“Then how was it?” he demanded to know over the baby’s incessant crying.
Bambi spun around, eyes red and watery. But her obvious distress wasn’t what caught and held his attention. It was the two wet circles around her nipples.
TEN
Manuel was aware that his life was in danger, though not immediate. Luciana thought she had him over a barrel, but he was playing her for pennies. And he was taking advantage of her hospitality while he was at it.
She thought she was playing him? Nah, baby, he was playing her.
He fucked her in every way possible, whenever possible. Money, power, loyalty—she was bleeding all of it. And he was the mastermind behind the lacerations.
Little cuts, all of them, designed to make her fail in the worst possible way. There would come a day where it would all come to a head, and they would turn on each other like rabid dogs…but today was not that day.
Manuel bent Luciana’s knees all the way back to her head, folding the bitch in half. Her nice, round, fat ass was soaked with her juices, her pussy open and glistening for him. She was a whore—his whore—and he didn’t care how much she hated him; she loved him too. Loved what he did for her and to her. And he loved giving it to her. There was nothing more arousing than seeing a woman like her on her back, submitting to him.
Together they blazed like fire, and that wasn’t something anyone would willingly give up, not unless they were crazy. But maybe Manuel was crazy for playing this game in the first place. He’d been told that all his life. He had never been known for taking the easy road. In fact, he tended to carve out his own road, through blood, sweat, and tears, none of which were his own.
Pounding vigorously into her, Manuel made sure that each thrust took her breath away. He wanted her to be completely dependent on him, on what he was willing to give her. If she wanted to breathe, then it would be on his terms. If she wanted to speak, then he would decide when she could and how.
Right now, the only thing he wanted to see from her was that red, straining face, the look of pain in her eyes as he bottomed out every time, and all the while knowing that there wasn’t a damn thing she could say about it. She couldn’t stop him even if she wanted to.
If Manuel was so moved, he’d take her life right here in this bed…just as she planned to do every night when she thought he was asleep.
She thought he was stupid, complacent, but what Luciana failed to realize was that Manuel had his finger on the pulse of her entire operation. He knew every move she made and when, and she was the one who put him in the position to do so. The only stupid one was her, and by the time he was through fucking her every way from Sunday, it would be too late for her to recover anything.
All he had to do was continue biding his time, setting up his chess pieces, and then he’d turn the tables and show her who the boss around here really was.
For now, though, he’d settle for her impassioned cries in his ear.
***
Usually, she would say there was no use crying over spilled milk, but this was a whole other can of worms.
Bambi caught the odd look in Curtis’s eyes a second before she felt the milk in her breasts let down. Glancing down, sure enough, she’d soaked through the nursing pads. Both at the same time? Someone upstairs truly hated her.
Once again, karma was punishing her for her secrecy.
Snatching a dishtowel off the counter, clean bottles that had been drying scattered all over the floor, but Bambi was more concerned with covering the evidence. Good lot that would do, though, since he’d already witnessed the truth.
Unbidden, her eyes welled up worse than they already had been, and Bambi couldn’t do a thing to stop the frustrated tears from rolling freely down her cheeks. Dammit, she hated it when she cried. Ever since she had Beau, though, it was her normal reaction to damn near everything in life.
And she hated it!
Curtis shifted Beau around in his arms, suspicion filling his eyes. “I’m just going to assume that’s not from the sink splashing up on you.”
Bambi cringed, unable to come up with a believable explanation. She was busted. That’s all there was to it. “Curtis, I can explain.”
“He’s not your friend’s kid, is he,” he deadpanned.
Yep, he was as smart as she’d given him credit for and the jig was up. Realizing there was no use even trying to come up with another lie, Bambi admitted, “No, he’s not.”
“So…” Curtis looked down at Beau, inspecting the fussy little boy closely. “Does that guy who was here earlier have anything to do with this?”
Bambi’s brows pulled together. “Steve? You…wait, you were here earlier?” Had he seen him leaving?
“He took you to lunch. You looked pretty cozy together. Is he the father?” Curtis asked, not holding back any punches.
Bambi saw the opportunity presented to her and even though it was wrong, she took it. Sort of. “He’s a good man.”
“Is that why he doesn’t live here with you?”
Bambi was once again finding herself in defense mode. “Look, you don’t have any right to question me about my relationships. Steve is a good man, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
“So he is the father.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So he isn’t then?”
“I didn’t say that either.”
Curtis smirked humorlessly. “So you’re going to play that game then. Fine. Maybe I’ll just hang out and ask him myself. When is he coming over next? Tonight?”
“What?” Bambi nearly shouted. “You can’t be serious.” She crossed the room, giving up any pretenses of trying to hide her ruined shirt, and took Beau from his arms. It was his feeding time. She wasn’t even going to bother with the bottle anymore either. She reserved her stock for when Tina was babysitting normally anyway, and this wasn’t one of those times. Since Curtis knew Beau belonged to her, she didn’t see the point hiding anymore.
“Oh, I’m completely serious.”
Bambi glared at him, shook her head, and proceeded into the living room. “Why are you doing this?” she asked as she seated herself at the end of the couch and lifted her shirt.
“I told you I came here for answers, and I’m not leaving until I get them. What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing,” she replied snarkily as she placed Beau at her breast and he latched on.
“I thought you were using a bottle…”
“That was before I stopped caring what you think.”
Curtis appeared confused and a little out of sorts as he stood at the opposite end of the couch staring.
“If you’re going to insist on hanging out, then I have to insist you don’t stare at me like that,” Bambi told him.
“Sorry— I…sorry.” He sat down in the arm chair, and she almost had to laugh at how uncomfortable he suddenly appeared. If she didn’t already know better, she’d think he was seeing boobs for the first time.
“So you wanted answers,” Bambi said, refusing to make eye contact with him. She focused on nursing her son instead.
“I do.” Some of the wind seemed to have come out of his sails, but Curtis pressed on, determination renewing in his stony expression. “Why did you leave?”
Here we go, Bambi thought with resignation. She knew she couldn’t outrun this conversation forever, but she’d hoped… “There were extenuating circumstances.”
“Explain that.”
She rolled her eyes. “I saw where things were heading with the club and I wanted to get away from all that.”
“What do you mean, where thing were heading?”
This time she lifted her gaze and met his. “The violence. It’s everywhere now, and it’s all centered on the club.”
“And how do you know that?” he asked with suspicion.
“I have my sources,” she replied cryptically. Frank Kellerman, to be exact. Just before he went missing he’d contacted her, asking for her help. He didn?
??t divulge much, but what he did deign to share was enough to make up her mind. And the rest was history.
“Oh yeah, right, FBI stuff,” Curtis said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
They both knew that wasn’t the case. She hadn’t been part of the FBI for some time, but thankfully he didn’t call her on it.
“So if you felt so threatened that you had to run off into the sunset, why couldn’t you tell me about it first?”
Meeting his gaze once again, Bambi laid out some truths. “Because you wouldn’t have let me leave. You would have tried to make me stay, and I would have. I couldn’t risk that.”
His stare was unscrupulous, searching her eyes as his mind worked out the details she wasn’t sharing. Bambi knew it was just a matter of time before he figured it out. So she waited, holding his stare.
“Why? What couldn’t you risk?” he asked finally, but she knew he already had his answer. He just wanted her to confirm it.
“You know why,” she murmured, her voice gone weak. She looked down at Beau, her perfect little boy, and stroked his peach-fuz hair.
“Are you fucking serious,” Curtis said, his tone lethal.
Bambi’s heartrate increased in response to the threat. She had to remind herself that Curtis wasn’t violent like that. At least not with women, not with her.
“Were you pregnant when you left? Bambi, answer me right fucking now,” he demanded when she didn’t immediately answer him. “Were you?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
He flew up out of the chair, and every muscle in Bambi’s body clenched up tight, waiting for the explosion that never came. Instead, Curtis stood over her, a foot away, fists clenched at his side, his face red as a beet, unspeaking, unmoving.
Fear lancing through her like knives, Bambi looked up at him, terrified of what that still silence meant.
Through clenched teeth, Curtis asked, “Did you know you were pregnant before you left?”
This was the bit of truth that would cut the deepest. Bambi wanted so badly to lie, to save herself the additional fallout of such an admission, but they’d come this far. She couldn’t stand the idea of lying to him any longer. He deserved to know the truth.
“Yes.”
From the look in his eyes, that one word had set his soul on fire. Bambi wasn’t sure how he’d react, but he still managed to catch her off guard.
Without a word spoken between them, Curtis turned around, yanked the front door open, and slammed it closed behind him.
In a daze, Bambi sat still as a statue on her couch, listening as first a car door banged shut followed by the growl of an engine, and finally rubbed peeling against pavement.
And all the while, Beau quietly fed, unaware that his father had just walked out of his life without so much as a goodbye.
ELEVEN
Blake stared at his wife, disbelieving of everything they had together. In no time at all, she’d given him a life to be proud of. She took care of his son like a real mother should, bore him a daughter who looked and acted more like her every day, and was growing their third child now, as she slept at the opposite end of the couch, feet in his lap.
She’d been working at the school all day, and they were swollen, so as he did every night, Blake massaged the aches away as best he could. It was the least he could do, considering she was carrying his child. That she’d fallen asleep didn’t matter. He kept going, wanting her to feel perfect when she woke.
He was always taking care of her, ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice—just for her. She was his life. Most days, he wondered if the universe hadn’t made a mistake giving her to him, so he was doing everything he could to prove his worthiness so it wouldn’t see a need to take her away.
Too many times, he’d thought he’d lost her. It wasn’t something he’d wish on his worst enemy—okay, maybe that was stretching it. He didn’t ever want to experience anything like that again.
Thinking back to the last and what had damn well better be final time he’d had to question a future without her in it, a pit opened in Blake’s stomach. Luciana Cruiz, that crazy bitch who thought she was the queen of her people, untouchable and immortal, had kidnapped his Gabby right out of their own home.
He’d never been more afraid in his life.
He’d never been more pissed off. That night, after he’d come home to find her standing in their driveway, all her fingers and toes accounted for, he’d graduated to murderous. And he’d stayed that way.
On the surface, Blake was a loving father and husband, but just below simmered a kind of rage he’d never felt before. He’d lost track of how many nights he’d laid awake in bed plotting all the ways he’d make that bitch suffer, how he’d not systematically take her down, but blow her and her entire operation to smithereens in one fell swoop.
He was going to wipe the lot of them off the map, or he’d die trying.
Looking at Gabby now, he could still remember the abject relief that had flooded through him when he saw her that night. He’d gotten off his bike and went straight to her, folding her in his arms and squeezing her and their daughter tight. While everyone was reuniting and chattering away, he was whispering in her ear all the ways he planned to leave his mark on her—one that would last forever.
And he did.
As soon as their property was cleared out, the rumble of motorcycles fading into the distance, he’d carried his woman inside and laid her out on their bed. He’d wanted more than anything to tear her clothes off and bury himself inside her, but she’d been through so much. So he’d taken his time.
He’d worshipped every inch of her body, starting with her bruised and battered feet. He’d bathed her, kissed every mark on her body, vowing to leave one bigger and badder on those who’d caused it, and when he finally slid inside her welcoming heat, he’d made good on his promise.
Blake made love and fucked her in equal measure throughout the night and well into the next morning. When she tried to get out of bed, he told her to keep her ass there. He served her, bathed her, then fucked her again and again, until they were both too tired to do anything but sleep.
Shifting in her sleep now, Gabby was the picture of ease. She trusted him implicitly to take care of her and their kids, to keep them all safe. And he would. With the last breath in his body, he would.
Her heel grazed his cock, and instantly it got hard, wanting inside her again. He’d hadn’t had her since that morning, rolling over as she slapped the alarm to silence it and sliding into her from behind.
Blake had heard some of the brothers from way back claim that a woman’s pussy got all stretched out after having kids, but Gabby was still tight as a fist. Her pussy was sweet and delicious and felt just as good wrapped around his cock now as it did the first time he drove into it.
He couldn’t get enough. And now he wanted her again.
“Why are you hard?” Gabby muttered. Her eyes drifted open, still heavy with sleep, but they found him right off.
“Because you’re sexy as fuck, teach. I want in you.”
“Again?” she said playfully.
“What do you mean again?” he said with a laugh.
“Good Lord, man, you are insatiable.”
“Small words, teach,” he reminded her just because he knew it got her hackles up.
With that defensive look in her eyes, Gabby sat up and crawled into his lap, straddling him. Touching his face, she said sternly, “You’re not dumb, and I’d better not hear you insinuate that crap again, understand?”
“Mmm,” Blake hummed, leaning up to capture her bottom lip between his. Releasing it, his eyes dilated as he watched her run her tongue across where his had just been. “I love when you get pissed off.”
“You like when I’m mad at you,” she said, disbelieving.
“Yeah, you’re even sexier when you have that storm brewing inside. Makes me wanna fuck you, hard.”
Heat crawled up her throat, turning her fair skin red. She leaned into him, her fingers
combing through the hair at the base of his skull. “You’re a strange man,” she said, her voice husky with desire. “You’re lucky I find that to be a very attractive quality.”
Palming her ass, he squeezed her cheeks and tugged her closer, pressing that heat between her legs up against his crotch. “And here I thought you loved me for my cock.”
Her eyebrows popped up. “Who said anything about love?”
With a feral growl, Blake twisted and dumped her onto the sofa and followed after her. “You’re going to regret those words, teach.” To prove his point, Blake grabbed her pants’ elastic waistband and peeled them off, tossed them to the floor, then popped the button on his jeans so he could release this throbbing erection.
Gabby licked her lips, and hell yes, he was going to have to make sure he made time to put her mouth to good use too. But first, he was going to do what he’d been thinking of all day.
“You want me to tell you my plans, baby?” Gabby nodded eagerly, her gaze fastened on his lips, telling him just where she wanted to be in that moment. But he wasn’t giving her his mouth until he was good and ready.
“I’m going to spread you open,” Blake told her as he pulled her shirt up and palmed her naked tits. They were too big for his hands, spilling out between his fingers. “Then I’m going to take my big, fat cock and put it inside you, teach.”
“Mmm, Blake,” Gabby moaned, her eyes closing as she pictured it, “kiss me.”
Blake smiled. “Not yet, teach. First I’m going to suck on these fat little nipples, and then I’m going to bite them.” She moaned again. During her first pregnancy, they’d discovered how sensitive her nipples were, and since they hadn’t wasted any time knocking her up again, not only were they still that way, but they were full of milk.
Yes, Blake loved to suck her tits, and he loved when they leaked, leaving them both a terrible mess. He was a dirty man, and she loved it.
“Blake,” Gabby breathed desperately, “stop talking and fuck me already.”