Dangerous (Wicked Hearts Book 2)

by Sara Cate

  After we get out of the shower, I carry her to my bed where I can’t help but bury my face between her legs just to watch her come again. Then, I make her sleep. Whether she wants to or not, I wrap my body around hers like a vice, and before long she steadies until we’re both out.

  It’s almost three in the afternoon when we wake to the sound of people in the living room. When we leave our room for the first time, they are waiting.

  Rafe is the first I notice, standing stoically in the back but with a tense smile for me.

  Logan with Sierra’s hand entwined with his. She’s biting her lip and looking only at Savannah.

  Ryder is talking with Tia near the kitchen, but they stop when they see us.

  Ruby walks into the room with a cup of coffee in her hand and an all-knowing smile that warms me somehow.

  And Lucy, who is the first to break ranks and run to my arms.

  Everything I lost this week, the pride, the bitterness, the loneliness has infected me since my own family abandoned me. I wore them as a suit of armor, and as I look around the room at the people who care so much they must have been here waiting since yesterday, I realize Hazel did this all for me. She couldn’t break through my armor, but she gave me something worth breaking through for.

  My eyes drift toward Ryder who is watching me with his brows carved in concern. Everything that happened this week, before the will, before the party was my fault, and for the first time ever, I see something familiar in him. The shape of his eyes. The slope of his nose. I see myself in him, my brother.

  And even putting all of that physical trait stuff aside, when I needed him this week, he was there. He didn’t fucking hesitate for a second. He cared for my girl like his own, and as I look at Lucy, my niece, my own flesh and blood, I realize I would do the same. In a heartbeat.

  I turn and kiss Savannah on the side of the head as she walks over to hug Sierra and Tia. Leaving Lucy with the girls, I march over to Ryder and put my hand on his shoulder.

  “A word, brother?”

  His head tilts as the words come out of my mouth. “Yeah.”

  We walk onto the patio and before the door is shut behind us, I pull him into a hug. I don’t care that everyone can see us through the window. I hope they do. I hope they know this is my brother, my real brother, and I’m not going to hide that anymore.

  He laughs as I clap his back, probably a little too hard. “You okay, man?” he asks.

  “Never better.” I pull away and find that familiarity in his face again. Now that I can see it, I can’t stop looking at it. It makes me laugh for a second. Then I sober up and say what it is I really need to get off my chest. “I treated you like shit, and you still stuck around for me. I don’t know what else to say than I’m so goddamn sorry, and I…” my words trail as I clear my aching throat. “I’d hate to see you leave again.”

  He lets out a hefty exhale, one he’d been holding, and I can tell there’s tension there. His eyes trail toward the window and I follow his gaze to the beautiful woman standing next to mine.

  “Trust me,” he says. “I don’t want to.”

  Seeing the girl and everything she did to help me save Savannah has me hoping that she’ll stick around too. I took her for a bit of a gold-digger at first, but now I see the sincerity there. She has a bite, but she’s not afraid to be kind to those it might be unpopular to be nice to—at least in her circle.

  She spots us both looking at her and quickly excuses herself from the conversation. We watch in silence as she joins us on the patio and her arms are around me a second. It takes me by surprise at first, but then I realize that she had to be just as nervous as I was, but feeling far more helpless.

  “I’m so glad everyone is okay,” she says through tears.

  “Yeah, me too. Thank you for everything. You saved her life,” I answer, which is true. Who knows how long I would have let Savannah go without Tia stepping in to knock some sense into us both. If she had been in that car much longer...

  “Listen, Murph,” she says with a hand on my arm. “About your shop.”

  “Keep it.” The words fly out without hesitation.

  “I can’t keep it,” she mumbles, obviously confused.

  “Then sell it back to Savannah.”

  “Are you serious?” Her mouth is hanging open, and it actually makes me chuckle. I didn’t plan this, but it makes total sense.

  “Dead serious. It’s what Hazel wanted.”

  Glancing over at Savannah, I see her smiling gently at me through the window, and I can’t stand the distance between us so I give Tia a quick hug, another hundred thank you-s, and I close the space until she’s in my arms.

  I don’t deserve this, I keep repeating in my mind.

  It takes us two more months before we decide to move out of Ruby’s house and into Murph’s. Maybe it was just nerves about moving so quickly to living together, and I offered numerous times to get my own place, but he wouldn’t hear it. In his own words: we don’t follow the rules. Which makes sense.

  Murph and I were never meant to meet. I was never supposed to survive that first crash, but something pulled me out of the water and dropped me off on this island, pushed me into that house, into his arms.

  He wouldn’t admit it, but I could tell he was nervous about any remaining threat from Hugo’s gang. Rafe was over all the time, talking to him in secret corners, on the phone with him from out-of-town trips, and I never asked, because I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t face the idea that he could still haunt me from the grave.

  It was a sickness called denial, and it wasn’t the only thing I was afflicted with. As things started to settle down and I watched him relax when we were out of the house, I was able to accept the truth of our situation.

  I sleep like the dead, can’t bare the smell of Pinesol that Ruby uses to mop the floors, and I’m hungrier for sex than I had ever been.

  I suspect that it was right after the crash. I didn’t take my pill for almost a week straight, and I just assumed it couldn’t happen that fast. Now that we’re packing up our few belongings to take on the daunting task of navigating life alone as a new couple, I somehow have to break the news to him that he’s taking on more than just me.

  The thought alone makes me want to barf, even more than the Pinesol.

  He throws his sweatshirt into a small bankers box and turns to me with a dashing smile. He’s started trimming up his beard, still keeping it full, but cleaning up the edges. It makes him even sexier, and most days I can’t keep my mouth off of his.

  “That’s the last thing. You ready for this?” He’s standing there, arms open and ready to take me into his home, his life, and all I can think is that I’m about to rock the foundation of his world. What if he doesn’t want me? What if he doesn’t want us?

  I break out into a sob, clapping my hands over my face. I know without looking that his smiles falls from his face and with one step his arms are around me.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, cupping my chin in his hands and pulling my eyes up to him.

  I’ve loved all the eye contact so much, but now I can’t bear it. I don’t want to see his face when I break the news.

  “I messed up,” I cry, fat tears falling onto the hardwood floor.

  “What are you talking about?” His face has gone pale, and I figure he must think I’m talking about the Hugo threat, so I’m quick with the news.

  “I’m pregnant.” Those words are like stones in my mouth, heavy and awkward, but it doesn’t feel any better once they’re out. Now they’re just holding down the room so that neither of us can breathe.

  His face freezes in an open-mouth gape. Long moments go by while I wait for him to react. All I can think is that I’ve just ruined what should be a happy day. I should have waited and not tainted this moment with something too heavy to process.

  Then, I’m crushed against his body, and he’s hugging me tighter than I’ve ever felt him hug me before. His chest is moving so fast, the pounding behind hi
s ribcage reverberates against my body. It’s like I can hear the thoughts in his head.

  I’m going to be a father.

  Murph has told me enough about his childhood to know that this isn’t necessarily a good thought to have. I’m so terrified that he’ll completely shut down and we’ll go back to the way things were before.

  Then he pulls me back and kisses me so hard it almost hurts. I touch his face, hoping I can feel the expression that I can’t see. What I find is something wet against my fingers. Seeping into the thickness of his beard are his...tears.

  “Murph,” I mumble against his mouth. “Say something.”

  When he pulls back, he shocks me with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on his face.

  “Say something? I can’t even think straight. Savannah...I’m speechless.”

  I let out a nervous laugh. “Good speechless?” I stammer.

  “Fuck, yes.” Then he laughs too and we’re hugging again.

  We’re both shaking so much that I think it takes at least an hour for this news to really sink in. Of course I’ve had a couple weeks to process the idea of having a baby in our home. His green eyes. My golden-hued skin. I see a baby resting against the tattoos of his bare chest, and it’s a vision that makes me breathless. But then the fear that the closed-hearted man I’d first met would be too devastated to accept it.

  As we drive to the house, I keep my hand in his. We pull up to the house, and we’re barely in the door before I’m stripping him of his shirt. I can feel his hesitance, and I won’t fucking stand for it, so I undo his belt buckle, which I know gets him every time.

  He lets out a hearty groan as I pull his thickness into my mouth, taking him slowly inch by inch. Watching the pleasure on his face only makes me hotter, hungry for that growl so that by the time he gets close, I don’t just want him inside me, I need it.

  “Get up here,” he orders as he guides my mouth to his.

  We kiss until we’re breathless, devouring each other to hold out on what will be our first official fuck in this house—our house. But he can’t take much more before he’s dropping me on the bed, gently on my back, of course. Then he slides in, and I feel the hesitance in his thrusts at first until I wrap my ankles around his back and make him give me what I want.

  “Look at me when you come,” he says. His hand works its way between us and I fall to pieces shortly after he starts to thumb that sweet spot just above where we’re joined. I do as I’m told, keeping my eyes on his as I’m swept away, clenching in pleasure. Keeping my eyes open is difficult as it shakes through me, more intense than usual—a side effect of this pregnancy that I don’t complain about.

  Just as he lets himself go, he clutches my face in his hands and brings our mouths together.

  “I love you,” he breathes. “So fucking much.”

  Three years later…

  Charlie is passed out on her mama’s chest, her legs dangling over the now round bump that seems to be growing so much faster than the last one.

  “I’m going to lay her down, and you better not fall asleep, Ian Murphy. Be ready for me.” She sends me a fuck-me smile and a wink before she disappears into the nursery.

  Jesus Christ, my wife is like a feral animal when she’s pregnant. You won’t catch me complaining.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I pull the tie loose and unbutton the top two buttons as I drift toward the bar for a quick drink while she puts the baby down. Although I guess I can’t keep calling her a baby. She’s nearly three already.

  As I stare out the large glass window into the dark abyss of the beach, I remember where I was three years ago today. What a jackass I was. And as I steal a glance at my life now, toys scattered across my living room floor, new ink on my skin courtesy of my wife and business partner, the wedding band on my finger, I think about how much I stood to lose if Hazel hadn’t butted into my goddamn business.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. As I fish it out, I see my brother’s name pop up on the screen.

  Ryder: I think it went well.

  Murph: How the fuck would I know? You think I’ve ever been to a benefit before?

  Murph: Let alone fucking throw one.

  He responds back with an eye-roll emoji. I talk a big game and he knows it. Of course the benefit went well. The Hazel Whitaker Foundation for Foster Youth stood absolutely no chance of not being a major success. Not necessarily because of the guys behind the whole thing, but because the girls led the way from the very beginning.

  We met our goal, and now we’re able to fund at least five full-ride scholarships for foster kids every year. Next year, I want more.

  Savannah steps up behind me, her arms wrapping around me but unable to meet with that round globe between us.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask as I turn and rub my hands over her belly.

  “Good,” she says, stretching her back. “Everything about this one is different, so I have a very good feeling.” She shines with excitement. We decided not to find out the sex with either of her pregnancies, and I smile back at her because she thinks I want a boy, but to be honest, I couldn’t care less. I want another beautiful, healthy little Savannah-clone in my life, and I don’t care about much else.

  “Well, I know one thing that’s not any different,” I chuckle as she starts rubbing her palm along the growing thickness in the front of my pants.

  “Mrs. Murphy, you are insatiable.”

  “Fuck right, Mr. Murphy.” Her fingers don’t fumble pulling my belt open, and I kiss her, my beautiful wife, as I carry her to the bedroom.

  Sneak Peek…

  Continue reading for a sneak peek at the blurb for the standalone age-gap romance coming this summer…

  Playboy. Socialite. Frivolous and Wicked.

  Alexander Caldwell needs to settle down.

  Hence the giant white house he just bought in the suburbs.

  The one that backs up to the house filled with three single women living in it.

  They all have their sights set on him...but it’s her he can’t get out of his head.

  Alexander has absolutely no place getting involved with a teenage girl with the world in her eyes.

  But he does.

  Tortured. Lonely. Desperate to run.

  Sunny Thorn needs to get out of her mother’s house.

  To do that, she needs money.

  Hence taking the job painting a mural in Alexander Caldwell’s pool house.

  The man whose eyes follow her. The man with the sculpted jaw and commanding presence. The man who is way too old for her.

  When Sunny has the chance to get out of Pineridge and start a future of her own, he should let her go.

  But he doesn’t.

  Stay tuned for news on this upcoming standalone novel!

  Also by Sara Cate

  Wicked Hearts Series

  Delicate

  Dangerous

  About the Author

  Sara Cate writes contemporary romance about bikers, bad boys, hunks, and softies--all rolled into one. She has a soft spot for redemption stories and forbidden romance.

  You can find more information about her at

  www.saracatebooks.com