CHAPTER 20
PLAYBOY
I’m sitting at the desk in my office when the door opens. My head snaps up because I’m not expecting anyone. The irritation that started to fill me dies instantly.
Because Lara is standing in my doorway.
I lean back in my chair and take her in. She’s wearing a Bunz Out shirt and black pants. It’s what she always wears to work.
“You’re gracing me with your presence?” I can’t help but tease her.
The smile she gives me is wicked.
We’ve been carving out little moments to spend time together. If we don’t see each other, we text. It’s how my days have been filled.
Lara. Vanessa. The club. My shop.
In that order and I’m more than okay with it.
None of my brothers have called me out for not spending as much time at the clubhouse. But they do love to give me shit about Lara and are always asking whether I’m out of the doghouse or not.
“Not yet, but I’m getting there,” is the only reply I give them, hoping there is more truth than I realize in my words.
The hardest part is not pushing my woman. I don’t want to go too fast. This isn’t something that can be rushed. The last thing I want to do is misstep and lose the progress I’ve made.
Not when what is at stake is my woman and my daughter.
Fuck, I’m not even sure when I started thinking about Vanessa that way. But I do; it’s real.
I can understand, only a little better I realize, what Lara must have felt the first time she held Vanessa. What I can’t imagine is doing it as a 17-year-old who is barely out of high school.
My woman is a fucking warrior. She doesn’t even know it.
With a nervous glance she looks down the hallway and back at me. She’s biting her lip as she steps fully inside the office and closes the door behind her before flipping the lock. My cock goes rock hard behind the fly of my jeans.
“Oh,” I breathe out, “you look like a horny woman on a mission.”
Lara glares while moving toward me, her hips swaying with every step she takes. “I think you did something to me, like drug me, or hypnotize me or something,” her words are snarky as fuck and filled with accusation.
Still, there’s no anger behind them and my lips curl up into a grin.
“I didn’t do anything to you. I just made you come really hard, multiple times,” I remind her while wiggling my eyebrows, “and then I stuck around.”
“You’ve been doing more than that,” she grumbles.
I don’t fight her on it, mostly because she’s right.
When she’s close enough, my arm shoots out and hooks around her waist. I roll back in my chair and pull her between my legs. My hands find her hips, and I push her until she’s sitting on my desk.
“So many possibilities with you in front of me like this,” my words are a taunt as my hands start to move over her body.
I knead her flesh and touch her gently, my movements rhythmic and growing in intensity.
“Were you hoping to have me on my knees for you again?” I look into her blue eyes and arch an eyebrow. With a tilt to my head, I add, “Or were you hoping I’d stretch your pretty pussy around my cock?”
The whimper that falls from her lips is a temptation I’m powerless against. When I stand up, the movement is quick, and my chair rolls back to hit the wall with a soft thud.
I take Lara’s mouth in a kiss that is pure possession and gratitude. She sought me out today. While she might not want it to mean anything, it does.
The moment I pull away, I turn Lara and press between her shoulder blades until she’s bent over my desk.
“Fuck,” my jaw clenches so tight that my gums ache, “you have no idea how fucking sexy you look right now.”
Lara huffs out a laugh, her words filled with disbelief, “I’m wearing my work clothes.”
I press my hips against her ass to hold her in place against the desk. As I lean forward, covering her back with my torso, my lips find her ear. Skin brushes skin, my words a growl, “Did I stutter, Cupcake?”
“Oh, fuck, Jettson, you can’t say things like that to me in that voice,” she protests. Weakly. Meekly.
Because I’ve gotten her to forget herself by bending her over my desk and letting her feel what she does to me. I grind my hard, trapped cock, which might as well be a steel pipe, against her ass.
“You came here for me to fuck you?”
“Yes,” she keens, her body straining even as I hold her in place.
“Oh, Lara,” I groan, “you came to me this time. You have no idea what it does to me.”
I bury my face against the side of her neck and nip at the skin there while reaching around and undoing her pants. When I stand to my full height, it’s only long enough to push her pants and panties down over her hips before freeing my cock.
The tip is red and angry, ready to be buried inside our woman. I’m quick to grab a condom from a drawer in the desk and roll it on.
“Nothing like you rolling the condom on, Lara,” the groaned words are filled with regret, “but this will do.”
My hand splays wide open on her spine right under her shoulder blades and I hold her down, firmly. I can see her pussy weeping for me, and I don’t have to ask. She’s soaked for me.
I rumble out a low growl and slide the head of my cock up and down her slit. She tries to push back against me, her body begging for me.
It takes all my control to slide into her slowly, filling her deeply and securing her hips in place. My hand grips the edge of the desk and when I start to move, I use long, deep strokes.
Pushing. Filling.
Breathy pants and filthy pleas fall from her lips incoherently. It’s fucking magnificent.
She’s feeling my piercings from another angle. And she loves every stroke.
I don’t speed up. I fuck her harder. The only reason the desk stays in place is because I hold it there. Lara doesn’t move either.
“When you come on my cock today, Lara,” I groan, “it’s going to be all mine. Say it.”
“Yours,” her voice is dazed. Absent. “Yours, Jettson.”
My control frays and I start fucking her faster. Pushing her closer, chasing my own need to fill her with my cum.
Her walls start to tighten around my shaft and my balls draw up. The moment my movements stutter, I know I won’t be able to hold back for much longer.
“Fuck, you’re going to make me cum way too fast. Too tight. Too wet. Too fucking good,” I groan.
I slam balls deep inside of her and she screams as she falls over the edge. Her body is caught up in her bliss and pulls me over with her.
My hips still and then my movements gentle, prolonging the pleasure for both of us. When I open my eyes, I look at the ceiling, my head falling back on my shoulders.
Lara’s cheeks are pink as she blows out a breath which sends tendrils of her hair flying around her face. My grip on her loosens, but I don’t let go and bury myself as deep inside of my woman as I can as we shudder together and start to come down.
I rub up and down her back, my touch gentle. She lets out a soft sigh and her body melts into the desk.
A low chuckle comes out of me as I pull out of her, take care of the condom, and pull our clothes, relatively, back into place. I wrap my arms around her before sitting down and bring her along with me.
Her hand runs over my chest, and she looks down at our bodies. When she looks back up at me, her eyes are sparkling. “We didn’t even get undressed.”
I tilt my head and study her. “I’m not sure if you’re disappointed by that or not.”
“Just something new.” She shrugs and I file the information away.
If my woman is willing to explore, I have a whole world of fantasies about her which I’ve been ignoring for far too long. The thought sends a thrill through me.
With a hum, I curl her tighter against my chest, my fingers running up and down her spine. The silence wraps around us, it’s not awkward, but it is a sharp contrast to the sounds we were making moments ago.
I’m grateful as fuck that I had this room soundproofed. Ryker suggested it since he was the one looking at plans with me back then, when the construction company was smaller.
Recently, he’s been helping me finalize the plans for my house on the compound. I mentioned it a while ago in church, but schedules are what they are. We don’t prioritize club builds over other clients unless it’s for one of the club businesses.
As I look down at Lara, I wonder if she’ll help me finalize a few details in the house. I’ve been looking at the plans late at night, nights when I can’t see her especially, and can picture them filling the space with love.
I want that.
I want my girls at home with me.
I’m just not sure Lara is ready to hear that part of my redemption arc.
My hand keeps moving and she seems to snuggle into me. Her forehead smooths out before she looks up at me. She studies me for a long time, as if she’s weighing me.
Hopefully, I don’t come up quite as short as I used to.
“You have a question,” she accuses me.
She’s not fucking wrong.
I’ve had one question gnawing at me for a while. It’s not like she hasn’t answered it, but I don’t think I fully understand. I want to.
“Knowing what I know now, seeing Lola,” she stiffens in my arms at the name, and I try not to grimace because I get it, “as she is now, why move here?”
Lara allows herself to relax fully against me again. She stares at the ink on my arm, her fingers creating a pattern no one else sees.
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to keep your distance?” I gently prod her, not because I don’t think she’ll answer, but because I want her to understand I don’t ask from a place of judgement, just confusion.
“It’s not like I’ve spent the last ten years following Lola around,” she starts, but her tone isn’t defensive.
“It was never like that. She moved around too much for me to even consider it. Then she’d breeze back into our lives, if you think a breeze and a tornado are the same thing.
” Her eyes flash with annoyance and frustration.
“We had a few solid years where she was just gone. I would keep tabs on her as much as I could. The last place she moved before here, she was there for a pretty long stretch. It made me wonder if she had started to find some sort of balance.”
I watch her face carefully and she glances up at me.
“I didn’t think it was enough to let go of everything. It’s not like I had enough information anyway, since I have no idea what she was doing,” she explains with a shrug.
“Then she moved here?”
Lara’s expression turns thoughtful. “Then she moved here. I looked into the town, and it seemed like a sweet place.”
“Small,” I counter.
She doesn’t disagree. “The more I started looking,” she keeps going, “especially at cost of living and the needs of the town, I knew it might be the right place to open the bakery I always wanted to open. I wasn’t sure it would ever happen. Here, it was a possibility.”
“But the risk of being so close to Lola?”
Her eyebrows pull together. “Risk?” She lets out a long sigh.
“I suppose it was a risk considering her past behavior, but Vanessa started asking different questions about Lola. I started to wonder if I had prevented Lola from having a real chance to be a mother by keeping so much distance. Was the distance doing more harm than good? Was I even qualified to make that kind of decision?”
“I think that just means you’re the exact right mom for Vanessa,” my voice is low as I watch her get all worked up over all the questions she was mulling over.
I wish she could see herself like I see her. She’d be in awe too.
But she doesn’t.
I’ll keep trying to show her.
“Maybe,” she offers though the look in her eyes tells me she doesn’t believe it. “I just knew if I took away the chance of Vanessa knowing her birth mother that she might regret it. That was the bigger risk.”
I kiss her forehead and she smiles.
“When we came to see it in person, it felt good and I decided to take a chance.” She shrugs and looks away, her fingers still making shapes on my arm.
“There really hasn’t been a lot of Lola interaction, since she’s at the clubhouse and I have the bakery.
The fact that I’m uncomfortable around her, especially since figuring out her role,” she clears her throat and blushes softly, “in the club is my problem. It’s not Vanessa’s problem and it’s not even Lola’s problem.
I’m not judging her for it. Her behavior is another thing entirely. ”
I brush a few strands of hair away from her face, my tone apologetic, “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think Lola is ever going to step-up and prove herself to be any version of a mother that Vanessa needs in her life.”
Lara’s shoulders slump and she nods. “I know.”
“It’s a damn good thing she already has you. No one else needs to apply or try to weasel their way back in,” I say it with finality.
Lara’s laughter has me sitting back in the chair, the two of us rocking gently. I’m in complete awe of this woman.
“Omen is being patched in,” I blurt out the words into the quiet of the room.
Lara startles slightly and looks up at me with wide eyes. “Okay?”
“Will you come to the party with me? Rumble could keep Vanessa for the night, or I’d be happy to pay for a babysitter. Oh, or Lorraine would do it,” the words tumble out of me with embarrassing speed.
I just want her to know that I’m aware of her priorities. Fuck, I feel like I’m asking a girl out on my first date like back in the day. It’s unnerving.
My belly flips and flops while she searches my face in silence.
“Okay,” she sounds a little uncertain, but that doesn’t stop me from grinning.
I kiss her hard, sealing her agreement, even if she doesn’t know it.
It’s a date.