Chapter 22

Gigi

Oppressive heat surrounds me, blanketing me to the point my stomach rolls, urging me to get out of bed. In the split second I have before my body revolts against the emptiness in my belly, I look back over my shoulder at Jameson. He reaches for me, hand skimming over the warmth my body left behind on the bed. My smile turns into a grimace as I run, as quietly as I can to the bathroom.

Dry heaving is the devil’s work I’m certain by the time I lift my head and rinse my mouth. Rinsing the smell of his skin from mine is the last thing I want to do. His scent, the combined smell of our wild sex last night coats me like a living being. I revel in it, running my nose over the soft skin of my shoulder before giving in and turning the dials of the shower.

The warm blast on my now cool skin sends pinpricks over every inch of my skin. It’s not altogether different from the way my body responded watching Jameson fuck me in front of the mirror. I sigh a breath of remembrance and wash him off of me.

My cries. The pleas. The whispered confessions in the dark last night.

I laid my heart bare to him, and unlike all the others so quick to give me advice, he held me. He didn’t try to bring me to his side. He didn’t give his opinion. He embraced me and let me draw my own conclusions. As much as it pained him, he gave me exactly what I needed.

After the suds from the hotel soap disappear down the drain, I turn the water off and steel my spine. I know exactly what I have to do. I’ve known it all along. It’s just that being an adult, actually making those decisions on my own, the ones others have been so quick to make for me all my life, is much harder than I had ever anticipated they would be.

I dress, right back into the clothes I wore to the clinic what seems like a lifetime ago, and take one last look at Jameson asleep in the bed. His hand is still stretched out, searching for me even in his sleep. The crinkle of his brow is calming as I imagine he’s missing me even in his sleep.

Instead of brushing my lips against his to wake him up like I want to, I jerk the floor to ceiling curtains open, bathing the room in the blinding sunlight.

He jerks in the bed, almost violently, as he’s ripped from his dreams.

“The fuck,” he grumbles, sitting up on the bed and swiping harsh hands over his tired green eyes.

Why I didn’t see it last night, why I didn’t recognize his eyes in Izzy’s pictures on his phone is beyond me. It’s clear as day right now as those amazing green orbs are turned on me in almost angry agitation.

“Get your boots on,” I instruct, hating that he’s fully clothed.

I resist the urge to once again strip naked in front of him and taunt him with my body. There will be plenty of time for that later.

He sighs, leaning his back against the wooden headboard. “What’s the damn rush?”

I smile at him. “What’s the delay?”

He growls. “I got you more crackers and ginger ale last night.”

His large hand motions toward the mini fridge against the wall.

“That’s very sweet of you.”

“I got crackers with peanut butter. That way you’re eating more than just shitty carbs and soda.”

I cock an eyebrow at him. “A little controlling, don’t you think?”

My question is playful, not annoyed like it would normally be.

A passive look fills his eyes as he glances my way. How he can look so apathetic and dominating at the same time I have no idea. The single look makes my skin itch. The same way it did last night when he challenged me not to come on his tongue until he gave me permission to do so.

“You’re growing my baby,” he says, voice flat.

“Our baby,” I correct.

“Until you make your decision, you need to take care of it. The protein in the peanut butter is good for him.”

“Him?” I question. “So sure we’re having a son.”

I don’t miss the hopeful swallow of his throat as mine clogs with some of the same emotions I was unable to shove down last night.

“You still haven’t made a decision.” I hate the break in his voice, the opinion he was terrified to give power to last night.

“But I have,” I correct. “It’s why you need to get dressed.”

I turn my gaze down to the boots on the floor.

His hands tremble as he shoves back the sheets that cocooned us last night.

“Back to the clinic?” Pain washes over his face even as I can tell he’s doing his best to fight it.

“Nope,” I say, both hating and loving that I’m keeping him on edge with such an important choice.

“To your apartment?”

Just the thought of that shitty place and my deviant roommate makes me shiver.

“There’s nothing there for me. There’s nothing from this life that I want to remember.”

“Where are we heading?”

I turn to the mirror, the one that finds me swiping my fingers through my sleep-messy hair and not splayed open for both of our pleasure like I was last night.

“I’m going home,” I whisper.

“Home?” His voice cracks with hopefulness, a smile spreading his cheeks in the reflection of the glass.

I woke up this morning a new woman if that’s even possible. I woke up with renewed faith in not only life but also my ability to be the best mother I can be. It may not look exactly like my mother’s did, but it’ll be me and Jameson and our child. We’ll make the best of it. I won’t have to do it alone, and that was my one and only true fear because I knew motherhood in the form of single parenting isn’t something I could ever manage.

“Someone has to tell my dad that you knocked me up.”

I turn back to him expecting to see the smile still in place and hope in his eyes. Instead, I find him nearly green, resembling my face every morning before I get sick. I can’t help but laugh as he turns white at the mention of telling my dad, even though he’s the one who pressed the point yesterday.

***

The normally eight-hour trip back to Farmington takes closer to eleven with the multiple stops we’re forced to take because my stomach doesn’t agree with the miniscule rocking of the SUV over the interstate. When I wasn’t dozing, I was getting sick.

“I’m going to go pack my room,” he says as we pull into the gravel lot in front of the Cerberus clubhouse.

“I think that’s a little premature,” I object.

“I have my orders,” he says with a sigh as he places the vehicle in park.

“I’m going to go talk to my dad,” I inform him.

He clasps my thigh in a soft but dominating grip. “If you get the feeling that he plans to kill me, give me a heads up. I’m more than willing to face what’s coming my way, but I at least want to be prepared.”

I laugh but stop when I see the seriousness in his eyes. I caress his face, loving the feel of his rough beard under my palm. My body is on fire for this man.

“That look in your eyes right now is exactly what got you fucked against an alley wall,” he warns.

“Mmm,” I purr.

“Stop.” I snap out of my horny daze. “Packing my shit while you lay all of this at your father’s feet is one thing. Doing it with a swollen cock is another.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” I offer, but he doesn’t seem to think the outcome will be pleasant.

“Twenty-years-old or not, I’d kill any man that fucked my daughter and got her pregnant,” he advises. “He’s already been more forgiving by letting me work after he found out about the sex than I ever would’ve been.”

“My back was as sore as my pussy after that night.” My eyes flutter closed. “The brick was as unforgiving as your cock.”

“Jesus,” he hisses, mouth meeting mine in a brutal kiss before I can even open my eyes.

We’re panting by the time he pulls away.

“I’m going to sneak in your room tonight.” He swallows and nods. “Will you turn me away again?”

Doubt, uncertainty, and the memory of his rejection last time fill my voice.

“I doubt I’ll still be here, baby, but you’re welcome in my bed no matter where I lay my head down to sleep.”

I peck his lips one last time, youthful glee filling me to the brim even when the news that I have to share with my father burdens me.

“See you in a little while,” I promise as I climb out of the vehicle.

Less than five minutes later, I’m standing, heart racing at my father’s office door. When I entered the house, my mother pointed in this direction and simply said, “He’s waiting for you.”

I raise my hand to knock, praying he’s asleep, which is ridiculous, or on the phone. Hoping that he’s busy and I’ll have to wait just a few minutes longer.

“It’s open,” comes the gruff voice I’ve learned to despise over my many years of fucking up.

I turn the knob, ignoring the near sting of the metal against my palm, and push the door open.

“Close it.” His gruff command is obeyed. “Have a seat.”

I sit in the chair across from his desk. How do these same types of things being barked at me from Jameson make me wet, yet with my father only make me want to cower in fear?

I guess having the same response to my father would be inappropriate.

“How long are you home for this time, Georgia?”

He looks as exhausted as I feel. The sun set long ago, the second half of our trip spent in darkness and silence.

“It depends on how this conversation goes,” I answer honestly.

“A threat?” He tilts his head, the same motion that a few years ago would have me quivering in my chair.

“No. I’m not a teenager any longer. I’ve lived in hell the last couple of years. I—”

“You chose that life. I never wanted that for you.”

“I know that.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “I know that now. I’m grateful to you and Mom. You don’t have to put up with my shit. You don’t have to continuously chase after me, trying to rescue me from myself.”

“Parents do everything they can for their children. We love you. Taking off and leaving will never change that.”

“I love you guys, too.” I love the smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth and brightens his eyes. I don’t say it often enough, not even close to as often as I feel it.

“You didn’t fight Hound in coming back.” I’m not surprised he’s well aware of my agreement to return to New Mexico. “Is there a reason you’re so agreeable to being here?”

Moment of truth.

“I’m pregnant.”

He stops breathing.

“The baby is Jameson’s.”

I’ve never seen that color of red on my father’s face in all my life.

It seems like a millennia before he releases a long, jagged breath.

“Hound’s?” he finally says like Jameson and Hound could possibly be two different men.

He types something on his phone, and I crane my neck to try to see if it’s the execution order Jameson is so sure is coming.

He waits, only looking up from his phone when the door opens. My mother’s softly scented perfume hits my nose, wiping away all hope that Jameson has been called in here to face this with the Cerberus MC President right along beside me.

I can’t look at her, not when she sits in the chair beside me, not when she clasps my hand in her lap, and especially not when the tears that have been threatening since my truth spilled from my lips, begin to fall.

“Your daughter is pregnant,” Dad spits as if I may not stay that way for long.

My free hand protects the innocent life cradled there, and my head snaps up.

My mother gasps, her hand clenching mine even tighter.

“The baby is Hound’s.”

The grasp loosens, but I squeeze tighter, unable to lose her touch in the face of what comes next.

“A baby?” she whispers.

I nod, eyes evaluating my father’s face, still unable to look at her.

“I’m not ashamed.” I raise my head higher, my spine stiffening with the same steel I found in the Vegas bathroom earlier in the day.

“So you’re keeping the baby?” Is that hope in my rigid father’s voice?

“Yes,” I answer.

My mother releases a breath in a long whoosh, relief evident in the gesture.

“And Hound?”

“He’s on board with my decision.”

“I’m not okay with you sleeping with my men.”

Here it comes.

“I’ve only slept with Jameson.” A knot forms low in my stomach, and I beg it not to start turning. Getting violently ill right now is the worst thing that can happen.

“I fired Grimlock a mere two months after he started working here your senior year,” he reminds me.

“Okay?” I don’t hide the confusion in my voice.

“I fired him because rumors of you two together spread through my club like wildfire.”

I can’t help the chuckle that slips out.

“That’s why he was here one day and then gone the next?”

My father nods. “I don’t like you sleeping with my men. It’s dangerous. I can’t take the risk that they think they can disobey orders because of their connection to you.”

“Man,” I correct.

He shakes his head. “What?”

“I slept with one man. I’ve only slept with Jameson. No others, not from this club. He’s the only one.” I take a long breath and release it slowly. “Ever.”

“Really?”

I hate the disbelief in his voice. Hate that I’m going to have to explain the rumors that started in high school and ruined my reputation. How I fed those fires because people already had those opinions so why argue with them. It seems my parents aren’t even immune to the talk of the town.

“I will stay as long as you’ll have me.” My mother begins to cry silently beside me. “So long as Jameson is still employed with Cerberus.”

“No,” my father hisses. “I can’t have it. I didn’t even want to keep him after Dallas, but Dominic talked me into it. This just cements that I should’ve followed my gut instinct in the first place.”

“Yes, Sir,” I say as I stand. My father has made my decision for me.

“Diego,” my mother sobs as she catches my wrist on my way out. I look down at her. “Go take a nap, honey. I’ll be up in just a few minutes.”

I leave the room closing the door on the hushed voices of my parents arguing.