Chapter 24
24
Atlas
I could see the shock flare in Rowan’s eyes. She was standing near the tub, looking achingly lovely in a flowing blue dress that was a million times better than the prim little business ensembles she’d used to favor. Her black hair was loose and her cheeks had regained some color, which was good.
I’d nearly had a fucking heart attack when I’d come into the bathroom to find her sitting on the floor, white as a sheet. I hadn’t thought twice, going over to her and gathering her into my arms, holding her as she’d gazed up at me, her eyes dark with panic.
She was conscious and uninjured, though, and I hadn’t needed to see the test on the vanity to understand what was going on. Only one thing could make her panic like that and that was actually finding herself pregnant.
I’d been waiting for confirmation, of course, but hadn’t expected the reality to hit me exactly the way the possibility had hit me two weeks earlier, though. That reality, not just a possibility anymore, had slammed into my chest, stealing my breath, making shock echo through me. Then after the shock had passed, I’d been gripped by a deep sense of triumph and satisfaction. Whether that was all purely biological or something more I wasn’t sure, but I hadn’t counted on the intensity of it. I hadn’t counted on the urgency to protect Rowan and my child that had subsequently kicked into high gear, either.
Regardless of what I’d said about it being early days, Charlotte’s regime of check ups and insistence on contact would make it impossible for us to screw around with dates. Despite the fact that she didn’t know me, Charlotte seemed to have some insight into what kind of man I was — probably through my association with Ten — and had planned her own responses accordingly, which meant I needed to be careful about protecting Rowan, especially given the shit Charlotte had on Ten and therefore me.
I shouldn’t have given Rowan an opening into asking about that particular shit, but it wasn’t fair of me to keep it from her when there were some very real implications for her. If Charlotte decided to use the intel she had on Ten there would be press. Ten would be hounded and once my role was discovered — and it would be discovered, the media loved a secret — so would I. And so would Rowan.
I could only imagine what would happen then. Charlotte would likely swoop in as the savior and take Rowan under her wing, and my child would be taken away….
You can’t let that happen.
“What do you mean you’ll go down too?” Rowan took a couple of steps toward me. “What did you do, Atlas?”
My chest tightened, anger simmering in my gut. “Only what needed to be done,” I said shortly. “But if my role is discovered, I’ll likely be charged and that will make Charlotte extremely happy.”
“Why would she be happy? I don’t understand.”
Of course, my beauty wouldn’t know. Her mother had escaped Charlotte’s clutches, but Charlotte had left hooks in Cait all the same. I didn’t doubt that all Cait’s issues stemmed from growing up a Hamilton, another good fucking reason to make sure my kid didn’t get sucked into that shitty family.
“Because then I won’t be around to make things difficult for her,” I explained. “She’s only doing this because Ten took her daughter, Juliana, away and married her against Charlotte’s wishes. Then Juliana died having Ten’s kid.”
“Oh,” Rowan murmured. “Oh, yes, Charlotte told me about that.”
I stared at her, surprised. “When?”
“When she first made contact with me.”
“Ah. Well, Charlotte then tried to get in touch with Ten’s kid, Isabel. But Ten knew from Juliana what a toxic family the Hamiltons were and didn’t want Isabel to have anything to do with them. But Isabel had other ideas.”
“Oh? She wanted contact with her mom’s family?”
“Yeah. Much to Ten’s anger. Isabel can’t be told though.” I gave Rowan a meaningful look. “Stubbornness runs in the family.”
Rowan didn’t even blink. “Now, I want to meet her.”
“You can meet her later,” I said. “I don’t need that kind of trouble in my life now, not while Charlotte wants this baby of ours.”
“Okay,” she said in the voice she used when it was clear she had no plans to do what she was told any time soon. “But what shall we do about Charlotte?” Her hand crept to her stomach in a protective gesture, and another burst of savage possessiveness went through me.
I reached out and pulled her in close, needing her body against mine and her safe within my arms. “Charlotte is my problem to deal with,” I growled. “It’s me she’s threatening and I’m not having her dragging you into her bullshit.”
Rowan put her palms flat to my chest and looked up at me. Her hands were warm, heat soaking through the cotton of my t-shirt, and naturally my dick reacted accordingly. Fuck, she only needed to get near me and I was primed and ready to go, ready to play with my little fuck toy. But of course she was more than that. She always had been, and now she was going to be the mother of my child, the Neanderthal in me wanted to stake another claim, to make sure she knew that she was mine and so was the baby inside her.
“She wanted me to attend an appointment this week,” Rowan said. “Her own pregnancy check.”
“You’re not going,” I said.
“Really? And how do you suggest I get out of it?”
Her nearness was making it difficult to think. I couldn’t believe how much my body craved hers. It had never happened to me before that sleeping with a woman didn’t scratch the itch, let alone making that itch become even more acute. It was like the more I had of her, the more I wanted, and even the thought of owning her completely wasn’t enough. It was as if I wanted her soul too.
She deserves more than being owned by you. You’ll crush her like your father crushed your mother.
Instinctively, I shoved the thought away. No, I wouldn’t do that, I’d never do that. I wasn’t him. I could let a woman breathe and be herself. I’d never do to her what he’d done to my poor mother. Besides, Rowan needed me to protect her now and doing anything else wasn’t an option.
I looked down into her lovely face, her eyes wide and dark and endless as the sea. Her voice had been steady, but I could see the fear there. As always with Rowan she locked everything down until she broke, and her on the bathroom floor, pale as death, was her breaking.
Putting my hands on her hips, I turned her around to the vanity and lifted her up onto it. Then I put my hands on her knees and spread them apart so I could stand between them. She took a startled breath that turned into a gasp as I slid my hands up her thighs and around to cup her butt, pulling her hard against my aching cock. “I’m going to make sure you’re protected,” I said. “Keep you here with some security. My friend Caleb has some contacts he’s consulting that might give us some dirt on the Hamiltons we could use.”
The heat of her pussy was pressed to the zipper of my jeans and I was suddenly harder than I’d ever been in my entire life.
Rowan shivered, her pupils dilating as I rubbed my hard-on gently against her. “I…could speak to her,” she said, her voice already taking on the sweet husky note the way it always did when she was aroused. “I mean, I’m her granddaughter after all. Maybe I could?—”
“Absolutely the fuck not,” I said flatly, because that wasn’t happening. She wasn’t getting anywhere near Charlotte Hamilton. “In fact, you’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here until Ten, Caleb and I figure out how to get to the fucking Hamiltons out of our lives for good.”
Rowan’s full mouth firmed and I could see the light of battle begin to flicker in her eyes. It made me even harder. I loved it when she fought me. Then I got to fuck her into submission, which was fast becoming my favorite thing to do.
I gripped the waistband of her panties and jerked them down her legs and off, then I slipped a hand between her thighs, feeling the slick, slippery flesh between them. She shuddered, her fingers digging into my biceps as I found her hard clit and stroked it. “H-how long will…. oh …that t-take?” She stuttered.
“It will take as long as it takes.” I pinched her clit, watching the pleasure begin to take hold of her, which was always a beautiful thing to see. Her eyes would darken and her mouth would open, and all the resistance would bleed out of her. And then she wouldn’t be spiky, argumentative, uptight Rowan, but my passionate, demanding, sexy as fuck Rowan. “No arguments, beauty,” I said, easing a finger inside her, feeling her tight little pussy grip it hard. “You’re going to do what I tell you for a change.”
“Atlas….” She was breathing very fast, but I could tell she was trying to resist the pull of pleasure. “Listen. I might be able?—”
I silenced her with a hard kiss then lifted my head. “What did I say?” I demanded.
“You said…” She took a panting breath. “ You said…no.”
“I did.” I slid my fingers from her and held them up, both of them wet with evidence of her pleasure. “And you know what happens when you disobey, don’t you?”
She swallowed, her gaze pinned to mine as she took fast little breaths. “Y-yes.”
“Say it.”
“I…I don’t get to come.”
“No, you don’t. And even when you get yourself off, it’s not as good as when I do it is it beauty?”
She shook her head wordlessly, because she knew the drill as well as I did.
“Open your mouth,” I ordered.
She took a shuddering breath, clearly debating whether to obey or not, but she was a slave to her own need as much as I was, and she did as she was told, her mouth opening like a flower.
Slowly I eased my fingers between her lips. “Taste how much better it is when I make you wet,” I murmured. “Suck my fingers, beautiful little fuck toy. Taste yourself.”
She watched me as her tongue touched my fingers, as her lips firmed around them and she began to suck, shivering as she tasted her own wetness.
“See?” I said softly. “See how good it feels to do as you’re told?”
I reached down and jerked down my zipper, getting my cock out. Then I dug the fingers of my other hand into her bare butt cheek and pulled her to the edge of the vanity. “Spread yourself for me,” I ordered. “And do it now or else I’ll leave you here suffering.”
Trembling, she pulled up the hem of her dress and slipped a hand between her thighs without hesitation. Pleasure was rising in her cheeks, suffusing her face with glorious pink, and a band around my heart that I hadn’t even realized was there, loosened. She wasn’t afraid anymore, only desperate, and for me.
The possessive urge I couldn’t control around her, wrapped a hand around my throat and I looked down, wanting to see the moment her pretty pink pussy stretched around my cock. “Jesus,” I murmured as I slid into her. “You’re tight, toy. I like it.”
She was shaking, sucking my fingers hard as I slid deeper. She wanted to get off, I could see how her fingertips were drifting toward her clit.
“Don’t you dare touch yourself,” I growled in warning. “That pussy is mine and I’m the only one who gets make you come, understand?”
Her hand dropped away instantly, the look in her eyes taking on that desperate quality that I liked so much, a moan escaping her throat. If my fingers weren’t in her mouth, she’d be calling my name already and so quickly too.
Pleasure tightened its grip on me, her desperation adding to mine. I let go of her butt cheek and reached up instead, putting my hand around her throat and gripping her possessively. That was now my favorite way to fuck her, one hand on her throat and my dick deep inside her, and I knew she got off on it too.
She groaned again as my grip on her firmed, her mouth sucking harder on my fingers as I began to move, thrusting deep inside her.
“You do as you’re told,” I said roughly, giving into the heat being generated between us. “You’ll stay here and you won’t set a fucking foot outside, not even one.”
She nodded frantically, still sucking my fingers, her sly little tongue lapping at them as I began to up the rhythm of my hips. Her hands dug into biceps as she tried to brace herself, and the feel of her clinging to me, of her hungry little pussy clamping around me, of her frantic pulse between my palm all become something feral and wild.
I jerked my fingers from her mouth and replaced them with my lips, delivering a hard, savage kiss, even as I pushed my wet fingers down between us and found her clit, pressing down hard on it.
She jerked, crying out, her pussy clamping hard around my dick, and the orgasm that had been lurking at the base of my spine, suddenly roared over me like a tidal wave. I growled against her mouth as it came for me, the sweetness of her own shudders intensifying everything.
As the orgasm rushed through me, I let go of her throat and took my other hand from between her thighs, gipping her hips and pulling her hard into me as it overcame all my senses. And I held her tight in my arms, the certainty that had been there before only hardening.
No one was going take my child and no one was going to take her, either.
I would keep them both.
Whether she wanted it or not.