Chapter 12 #2
“I honestly thought Ritchie was the one. I thought that was love.” She glanced down at Ghost before looking away.
“In five days, you’ve shown me more love and respect and kindness than he ever did in our entire relationship.
And I didn’t see it. It was so subtle, or maybe I wasn’t looking…
” Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged.
“You asked me if I am having second thoughts when it’s honestly the other way around.
You’re so confident and bossy and demanding that I think I’m expecting it to all be a ruse.
” Her head snapped towards him, and she quickly said, “I don’t doubt you!
” She tapped over her heart. “It’s me I doubt.
I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“Let it.”
Becks blinked, sitting up fully to look down at him. “What?”
Ghost raised himself up as well. “Let it,” he repeated. “Let the other shoe drop. Let the world implode and all the bad luck come our way.” He cupped her face, bringing her lips down to his. “It won’t change my feelings for you, and it certainly won’t make me regret marrying you.”
She reached forward, trailing her fingers over his arms, his chest, and his face. “Things are a bit backwards with us. Maybe I’m the one feeling the whiplash.”
He nodded. “I can understand that. We just need to make sure we—”
The front door opened, followed by, “Ghost, you fucker! We need to talk!”
Ghost looked over his shoulder and asked, “Sure. Can your sister get dressed first? Or are you planning on just standing there gawking at her?”
Ranger immediately gave the room his back. “Fucking Christ, Ghost! Are you kidding me? She’s my sister!”
“And she’s my wife,” Ghost reminded the man, unapologetic.
Not that he thought Ranger would try to sneak a peek at his sister’s naked body, but Ghost still grabbed the throw blanket one of the ol’ ladies had put over the back of the couch when Ghost and Ranger had first moved in to, quote, ‘spruce up the place’.
Ghost was pretty sure this was the first time either one of them had touched it, other than when they were sitting back against the cushions.
Red-faced, Becks scrambled to her feet. Ghost wrapped the throw around her, feeling like he was committing a crime by covering her up.
Yeah, having her brother in the same house as them was definitely going to be a buzzkill.
He wasn’t going to kick Ranger out, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t planning on leaving open apartment listings strewn about the house as a not-so-obvious suggestion.
Regardless of the fact that she was naked under the blanket that now covered her, Ghost took her face in his hands and gently kissed her lips to reassure her. Her eyes kept flying to her brother’s back like she was the one caught committing a crime.
“Let’s get you upstairs.”
“I have clothes right—”
But Ghost shook his head, already leading her away from the clothing piled on the living room floor. “Your clothes were just delivered upstairs. You can find something better to wear than one of my old Navy shirts.”
That was a bit of a white lie. As good as he thought she looked in his shirt, he did not want Becks privy to whatever it was that was about to be said between Ghost and Ranger.
There was too much history, too many buried secrets, for something to not be said in the heat of the moment, and while Ghost had no plans of keeping things from his wife, there was also certain club business that she just did not need to know about.
He guided her towards the stairs. She didn’t put up as much of a fight as he thought she would, but that might also have to do with her embarrassment over the situation. Ghost cursed himself for taking advantage of that to get her out of the room.
As they slipped by Ranger in front of the door, Becks started to apologize to her brother, but that Ghost did put a stop to.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he pushed, encouraging her to start up the steps. “He was the one to walk in unannounced.”
“Last I checked, this was my house too, asshole!” Ranger snapped without turning around.
Ghost reached down to pick up the ends of the blanket so she didn’t trip on her way up the stairs. “Wrong,” he called down. “The second I married her, this became her house, and she can do whatever the fuck she wants in her house.”
Ranger’s cursing followed them the rest of the way up the steps.
As soon as they were closed inside their bedroom, Becks dropped her hold on the blanket and put her hands to her face. “Oh my God! I cannot believe that just happened.”
Ghost shrugged. “It was bound to happen at some point. Now, why don’t you go take a shower and—”
“And what?” she lifted her head. “Leave the men to talk?”
Her sarcasm was not lost on him, and he should have known she was too smart to have not figured out why he was shepherding her away from the living room. “In the least sexist way possible,” he defended. “But I do need to talk to Ranger alone, baby.”
Becks crossed her arms over her chest. “Really? And how in the hell is that not sexist? Will my vagina in the room somehow change what is going to be said, or do guys really whip it out during conversations just to see whose is bigger?”
“Mine is,” Ghost replied without hesitation and with total confidence in that statement.
Becks’ jaw fell open for a single second before she cringed in disgust and turned away from him. “Ew! That is so gross, Ghost! I did not need to know that about my brother.”
Ghost fought the urge to shrug in innocence.
“Look,” he said, getting them back on track.
“I just need you to stay up here for a bit. Take a shower or a bath, start organizing everything…” He waved a hand towards the boxes now lining the one wall.
“Hell, you can start rearranging up here. But don’t lift anything heavy!
” he pressed, thinking about the weight of his dresser and custom headboard. “You might be pregnant.”
The completely unimpressed look Becks gave him actually had his dick shriveling lightly in his pants. “Wow,” she deadpanned. “You have actually no idea how pregnancy works or what size a fetus even would be at this stage in my pregnancy, if I’m even pregnant.”
It was Ghost’s turn to feel a bit of embarrassment. “Not really, no. But enough of my brothers have had kids recently where I’m sure one of them has a self-help book they can lend me. Plus, Bear’s a nurse, so he’d know.”
“Or, you know, there’s this new invention called Google.”
Ghost’s eye twitched. “Don’t get sassy with me, or I’ll end up tying you to our bed and your brother will hear exactly what you sound like when you orgasm.”
Cheeks flaming, Becks snapped her jaw shut. Her nostrils flared, and Ghost knew his balls were going to pay for that ultimatum later. He stepped forward, calmly taking her face in his hands.
He kissed her forehead. “Ten minutes,” he begged. “Just give us ten minutes. You can shower and get dressed, and when we’re done talking I’ll take you down to the clubhouse to introduce you to whoever is around. I promise.”
“Wow, you know even less about women than you do about pregnancy if you think I can shower and get dressed in the ten minutes it’ll take you and my brother to hash things out.”
Ghost had to give her that one. He pulled back so he could look down at her. “I don’t care about other women. I only care about you.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, but he picked up on the small twitch of her lips, like she was trying to keep back a smile.
Finally, she groaned, “Fine. I’ll let you have your ‘man talk’, but I swear to God, Ghost, if either of you break my new house before I’ve had a chance to un-bachelor pad this place, I am withholding sex for an entire week. Do I make myself clear?”
Ghost gulped. “Yes, ma’am.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed him towards the door. “Go. Let me find my stuff in peace. And for the record,” she added, pointing a finger at him, “I am only allowing this because I really do need a shower with my own products, instead of free hotel body wash or men’s shampoo.”
Well, shit. There went his erection. Nothing like the mental image of his wife in the shower, lathering up her luscious body, to get his blood pumping. But he really did need to get downstairs and hash things out with Ranger.
“Take your time,” he encouraged before practically bolting from the room like a little bitch. On the second floor landing, he took several calming breaths to try to cool his blood. It would not help his case at all to walk downstairs to have a conversation with her brother while sporting a boner.
He didn’t see Ranger by the front door as he descended the steps. A quick peek in the kitchen showed the room empty too. Ghost turned to head towards the living room—and walked right into Ranger’s fist.
Ghost’s head snapped back, and the only thing that saved him from landing on his ass was his hand just barely catching the banister.
Pain flamed from the center of his face and he felt the immediate gush of blood flow from his nose.
Regaining his footing, Ghost clutched his nose with one hand to try to keep the evidence from splattering all over Becks’ carpeting.
Ranger hadn’t broken his nose, but sometimes a broken vessel could bleed just as bad, if not more.
Lifting his shirt to his face as he headed to the kitchen, Ghost told his enforcer and now brother-in-law, “You get one.” Although, if Ranger learned all Ghost had done to his sister over the past three and a half days, one would not be enough.