by K. L. Donn
Setting her down, they both groaned as his still hard cock slipped free of her tight body. He made sure she was steady on her feet before turning on the shower. Adjusting the temperature, he stepped in pulling her along with him.
This might have been a mistake. Her wet, naked body was the stuff dreams were made of. Curves in all the right places—everywhere he would need to hold onto in order to drive into her silky heat the way his body craved. Tracing a red fingerprint he’d left on her hip from his tight grip, he watched her face for any distress over his treatment, but she smiled. A smile so full of serenity he lost his breath for a quick minute.
“How you feeling’?”
“Wonderful,” she sighed happily.
Quickly washing himself, he squeezed a little of his body wash into the palm of his hand lathering it up, secretly thrilled at the idea of her smelling like him. He began caressing her slowly making sure to get every nook and cranny.
Bubbles leisurely washed down her body making his dick stand at attention again. Once she saw the state he was in, she began to giggle in such a girly way he was reminded of her age briefly. He often forgot just how young she was because of her maturity level. Life’s experience had given her that.
He had a good sixteen years on her. Nearly her entire lifetime. She must have seen his frown because the next thing he knew she was tracing his furrowed brows telling him, “You keep frowning like that and you’ll be old before your time, Dominic.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Guess you’ll just have to stick around a while to keep me smiling,” he teased her.
“Is that what you want? For me to stick around?”
Her question was loaded with meaning. Choosing his words carefully, he responded, “I want you here every day, Princess. For always. I want you by my side. I want you swollen with as many children as I can put in you. Most importantly, I want us to be us without the hassle.”
“Hassle?”
“Damn near everyone I know goes through the song and dance of playing catch and release. Him chasing her. Her rejecting him. And Princess? I don’t want that. The only thing I want in this life is you with me every day till I die.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, Princess.”
As he leaned down to kiss her, he heard the telltale squeak of his bathroom door just before a head popped in asking, “What ‘bout me?”
Deedee squealed in shock at being caught in the shower by his son, while he guarded her nude body from his inquisitive gaze. “Yeah, kid. You, too.”
*****
Dee was still laughing while drying off as Dom hustled Jax out of his room and downstairs for a snack. He’d surprised them both. Thankfully, it was before they’d been doing something he shouldn’t have seen.
Dom’s words played on repeat in her mind. He was adamant that he wanted her in both of their lives. She wanted to be but didn’t know how he could be so sure so soon. She was confused over her feelings. She wanted them to be real, but how much was her love for him left over from a child’s crush. She was really going to have to examine how she felt about him now versus the past, not wanting to confuse the two. But everything she was feeling for him in the present screamed he was the real deal. They were perfect together now and forever.
Quickly getting dressed in jean shorts and a flannel shirt, she slipped into her chucks and went in search of her men.
Her men. She liked the sound of that.
Hearing their voices and dishes clattering from the kitchen, she walked in just as Jax asked Dom, “Will pincess be my mommy now?”
She stopped breathing waiting on Dom’s answer. Was she ready for that? She was so young. Could she handle the responsibility of taking care of such a tiny person for life at this age? As she watched Jax practically vibrate in excitement waiting for his dad’s response, she realized the answer was simple.
Yes. Yes to everything.
Dom still had his back to them, so he didn’t see her when he said to Jax, “I wouldn’t mind, son. But that’s something you’re going to have to ask her about.”
“But if she’d gonna be yours, doesn’t dat mean she’s mine, too?” His voice sounded so confused.
Dom finally turned around, freezing when he saw her. She smiled and shook her head, not wanting to interrupt their very important talk.
He continued on as if she weren’t there. “I suppose she could. But she hasn’t said yes to being mine yet either.” His eyes never left hers when he spoke.
“Oh,” Jax mumbled sadly. “But she loves me. She told me so. So that means she’s mine, right?”
She nodded her head to Dom. “Yeah, Jax, she is. And one day soon she’s gonna be mine, too.” The heat in his gaze left her breathless.
Eight
It’d been over a week since Dom had brought Deedee back to Maryland, and they still had no word on what her father was up to or why. The silence was beginning to piss him off. That no one had any information on the man’s plans was infuriating. Whatever it was, he was betting it was highly illegal.
Waiting for an attack he wasn’t sure was coming was frustrating. And not knowing from who, even more so. He wanted to bring the fight to Bradshaw but without a location, he couldn’t execute it. They also hadn’t heard anything else from Brooke and that worried him just as much. She wasn’t one to take things lying down. The vindictive, controlling bitch would strike like a viper the moment she saw her chance. He was afraid Jax would get caught in the crossfire of that battle.
Dee had been extra vigilant of where his son was at all times since then. If he wasn’t with them then he was with Case, and she was still anxious until he was in her sights again. Dom couldn’t be more proud of her. Of the way she welcomed his son with open arms and loved him in a way only a mother could.
He thought she still shocked herself at times too, especially when she had to give him trouble for things. Like coloring on the wall the day before. He still wasn’t sure who cried more when she sent him for a time out. Case was still in the doghouse for laughing at how upset she was.
An hour after the incident, she’d sent the two of them to the hardware store to get chalk board paint for half of a wall in his room. Now Jax was happy as a clam to have somewhere to be more artistic, as he’d told them.
She worried she was doing everything wrong, but the difference they’d all seen in Jax since she’d arrived amazed them. He was slowing down while talking to sound out his words. He named the colors of his crayons as he grabbed them. She had him practicing tying his shoes for crying out loud. Something Angela had been trying to do for a few months now.
He was eating better, too. Trying new foods and helping her when she cooked. Choosing things for meals he never would have otherwise. She didn’t understand why they were all blown away because Jax did damn near everything she said.
When he’d asked Jaxson why, Dom had been floored.
“Because I want her to want to be my mommy. And she won’t want to if I’m a bad boy,” was what he’d told Dom.
When he told Deedee what he’d said, she’d been so upset about Jax thinking he had to be perfect for her to want him. They’d cuddled the entire afternoon watching every Lego movie known to man. If he weren’t so sick of those movies, he’d have been jealous.
Now she was in the kitchen making healthy snacks for Jax to grab on the go when he was playing and didn’t want to sit and eat. She read books to him at bed time. Told him stories to get him to lay down for a nap. She was everything he ever wanted his son to have in a mother.
When Dom had been growing up, his parents were absent on the best of days. They hadn’t paid much attention to him or his older sister Jesse. They were both lawyers and always had one case or another to get ready for; therefore, their children fell to the low side of importance until one day, when he was ten and his sister, then sixteen, had just gotten her driver’s license. While their parents were busy at the office la
te that night, she had decided the two of them would go for pizza. Little did anyone know they’d never get it.
A drunk driver had slammed into them so hard from behind at a red light. Their car had been pushed into the middle of traffic and right into an oncoming big rig truck going sixty miles per hour, hitting the driver’s side door.
Jesse died on impact, and he’d been touch and go for a couple of days. His sister had been full of life, always looking for the next big adventure. She was an optimist through and through. For years, Dom had suffered survivor’s guilt. Never understanding why he had lived and she died. To a ten-year-old, it just didn’t make sense. He wanted answers to questions that no one could give him, so he started acting out. He drank, smoked pot, and started stealing. It wasn’t long before his parents finally came out of their own grief and guilt to notice he was in a downward spiral.
When he was fourteen, he got caught vandalizing the high school with his friends; Casey included. Lucky for him, his folks worked in criminal law and were able to get the two of them community service. Dom was also forced to go into counselling.
His counselor understood him far better than anyone else because she’d suffered the same fate—losing a sibling in an accident they were both in. Only she’d turned to hard drugs and selling herself. He remembered being fascinated with her tales of hardship.
It hadn’t taken long before he understood why she was telling him such personal things. She at one time had become a statistic. No longer a victim of a random accident. She had turned herself into a victim of her own circumstances instead. From the day she realized what was happening to her, she worked hard to bring herself out of the gutter. But not before she contracted the HIV virus from a dirty, used needle. He’d been heartbroken upon hearing that and let the bitterness enter him again. She had been someone he started to look up to, and yet, she could be taken from him any day.
Two years later she was...
By a drive-by shooting.
*****
“Deep thoughts?” Deedee asked Dom as she walked up to find him staring off into the air. Turning, he smiled at seeing her. Opening his comforting arms, she went to him. With him wrapped around her so securely, she felt wanted and worthy for the first time in years. Things she hadn’t felt since her mom left.
“Tell me something, Dee…”
“Anything.”
“Do you want to be here? Do you want to go back to Ireland?” She was taken aback by his questions. He’d basically forced her to come to Maryland with him. Looking deeply into his eyes, she wondered what his questions were really about. There was something there…
“What’s going on in your mind, Dom?”
Sighing, he looked out over the fields of grass in the distance before answering. “I need to know if I’m doing you more harm than good by making you stay here.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? That’s it. Do you want to leave, Deedee?” His voice was harder, more demanding.
“It’s not that I want to leave, it’s just…” It was her turn to look away. “I have no idea what I want. For as long as I can remember, my only goal has been to get to my mam, and now…”
“Now?” he prompted.
“Now, there’s you…There’s Jaxson…There’s so many new opportunities, and I’m confused,” she told him bluntly.
He smiled at her answer. Happy that she was thinking about a future there with them but could understand her conflicting thoughts. For a while they stood in silence, enjoying the feel of being in each other’s arms. Knowing that they would figure things out in their own way.
“I can’t let you go, Princess,” he whispered into her ear. “You’re as essential to my life as breathing. I don’t know how it happened, Deidre, but you’re ingrained in my soul.”
Her eyes welled up with tears at his honesty. The fact he was such a big, strong man and a total badass made it all the more meaningful.
“Maireann lá go ruaig ach maireann an grá go huaigh.”
“What’s that mean?” he asked in her ear where he began to nuzzle her.
“A day lasts until it’s chased away, but a love lasts until the grave.” She was nervous about telling him the true meaning. Everything with them had been going at warp speed, but she was finally in tune with her heart. And her heart was telling her he was it for her.
“Oh yeah?”
Nodding her head quickly, he slowly lowered his mouth to hers. A simple meeting of lips, an intense feeling of lust, an overwhelming feeling of love. For them it was perfect.
“What’s a man gotta do to get some grub around here?” They heard Casey holler from inside the house.
“Fucking inbred...” Dom mumbled, shooting a glare at the house.
Laughing, she pulled from his arms slightly. “I’ve got to wake up Jax anyway.”
“You’re good with him.” He held a note of surprise in his voice.
“Am I not supposed to be?”
“I’m just shocked is all. He doesn’t normally take to people the way he has with you, and I had no clue how you would be with him, so ya, I was worried. At first.”
“Hmm,” she murmured walking away. Unsure of how to feel about his doubt.
“Wait a minute, Princess.” He tried to grab her arm as she walked in the house.
“It’s fine, Dominic.”
“Oh shit, what’d ya do, dude?” Casey laughed as Dom trailed her inside.
“Fuck off, Case.”
Ignoring them both, she went upstairs to wake up Jax. Entering his room, she loved the care and attention he paid to organizing everything. He had bins upon bins lined up against one wall all labeled for what toys went where. He was very proud the first time he’d shown her. His bookshelf had books going from largest to smallest and another shelf with all his teddy bears organized by character. It was one of the most innovative things she’d ever seen from someone so young.
She’d asked Dom about it a while go to see if he were the one who did it or maybe Casey or Angela. He’d told her it was all Jax. That’s been that way he’s done things since he started crawling. For him, everything had a place.
Leaning down beside the sweet, little boy’s toddler bed covered in Transformers bedding—because Optimus Prime was the bomb apparently—she started rubbing his back gently. She’d discovered that he was not happy when being awoken suddenly. He needed a slow wake up, and she was happy to do that for him.
“Jax, sweetheart, it’s time to wake up,” she whispered, kissing his head.
As her lips touched him, she realized he felt warmer than normal. Rolling him to his back gently, she felt his cheeks and continued onto his arms and chest. She knew that when he slept he was always warmer, but this felt different. He was clammy, and his face was slightly paler.
Shaking him a bit she called, “Jaxson, a stór, wake up, baby. Look at me.”
His eyes fluttered briefly before closing and he tried to roll back over. Panicking now, she picked him up and moved as fast as she could down the stairs to where Dom and Case were in the kitchen.
“Dominic!” she called in a quiet panic.
He turned, laughing at something Case had said, but all good humor faded as he took in how tense and upset she was. Looking to his son, he rushed over asking her, “What’s wrong?”
“He’s warm. Like warmer than usual. Is he ok? Is this normal? He won’t wake up!” Anxiety began rising within her. She’d never felt anything like it before. Her heart hurt from the thought of something being wrong with this sweet boy.
“Flu’s been going around,” Case supplied as he hovered over them.
“The flu? This can’t be the flu? Feel him,” Deedee demanded. Surely the flu doesn’t make a person that warm.
Dom’s hand on her neck had her looking up at him, tears hovered on her lashes. “He’s fine, Princess. We’ll get some meds into him, and he’ll be up and driving us nuts in no time. You’ll see.”
He’s his fathe
r. She should trust him, but everything in her screamed something was wrong. “Please, Dom, please can we take him to a doctor?” Her voice quivered in fear.
“Alright, Dee, we’ll take him.”
She sighed in relief. “Thank you.”
*****
When Deedee had come rushing downstairs with Jax in her arms, his heart had nearly burst from his chest at the panic written across her delicate features. As soon as he felt his sons head, he knew it was just a fever. There was no labored breathing, nothing to indicate it could be more.
With the flu rolling through the state, he knew it was only a matter of time. Every year, with or without the flu shot, Jax always contracted it. So while he knew his son’s medical quirks, she didn’t; therefore, now they were on their way into town to see his pediatrician, who thankfully could fit them in. As soon as they walked into the office, him carrying Jax who was now awake but still sleepy, Deedee rushed to the reception demanding for him to be seen immediately.
“Princess,” he growled behind her.
“Don’t you princess me, Dominic Slade,” she told him with such fierce anger and worry that he let her be. Jax may not be her son, and she may have only known him a little over a week, but she was in full-on mama bear mode. He was proud as fuck.
Cradling Jaxson in one arm, he wrapped his other around Dee’s neck seeing she was nearly in tears again. “I called for Jaxson Slade about an hour ago. Doc Mullins said he could get us in,” he explained to the receptionist.
“No problem. Please have seat, and I’ll tell him you’re here.”
As she walked away, he strong armed Dee into sitting down. “He’ll be fine,” he murmured to her again as she rubbed Jax’s forehead.
“How you feeling, a stór?”
“Tiwed,” he mumbled.
“Do you hurt anywhere?”
Shaking his head, no, he reached for her, and she gladly took him in her arms. Running his own fingers through her hair, Dom didn’t think life could be more perfect.