonight, I’ll make my childhood sweetheart my own.
And I’ll fulfill the promise I made way back then:
To put my baby in her womb.
She’ll never forget me again.
Fury’s Promise: A Motorcycle Club Romance (The Devil’s Kin MC) (The Outlaw’s Oath Book 2)
I vowed to break her or die trying.
We’re both loners with bloody, shattered pasts.
She’s trying to escape the pain.
But the curvy beauty awoke a beast inside me:
A beast that’s about to put a baby inside her.
FURY
Some bad sh!t happened to me when I was a little kid.
But I don’t talk about my past much anymore.
All I’ll say is this:
I damn sure don’t need any women or babies in my life.
My club, the Devil’s Kin MC, rides hard and fights harder.
I drink to forget the skeletons in my past.
And I take a different girl to bed every night.
That way, I don’t have to feel anything when I kick their a$$es out in the morning.
But then I met Gloria.
And everything I thought I knew for sure…
Turned out to be nothing but dust in the wind.
GLORIA
There’s no room in my life for a man like Fury.
But it doesn’t seem like that’s stopping him.
I’ve spent years clawing my life back in order…
Ever since a horrible car crash took my entire family from me.
It hasn’t been easy, surviving on my own.
I just put one foot in front of the other.
Day after day, year after year.
And then the outlaw Fury rode in like a bat out of hell and messed it all up.
The tattooed biker showed me the wildest, most dangerous night of my life.
I should’ve known better than to submit to him.
But the truth is, I loved it.
I loved serving him.
Obeying him.
I loved the way he pinned me against the wall and growled in my ear,
“You’re mine now, kitten.”
But afterwards, I’m left with an unexpected gift, and no one to turn to for help.
Fury promises he’ll keep me and our baby safe.
But aren’t promises made to be broken?
Ciro’s Promise: A Bad Boy Mob Romance (Santora Mafia) (The Outlaw’s Oath Collection Book 1)
I promised I’d ruin her for all other men.
She’s suffered enough at the hands of an abusive monster.
But I showed her how to find pleasure in pain, in submission – to me.
Afterwards, I tried to erase her from my mind and be the cold-hearted don my father wants me to be.
But part of me always knew: one night with Sofia would never be enough.
SOFIA
Everyone makes mistakes, of course.
But not everyone makes mistakes as stupid as sleeping with Ciro Santora.
You gotta be a special kind of crazy to have a one-night stand with a mob underboss…
While still married to the crooked cop on his payroll.
They say there’s no silver linings in a deal with the devil.
But I did get my four-year-old son Christopher out of that sweaty, sinful night.
And he's the best thing in my life.
But time is ticking and it's just a matter of time before my psychotic ex figures out who the real father is.
And when he does… there'll be hell to pay.
I need safety, fast.
And there’s only one place to run:
Into the arms of the mafia monster who brought this chaos into my life in the first place.
But the problem is, Ciro's protection comes with a high price.
And I don't know if I'm ready to be the mobster’s bride.
CIRO
Danger. Money. Power.
They all have their reasons for sleeping with me.
And I don't discriminate.
Sofia was different, though.
I had no right to her – but since when did that ever stop me?
But, if I could do things over again I would have stayed away.
Left her to raise Christopher alone.
No kid deserves this life.
Trust me; I know.
But I can’t go back.
My sins are etched in stone.
And now, my best friend is dead and his blood is on my hands.
Brokering a deal with the Vincenzo family isn't going to cut it.
Someone needs to pay for his death.
It's time for me to become what I was always meant to be:
A ruthless don with no mercy in his heart.
Made to Riot: A Motorcycle Club Romance (The Ancestors MC) (Beards & Leather Book 5)
It starts with a drink. It ends with a baby in my womb.
“One night only” is a slippery slope.
I fell hard for the biker – then he disappeared.
But he’s back now, and this time, when he leaves…
He’s dragging me with him – whether I like it or not.
ANYA
He showed up in my emergency room looking like the devil had worked him over with a tire iron.
But Bryce Johnson didn’t want a nurse.
He wanted a gun, a car…
And a hostage.
And lucky for me, I was his first pick.
I’d always wanted out of this small town.
But I never thought my ticket to freedom would barge into my life like this.
A gorgeous biker with windswept hair and inky tattoos crawling over his muscular shoulders?
He might’ve looked like a dream.
But the outlaw f**ked like a nightmare.
Like an animal.
Like a brutal, savage beast.
I’d never been with a man like him before.
And after the first kiss, the first touch, the first night, I knew:
I’d never want another man again.
But landing in the biker’s bed was just the start of this madness.
Now, I’m riding shotgun with a killer behind the wheel.
And there’s no telling if I’ll make it out alive.
BRYCE
Life for me as an outlaw biker has always been simple: take the job and get it done.
By any means necessary.
Some men were born to create chaos.
To burn things down.
To f**k sh!t up.
And God knows I’m one of them.
I’ve always managed to escape the mayhem alive.
But this time, I might’ve bitten off more than I can chew.
Even though I’ve done dirty things before, and there’s no doubt in my mind I’ll do them again.
And I thought I’d learned the hard way not to get distracted when there’s a mission on my plate.
But the curvy nurse with the shining eyes is testing my focus.
She’s a do-gooder, a saint in scrubs, a angel if ever there was one.
She deserves a white picket fence, a boring-a$$ husband, and a few obnoxious, giggling little kids.
But she ain’t gonna get that with me.
Because my world is a hell of a lot different.
My world is mobs and MCs, suspense and submission, whiskey and women.
; I drink fast and ride hard.
I f**k. I break. I hurt.
It sure as hell ain’t for everyone.
So I did the fair thing:
I pointed my gun at her head and gave her a choice.
She can either run for cover.
Or she can get in the car with me, and see where the road takes her.
That’s just the beginning of our story.
And I’ll make a vow to you right now.
This will end only one way: