“Me too,” I tell her because if anything, it will alleviate the guilt both she and Ryder feel where Travis is concerned.

  “I can’t get hurt like I did before,” she whispers, fighting against me a little when I move some so I can look her in the eye.

  I know she’s timid about what she said, what her confession means, but she has to know where I stand.

  I cup her face when she threatens to drop her eyes from mine.

  “I fucking cherish you, Sunshine. That means I provide and take care of you and Ryder. I will always put the two of you first. I can’t even imagine a future where I’m not spending every single day loving you and your son.”

  Her chin quivers, another tear rolling down her cheek.

  I see the love she has for me in her eyes without her even speaking the words. It’s also shadowed by another man’s lies, the promises he made to her and broke.

  I press my lips to her forehead. I have all the time in the world to prove to her that I’m as solid as a fucking rock. Every time I come through when she may be expecting failure or disappointment, I know those shadows in her eyes will fade. I know a day will come when every smile is a real smile, and her expectations meet exactly what she deserves, and that’s the universe.

  Chapter 39

  Sunshine

  “You seem like you have something to say.”

  If he were any other man, I might question the tone of his voice. If I didn’t know him better, I might think he was upset or irritated, but those days are few and far between. Even when he could possibly be in a better mood, he never takes it out on me or Ryder.

  If he’s feeling out of sorts, he’ll head outside and do some strength training, smiling when Ryder insists on joining him. He never asks for time alone or insists that we’re driving him crazy. He never falters. He never slips up, and yet he still apologizes, even on days where I haven’t questioned whether he had something else going on or something annoyed him.

  I confronted him once after an apology that came from out of nowhere because he’s always been quick to call me out on a fake smile or gritting my teeth rather than voicing my own irritation with a situation. I knew that pointing out the inconsistency where he’s concerned wouldn’t start an argument. Sometimes it’s frustrating that he’s so calm. Sometimes I want the fight, even knowing it’s not healthy.

  So when we’re in a good place, he changes how he speaks to me based on my needs. The man has become an expert at it the last two months.

  If he thinks I need to be the brat that brings out that slightly aggressive side of him, his tone takes on the edge it just did.

  I bite my lip before speaking, my eyes trailing over the muscles in his arms as he shrugs into that sexy-as-hell leather cut.

  “I hate how loudly you chew.”

  He huffs a laugh, falling out of character. “That’s the best you got?”

  I try to stifle my own smile, but I fail miserably.

  “Do I really chew too loudly?”

  I shrug. “When I’m watching your mouth, all I hear is my pulse pounding.”

  He slides closer to me, his arms circling my waist, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. I’ve grown used to it, expectant of it, but I constantly remind myself how lucky I am so I don’t grow complacent. I never want the day to come where I wake up not feeling grateful for the direction my life has taken.

  Ryder is doing great in school, and despite the accidents he had at daycare and the precautions we’ve made to ensure he has a change of clothes at school, he’s yet to have to change into them.

  After Travis showed up at my work and was subsequently arrested, I just couldn’t walk back inside there. I thought leaving early that day was temporary, that I’d calm down and the next day would be different, but it wasn’t. The stress of everything hit me hard, and Brent was right there to help me through all of it. After I hadn’t changed my mind about returning after using up all my vacation days, I quit.

  Now I’m a private sitter for a family whose daughter has cerebral palsy. They appreciate me and value the care I provide. The pay is great, and I no longer have to clench my teeth and force myself to go to work. I’ve even recently started going back to visit some of the residents at the care facility. As much as a lot of them miss me, they also comment on how well I look.

  “I have work to do,” he says, his lips on my neck.

  “Then go to work.”

  He’s been doing some pretty intense training with Cerberus. He may have doubted his return to the club, but I never did. The more we both got to know the men and women connected to Cerberus, the clearer it became. They are the most kind and loyal people you will ever meet, and I know he takes pride in being a part of that.

  “Tell me what you want,” he urges with a roll of his hips.

  Despite us just having had sex, I’m not at all surprised that he’s got another erection. The man could go for hours, something he’s proven more than once.

  “Tell me,” he repeats, pulling his head back and looking me in the eye.

  I shake my head, my teeth digging into my lower lip.

  “You want me to tell you what you want?”

  My grin grows wide as I nod.

  He may have work, but he’s always got a few minutes to spare for me.

  “I can do that,” he says, his hands on my hips, but he continues talking rather than pulling my leggings off and putting his mouth on my pussy. “Cerberus offered me a slice of land and a house built out by the clubhouse.”

  I stiffen. This isn’t even close to what I was expecting him to say.

  “I told them I needed three bedrooms because Ryder needs his own room.”

  “That’s two,” I say.

  “And we need a nursery.”

  My eyes burn with unshed tears.

  “You know?”

  He nods as his hand caresses my lower belly.

  Then he’s dropping down to one knee.

  “Brent,” I whisper, my hands shaking uncontrollably.

  “Not ready?”

  “I don’t know,” I confess.

  Four months ago, he was comatose, and I was dealing with the shitty hand life gave me, something I’d been doing for years.

  Some days, I find it impossible to believe this is my life now. Some mornings, I still wake up in a cold sweat, thinking it was ripped right out from under me overnight.

  “You’ll tell me when you are,” he says, his fingers finding the waistband of my leggings.

  It isn’t a question. He’s telling me he’s all in. He’s mine, and willing to make it official with vows and a ceremony the second I’m ready for the very same thing.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper as he pulls one leg free from my leggings.

  “Eating my pussy.”

  The command and ownership in his voice makes me weak in the knees.

  One swipe of his tongue nearly turns me to jelly.

  I reach to press my palm to the back of his head, but he pulls it back before I can.

  “What are you doing?” He chuckles at the desperation in my voice, but I’m already throbbing for this man.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Sometime before my water breaks.”

  “Only ten percent of women actually have their water break, Sunshine.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “How long have you known?”

  He tries to bury his face between my legs again, but I grip a handful of his hair and tug him away. The flash of heat in his eyes, telling me he likes the roughness, almost has me caving. We could have this conversation in ten minutes with my cum coating his tongue or could have it right now after all.

  “How long?” I demand.

  “Maybe before you did,” he says with a shrug like it wasn’t something he thought he should share with me. “Does it matter?”

  “Does it matter to you?” I ask.

  I’ve done this once before and Travis seemed happy at first until reality set in.

  He nods. “It matters.”

  I swallow, wanting to look away, but finding it impossible.

  “We’re having a baby,” he says, his smile softening into something I translate as guarded excitement.

  “Are you happy?” I ask even though he just told me he’s making arrangements for a house with a nursery.

  Wanting something and being willing to care for something aren’t even close to the same thing.

  “So happy. A baby? A wife as soon as you get over this stubborn streak? A little boy I Iove dearly? What else could a man ask for?”

  I lick my lips, unsure why I feel the need to challenge him right now.

  “Four months ago you loved Rivet.”

  He stands, his hands on my hips, and it should probably feel weird to be having such a serious conversation when I have leggings tangled around one ankle, but something I’ve learned about Brent is that if there’s something that needs to be said, he wants us to say it. Letting something fester and cause problems won’t happen. He told me once that the miscommunication bullshit won’t fly with him, and he’s been true to that.

  “Four months ago, I didn’t know what reality was and what wasn’t. I stopped loving Rivet a long time ago.”

  I know he’s being truthful, and it’s kind of shitty for me to bring it up. His memories have been slowly trickling in, and he shares them with me when they do. When he remembered sitting by his mother’s bed when she took her last breath, he hurt all over again, especially when it didn’t bring with it the memories of the healing he’d done in the years since.

  “I thought I knew what love was. I wanted to cling to her because of it. What I felt then is nothing like I feel now. What I feel for you doesn’t even come close to what I thought I felt back then.”

  “I love you, too,” I whisper, loving the way his eyes flutter closed, the way they do every time I say the words. It’s as if he’s relishing them, as if he can’t believe he’s hearing them from my lips. It shows he values me, and that is something I didn’t realize I was missing until he showed me what it looked like.

  “I’m in this with you until my last breath, baby. Where do you stand?”

  “Right here with you.”

  He nods as if he expected my answer but needed to hear it anyway. That’s the change my love has made in him. He no longer looks apprehensive and scared that I’m going to take off. His resiliency, his steadfastness, was what I needed to trust that he’s exactly who he presents, and that’s the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.

  “Marry me,” he whispers against my lips.

  “Make me come first,” I say against his.

  Chapter 40

  Bishop

  “You were right,” Travis says, a proud smile on his face. “He loves it.”

  I nod. The man doesn’t need to hear me tell him I knew I was right because I know his son very well.

  “Can’t ever go wrong with Superman.”

  I know Sunshine is slightly uncomfortable with her position on my lap with her ex two chairs over, but I’m territorial, even more so now that she’s pregnant with my child and wearing my ring on her finger.

  We’re at the clubhouse, celebrating the October birthdays. Travis is here on a day pass from the inpatient program he’s in. I wasn’t exactly happy when Kincaid told me that he’d helped secure a spot for the man, but I calmed when he reminded me that Ryder loves the man despite all his faults. If Travis can’t get his shit together, then action will be taken, but he’s done exceptionally well in treatment. He still hasn’t been to court for his DUIs because of the backlog, but he’s fighting to be a better man and a better father. I commend him for it, and it helps that he hasn’t looked at Sunshine once in a way that makes me think he’s trying to be sly and waiting for the moment to pounce on her.

  “What did you get him?” Travis asks, his eyes still locked on the frown on Ryder’s face when he opens my gift.

  “Books.”

  Travis turns to look at me. He nods, understanding that it’s a way for me to take one for the team. Ryder needs to see the good in what his father is trying to accomplish. Ryder isn’t a selfish greedy kid, but he’s still a kid. I have the means to give him everything in the world, but I don’t have to prove that at every turn. Travis giving him the thing he really wants and me giving him something he’ll also enjoy is an olive branch to the boy’s father. Ryder loves his bedtime stories, so although the book isn’t as flashy, I know Sunshine and I will be able to spend precious moments with him and that gift. Those are things Travis aren’t afforded yet.

  “What did you get?” Jamie, Hound’s son, asks.

  “Books,” Ryder says, a little disappointment on his face, but he smiles up at me when he thanks me.

  “That smile is familiar,” I tell Sunshine, pressing my hand to her lower belly.

  “I love trucks,” Ryder says, holding up The Little Blue Truck book.

  “I guess that’s your doing?”

  She gives him a thumbs-up and pride pulls the real smile to his face.

  “I told him it’s rude not to thank someone for a gift. If he finds himself wanting to complain, to do it when he gets home, but to find one good thing about each gift when he’s thanking the person for it.”

  It makes perfect sense, and I don’t exactly see what he’s doing as the same thing she did for so long. Her pain ate away at her. He’s just trying not to hurt my feelings. It helps some that when we get home and he’s exhausted from the day, he’s going to pull the book out, grab my hand, and ask me to read his bedtime story.

  “I love that book,” Jamie says.

  “He’s going to be an amazing big brother,” I say, watching him hand Jamie the book to flip through instead of staking claim to it.

  Travis turns his head in our direction and I see his eyes dip to my hand on Sunshine’s stomach.

  “Big brother?”

  I sit a little straighter. I will end this man if he causes a scene. Kincaid was quick to help the man get into treatment but he wasn’t exactly thrilled for him to attend today where he’d be around his own grandchildren.

  “We haven’t told anyone yet,” Sunshine says.

  His eyes search hers for a long moment, a hint of pain in his eyes, before he nods his head, swiping his fingers across his mouth.

  “My lips are sealed.”

  He looks at me one last time, and I see it there, the final piece of his acceptance of how things are settling inside of him. When he looks back over to his son, tension leaves his shoulders as if he’s relieved in some way. He knows she’s going to be taken care of. He knows that his son is safe with me. He can focus on his own recovery, knowing that we won’t poison Ryder against him. He also has to know that I’ll go to the ends of the earth to protect Ryder from him if need be as well.

  “And for the other birthday boy,” Stormy says, handing Legacy an envelope.

  “We said appropriate gifts only,” Hound says, his eyes locked on the golden envelope in Legacy’s hand. “My kids are here.”

  Someone whispers that it’s from Hale-ish, the sex club in Denver. A wave of laughter fills the air around us, and I commend Hound for being a man who takes his wife, Kincaid’s daughter, there sometimes, and is also protective of what his kids are exposed to.

  “It’s a gift card to that new steak place out on the highway,” Legacy says, holding up the certificate as proof while shoving the other thing in the envelope into his pocket while glaring at Stormy.

  They’d asked everyone to chip in, but I was just told a cash amount not what the money was buying. I was honestly just relieved I didn’t have to figure something out to get him.

  “We ate there last week,” Ryder says with a wide grin. “The nuggets are delicious.”

  The child looks from the book in Jamie’s lap back to Legacy.

  “Do you like trucks?”

  Another wave of laughter fills the room, at the implication the six-year-old wants to trade his book for nuggets.

  With the attention off of him, I watch as Legacy walks toward Stormy, no doubt to give him a hard time for putting him on the spot in front of everyone. As close as I’ve gotten to everyone and my willingness to speak my mind, Legacy is very respectful of boundaries and doesn’t want to give any of the OGs a reason to change their opinion of him. The fact that Kincaid, Shadow, Dominic, Kid, Snatch, and Itchy are all in attendance today has to have him rattled.

  The gift card falls from his hand as he freezes in the middle of the floor.

  I follow his gaze to see a girl standing there.

  “Devyn?”

  “Emmett,” she says.

  I move Sunshine from my lap because I noticed the older man standing beside her. He doesn’t look impressed at all as his eyes dart around the room, judgment evident on his face.

  Jesus, if he got himself tangled up with an underage girl, he’s got more problems than being embarrassed about a gift card to a sex club.

  “Messy,” Gigi whispers, but there’s a giddiness in her voice that tells me she’s a little excited right now.

  “Who is that?” Legacy asks, pointing at the man.

  I expect her to say her father.

  “This is the man who’s going to marry us.”

  “Marry us?” Legacy asks, tilting his head in confusion.

  “Is she pregnant?” Sunshine asks. “She looks awful young.”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper.

  “Hi,” Kincaid says, stepping forward with his hand out. “I’m Kincaid, and you are?”

  “My best friend’s little sister,” Legacy answers, his voice sounding a little dazed.

  I narrow my eyes, because, honestly, I sort of thought I was his best friend.

  Gigi squeals, but when I look over at her, Hound is whispering to her softly. I recognize the look in her eyes and the way she’s chewing on her lip. That man may have four kids with the woman but he’s got his hands full with her alone.

  “You told me that if you turned thirty and weren’t married, you’d marry me.” She holds up a beat-up book as if it proves what she’s saying. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

 

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