Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4) (47 page)

              “There’s a wedding song,” Mercy said, returning to his chair beside her.

              A little warm and dull with wine, Ava turned a smile toward him. “Better than our wedding music.” Which was none, because they’d spent their wedding night on the run, sleeping in Sly and Layla Hammond’s spare bedroom.

              He tipped his head and grinned. “
Oui
.”

              She couldn’t stop smiling. “You look awful handsome,” she said, reaching to pass a hand down the buttons on the front of his black shirt.

              “Kinda drunk, aren’t you?” he asked with a soft laugh.

              “I can think my man is handsome.”

              “Yeah, but you don’t say things like ‘awful handsome’ unless you’ve had a few and the Southern gal comes out in full force.”

              They laughed together. “Okay,” she said, “so I’m a little tipsy.”

              “All the better to take advantage of you.”

              “Oh, you didn’t hear? I was planning on being
real
easy tonight.”

              “Oh really?” A spark of mischief flared in his dark eyes. “That’s a shame. I like to work at it a little bit.”

              “You’re SOL, baby.”

              “Shit, how much
have
you had to drink?”

              She reined in her silliness. “Just enough to have a little glow,” she assured. Her hand was still on him, where it had stopped its button-exploration in his lap. She shifted it, slid a grip to the inside of his thigh. “Mercy,” she said, emotion welling inside her.

              He sensed the change in her immediately. His voice dropped, became smoky and warm. “What,
fillette
?”

              “It was a pretty wedding, wasn’t it?”

              His gaze took a trip around the tent, their club and loved ones talking, eating, Hound and Nell dancing remarkably well out on the floor. Then his eyes returned to hers. "Yeah, it was.”

              “I want another one,” she whispered, hand tightening on him.

              He reached for her empty wine glass.

              “No. I want another baby. I want one more.”

              He looked at her a long moment, the harsh, angular lines of his narrow face overlaid with a tender expression, a softening that came from the sweet center of his heart. He was the most brutal, violent, demented man she knew. And the kindest, the gentlest, the most loving.

              “You want a third?” His big hand closed around her wrist, his fingertips teasing lightly at her pulse point.

              “I do.”

              A delighted grin spread slowly across his face, radiant with happiness. “When do you wanna start? I don’t think there’s anybody in the barn.”

              If not for the wine, she might have shaken her head. Instead, she reached for his other hand, and let him lead her out into the night.

~*~

Maggie let her head fall sideways onto Ghost’s shoulder. “You know what?”

              Neither Sam nor Aidan was any kind of dancer, but they’d been coerced out onto the floor and were doing a middle school slow dance number.

              Ghost watched them. “What?”

              “We’ve got good kids.”

              He made a half-satisfied, half-amused sound in his throat. “For the most part.”

              She slapped his arm and he broke into a real laugh. When he settled, his voice grew doubtful, strained. “He turned out alright, didn’t he?” Like he was seeking her approval.

              If only his men knew, Maggie thought, how much he doubted and wondered. If they could see the nights she’d held his head in her lap, and assured him it would all be okay. Her stubborn, brave, asshole man. As fragile as all the rest, but putting up a good front.

              “I never doubted for a second,” she assured, finding his rough hand and sliding her own inside it.

              “No?”

              “No.”

              He turned his head toward her, bristles on his jaw scraping at her forehead. “I love you,” he said, quietly, just for her.

              “I know, baby. I love you too.”

Forty-Three

“Aidan…oh…
God
.” She threaded her fingers through his hair and put pressure at the back of his head, her hips seeming to levitate off the mattress.

              He was between her legs with his mouth, his broad shoulders pushing her thighs apart, and he showed her no mercy.

              The orgasm crashed over her, a wave of sensation, tinged briefly with regret. She’d wanted them to be together, their first time on their wedding night. She felt selfish…but satiated, hot with bliss as the pulses rippled through her and she stared up at the ceiling.

              At their reflection on the ceiling.

              This motel was a disturbingly out-of-the-way place just off the interstate, a place she would never have ventured on her own. But Aidan had gripped her hand outside their door, turned shining eyes on her and said, “There’s a surprise inside.”

              The surprise had been the mirror affixed to the canopy of the bed, and she got to watch him go down on her in it.

              Through lowered lids, she watched herself arch, gasp, claw gently at his scalp. Saw the ivory sheen of her damp skin, the shiny wetness on her nipples from his mouth, the flexing tattooed expanse of his back as his tongue slid up her sex one last time.

              She could come again just watching, the harshly erotic novelty of it almost overwhelming.

              “Aidan,” she repeated, and he slid up her body, blocking her view with his smiling face.

              “What, baby?”

              Her ring caught the lamplight, flaring as she brushed the damp curls off his forehead. She could have stared at his excited expression all night. But instead she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and said, “Can I be your wife now?”

              He kissed her in answer, his tongue flicking between her teeth to stroke against her tongue.

              The minister had pronounced them hours ago, but it wouldn’t feel wholly real until…

              He touched her, briefly, where she was sopping wet, and then his cock pressed inside, plunging deep, his hips meeting hers.

              She loved watching: his strong, gleaming, tattooed frame thrusting between her thighs, every imperfect inch of him hers. But she closed her eyes and turned her face into his neck. Breathed the salt on his skin and dug her fingers into his back, memorizing every sensation, relishing the physical power of him.

              After, they lay tangled on the cheap sheets, too hot, but refusing to separate by so much as an inch.

              “Congratulations on your wedding,” she teased, skimming a fingertip down his nose. He had his father’s nose; a strong, masculine nose.

              “Congrats to you, Mrs. Teague.” He tangled his fingers in her hair.

              As their heartbeats slowed to more regular thumps, sounds from the motel intruded. A loud engine in the parking lot. Rattle of the Coke machine on the landing outside their room. Voices from below.

              Tomorrow, they were headed into the mountains, to a secluded cabin Hound had offered them the use of for a few days. They couldn’t afford the beaches of Key West or Mexico, but Sam didn’t want them. A long weekend in the woods, by the firelight, would be heaven. And still…there was something about tonight, about this first joining as husband and wife in this crappy motel, that touched her deeply.

              “Thank you,” she said. “This is wonderful.”

              He snorted. “No it’s not.”

              “Yes it is,” she insisted, snuggling even closer to him.

              His arm tightened around her waist. “I’m sorry I couldn’t take you somewhere fancy.”

              “Aidan, don’t…”

              “I’m probably gonna have to say that a lot.”

              She laid a hand alongside his cheek and turned his face so they were eye-to-eye. “Aidan,” she repeated, more firmly this time. “Stop doing that. Stop belittling yourself and the things you give me.”

              His lips twitched. “No more ‘sorrys’?”

              “Only if you do something really stupid.” She felt her own smile threaten.

              “Okay, but fair warning, I’m gonna have to say ‘sorry’ a lot.”

              She laughed. “Oh, you’re awful.”

              “Sorry.”

              She laughed harder and he cut her off with a kiss.

April

Forty-Four

His ass had long since gone numb in the hard plastic chair where they’d been sitting for what felt like hours now. Aidan jiggled his foot up and down, and his wallet chain rattled against the edge of the chair.

              Sam put her hand on his knee and gave a gentle squeeze.
It’s alright
, her grip said.
It’s going to be fine
. She’d said so with words all throughout the last week. And tonight, before they’d left for the hospital. He didn’t believe her for a second, but her insistence was keeping him whole, when his mind wanted to scatter to bits.

              On the other side of the waiting room, the Sinclair family attorney sat with arms and legs crossed, dark head resting back against the wall, bored. Aidan glanced away from him, toward the clock again. They’d arrived several hours into the birthing process, and had been here for two. How much longer would it take? Would things go smoothly? Would there be complications?

              They’d seen little of Tonya in the months since the wedding, but Sam had opened up an email correspondence with her, and Tonya had shared updates, sonograms and 3D photos as the baby developed.

              More often than he would have thought, Aidan found himself stealing glances of Sam’s flat stomach, wishing like hell that she was the one carrying his baby, nurturing and growing his little girl with her body. An impossible wish, but one that made him ache, left his teeth clenched at night, after Sam fell asleep, and he was the only one awake in their cramped bed.

              “It doesn’t seem real,” he murmured, “that this is actually happening.”

              Sam chuckled softly. “We have a whole apartment full of baby stuff. That doesn’t seem real?”

              Sam, brave girl, had tackled his shitty apartment with everything she had. It was still a shitty apartment, but it had a fresh coat of paint, was sparkling clean, and boasted usable furniture that had either been repaired or replaced. The baby stuff they’d bought two weeks ago. Crib, swing, changing table, rocking chair, toys, diapers, formula.

              They hadn’t asked them to, but Carter and Tango had both moved into the clubhouse. “You guys need space,” Tango had said with a sincere, if tired smile. “We don’t mind.”

              But Aidan carried dread like a heavy stone in his belly. His best friend stood on treacherous emotional footing. Every time Aidan tried to reach out beyond their typical club and bro talk, he ran face-first into a glacial wall that spooked him, if he was honest. Tango wasn’t okay. Tango was going to do something rash. And short of strong-arming him into therapy, Aidan was running out of ideas.

              The door to their private waiting room opened. “Is she here?” Maggie asked without preamble as she and Ghost entered.

              The lawyer flicked them a curious glance, then shut his eyes and pretended to sleep.

              Aidan’s throat tightened up and he had to swallow.

              “Not yet,” Sam answered. She smiled as Ghost and Mags sat down across from them. “But a nurse came by a little while ago and said everything was going well so far.”

              “That happened?” He had zero memory of it.

              Sam patted his knee. “Yes, baby. It’s all fine. It just takes a little time to have a baby.”

              Maggie nodded. “And as uptight as Tonya is–” She cut herself off, grinning, and Sam snorted.

              Ghost adopted what was becoming his waiting-for-a-baby-to-be-born pose: arms folded across his chest, feet splayed out on the tile, a general air of don’t-talk-to-me. The MC president equivalent of a queen’s little royal wave. His eyes were bright, though, with what Aidan could only read as grandfatherly excitement.

              “You all set up at home?” he asked.

              Aidan nodded. “It only took me two days to figure out that fucking crib” – Ghost grinned – “but yeah, everything’s ready.”

              “You think the crib is bad, wait till you see the stroller.”

              “Greeeaaaat….”

              “The stroller wasn’t that bad,” Maggie said. “Your father just refused to read the instructions.”

              “They were in goddamn Spanish.”

              “Only on the one side. You had to flip it over.”

              “Who’s got time for that?”

              “Apparently not the man who beat the stroller shut on the sidewalk in the pouring rain.”

              Sam made a sound Aidan knew was a squelched laugh, and he glanced over to see her biting her lip, a smile dancing in her eyes. Her cheeks glowed pink with humor…and excitement. She was excited. His amazing old lady – she couldn’t wait to welcome their baby home.

             
I love you
, he thought.

              The softening of her gaze told him she’d read his mind, and that she loved him too.

              The door opened.

              That old adage about a pin dropping? It was happening now. All heads turned toward the threshold, toward the white-coated doctor and the nurse who stood in the doorway. The doctor held a tiny bundle wrapped in white in her arms, and she beamed at all of them.

              “I have a little girl here who’d really like to meet her daddy.”

              “Oh God,” Maggie whispered.

              Ghost stiffened, drew upright.

              Sam clutched his shoulder, fingers digging tight.

              Aidan couldn’t breathe. His lungs stopped working. He looked at his stepmother, at the tears standing in her hazel eyes. Looked at his wife, at her encouraging smile, wavering with emotion. He tried to draw air into his chest and failed, looked back at the doctor instead.

              Such a little thing, that bundle. Such a tiny footnote of a human.

              His.

              His baby.

              His daughter.

              Waiting to meet him.

              He thought his knees might buckle as he got to his feet. His pulse thumped hard in his ears, drowning out the small sounds, the rustle of clothes and shifting of shoes on the tile. He had to clear his throat twice. “She’s mine,” he croaked, and the doctor moved toward him.

              His arms lifted, awkward, like two tree branches. The baby was placed in them.

              “You have her?” the doctor asked.

              He…

              Her face. Tiny, wrinkled, red and smushed. Not even a face, but a button, eyes and mouth puckered shut. Remy and Cal had looked like this, just like this, but he wondered suddenly if she was okay, if she was supposed to look like that.

              His arms softened and tightened, brought her in flush against his chest. She was so light, but so solid, so real, so warm, in her hospital blanket. He felt her pulse, thumping through her whole being. Like he held a heart against his own.

              He felt a hand on his shoulder, and Sam pressed against his back, took a look at the baby around his arm. “Oh…” she whispered. He felt her heart too, against his shoulder blade, where her breast rested against his ribs.

              Caught between his two girls.

              “What’s her name?” the nurse asked. She had the birth certificate in her hands, ready to take down the letters.

              Again he cleared his throat. “Alaina,” he said, sounding choked. “Alaina Margaret Teague.”

~*~

How could something so tiny scream so loudly? How could her mouth open so wide? How could her lungs possibly be this powerful?

              “The doctor said she was perfectly healthy,” Sam said, smile wry as she came into the living room with a freshly warmed bottle in her hand. “And I guess she’s not shy when she’s hungry.”

              Aidan shifted her to one arm so he could take the bottle. “Thanks, baby.”

              “You got it?”

              “Yeah, I…” Was consumed with stress and worry. He sank down into their new recliner and contemplated his offspring. “Do I just stick it in her mouth?”

              Sam, smile amused, came and perched on the arm of the chair. “Yes. And you hold it at an angle – there, like that. Perfect.”

              Lainie clamped her lips on the bottle’s nipple, invisible eyebrows knit in frustration.

              “Is she drinking?”

              “Not yet. You’ll know–”

              She latched on. A small shock moved through him when he felt her tug at the bottle.

              Sam grinned. “Strong little thing, isn’t she?”             

              Aidan could only stare.

              He’d always thought newborn babies were ugly as sin. Remy and Cal had become cute children, spitting images of their father, Cal’s bright blonde hair an incongruous ode to recessive French genes. But when they’d first come into the world, bawling, they’d been all red and wrinkled and about as adorable as little moles dug up from the ground.

              His Lainie was no exception to the ugly rule…and yet…

              He realized he was looking for himself, in her tiny nose, in the smooth domes of her closed eyes, her pink cheeks. He felt suddenly floored by biology; the idea that he himself had created this life that he held in his hands. The weight of her head, the fragile line of her body against his arm: not just a baby, but a miniature human who needed him, belonged to him, shared his blood. It was staggering, too much to comprehend.

              Sam’s arm settled across his shoulders. Her hair brushed his face as she rested her head against his. “Isn’t she perfect?” she murmured.

              He blinked hard. “Yeah. She is.”

~*~

In the way of all newborns, Lainie was up every two hours during the night, and she had healthy lungs. The first time, just after they’d fallen into bed, Sam had rolled toward Aidan and prodded him gently. “Alright, Daddy,” she’d whispered, and his eyes had flown wide, curious and a little hurt. Sam had shaken her head. She loved him, she already loved Lainie, but he was her father, he was the one who’d chosen to act irresponsibly nine months before. It was for his sake that she’d stayed in bed while he scooped the baby from her bassinet and went to heat a bottle. It was part of his transformation, his final great growing up. Babies weren’t just women’s work. This was his child, and he had to bond with her, had to step up and be her daddy.

              He didn’t have to be told after that. Every two hours like clockwork, he was up feeding her. In between, he moved her to the bed between them, so she could feel their heat, their breathing. She smelled of fresh baby, with an undernote of powder.

              When she woke at five-thirty, Sam took pity on her husband. “I’ve got her,” she said, lifting Lainie up into her arms. “You go back to sleep.”

              “Unph,” he mumbled, and rolled onto his back.

              “Come on, sweetheart,” Sam murmured, rubbing the baby’s back as she left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen. “You hungry? Let’s fix that, hmm?”

              Lainie’s fussing had progressed to full-on screaming by the time the bottle was in the microwave.

              “Hush, baby, hush. You’re alright. It’s coming, it’s coming.”

              She’d heard stories of babies who struggled to latch onto the bottle, but Lainie seemed to have no such trouble. The second the nipple entered her mouth, she stopped yowling and started sucking.

              “There.” Sam eased down into the recliner and settled the baby in the crook of her arm. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

              Lainie regarded her through uncomprehending newborn eyes, the lids open only slits as she concentrated fiercely on nursing.

              Sam’s nipples contracted beneath her t-shirt. With a little gasp of shock, she recognized some phantom need, a dull ache in her breasts. Her body responding automatically to the baby she cradled.

              Not her baby…

              Except that she was. Aidan had called her “Mama” when he first passed Lainie to her. That’s who she was, and would always be to this tiny precious girl. Mama.

              Her daughter. Lainie Teague was her daughter.

              She’d known it before, in every logical sense, but it hit her hard just then, in the dark before dawn, the room filled with the soft sounds of the baby’s sucking.

              She was a mother now.

              Tears filled her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “I’m your mama.”