Chapter Ten

Grace

After I got Ella settled into her bed, I tried to sleep. Ella fell asleep right away, but I ended up tossing and turning. When I did finally drop off, I had dreams of gunshots, and people running. Chaos. Ella screaming. Me running with her, trying to keep her safe, but falling, endlessly, into a dark hole with her in my arms.

I woke with a start, enveloped in that sinking feeling I got whenever Cullen would leave to be with his club and not return until much later than he said he would.

I rolled over in bed and looked at the ceiling. Strong morning light slashed through the blinds, painting prison bars above me. The irony of that wasn’t lost on me.

But then I noticed something strange.

It was morning, possibly late morning, and Ella wasn’t making her normal, nonsensical morning conversation with herself.

I cocked a sleepy eye toward her pillow fortress on the wall. Then I cranked my eyes wide open and flew up in bed.

Her makeshift crib was empty.

Wildly, I scanned the room. Her sweet blonde ringlets were nowhere to be found. I scrambled to the side of the bed and looked over. Opened the closet, finding it empty. Peered under the bed. Nothing.

Heart in my throat, I threw open the door and ran downstairs, nearly tripping as I grabbed the handrail and flung myself around it, toward the kitchen.

I smelled bacon at the same time I heard Ella cry out. I slid to a stop on the polished kitchen floor, hardly able to believe my eyes.

Cullen was standing in front of the stove, cradling Ella against his chest with one arm and holding a spatula in the other. Bacon and eggs were sizzling in a frying pan. He put the spatula down, cracked an egg on the side of the counter, and one-handed opened it and let it slink into the pan.

Wait. Cullen knew how to cook?

Ella wasn’t crying in pain. She was smiling, big as ever, and observing the fledgling Gordon Ramsey’s exploits with great interest.

When Ella saw me, she squealed in glee and started to kick her arms and legs in excitement. “Mama!”

“What are you doing?” I asked, rushing in and taking Ella away from the hot stove before she got splattered. My heart was beating double-time from the race downstairs.

“Relax, baby” he crooned in a low, sexy voice. “She and I were just getting to know each other. Making Mommy breakfast and shooting the shi—I mean, crap.”

His eyes swept over me, and it was then I realized I’d fallen asleep in just a camisole and panties, the only clean things I had in my bag. Ella was running out of clean clothes, too. I really needed to do some laundry.

He licked his lips.

I knew that look. Knew that look well. Cullen always had sex on his mind. Always. He was a walking sex machine.

I felt naked. Bare, my nipples poking out.

I used Ella as my shield, holding her close to me and felt her diaper. It was swollen and bulky with pee. It was a good thing Ella never let a wet diaper get her down, but she probably had diaper rash by now. “She could’ve been splattered by grease. And her diaper needs changing.”

He didn’t look at me, just lifted the eggs and two slices of perfectly crisp bacon onto a plate with the spatula and said, “I think the words you were searching for are thank you.”

I gave him a sour look. “For nearly killing her?”

“Relax. She was screaming. You were sleeping. I figured you needed your rest.”

All right, all right. I was being too hard on him. Underneath all that bravado and motor oil, there was a good heart. He didn’t know any better. And for once, he was thinking of someone other than himself. But after everything he was willing to put me and Ella through as a member of the Cobras, I wasn’t about to let him get away so easily.

He set the plate down on the table and pointed at the chair. “Eat.”

Once again, back to the dog commands. I thought of about a hundred not-so-nice comebacks for that, but I bit my tongue and went back upstairs to change Ella.

And of course, get changed myself. I slipped into a not-so-dirty pair of cut-offs and threw a hoodie on over my camisole.

When I came back, I felt a little more relaxed. In control.

Until I saw him sitting there, at the kitchen table, bare-chested and in his backwards base-ball cap, shoveling eggs into his mouth. He had a pile of mail in front of him and was reading a piece of it, oblivious to me gawking at him, thank God.

How was it possible or fair that he looked hotter, every day?

“Did Ella eat?” I asked him dubiously, sitting in front of my plate and setting her down on my lap.

“Banana,” he said with a nod. “Didn’t know what else you gave her.”

I saw that her sippy cup had been filled with fresh milk. She reached for it and started to suck on the mouthpiece happily. I broke off a piece of bacon and shoved it in my mouth.

It was divine.

I finished off my breakfast in record time. You’d think I’d never eaten before in my life, for the way I devoured it. But no, it was just that good.

“I thought you didn’t wake up until after noon,” I said to him.

He shrugged. “Told you. The security people came to start the installation. We’re gonna make this place a fortress, just you watch. A regular Alamo.”

“Oh?” I looked around. I hadn’t noticed that anything was different. “And that’s going to make Ella and me safe?”

He nodded. “That and my men.”

“Your men?” My skin crawled. Those Goddamn Cobras, who he could never forget for a second. “When are you going to see that they’re the ones who got you into this situation of needing added security in the first place?”

He set down the piece of mail he was looking at and gave me a hard glare. “Grace. Maybe it was touch and go before. But I’m president now. They ain’t gonna let anything happen to me or my people. That includes you. You’re safer than the President of the fucking United States here. Okay?”

“I don’t understand. The Fury will be after me just because I know you? They hate you that much?”

“I don’t know what they’ll do.”

“So anyone who knows you is in trouble? What about Aria?”

“She moved to New York a year ago with her boyfriend.”

I looked at Ella and inhaled sharply. “This isn’t the kind of life I want for Ella. Gunfights? Feuds with other bikers? Not knowing whether her daddy’s going to come home from one day to the next? It’s not good.”

He exhaled. “All right. Then I won’t get too close to her. Is that what you want?”

Ella was gazing at him, her eyes drooping closed. It was time for her morning nap, I guessed, but the way she was looking at him? He’d already gotten too close. The fortress and security cameras outside could only do so much. I needed to put a wall around our hearts, too.

I’d been there. I feared that kind of damage could be a lot more severe.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s what I want.”

It didn’t seem to break his heart. He bit down on a piece of toast and started to read his mail again. I loaded my dishes into the dishwasher and settled Ella down for her nap. When I stepped out of the guest room, I heard a shower running somewhere.

As I walked to the stairs, I heard the shower turn off. I noticed the door to his bedroom was open, for the first time. I peered in and saw a massive, dark mahogany four-poster bed, like something royalty would have, covered in a pile of rumpled blood red sheets.

I wondered how many women he’d entertained between those sheets.

As I was about to move away, the door to the master bathroom opened, and he slipped out, wearing nothing but the tiniest of towels, wrapped dangerously around his hips.

I’d always known that Cullen was glorious in the body department. Even two years ago, he had the six-pack, the bulging pectorals and corded muscles on his arms. The snake tattoo on his stomach was his first tattoo, he’d gotten it on a dare when he was eighteen. But now? He was covered in the most delicious ink. Everywhere. And everything just seemed more chiseled. More cut. More tanned. More man. He was six feet of pure, hard, inked beauty.

I froze when he caught sight of me. A thin, devilish smile spread over his lips. “See something you like, baby?”

I opened my mouth to say no, but nothing came out. Because HELL YES. All of it.

Still grinning, he reached to his hip, loosened the towel, and let it fall.

“How ‘bout now?”

His cock. Oh, my God, he had an amazing cock. And it was there, only semi-hard but hanging proudly between his legs, saying “here I am!” like it knew it was something special.

And yes. I wanted it.

Even more now.

So much more now. Warning bells went off, but I ignored them.

I felt wetness between my legs and my salivary glands kicking in at the same time. An aching need, low in my abdomen, gripped me.

He knew it, the cocky bastard. He’d always had a shit-ton of confidence, but now as Cobras President and owner of the nicest house in Aveline Bay, he was even worse. He was just taunting me.

Oh, fuck him.

No . . . hell no. That was the last thing I needed.

I lifted my chin and forced myself to turn away. “Nope. Get some clothes on, cowboy,” I called back, running down the stairs and hoping the image of his beautiful body wouldn’t remain embedded in my brain.

He called back, “Damn!” and I heard him rolling back his closet door. I had to smile at that.

I went into the kitchen and looked at the pile of mail he’d been reading. I didn’t want to snoop, but I ended up looking at a checking account statement that had so many zeroes in it, I had to count them up. I squinted as I realized that he’d withdrawn forty-thousand dollars from the account, last month, alone.

Damn. I knew Cullen liked to flaunt his cash like a pimp, but I wondered if any of that money was spent wisely, or if it was all spent on things like beer, parties, women and his guys.

Frowning, I went to the fridge and poured myself a glass of ice water just as he came down the stairs. He was wearing jeans and a tight black t-shirt, the sleeves so tight around his biceps I thought they might pop out.

He looked delicious, as usual.

I thought he might go back to his cinema room and start watching inappropriate movies, but instead, he leaned against the counter and said, “So you slept well last night?”

I nodded. “It was better than the Best Western. Much better than the shelter. So I guess I should thank you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “But you won’t. So you’re telling me the shelter was worse than the shithole you were in last night?”

I took a drink from my glass. “Well, at first it was okay. A bunch of women lived there, and they volunteered to watch Ella while I looked for work. But then they moved on and these men moved in. It was supposed to be a women’s shelter but somehow, they started letting these guys in. And I was too scared to sleep at night. Too scared for Ella. I don’t think I slept at all, the whole time. I knew I had to get out. Which is why I came here.”

He stared at me, eyes dark, shaking his head. “Fuck, girl.”

I gave him a get-real look. “We can’t all live in multi-million-dollar mansions on the ocean, Cullen.”

“All right. But there are other choices, girl. I can’t believe you even thought to take her there.”

“So she’s a her now? Not an it?” I said with mock surprise, slumping against the refrigerator. “This is what I’m telling you, Cullen. I didn’t have a choice.”

He crossed his arms. “You did. If I knew, I would’ve helped you.”

I stifled a bitter laugh. “Sure you would’ve. Which is why you fought me tooth and nail when I first came here and wanted to stay?”

His eyes darkened on mine. “Things are different now.”

I snorted. So he was going to lecture me about how to take care of our child, when he didn’t even know how to change a diaper? My anger was rising, and I knew I had to get away. I started to retreat, but curiosity got the best of me. “Oh? How?”

“Because of this,” he breathed.

He bridged the distance in half a second and crushed his mouth onto mine.