Claimed: The Complete Short Romance Series

by Nichole Rose

  I writhe on the bed in anticipation.

  A few seconds later, he's back. Lube slides down the crevice of my ass. I lurch forward, shocked by how cool it is against my skin. Shock fades quickly when he puts his hands on me, playing with my clit until I'm squirming beneath him and begging for release.

  He doesn't make me beg long. He presses a finger against the tight ring of muscle and then slips it into me. I moan, laying my cheek against the bed. He plays with me for several moments, trying to prepare me.

  I tremble with excitement when he lines himself up with my bottom and slowly pushes inside. No matter how many times he takes me this way, I can't ever seem to get used to how incredibly big he is, like he's splitting me open. I bite my lip, fighting through the uncomfortable sensation, knowing how much pleasure waits on the other side.

  "Easy, angel," he croons once the head of his cock slips inside me. He pauses to let me adjust to him. One finger runs in circles around my clit.

  When I'm moaning and pushing back against him, he wraps one hand around my hip and eases forward again. We do this a few times, with him stopping every couple of inches, until I'm impaled on him and he's breathing hard.

  "Christ. I forgot how tight you are this way," he growls, leaning over me to kiss all over my upper back. "I'm not going to last."

  He says that every time.

  "You lead, angel baby," he says. "I want to watch you fucking yourself with my cock."

  Oh…jeez.

  "Asher," I moan.

  "Do it, Kennedy."

  I give him what he wants…what he demands, rocking back against him. His long, low groan lets me know he loves it. He plays with my clit as I impale myself on him over and over. There's no way it should feel so damn good, but it always does. Better than I remember.

  "Asher," I whisper, writhing on him, pleading with him to make me come.

  He gives me what I want. The hand on my hip tightens. He thrusts into me, rocking his hips and cursing as he plays with my clit. I get lost in him all over again. There's so much pleasure hitting me from all sides…where we're joined, and where he's touching me, and where my nipples drag across the bed with each thrust.

  I let it take me, crying out his name as I come.

  "Fuck!" he shouts, losing control. He thrusts wildly, his balls smacking against me with each deep thrust. Once, twice…three times. He growls my name as he comes.

  I feel his cock spasm inside me, feel the warmth of his release deep inside me. I writhe through it, colors bursting behind my eyelids in a blinding whirl. I float in bliss, slumping against the bed. My heart races, singing his name with each frenetic beat.

  "Kennedy," he groans, laying his head against my back. "Jesus Christ, angel baby."

  "Mm," I hum, unable to form words yet.

  We stay just like that for several moments before he reluctantly pulls out of me. We both groan at the same time. And then he's lifting me up in his arms. I relax against him, letting him take me wherever he wants, do whatever he wants.

  He carries me into the bathroom and starts the shower, holding me close while it warms up. Reverent, adoring kisses touch my cheeks and forehead, my eyes, and my lips. They're tinged with sweetness, full of love.

  "I can't believe you're carrying my baby again," he says once we're in the shower, warm water beating down on us. He slides me down his body until I'm on my feet. His big hand runs across my belly. "Jesus, Kennedy. Do you have any idea how much I love you?"

  "I do," I whisper, burrowing into his arms.

  "You don't." His voice is thick, choked with emotion. "You make my life so much fucking better just by existing. And then you go and do something like get pregnant, and it gets a thousand times better than that. There are no words for how much I love you, angel baby. For how much I need you. They don't exist."

  "Asher," I whisper, melting into him.

  "I'm serious," he says, tipping his forehead down to rest against mine. "The way you make me feel…fuck, baby. My entire life finally made sense when you married me. Everything that happened, all the shit I went through and the shit I did, it led me to you. It made me yours."

  "I always thought seeing my name in print would be the best moment of my life and the greatest thing I would ever do, but I was wrong." I blink my eyes open and my future stares back at me from his gray eyes, just like he says his does when he looks into mine. It's bigger, brighter, more beautiful than I ever imagined it could be. "Meeting you was the best moment. Loving you is the greatest thing. I'm yours, Asher. Always."

  He kisses me slowly, sweetly, holding me close.

  "I love you."

  "I love you too, angel baby."

  We stay there for several long moments, lost in each other before he reluctantly pulls back to clean us up.

  "I'm ready for that tattoo now," I tell him when he runs his hands down my belly, over the spot he wanted to tattoo the first night he made love to me.

  His gaze flickers to mine.

  "It's you, Asher. I want you in my skin, a permanent part of me."

  "Kennedy." His eyes flutter and his nostrils flare. "You want me on you forever, angel?"

  "Forever and ever," I whisper.

  His blinding smile sets my very soul on fire with love.

  Asher

  "What do you think?" Kennedy asks, biting her lip.

  I stare at my name on her, a welter of emotion running through me in a tangle too tight to unravel. It's love and joy and all those things I never thought I'd find. Home. My family. Peace. I don't know if this is what my mother hoped for me when she left me in that bathroom with her note. I like to think it is. That, wherever she is, she wanted this life for me.

  It's a pretty fucking great one. My wife and kids are my world. I would kill for them without remorse, die for them without complaint. They're the reason I get up in the morning, and the last thought on my mind when I sleep at night.

  I already love the baby growing in Kennedy's belly as fiercely as I do our daughters. I pray she's a girl like her sisters, another little replica of the woman standing in front of me, tiny and delicate and forged from a type of steel no man could ever break.

  Spirit. Soul. Love. I don't know which she is, exactly. But she's mine.

  "Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still," I whisper the line from Jane Eyre that reminded me of her the first time I read it, running a finger around the outside of my name inked in her skin. The line is even more accurate now than it was five years ago. Her incredible mind is my treasure. Her soul is my home.

  I'm fucking crazy about her. Always have been. Always will be.

  "Asher," she says, melting like a Popsicle for me. She flings her arms around my neck, rising on her toes to kiss me.

  It's there that our girls find us a few minutes later.

  "Daddy! Daddy!" Coraline yells, bursting into my booth like the little comet she is. She runs straight to me, wrapping her little arms around my leg. Her face is covered in sticky chocolate, her eyes bright with happiness.

  Kennedy laughs quietly at the sight.

  "Knock, knock," Caroline says, peeking her head in a second later. She's got Catherine in her arms.

  My girl sees me and immediately reaches out her little arms, demanding that I take her from her aunt. I do, of course. She commands me just as easily as her mama does. Both of my girls do. They're pieces of me, part of my soul.

  "Oh, wow," Caroline says, looking at Kennedy's new tattoo. "It's so pretty."

  "No," Kennedy whispers. "It's perfect."

  Bonus Scene

  Asher

  Two Years Later

  "You little motherfucker," I growl, wrapping my hands around the edges of the drawer and wiggling it left and right. The damn thing creaks. But it doesn't slide onto the track.

  "Asher," Kennedy giggles, a piece of pizza hovering in her hand. "I don't think cursing it is going to help."

  "Neither do these fucking instructions," I mutter, releasing the drawer
to pick up the offending trifold of unhelpful instructions. Why furniture companies think their shitty diagrams are helpful, I don't know. But they're the least helpful shit on the planet. Actual words would be nice, but no. They give you a thin sheet full of numbers and letters and expect you to just know which screw is A and which is B.

  "It should just slide onto the track," Kennedy says. "That's how the one in mine and Caroline's old apartment worked."

  I lower the instructions to look at her overtop. "You built the one at the apartment?"

  "No. Well, sort of," she says before taking a bite of her pizza. "Caroline helped."

  "And the drawer worked?" I ask, unconvinced.

  "Yep," she says and then hits me with a bright smile that says she's up to something. "Do you want some help?"

  I toss the directions aside and lean back, getting comfortable. There's no way she's going to be able to get the drawer in either. I'm convinced it doesn't even go in the fucking dresser. IKEA just put it in the box to fuck with me.

  "Have at it, angel baby," I say, motioning toward the drawer.

  She sets her pizza on her plate and then seems to think better of it and takes another big bite. She wiggles until she's able to get her feet underneath her. At five months along, her belly is already bigger than she is. I love it though. I never knew how fucking sexy a pregnant woman could be until I got Kennedy pregnant. Didn't know how badly I wanted kids, either.

  Seeing her pregnant with my baby has completely changed everything. For the first time in my life, everything makes sense. I still don't know if my mom left me like she did to give me a chance, but I know that I would do anything for the little girl growing in my wife's belly. There is no limit to how far I would go to ensure she had the best chance possible.

  Sometimes, I wonder if my mom felt anything like Kennedy does about our little girl. Did she squeal the first time she felt me move? Did she cry over the most ridiculous shit? Or measure her belly every day for five months? I don't know. I hope she loved me like that. But if she didn't….well, I know my wife does.

  She's brought so much fucking good into my life. It's unreal. I thought I knew happiness the day I met her. I thought I knew joy the day she married me. But she's given me both a thousand times over since then. Every day with Kennedy is an adventure. She's tiny and sassy and so fucking beautiful. She's everything to me. And the little girl growing in her belly is too.

  I feel like I was always supposed to end up here…in an apartment in New York City, building nursery furniture while my wife eats pizza and gives me shit about it. Moments like these…this is what I live and breathe for. This is what I would die for, no questions asked.

  "Help me down," she demands, waddling across the floor toward me with her hand extended.

  I take it and help ease her down to the floor beside me.

  "Thank you," she says, as polite as ever. She tucks strands of hair behind her ears and then reaches for the instructions. Her gaze flits between them and the drawer that won't go in.

  I slide her feet into my lap to massage them.

  She giggles and tries to squirm away. "That tickles."

  "That's because you're ticklish everywhere, angel baby." I smile and run my finger down her instep, making her laugh and squirm again. Swear to Christ, I could listen to that sweet laugh all day and never grow tired of hearing it.

  "Am not," she mumbles, setting the instructions aside. "The track is in backwards."

  "What?"

  "The track is in backwards," she repeats, pointing to the instructions and then the track. "This part goes at the back of the drawer. It keeps it from slipping off the track in the back."

  I release her foot to snatch the instructions up out of the floor. I look at them and then the drawer and then at them again, trying to see what she does.

  "Son of a bitch," I growl. Sure as shit, I installed the track backwards.

  Kennedy pats my hand, her expression somber. "It's okay. At least you look sexy doing manual labor."

  I toss the instructions and grab for her, making her squeal with laughter.

  "I'm just kidding!" she cries through her laughter. "You're an excellent builder. Bob would be proud."

  I carefully pick her sexy ass up and plant her in my lap before splaying my hand across her belly. "Didn't hear you complaining when I helped make this, angel baby."

  "I can complain if you want me too," she sasses, batting her lashes at me.

  "Yeah?" I smile at her. She's so fucking cute. "You didn't seem to have any when you were screaming my name and coming all over me."

  She huffs at me.

  "Let's hear your complaints then," I say, making a hurry up gesture.

  "Well, I don't have any right now."

  I laugh at her, smirking. "That's because you love when I'm inside you, angel. And you loved every minute of making our baby girl." I run my hand down her belly, cupping her pussy in my palm. "You rode me like your life depended on it."

  "Did not," she breathes. Her gorgeous eyes darken even as her cheeks turn pink. She's a little hellcat in bed, taking what she wants from me. But just let me mention sex and she gets all shy and prim. I fucking love it.

  "Did so," I growl, swooping to kiss her. She tastes like her pizza. I don't mind. I'd kiss this girl every minute of every day if I could feasibly do it. There's something addictive about the way she reacts when I take her mouth. She purrs like a little kitten and turns to putty in my hands.

  "Asher," she moans, writhing in my arms when I grind my thumb against her clit through her little shorts.

  I pull back when my dick hardens, eager for another taste of her.

  "Go finish your pizza, angel baby," I order her, knowing I'm going to be inside her again in five minutes flat if she doesn't go back to the couch. Keeping my hands off her is a never-ending battle. I try like hell to be good, but when the reward for being bad is getting inside her…well, I'm happy to play the devil.

  "Don't boss me."

  "Do you want me to finish building the furniture?"

  "Yes."

  "Then take your pretty ass back over to the couch before I'm fucking you over this dresser, angel baby," I say, biting her bottom lip.

  "Fine," she huffs. "But only because I'm still hungry." She smacks me on the chest. "Help me up. I'm too fat to do it myself."

  "What the fuck?" I growl, glaring at her.

  "Simmer down," she says, rolling her eyes at me. "Jeez. I think you get more offended than I do about things."

  "That's because you're not fucking fat."

  "I didn't mean it like that. I'm five months pregnant with your kid," she says, scowling at me like she's mad about it even though I know she's thrilled about being pregnant. "She's going to be a toddler when she comes out if she keeps growing like she is."

  "Baby," I say, laughing. "She's the size of a banana. Your pizza weighs more than she does."

  Kennedy gasps. "This belly is not pizza weight. It's baby weight."

  "Okay."

  She narrows her eyes on me. "We're not friends anymore."

  "You can't unfriend me, Kennedy. We're married."

  "Whatever. I'm pregnant. I can do what I want," she huffs and then smacks me in the chest again. "Help me up. My butt is going numb."

  I hop up and hold out a hand to her, pulling her up.

  "Showoff," she mutters under her breath, making me chuckle.

  Once she's on her feet again, I kiss the shit out of her and then smack her on the ass. "Go sit."

  "Should I bark too, master?" she sasses me.

  "Baby," I shake my head, laughing. Jesus, I fucking love her. She's so feisty when I get her riled up. It's the sexiest thing I've ever seen. She's usually so sweet and gentle, but once she gets going, she's a little savage.

  She mumbles under her breath and then waddles back to the couch. I watch her the whole time, grinning. If she knew she waddled, she'd probably kick my ass. And have no doubts about it: she may be little, but she could absolutely kick my ass
. There is nothing my wife can't do if she wants it badly enough.

  Being the one who gets to watch her make her way in this world is a goddamn gift. She smashes every goal she has, and then reaches higher. Jared was right about her talent. The way she sees the world is special. I love that I'm the man who gets to protect that gift.

  Once she's settled on the couch again, happily eating her pizza, I pull the track out of the dresser and flip it around to install it properly. It takes five minutes, and then the drawer goes in fine. Naturally.

  I grab the handles to put them on, only to see her phone flash.

  "Are you taking pictures?" I ask her.

  She glances up at me over the top of it like I'm crazy. "You're doing manual labor without a shirt on while I eat pizza. Are you crazy? Of course I'm taking pictures."

  I toss down the handle for the dresser and climb to my feet.

  Her expression turns wary. "What are you doing?"

  I stalk toward her, not responding.

  "Asher!" she squeals when I steal the pizza and phone from her and set them aside. She squeals again when I scoop her up into my arms and stomp toward the bedroom.

  "Let me down, you crazy man!" she yells, wiggling like a slippery little eel and laughing loudly. The sweet sound rings out around us, making me rock hard.

  "No," I growl, tossing her carefully onto the bed. Before she can roll off the side, I'm on her, pinning her beneath me.

  "What are you doing?" she breathes as I work her t-shirt up over her head.

  "Wearing your pretty little ass out with orgasms so you'll go to sleep, and I can build our daughter's furniture in peace," I murmur, moving her hair out of the way to slide her t-shirt off. As soon as it's out of the way, I lean down, capturing a hard nipple in my mouth.

  "Asher," she moans, melting beneath me.

  By the time I'm finished with her, we're both covered in sweat and come, and she's fast asleep. I lay beside her for a long time afterward, just watching her sleep. She looks so damn peaceful and happy. Christ, I still can't believe she's real and that she's mine. Whatever I did right enough to deserve her and the baby growing in her belly, I pray to God I keep doing it right.