Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Arbor
I manage to make it out the door with no tears, but it’s close. Hael doesn’t rush me, even though it’s one hundred percent my fault that we’re late. He holds the door open to the steakhouse and lets out some combination of a groan and a growl as I walk by. The door whooshes as it closes behind him, but it’s his heat that I can feel radiating against my back.
His hand snakes around my middle, and his stubble scratches my cheek as he gets close to my ear. “Goddamn, you’re killing me here, beautiful. I’m going to need you to walk in front of me. That ass, Christ, woman. My dick is never going to cooperate if you keep swaying your hips like that.”
I smile at him over my shoulder.
Hael is so flirtatious and fun, I feel lighter whenever I’m with him. I know he worries about being judged because of his past, but no one has a perfect history.
We’re all bits and pieces of the lessons we’ve learned, shoved together to create a human being. If we’re lucky, we learn from our mistakes along the way, but that takes time to process.
At some point, I should probably explain a little more about what I went through after my dads died. I don’t want him to think he’s the only one who ever went down the wrong path and regretted it.
Hael sighs. “All right, I guess it’s go time.”
“We’ve got this,” I assure him, interlocking my fingers with his as he steps up at my side.
Darren isn’t as terrible as I was expecting. I’d say he has to be in his late fifties or early sixties, just based on the thick salt-and-pepper beard and laugh lines around his eyes.
Hael orders a bottle of Corona, and I ask for a Coke.
The older man chuckles as the server heads off. “Are you even old enough to have a beer?”
I smile tightly. “Yes, but I’m currently breastfeeding. I know the books say it’s fine to have a drink or two, especially if I plan to pump and dump, but I don’t really enjoy alcohol.” Although that’s a half-truth, my avoidance of alcohol is none of his damn business.
Darren nods, crossing his arms over his chest. “Did Hael tell me you had a boy?”
My forehead wrinkles as my head shakes. “Nope, a baby girl named Gracie.” I grab my phone from my purse. “Want to see pictures?”
“I’m pretty sure I told you all about baby Gracie,” Hael says, his jaw clenching.
I frown at my phone, seeing a notification for three texts from Becky. I spoke to her briefly earlier today to let her know we mailed a money order for what the junkyard paid for the car she gave me. We also returned the license plate, so she could surrender it to the DMV to cancel the insurance, and included the cabin keys.
She assured me that I should keep the keys in case I ever need them, but the package was already in the mail.
Shaking my head, I click on my gallery to distract Darren.
Hael’s normally light and airy energy seems stressed, but I’m here for a purpose, so I do my best to defuse the situation.
Here’s hoping the food comes quickly.
“Thank God that’s over,” Hael says, wrapping his arm around my shoulder as he leads me to his SUV. “What a fucking dick.”
I nod and snuggle closer.
Darren pretty consistently tried to catch Hael in a lie for almost two straight hours. He finally settled down, but it was painful. My senses easily picked up on Hael’s annoyance, which morphed into distress the longer it went on.
“I’m sorry you had to endure that just to pay the hospital bill.” I slide my hand under his jacket and run my fingers over his soft shirt.
“Ehh.” He shrugs. “It’s still worth it, and the bikes will be fun as fuck to build, even if Darren is a dick.” He chuckles. “Hey, when it warms up, what do you think the chances are that I’ll be able to sweet-talk you into riding with me?”
My eyes widen.
I knew he had a bike, but I’ve never seen it. He must store it in the garage. Before I had Gracie, I would have jumped at the offer. Now all I can think about is what would happen to her if something happened to me.
I also need to see what was so important that Becky texted me three times.
There’s every possibility I could have covertly checked the messages while Darren and Hael were talking, but if it’s something extra stressful, I didn’t want to have to put an early end to dinner.
What I don’t know can’t send me into an anxiety-ridden spiral, right?
We reach the passenger door of the SUV, and Hael tugs his keys from his pocket, starting it with the remote.
He backs me up against the door and smirks.
“Fine, I won’t push for that until you trust me.” He leans close, nipping at my lower lip. The slight sting of his teeth raking over my inner lip makes me shiver, and I end up melting against his chest as he deepens the kiss.
I love how confidently they’ve all been talking about the future the last few days, but there’s also the whole issue of Adam still hanging over my head. There’s a certain safety with the guys having signed her birth certificate, but I don’t even know if that will change anything when it comes to the law.
Hael slides his hand around my neck and up into my hair at the base of my skull as he swirls his tongue around mine. As that electric scent of his floods my nose with every breath I take, my system is fully convinced giving birth to Gracie never happened.
My clit aches as he pushes me against the door of the SUV, and it takes everything in me to force myself to pull back to breathe.
Hael groans, and the sound sends a shiver down my spine. “Fucking hell, these last two weeks are taking an eternity to pass.”
My chest heaves as I nod.
Yeah, they really are.
He bumps his cheek against mine, making his stubble lightly scrape across my skin. He gets very close to my ear before saying, “Once you’re all healed up, I’m going to lick and suck every goddamn inch of your skin. I can’t wait to have you stretched out under me. You’ll be completely at my mercy.”
My eyes fall shut, and I bite my lip to keep from moaning.
Hael Easton might be more than I can handle.
Once we’re in the car, I pull out my phone to check the messages. My heart races as I read through them. It says that she didn’t mention it today because she had an audience in the break room, but Adam has come by multiple times looking for me.
Becky still works at the golf resort where I worked for almost two years. Apparently, Adam even tried to convince a few of my old coworkers that he was worried I might do something to hurt myself or the baby.
That son of a bitch!
It’s not even hard to imagine him pulling something like that, and I’m so distraught that I miss most of the ride home. After I thank her for letting me know, she promises not to say a word about where I am.
It feels a little like Gracie and I are sitting ducks. I should have given birth somewhere, then bolted to a new town. That way, he wouldn’t be able to track me electronically. The last thing I want is a lengthy custody battle with that absolute garbage dump of a human being.
I’m so distracted that I jolt when Hael opens my door.
Shit.
I missed us arriving home.
His brow wrinkles as he studies my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lie, swallowing around the lump in my throat. “I had a great time.”
“Me too, beautiful.” He stretches over me, unbuckling my seat belt. “I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk about whatever it is that turned your scent so sour.”
I offer a smile that I’m sure he can tell is plastic. “I just really want to see Gracie.”
He nods, but I know he knows I’m lying.
It’s just way too much to get into.
I’m tucked under the covers in my pajamas with Gracie lying next to me. She’s such a ham. Her little cheeks have gained a fullness that speaks to how fast she’s growing, and I brush my pointer finger over one as she snoozes. She already ate and burped, but I didn’t have the heart to put her in her bassinet.
Adam is a nightmare waiting to happen, and I don’t have the first clue how to fix that situation. It’s so complicated. I want less than nothing to do with that man, but without him, I wouldn’t have Gracie. Not having her is something I can’t even fathom, so it makes me feel guilty to wish I had never met him.
The door to the primary suite opens, and my head flies up.
It’s easy enough to tell it’s Hael. His tattoos are a completely different pattern and vibe from Hayes’s, especially the ones on his neck, and the man is only in a pair of low-slung sweats.
He’s evil.
And a very distracting image as he swaggers closer. He comes to a stop at the side of the bed and lifts Gracie, patting her bum to keep from waking her. Placing her down in the bassinet, he turns back to me with a predatory smile on his face.
He climbs onto the mattress, rolls me onto my back, and traps me with his forearms around my head and his legs outside of mine.
“Now that I have you at my mercy, how about you tell me what happened on the drive home?” Hael brushes his nose against mine, and it’s a comforting move, even if my heart thumps erratically.
He’s been open and honest with me, and it feels shitty not to do the same, but it’s hard to open up to someone when I’ve seen what happens when I do.
I told Adam all about my past, and he used it against me when it was convenient for him.
Hael isn’t like that, though.
My eyes fall shut as I tell him about how my dads died. “…I wasn’t in a good place for a while after that. Once I left school, I lived with two other waitresses at my old job. They partied a lot, and I didn’t have anything better to do.” I sigh heavily and meet his gaze with my now-open eyes. “I vaguely remember them inviting me to a house party one night after work, but the whole night is kind of one big blur. I was wasted. The cops came because the guy who threw the party didn’t have permission from the homeowners. One of the officers detained me, but our entire conversation is missing time.”
“Shit,” Hayes says, sliding to lie next to me on the mattress. He turns toward me, and I twist to face him. “Did they arrest you?”
“Nope. Worse. I blacked out while talking to them, and they took me to the hospital.” My lips roll together as I try to find a less terrible way to explain what happened next. There isn’t one, so I clench my eyes shut and blurt it out. “They pumped my stomach, then made me do a psych evaluation. I learned my lesson there.”
Hael teases a thumb over my cheek, and my eyes pop open. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t even remember talking to the psychiatrist, but I guess he asked me if I ever had thoughts of hurting myself or anyone else. And I was honest—no, I didn’t want to hurt anyone else, and I didn’t think I was suicidal but also really didn’t have much to live for. That led to an involuntary hold in the psych unit.”
“Jesus,” he mutters. “That’s fucking crazy.”
“Yeah, I get that they were trying to look out for me or whatever. I was definitely depressed, but it was scary. It taught me to be a lot more careful about choosing my words.”
“And what does all this have to do with what happened tonight?” he asks, studying my face.
My stomach tightens. His deep blue eyes are incredibly expressive. It makes me want to be honest with him, it’s just hard.
“It’s one of those tender subjects that I don’t like talking about.” I shrug, my jaw sliding from side to side. “It was a huge part of the reason I stopped drinking altogether, even recreationally. Luckily, I hadn’t formed a dependence or addiction or anything, but I wasn’t even twenty-one. I couldn’t legally drink yet, and I knew I had to stop.”
I take a few breaths before revealing this last part, not wanting to even think about it, much less say it aloud. “Adam is aware of the psych hold, and Becky texted me to let me know he went into my old job and told everyone he was worried I might hurt myself or the baby.”
“Are you fucking kidding?” he growls. His face quickly morphs into a grimace, and he stretches over me to check on Gracie. “Shit, sorry. She’s still asleep, but what the fuck?”
“Adam is very good at mind games. He knows exactly where to hit someone to make it hurt.” I frown at the double meaning, though I only meant emotionally. “I’m pretty sure if he finds me, he’ll do his best to make me look like an unfit parent. He’ll question my mental health and use that as his excuse for why he needs to take Gracie from me.”
Hael curses under his breath. “Don’t waste any more time worrying about that.” He leans closer, planting a noisy smooch on my forehead. “There’s no chance we’re going to let that happen.”
Everything in me wants to believe him, and I trust they would do their best, but Adam comes from the type of old money that seems to make it possible for them to get away with whatever they want to without having to face repercussions.
Hael stretches out on his back, tugging me closer until my face rests on his bare skin. “Get some rest. I’m going to stick around in here tonight, unless you tell me to get lost.”
My nose twitches, dancing across his pec as I search for where his scent is strongest. “You can stay.”
I certainly don’t have the strength to cut myself off from him and his delicious electric scent.