Chapter 23
Tavi
When the car idled, I sat up and saw we were at the clubhouse. The lights were on, but it wasn’t a bustle of energy like I expected, how I remembered it to be.
“Prez shut down non-important operations for us,” Maverick offered. He must have seen my confusion.
“It seems so normal.”
Both Reaper and Maverick chuckled.
“It is normal, babe. For us, anyway. Come on. You need to get into a shower and rest.”
I didn’t want to argue with him there. A shower sounded divine.
Maverick got out of the car first, and helped me to sit at the edge, before he knelt and undid my shoes. Rubbing the balls of my feet with his knuckles, I groaned at the instant relief it provided.
“Do you want me to carry you?” he asked. I shook my head, and pushed up onto my flat feet. I could feel the grass under me, and bunched my toes so I could grab it.
It felt…good.
Stable.
Maverick wrapped his arm around me and helped to guide me toward the clubhouse from the car. When we stepped inside, I saw just a handful of the brothers, and Rowan, who smiled at me sweetly.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. Cherry came out of nowhere, with a warm smile. “Do you need anything? Water? Soaking hot bath?”
“No, thank you.”
“Actually, that bath sounds good,” Maverick told her. She nodded eagerly, and ran off to complete the task. Now that I thought about it, a bath would be heavenly. Somehow he knew me better than I knew myself.
“Mama!”
My senses locked onto the familiar scream, and my knees buckled before my eyes were scanning the room for him.
There.
At the back of the room, near the pool table, was my son. The whole reason I kept my soul intact and didn’t let Hardy break me.
Van came running from the back of the clubhouse, his little red eyes doing me in, as I fell to my knees and wrapped my arms around him. His little hands grabbed at me as he squished his little body to me, his shoulder cutting off my breath, but I could endure that pain.
“Daddy told me he bring you back.”
I pulled back, fear shoving through me like a freight train. His little watery eyes were doing me in, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the fear of Hardy being alive. That it was all a dream.
Van looked up at Maverick then. He swept Van’s hair off his forehead. “That’s right, mate. I brought her home.”
Daddy?
Slowly, I looked up at Maverick, who offered a warm smile, before he pulled Van up into his arms, and helped me to stand. He slid an arm around my waist, his fingers digging in slightly, to show me I was where I was meant to be. He had me.
He had us.
“He called you Daddy.”
Maverick nodded. “He did. Not the first time, if you recall.”
Van was happily resting his little head on Maverick’s shoulder, his hand firmly gripping my fingers, almost as if he’d never let me go. It felt so good to be home with him, safe from the terror of Hardy.
“Do you want me to take him?” I heard Mari ask from beside me. I hadn’t even seen her when we came in. I nodded, kissing Van on the temple, and smoothing his hair back.
“No,” he groaned when Mari took him off Maverick. “Mama!”
“It’s okay, Van,” I said, soothingly. “Mama just needs to have a shower, then I’ll come and we can read all night, okay?”
“Mama…I sleep with you?”
“Yes, baby. I promise. I just need to shower and get ready for bed, okay? Go with Mari.”
“Do you want some hot milk?” Mari asked him. His little lip started to wobble, but he nodded and wrapped his arms around her neck. She headed toward the kitchen with him, while Maverick secreted me away, down the hallway and toward the end where a set of stairs led up into the top floor.
Maverick took my hand and led me to a door on the left hand side.
Once I stepped inside, I marvelled at the beautiful bathroom.
It didn’t look like it belonged in a MC clubhouse, and yet, I looked around at the beautiful marble walls, with a large shower stall off to the side and there, right against the wall was a large spa bath.
“Come on,” Maverick said, taking me further into the bathroom, after locking the door, and moving behind me. “I got you.”
I closed my eyes, and fell back into his arms, relishing the feel of how warm and supported I was. He was my safe place.
“Please tell me you’re real. I don’t think I could handle it if this were a dream.”
Maverick spun me around, my eyes opening to his. His strong hand coming up to cup the side of my face, his thumb moving over my lower lip. Maverick looked ready to devour me.
“I’m definitely real, baby, and I’m never letting you go again.”
Maverick
My lips touched hers tenderly, savouring her soft whimper, and the way her fingers dug into my shirt, to hold me in place. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Ever again.
“Come, baby,” I said to her, softly, kissing her quickly on the lips again. “You need to relax.”
She nodded, and made a move to remove her dress. I stilled her fingers, and undid the clasp at the back to release the sides of the skimpy dress. Although she looked like a ray of sunshine in the gold dress, I had a strong suspicion, she’d never want to be dressed up in gold again.
As the material slid down her body, it revealed to me all the bruises and damage that son of a bitch did to her. My heart raced, as more and more was revealed. Once the dress pooled around her bare feet, I didn’t want to touch her, for fear I was going to hurt her.
Rage burned in my throat, behind my eyes, in my chest, making it hard to form words.
“How bad is it?” she asked, her body stiffening, but she made no effort to look in the mirror.
“They’ll fade,” I told her, kissing her on the top of the head.
“I can bathe myself if it’s too much to look at.”
I raised her chin up with my finger, and kissed her lips softly. “Nothing is ever too much when it comes to you. I’m just glad I fucked him over before I killed him.”
She offered me a sweet smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Nothing is ever going to hurt you again, Tavi. I promise you that.”
“I trust you,” she said, and it almost did me in the same way it did when Van called me Daddy. “I just…don’t want to lose you.”
“Tavi, I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.”
A light chuckle and I felt my body easing, as I stepped her back toward the bath.
“Will you come in with me?” she asked, sitting on the edge.
I nodded, and removed my clothing, tossing it to the side of the bathroom, before I stepped into the warm bath.
The water was amazing as it soaked into my skin.
Holding her hand, I helped her get in with me, before I sank down, pulling her into my lap, her head resting on my shoulder.
I moved the loofah over her skin softly, coating her skin in the warm water.
“Van calling you Daddy…is that okay?”
“Of course it is. He called me Daddy the second he saw me. You never told me why.”
“Oh god, you’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Doubtful,” I told her. “Go on.”
“Since he was old enough, I told him you were his father. I had this old photo of us from back in the days when I’d come to the clubhouse for parties, and I showed him that and said that you were his daddy. I never thought I’d ever run into you again, so it seemed like a safe bet.”
“Not that I don’t love that you did that, especially knowing what an ass his real father is, but why me?”
She sighed, and interlaced her fingers between mine. I brought our joined hand up to my lips and kissed her palm, before I kissed her jaw.
“Because I wished you were.”
My hand halted on her shoulder, her words washing over me like a tidal wave. It did something internally that made me…proud almost, like I wanted to beat my fists onto my chest.
“What do you mean?”
“That night…when we were finally going to give in to the flirting. That’s the night I got pregnant with Van.
There were so many times I wished I had waited for you, stayed there until you came back…
but well, you know who I am now so you know how dangerous it was to stick around. If I’d stayed…he’d be yours.”
My chest felt tight. The realisation that if I hadn’t gone on that run, the run I wasn’t even meant to be on if it weren’t for our tail gunner, Snake, taking off early, then she and I would have been together all this time.
“Tavi…”
“I know…it’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid, you have no idea how much I wish that kid were mine…
no, you know what, fuck that, he is mine, but even if he were my DNA, he wouldn’t be the Van you love.
Even if that fuckhead is his biological father, I’m his dad, and he’s never going to ever want for fucking anything in this world. I promise you that.”
Tavi sat up, and turned around in my lap, straddling my thighs.
I leaned forward and traced my tongue over her breast, sucking her nipple into my mouth.
She threw her head back and moaned, her hips moving over mine.
My cock was brushing over her pussy lips in the water, and sending signals to my body to take her, right here, right now.
Lay claim to my woman, over and over again, until she realised how much she meant to me.
“Please, Dane, I need you.”
That was my kryptonite.
“You got me, baby,” I groaned against her nipple. “Always. I’m going to fill you every goddamn night, watch you grow round with my babies. You’re going to be so happy, for the rest of your life. I promise you.”
She moaned, kissing me deeply. “How about we start now?”
I pulled from her breast. “You’re killin’ me here.”
“Why get clean when we’re only going to get dirty?” she queried, with a teasing smirk.
“Get clean, baby,” I said, kissing her hard before I washed myself and climbed out, wrapping a towel around my waist, before I grabbed her one. When she got out of the tub, pulling the plug from the bath with her, I wrapped her in the towel and slowly dried her.