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Chance can’t contain his excitement at all the big green equipment. “I think he has a future in farming or construction or something,” I say after the tenth or eleventh tractor he lets Chance sit in and ‘test drive’.
It’s the kid-sized one inside the showroom that he really goes nuts for.
“That one for sale?” Z asks the sales guy.
“Oh yeah.” He goes over all the bells and whistles. It’s a serious little piece of equip
ment. I zone out when he launches into an animated explanation of the double rear wheels. I tune back in when he explains how we can control the speed.
Z glances at me with a raised eyebrow and I shrug. “That’s all you.”
“Sold.” Z pays in cash and our sales guy is more than happy to help us load it into the truck bed.
“Lawn mower, my ass,” I mutter once we’re back on the road. “You were looking for one of those.”
He grins at me. “Hell yeah, I would’ve loved one when I was a kid.”
“You’re adorable.”
Chance is way too excited to go anywhere else, so we head home for him to test out his new toy.
After dinner, I’m finishing up the dishes when Z wraps me up in an embrace that can’t be mistaken for anything other than sexual. His hands land on my ass squeezing gently. “I’m gonna miss my beautiful siren,” he whispers in my ear.
“I’ll miss you too, but do you think this is appropriate for Chance to see?”
He pulls back, enough to study my face. Assess whether I’m serious.
“It’s only bad if you don’t want me to and I do it anyway. Otherwise, what’s wrong with him seeing his parents affectionate with each other?”
My mouth opens but no sounds come out. At first.
“I don’t want him to think that’s how to treat women.”
“I don’t treat women that way. Just one. You,” he answers calmly.
Chance makes it a non-issue by stomping over to us, hands on his hips, scowl on his face. He flattens his little palms against Z’s leg, pushing with all his strength. “No. Off. My mommy.”
Z’s eyes widen and the corners of his mouth turn up. He releases me and lifts Chance into his arms. “That’s right, little guy.”
Despite the fun he had playing tractor with Z all day, Chance’s scowl deepens. He plants his hands on Z’s face and pushes him away. “My mommy. Not yours.”
Z chuckles, low and easy, shaking out of Chance’s grasp. “No problem.”
He leans closer, pretending he has a secret to share with Chance. “I don’t want her to be my mommy. I want her to be my wifey.”
I gasp and take a step back. “What did you say?”
Without taking his eyes off Chance, he answers, “You heard me.”
Forty-Six
Z
“Z, don’t you think it’s a little soon to be talking about that?”
I cock my head. “About what?”
“You know. What you just said.”
I set Chance down and ask him to grab some of his cars and bring them into the dining room.
“What did I say?” I want to force the words out of her. Make it real since she still seems to be struggling.
She shakes her head and steps back.
“I’m not alone in this, Lilly. You feel what we have. Why are you being so stubborn now?”
“I’m not. We just haven’t been ‘together’ that long.”
I grab her hand, tug her closer. She tries to pull away, but I set my other hand on her lower back to hold her in place.
“If I wasn’t clear with you before, let me be now. I fucking love you, Lilly. More than anything or anyone I’ve ever loved in my life. I want to marry you. I want to have more kids with you. This stuff with the downstate club will sort itself out. But no matter what, I want you by my side. Is that clear enough—”
Thank fuck she cuts me off because I’m running out of things to say. She throws her arms around my neck and yanks me down for a hard, greedy kiss. “Yes, it’s enough,” she whispers against my lips. “I love you too.”
How my heart kicks against my ribs hearing her say that. “Say it again, Siren.”
“I love you.” She rubs her cheek against mine. “I love everything about you, Z.”
“Even though I’m a bossy pain in the ass?”
“Especially that part.”
I’m probably going to hell for doing this when our son’s in the other room, but I push her up against the counter, then lift her so her ass rests on the edge. Wedging myself between her knees, I lean down and claim her mouth.
Cupping the back of her head, I thread my hand into her hair, holding her still. It’s not a soft or gentle kiss. More of a storming of the gates since I finally seem to have busted through her defenses.
She parts her lips and moans into my mouth. The chocolate from dessert tastes even better mixed with her. My hands grip her ass tighter, pressing her into my cock. Like a plundering pirate, taking what I want.
Forty-Seven
Z
Somehow, I’ve crushed all of Lilly’s preconceived notions about me, and about the club. I’ve finally busted down those walls around her heart that I’d once thought were impenetrable.
Chance is sound asleep in his bed.
Tomorrow, I have to go back downstate. But soon enough we’ll be packing up my truck so she and Chance can move into the house I rented for us. Hopefully, I won’t be at Sway’s too much longer and then we can start working on building our house.
Whatever, whenever doesn’t matter as long as we’re together as a family.
I still have questions. One in particular won’t stop bothering me.
Taking her hand as if I want to inspect her ring finger, I turn it over, and push her sleeve up, revealing the faint white scars trailing down the middle.
Very deliberate marks. “What happened here?” No more playing around. No room in my question for her to give me anything other than the truth.
Her breath hitches and she tries to jerk her arm away.
“You didn’t have these before.”
She opens and closes her mouth, shakes her head. No sound comes out.
A steady banging draws our attention toward the front of the house. We both listen, heads cocked.
Someone’s knocking.
“Who the fuck would be here this late?” I ask.
Fear shines in her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“I’m here.” I reach out and cup her cheek. “If it’s another subpoena, I’m just gonna tell them you moved away.”
“I don’t think it works that way.” She checks her phone. “Alex would’ve sent me a text if he were stopping by this late.”
I’m already reaching into the nightstand and pressing my finger against the biometric gun safe that holds my Glock. I snap the magazine in place and stuff the pistol in the waistband of my pants.
The knocking becomes more insistent. If whoever it is wakes Chance up, I might shoot them just for the hell of it.
There’s a tall, nerdy guy in a rumpled suit on the other side of the door. He steps back and puts his hands up when he sees me. “I must have the wrong house. Is Lilly here?”
“Who the fuck’s asking?”
“Uh, Ted. Ted Sullivan.” He straightens up and runs his gaze over me again. Recognition spreads across his face. “Oh, shit. You’re Chance’s father, aren’t you?”
Coldness settles over me. Who the fuck is this? Why does he know my son? Why is he at Lilly’s house this late as if he thinks he has a right to be here?
Lilly implied she hadn’t been with anyone else while we were apart and I never pressed her for answers, because I didn’t want to admit the things I’d done.
But if she let some other man raise my kid while I was living in ignorance about Chance…
“Z, don’t.” Lilly’s soft voice wraps around me, but it doesn’t douse the fire spreading through my blood. Her fingers wrap around my arm that’s reaching for the gun. “Ted, what are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry to show up like this, Lilly. But you kept ignoring my calls.”
I glance at her and then him. “Who is he, Lilly?”
Lilly sighs in defeat and shakes her head. “What are you doing, Ted?”
“I was tired of waiting for you to come back to Cali, babe.” He holds out his hand to me, but I don’t bother shaking it. No, I’m still considering shooting him.
He drops his hand and scowls at Lilly befor
e answering my question. “I’m Lilly’s fiancé.”
Z and Lilly’s story continues in
Zero Regret (Lost Kings MC #13), pre-order here.
For universal links, click here.
If you’re new to the series, please keep reading for an excerpt from Slow Burn (Lost Kings MC #1)!
Excerpt from Slow Burn
ROCK
It wasn’t love at first sight when I met her. Lust? Definitely. I don’t think I believed in love at the time, but one look at her beautiful face, and all the bad stuff around me melted away. Not an easy feat for a guy in handcuffs.
Someone as innocent as her should never have gotten involved with a man like me. By innocent, I don’t mean she was some breathy, eighteen-year-old virgin ingénue. No—when we met, she was a thirty-one-year-old married lady. When I use the word innocent, it is in terms of never having killed someone. Never seeing someone die in front of her. Never breaking the law.
True violence had never touched her life.
Violence and I had been close personal friends for a large part of my life. Along with crime. And death. I used violence as a tool to keep order in my often chaotic world, just as she used the law to keep things orderly in her black-and-white one.
She was a lawyer. I was a criminal. She was married to a decent, hard-working, honest guy. I fucked any willing girl who hung out in my club, and made my living in less than honest ways.
She was kind. I didn’t know any nice women. Hadn’t known one since my mother died shortly after my eighth birthday. I don’t have many memories of her, but the ones I do have are warm and pleasant.
None of the tramps my father brought home after her death had an ounce of compassion for a motherless brat. The strippers that danced in my club seemed younger every day. A lot of them were bitchy drama queens, and the older I got, the less patience I had for emotional scenes. The girls who attended to the members of my motorcycle club were down to fuck, but not much else. That’s how I liked them.
