I didn’t think anything of her taking her bag into my bedroom until twenty minutes later when Delanie threw back the covers and a three-foot-long dildo lay in our bed where the covers once were.
Delanie, not caring at all at the appearance of the dick that she and her sister passed around, picked it up and tossed it on the floor.
The squeaker that Dillan had deposited in it made an odd airy bleeping sound as it hit and rolled.
“Does Asa ever see this?” I asked curiously as I threw off the decorative pillows that Delanie had insisted now be on my bed.
“No.” She paused. “At least, I don’t think so. Remind me to pick that up in the morning.”
Laughing as I got into bed, I didn’t wait for her to get all the way in before I pulled her toward me and then even farther underneath of me.
She laughed and wrapped her arms around my shoulders.
“You okay after today?” I asked softly.
She raised a brow at me. “You mean, are you okay?”
I shrugged. “I think it scared you. What could happen to me.”
She placed both of her hands on either side of my face and said, “Of course it scared me, what happened to you. But what happened to Jason wasn’t normal. Somebody threw a Molotov cocktail at his car. That doesn’t happen every day.”
“They have a lead on that, by the way,” I murmured, smoothing the hair back from her face. I got a call a couple of minutes before I got home. “A kid saw it happen. Some thirteen-year-old. They said it was some white Rolls Royce. Fancy car for that neighborhood. Cut him off and caused Jason to slam into the guardrail. And then, while he was distracted, they threw the bottle at his car.”
Her face went sad.
“And the seat belt malfunctioned,” she said.
The seat belt had malfunctioned.
It was later found out that the seat belt had never unattached, and Jason had been halfway through cutting the belt when the Molotov cocktail had caught the gas that was leaking from his truck on fire and caused the entire thing to blow up.
It was at this point that everyone decided that it was due to the case that Jason was working—an undercover one that he’d been working with a joint task force with a few other surrounding law enforcement agencies—that had found out he was an undercover cop.
It was likely, though, that we’d never have answers.
“Your job scares me,” she said as she ran the back of her fingers over my bearded jaw. “But what scares me more is the fact that you aren’t scared. A little nervousness I think goes a long way in how you protect yourself.”
The kiss that I intended to be a slow caress of my mouth against hers turned carnal when she pushed up against me.
I grinned against her mouth. “You want me, Delanie?”
She laughed then, the vibration against the smooth skin of my lips. “Of course, I want you. I always want you.”
Things moved fast after that.
And soon I found her over the top of me, riding my cock.
Her breasts were bouncing with each downward thrust, and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that I wanted this for the rest of my life.
I wanted kids with her.
I wanted more dogs with her.
I wanted to see her doing exactly this in our new home that we built with each other.
“Marry me.”
The words slipped free of my mouth before I’d even consciously thought about the repercussions of them.
Her eyes were wide when she came to a standstill, her pussy solidly filled with me.
She looked at me, hands on my chest, and said, “Did you just say what I think you said?”
I grinned.
“What would you say if I did?” I asked, my hands clenching on her hips when she started to tighten her inner muscles around me.
“I’d say that I’m crazy right along with you because I want to say yes.” She paused. “That’s kind of a lot of ‘says’ but really, I would say yes. A thousand times yes.”
I rolled with her until her back was planted in the bed, and her legs were up around my hips.
Then I reached into the bedside drawer and pulled out a velvet ring box.
“I was going to wait,” I said as I placed it down in the middle of her chest. “I was going to come up with a perfect way to ask. To tell you that I love you. To tell you that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Seriously, I have a hundred million things that I want to tell you when it comes to how perfect you are for me.”
I leaned down and captured her lips softly with mine.
When I pulled back, I said, “I love you. I love your kid. I love having you around, day in and day out. I love coming home to you, and I love waking up to you. I love that you love my dog. I love that you wake up and your hair looks like an absolute rat’s nest to me and you don’t even care. Even more, I love that you love me. Delanie, will you marry me?”
She shakily reached for the velvet box that was in between her unbound breasts and cracked it open just far enough that she could see inside.
Her mouth quirked up at the edges and she let it click back closed.
“Put it on me,” she ordered.
I went up on my knees, then reached for the box.
She kept us joined together with her legs firmly locked behind my ass.
Popping the box open, I withdrew the ring, tossed the box to the floor, and reached for her hand.
She grinned wickedly at me as I slipped it on her finger.
“You’re mine now. No going back,” I growled.
Then started to move again.
Twenty minutes later, when she was lying on top of me, I said, “I want you to go off the shot.”
She trailed her fingers up the length of my side.
“How about we focus on getting married first?” I suggested. “Then, when we’re done with that, we can focus on a baby.”
I smiled and pulled her even closer.
“We’ll see.”
Chapter 15
I’m a better person when I’m with you.
-Bourne talking to his coffee
Bourne
“Hello?” I answered, distracted.
I was half hanging off of the cliff wall with my cell phone in one hand, and my other hanging on so I wouldn’t fall off.
“Is this Mr. Pena? Bourne Pena, Asa’s uncle?” a hesitant woman’s voice asked.
I let myself go from the wall, swinging backward about three feet before I went swinging back toward the wall.
“This is him,” I replied gruffly.
I was tired.
Not only was I tired, but I was sweaty as hell, too.
“This is Mrs. Potts, the school nurse. I know it’s about thirty minutes before scheduled release, but we were instructed to call when Asa said he was feeling the start of a migraine coming on,” she replied.
I didn’t hesitate in getting down.
“I’ll be there in just a few minutes,” I said. “It’ll take me about five. Tell him to put something cold over his face, and to get somewhere quiet with no light.”
“I already have him there,” she replied. “He’ll be waiting for you in my office. Just tell the front office ladies that I have him and they’ll let you back.”
And they did.
Ten minutes later, I arrived to find Asa lying in the dark with a cold compress on his eyes.
The moment he saw me, though, all feigned headache was gone.
I looked at him sharply.
“You okay?” I asked, worried now.
“Are you ready?” he chirped.
I held out my hand and nodded. “Yeah, are you?”
“Yep!” he replied.
Five minutes we were heading out to my truck.
“You’re not really sick, are you?” I asked curiously.
He grinned at me sheepishly. “Kind of?”
“Asa…”
He scrunc
hed up his nose.
“I was ready to go home,” he muttered. “I don’t really have a headache. Some girl wouldn’t leave me alone, and I was tired of dealing with her.”
My lips twitched.
Since I was the one picking Asa up anyway today because he had a doctor’s appointment, I didn’t tell anybody that I had him.
I also wouldn’t let this cuteness get to his head.
“You know,” I said as I looked at my little buddy on the seat behind me. “I love you. And I love spending time with you, but if you’re not actually sick, you can’t be having us pick you up from school just because you don’t want to be there.”
Asa looked up at me through my rearview mirror and pouted.
“But…”
I shook my head. “No buts. I’m sorry. I love you, but you have to go to school. We sometimes have to do the hard things to get the good things.”
He grumbled something under his breath. “But she was being so mean! She wouldn’t even let me have any of her ice cream today!”
“So tell me about this girl?” I asked as I drove him to the store. Where, I wouldn’t admit, I got him some ice cream of his own.
Three hours later, we’d been to the doctor, seen our movie, I’d fed him, and I was pulling up in front of my house.
I was laughing my ass off at his rendition of the superhero bad guy we’d just watched on the big screen when Delanie came running out of the house as if her heels were on fire.
“Asa!” she cried.
Her eyes were pouring tears, and I was so confused.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, worried.
She glared at me. “Why didn’t you tell me that you had him?”
I frowned. “I… what?”
Dillan and Booth were slower to arrive, but they were both in extremely bad moods, too.
“Did something happen?” I asked.
“Something happened.” Delanie stood up, her arms around Asa. “Yes, something happened! You happened! You didn’t tell me that you were picking him up early!”
I blinked.
“What?” I asked.
Had I heard her correctly?
“We got a call,” Booth said, his voice serious and low. “From her father.” He pointed at Delanie. “Asking us if we knew where our kid was. All cryptic-like, too. Then hung up and refused to answer the phone. When we tried to find Asa, we realized he wasn’t at school. And no one could tell us who had him.”
I remembered the front office ladies being gone, and since I’d already spoken with the nurse about taking him, I hadn’t thought it was a big deal to sign him out twice.
“I… the nurse knew,” I said. “She was the one who called me.”
Delanie was shaking now.
“Asa,” Delanie said as she gestured toward the door. “Head inside and change your clothes.”
Yeah, so the kid had ice cream all over him. And when I say all over him, I meant all over him. His shirt. His pants. His face. He’d made a huge mess.
But I could tell that it’d just been one more thing to upset her.
“We didn’t know,” Delanie said once Asa was inside. “We didn’t know, and we should have.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets.
“I didn’t think that I needed to call,” I admitted. “It was only about an hour early. You knew I was going to get him this afternoon. Y’all were in the lawyer’s office. In an important meeting.”
Why did I feel the need to keep repeating myself?
I didn’t really feel like I was in the wrong here.
“You should have!” Delanie snapped. “You should have called! He could’ve been really hurt! And we didn’t know.”
I instantly felt badly.
But still…
“Next time, I’ll call,” I said. “Just sayin’, but something is wrong there when the office didn’t know where he went. They were the ones to call me and tell me he needed to be picked up. Next time, I’ll be sure to sign him out in the office and the nurse’s office, though.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Delanie snapped.
Booth stiffened slightly.
Dillan looked torn.
“What?” I asked, my tone deadly quiet.
“There won’t be a next time,” she ground out. “Next time, they’ll either call me or Booth. I told them that today when I called back for the fourth time. That was absolutely ridiculous that they couldn’t tell me where my kid had gone.”
I frowned. “You’re telling me I can’t pick him up anymore?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and refused to answer.
Which pissed me off.
“I’ve been picking him up from school, and before that, daycare, for his entire life. You’re going to revoke my privileges of picking him up because of something stupid like this?” I asked. “That’s ridiculous. He was fine!”
“Booth…” I started, looking at my brother. “What the fuck?”
I mean, I could tell that Delanie was pissed. I would have been, too.
But still.
Refusing to allow anyone but those two to pick him up? That was ridiculous. Especially seeing as Delanie had been gone so much lately and Booth was a police officer like I was. Sometimes it just wasn’t feasible for them to be the only ones. Like today, for instance.
If I hadn’t been available, what would’ve happened?
Which is what I asked next.
“What would’ve happened if they’d called today?” I asked. “What if he really would’ve had a migraine coming on? Would you have just left him there until one of you was able to leave? Because, let’s just say, that’s downright ridiculous. How many times has he been needed to be picked up over the last couple of weeks by someone other than you two?”
A lot.
There was no way they could even count on their hand the number of times.
Which she damn well knew.
Asa may have had Booth and Delanie as a mother and father, but he was raised by our entire family.
I don’t know what I expected her answer to be, but it definitely wasn’t the words that came out of her mouth.
“He’s not your child, Bourne!” Delanie yelled. “You don’t get a say!”
I looked from Delanie to my brother, hoping to see him understanding what had happened, but instead seeing then that the asshole agreed with her. At least, slightly.
I understood they had a scare, but Jesus Christ. I’d been with him the entire time. They could trust me, for Christ’s sake.
Clenching my teeth, I held up my hands and said, “Fine.”
They needed some time to cool off.
I understood that.
Delanie, I could tell, was still pissed.
So was Booth.
Dillan was standing off to the side, looking torn. As if she knew what I’d done was just an accident. But she’d been scared right along with Booth and Delanie.
And I realized that. She was scared. They all were scared. But… I didn’t do anything wrong. And Dillan knew that.
Because, like me, she wasn’t Asa’s parent and never would be. She’d always be on the outside looking in, just as I always would be.
I walked inside without another word and passed all of them on the way in.
Heading to my room, I wondered where I was going to go.
Having them in my place meant that I had nowhere to go.
Which pissed me off even more because this was my fucking place. I shouldn’t have to leave.
But I wasn’t a dick.
I wasn’t going to ask Delanie to go.
I was going to give her time to cool off and collect herself. Then, when she apologized, I’d accept because I knew her temper got the best of her.
I decided to head to the camper at the land that I’d bought with Booth.
It wasn’t anything special, but it was a place that would allow me to decompress and get my shit toget
her, while also not being so far away that I couldn’t respond seeing as I was on call tonight.
Delanie and Booth followed me into the living room, still looking pissed.
Delanie’s glare didn’t make me feel any better.
“But let me tell you this,” I said as I headed toward the bedroom. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have me picking him up, taking him to doctor appointments, and doing shit that a parent would do without actually being somewhat of a parent. I can’t be there but not be there. Not anymore. You need to choose. Either I’m in or I’m out.” I paused, looking from Booth to Delanie. “I didn’t do anything wrong today. Like planned by both of you, I was going to pick him up anyway. Originally, I wasn’t going to call you. And, since I was already going to take him to a doctor appointment, I didn’t feel the need to tell you that I was picking him up early, especially since the reason that you both needed me to pick him up was because y’all were going to be in important meetings that had to do with his custody, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. Had there actually been an emergency, I would’ve called. I would’ve interrupted that meeting. But, there wasn’t. I was in control. Asa was fine. And, had either one of you fucking texted or left a voicemail, or you know, relayed that you were worried, I would’ve told you the same. But I didn’t get any of those things. I got a call that immediately hung up. No voicemails. No texts. No urgent anything. So I left it alone because I’d taken your son to a movie. Like I said I was going to do anyway after school. I can’t be on the outside looking in if we’re going to get married. A stepdad is a dad. They get to do the same things, and are afforded the same things, that an actual biological parent gets. So maybe think about that for a minute.”
Neither one of them said a word, so I took that as my cue to go. Because after explaining that, I only got more pissed.
I hadn’t done anything wrong!
Yet, she was pissed at me for not calling her and telling her that I had him.
Whistling to Moses, I called him to me and headed for the door of my bedroom. Once there, I hastily packed a bag. Shoving a couple of pairs of jeans, a change of workout clothes, some socks and my tennis shoes into a bag before yanking three random t-shirts off the stupid hangers that I now had to use since Delanie had come into my duplex and taken it over with all of her stuff.
Join the Club (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 7) Page 17