Reaper
The next morning, I’m standing in Anna’s room, watching the numbers on her heart monitor flash a steady, stable number. She still hasn’t spoken to me, but that’s okay. As long as she’s breathing and still around to ignore my ass, she can give me the cold shoulder all she wants.
When the door cracks open, I expect to see the doctor, but instead, Charlotte pokes her head in, a giant smile on her face. “Knock, knock,” she says quietly, pushing the door open the rest of the way. She’s in a wheelchair, being pushed by the proudest looking biker I’ve ever seen. Ryker wheels her in, a giant smile on his face as he stares down at the tiny blue bundle in his wife’s arms. “We thought you’d like to visit with your nephew.”
“I would,” Anna says, easing herself off the bed and coming closer. I reach out to help steady her, but she levels me with a glare and yanks her arm away. Ignoring her, I pull out the chair and push it behind her, but it’s Ryker that helps her settle into it as she squeezes her face in pain.
Once she’s seated, Ryker takes the little bundle of blankets from his wife and settles it into Anna’s arms.
“Aunty Anna, meet Maddax.”
Anna beams down at the baby and runs a fingertip across his rosy pink cheek. “Hi, Maddax.” She looks up at her sister, tears shining in her beautiful brown eyes. “Oh, Char. He’s perfect.”
“Of course he is,” Ryker says. “Have you seen his parents?”
Charlotte gives him a gentle smack on the arm and shakes her head, smiling as she watches her sister with her baby. “He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, Anna.”
Anna’s brow furrows. “All I did was catch. You’re the super hero in this scenario.”
Charlotte opens her mouth to respond, but Ryker beats her to it. “That’s not the way I see it, Anna. You were both heroes that day. You got through that shit together, as a team. You helped Charlotte bring my son into this world, and I will never forget that. Not ever.” He looks up at me. “If I’ve learned one thing from all this, it’s that you don’t fuck with the Daniel sisters.” The girls burst into giggles.
Ryker presses a kiss to the top of Charlotte’s head, then looks up at me. “Let’s give the ladies a minute, yeah?”
I glance at Anna, but she makes a point of ignoring me. She’s barely acknowledges me at all, but I get it. She’s pissed. I was the one that fucked this up, so now I need to have some patience while we sort our shit.
Ryker steps out into the hall and I follow behind him. “By the looks of your knuckles, I’d say you saw him?” Ryker says.
I glance down at the knuckles that were cut up by Shiv’s teeth as I’d pounded the shit out of him last night. “Yeah. Took some convincing, but Lawson gave me five minutes with him.” I smirk. “Made me promise not to kill him.” Ryker snorts at that. “Let’s just say, Shiv won’t be fuckin’ with our club again, even if he wasn’t gonna end up spendin’ the next fifteen years in jail for attempted murder.”
Ryker’s jaw clenches and he nods. “Good. I still wish the fucker was dead, but a scrawny little pussy like him won’t last long in lockup. It’s best for the girls if we just move on now.”
“Agreed.” Shiv may not have gotten exactly what he deserved, but he’d been punished. Focusing on the need to kill him wasn’t important anymore. Taking care of Anna and the baby is what’s important.
We step back into the room and spend the next ten minutes listening to Charlotte and Anna talk about breast milk and first poops, and other things a man just doesn’t need to know. Finally, Ryker takes little Maddax from Anna and gives him back to his mother, declaring it time to feed the baby. Anna promises to see them tomorrow.
Once the room is clear, I position myself in front of her chair and kneel at her feet. “Anna, look at me.” Finally, her eyes lift to mine. “Baby, I know I hurt you. I know you don’t trust me, but I’m gonna do everything in my power to make shit right with us again. We’re gonna be a family.”
Anna wipes away a runaway tear and clears her throat. “This baby will be your family, even if we’re not together, Reaper. People do it all the time.”
I grab her hand and squeeze it, leaning closer so she has to look me in the eye. “People may, but we don’t. I want you, Anna. I want us to be an us, I want our baby to have both parents. I want to crawl into bed with you every night and wake up with you every morning, preferably with a coffee in your hand, ’cause that shit is life.”
She nibbles on her lower lip, her eyes searching mine.
“Babe, I know it’s hard to trust me right now. Lord knows I haven’t done one damn thing to fuckin’ deserve it. All I’m askin’ is that you give me a chance to fix this.”
After what feels like eternity, she finally nods, but says nothing more. Who knew a nod could lift the weight of the world off one man’s shoulders? She’s going to give me a chance, and I’m going to do every fucking thing in my power to fix this rift I created, to make her trust me. To prove to her that I’m all in.
Anna
I’m just about to apply a new bandage on my belly when Reaper walks into the bathroom. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, his eyes glued to the two-inch gash at my side.
It actually looks pretty good, considering I had a knife sticking out of it just over a week ago. Over the past few days, in Reaper’s house, I’ve been careful not to let him see it. I hadn’t been expecting him to come waltzing into the bathroom, though.
“Fuck, Anna.” The pain in his eyes takes me by surprise. “Just a little to the left and he could’ve fuckin’ killed you.”
I apply the gauze bandage, hiding the ugly, stitched flesh from sight. “Pretty sure that was the goal,” I say with a smirk.
He stares at me for a moment, then drops to his knees before me. He stares up at me, his expression open and hopeful. “I’m in love with you.”
I blink. Then I blink again. I open my mouth to say something, but I just leave it that way, gaping open because I have no response for that. I’m doing well enough to breath in and out through the shock of that bold statement.
“You don’t have to say it back, and you don’t have to believe me, but I want you to know. I want you to know how badly I want to make this work, and how badly I want you and our baby.” His soft lips press forward, just above my panty line, right on top of the tiny bump that’s barely starting to appear.
“You hurt me so bad,” I admit, choking back the emotion before it bubbles over and leaves me a sobbing mess.
He stands then and pulls me into his arms. “I know, baby. Fuck, I know. And I apologize. I don’t know where my head was at.” He pulls back a little and tilts my chin so our eyes meet. “I was so lost and absorbed in my own pain that I was too distracted to see yours. That won’t happen again.”
He means it. One look at his normally stormy eyes, I can see that this man, a man that everyone thinks is so scary, is not scary to me. He loves me. He’s mine. Yes, he’s a little broken, but that’s what makes him who he is, and I wouldn’t change that for the world. Well, except the hate speech he’d spewed at me. That I would change. But something tells me that won’t be an issue anymore.
I take his face in my hands and touch my lips to his. “I love you too, Lucas.”
His eyes fall closed and his forehead rests against mine. We just stand there, our arms wrapped around each other, our hearts beating in tandem. When I let my hands roam down his chest, his eyes pop open and we stare at each other as I let them travel lower. “Can you?” he asks, referring to my wounded belly.
“Just be gentle,” I whisper.
His lips are on mine before I can get the words out. He scoops me up and sits me on the edge of the counter. His lips roam my neck and shoulders, then back to my lips as his hands lightly trail up and down my arms, leaving goose bumps in their wake.
“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful,” he says as he unclips my bra, allowing my breasts to spring free. He takes them in the palms of his hands and kisses me with so much passion, it makes it difficult to breathe.
My hands roam his body, skimming over the smooth tattooed skin that covers his powerful frame, dipping and rising with the curve of each muscle. His chest presses against mine and I can feel his heart hammering just as fast as mine, and it makes me want him more.
“Please,” I whisper against his lips. “Lucas, I need you.” I feel an ache deep inside of me that’s desperate to be filled by him.
He presses one more soft kiss to my lips and carefully slips my panties off my hips and down my legs as I balance myself on the edge of the counter. Then he does exactly what I need him to do. He slides inside of me, and for the first time in my life, I feel whole.
He makes love to me slowly and gently, treasuring me, and I lose myself in him. I let it all go. The guilt of my past, the anger at his abandonment, the feeling of loneliness. He uses his body to claim me, to make me his. To make him mine.
When I reach my climax, Lucas kisses me hard, falling over the edge with me, two broken souls, coming together to make one imperfect, but beautiful life.