Chapter 14 #2
She threw her arms in the air. “Who else could it be? I told you, my ex plays dirty. He’ll do everything he can to win. His ego’s so bruised, he can’t fucking stand it.” She started to pace a few feet and then back again. “I can’t believe him.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her into me. “Baby, what’s the worst that can happen? He sees us happy and the kids doing well? Come on, what bad shit will he uncover? I may have mobsters in the family, but I’m not one. All I do is look after Imogen, see you and the kids, and work.”
“That’s not the point,” she shot back. “It’s the fucking nerve of him. Evan’s the one who fucked me over, but he acts like he’s the one who got the raw deal. It boils my piss.”
I slid my hands onto her shoulders. “He can’t hurt us, Posy.”
She gazed up at me, her eyes wounded. “I just want the asshole to leave us alone, honey. Finally, I’m happy. Everything’s going great with the kids and us, but I’m terrified he’ll do something to ruin it.”
I lowered my forehead until it rested on hers. “We’ll be okay, baby. We just gotta ride it out. Let’s get our asses over to Cash and Cara’s cookout and speak to Atlas; see if Colt’s checked in with any info yet?”
Her shoulders slumped defeatedly.
“Call me honey again,” I ordered softly.
Her eyes lifted to mine.
“I liked it,” I murmured. “I’ve looked into a lot of eyes, Ro, and a lot of them belonged to other women, but yours are the only ones who ever made me warm inside. Then you go and call me honey, and my heart settles. Never experienced anything like it.”
“Donovan,” she whispered, then her eyes glinted and she added, “Honey.”
I grinned. “We’re gonna be cool. He won’t win. I won’t let him, okay?”
“Okay.” Her fingers squeezed mine, and she blurted, “Tell me, how do you do that?”
My forehead furrowed. “Do what?”
“Stop me from freaking the hell out. One minute I feel like I’m about to melt down, then you go and say something sweet, and I forget about it.”
“It’s what we do, baby,” I reminded her. “You’ve got my back, and I’ve got yours.” My hand went to her throat, and I gently cuffed it, making sure my fingers rested on her fluttering pulse. “Thank you for being my best friend. It’s a questionable life choice, but I’m happy you took the leap.”
“Don’t do that,” she murmured. “I’m not your dad. I see everything you are and everything you’re striving to be, and it’s beautiful.”
Fuck me if heat didn’t hit the back of my throat.
Rosie smiled. “We’d better go. The kids are sitting in sweltering heat, and I need an Immie hug.”
My arm slid across her shoulders, and we made for my truck. “Don’t stress about your ex-asshole. It’s under control. I’ll speak to Kennedy today and get some advice, but I’m certain all this cloak-and-dagger shit won’t make him look good in the family court.”
“What do we tell the kids?” she asked. “It’s not something I want to bother them with, but they’ve got to be aware of their surroundings, especially if some asshole’s out there taking photographs of them.
I wouldn’t put it past Evan to try to catch DJ and Gabby up to no good, just to make me look like a bad mom who hasn’t got a handle on their behavior. ”
“All we can be is honest, Posy. They’re not babies.”
“They’re not,” she agreed. “I’ll do it tonight after the cookout.”
“We’ll do it after the cookout,” I corrected. “United front and all that.”
She glanced up at me and sighed wistfully. “God, I need to suck your cock, and soon.”
Jesus help me.
My dick thickened at the mere mention of a little mouth action. It had been a while. “Yeah, baby. I agree.”
“We need to set a date and time for that,” she told me. “I’m thinking you’ve more than worked for it by now. It’s time, honey. I lie in bed some nights thinking how much better it would be if you were in it.”
“I could ask Ma to have Imogen overnight this weekend,” I suggested.
Rosie waggled her eyebrows. “And I’ll see if Kennedy and Breaker will take DJ and Gabby for a sleepover.”
“Game fucking on.” I grinned.
“Yeah,” she breathed as we approached the truck. “Game on.”
I watched while she opened Imogen’s door and gave my daughter a kiss on the head while Imogen gleefully shrieked, “Rara!” Then I opened the passenger door and gave Rosie’s juicy ass a soft squeeze as I helped her up.
Rosie flashed me a look, followed by a smirk, like we had our own language—which I guess we did to a certain extent. Some days, I could get drunk just off the way she smiled at me, and she knew it. I never hid it; didn’t need to. Rosie had shown me time and again that I could trust her.
It wasn’t lost on me how hard I was falling for this woman, and it also wasn’t lost on me how I didn’t have one fuck to give about it.
I’d gone a long time drifting from one situationship to the next, but nobody had touched my soul except Rosie.
Everything about her appealed to me. The way she looked, the way she spoke.
How much she loved her kids (and mine). I even loved the little things, like her smile, her scent, and the way she moved.
There was no denying how my cock wept for her, but for the first time in my life, it wasn’t a union based on sex. What we had was deeper, based on friendship and respect.
My only regret was that I hadn’t seen it sooner.
—————
“Go get Prez,” Atlas bellowed, his hands on his hips as he stared up at the crazy little fucker on Cash’s roof. “Wilder! Get your ass down!”
The kid just stuck his tongue out at the SAA and wiggled his ass from side to side.
I rolled my lips together to stop myself from laughing out loud.
The new prospect, Cub, disappeared into the house like his ass had been set alight, though I couldn’t blame him. He was meant to be keeping an eye on the hellions, so how Wilder Stone got on the roof was anyone’s guess.
“He’s a feral little fucker,” Bowie muttered from beside me. “Dunno how he hasn’t landed himself a stay in hospital ‘cause by my reckonin’, he should have broken half the bones in his body. But nope, not Wilder, he comes out of every sitch unscathed.”
Atlas’s voice rose again as I watched Cash and Cara race from the house into the garden. “Where have you been? You can’t expect us to keep an eye on your hellion. He’s fuckin’ deranged.”
Cara pointed up at the roof. “Jesus! He’ll break his neck if he falls.”
“Doubtful,” Bowie hissed from the side of his mouth.
“Dad!” Wilder yelled from the roof, balancing on the edge of the tiles while carefully stepping across them like a tightrope walker, and cackling like a little devil child.
“Look at me! If I had a rope, I could swing like Tarzan!” Wilder stopped balancing and looked down at all the brothers and kids below him.
Then he started beating his chest and let out a fucking Tarzan cry.
I busted out a laugh just as Cash boomed, “Prospect! Get him down. Now!”
Cub appeared from the garage with a goddamned ladder under his arm and shouted, “On it, Prez.” He balanced the ladder against the side of the house, tested that it was secure, and then slowly started to climb.
Halfway up, he hesitated and looked back down at us over his shoulder.
“Prez. Don’t make me go up there. I’m scared of heights. ”
Cash’s jaw visibly tightened as Cara stomped closer and yelled, “If you don’t climb up and get my boy, you won’t get patched in. Now stop being a whiny prick, go up on the roof, and grab my son.”
I saw Cub’s Adam’s apple bob before he turned his head and slowly ascended the ladder.
Rosie wandered over with a glass of wine in one hand and a bottle of Shamrock beer in the other, which she handed to me.
Taking it from her, I leaned down and kissed her cheek before my stare went back to the roof to see Cub at the top of the ladder. “Come on, Wilder,” he called out.
The kid turned around so his back faced the prospect and started to wiggle his little ass in Cub’s face, all the while cackling with laughter.
“Wilder!” Cara shouted. “Get down now, or else.”
The little shit must’ve recognized the thread of steel in his mother’s tone because he stilled mid-wiggle, got down, and shimmied his ass across the roof toward the prospect, who made a grab for him and caught onto one of his legs.
Wilder cackled again and kicked out, laughing, clipping Cub’s head with his foot.
“Fuck!” the prospect bellowed, wobbling on the ladder.
I heard a collective gasp from everybody on the ground.
“Sorry!” Wilder shouted.
Somehow, Cub kept one hand on Wilder and his other hand on the top of the ladder, but you could tell the poor fucker was terrified of falling.
Atlas let out a loud roar of laughter before calling up, “Ya soft twat! He’s a five-year-old boy! Get it together, Cub.”
My arm slid across Rosie’s shoulders just as Atlas cracked up laughing again.
Breaker wandered over with Kennedy under his arm. “Is he giving you shit again?” he asked his brother, grinning as he watched the farce of Cub trying to rescue Wilder. “Want me to get my boy up there to help? Wilder listens to him.”
“Yeah, please, brother,” Cash replied, jerking his head toward the entire shit show. “Cub’s useless.”
Kennedy rolled her eyes and turned toward the stream where the teens were sunbathing and fucking around. “I’ll go get Kai.”
“Wanna know a secret?” Rosie asked.
I pulled her tight against my body. “Yeah.”
“Cara’s pregnant,” she told me, eyes shining with laughter. “She’s announcing it today.”
My eyes rounded comically. “How the fuck did that happen? I thought she refused to give Cash another kid in case she got another Wilder?”
“They already know she’s having a girl,” Rosie told me quietly.
“Remember back when she had that cold and got that nasty ear infection? She took antibiotics that made her birth control pill inactive. Cash obviously got to thinking and all of a sudden, wouldn’t leave her alone. That was when he knocked her up.”
My lips twitched. “He’s one sneaky fuck.”