Zack was surprised when Nicole told him the baby was asleep. He would have never suspected that a kid would like him so much, or be comfortable enough with him to fall asleep on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure if he liked that idea or not. The kid was chipping away at his bad reputation…and so was his mom.

After Zack put the baby down, he went out to the living room while Nicole arranged the pillows and got him settled. He was pulling a beer out of the refrigerator when she came out of the bedroom. “You want a beer?”

“Sure,” she said. He pulled out two and twisted the cap off hers before handing it to her. “Thank you.” He was about to take a drink of his when his eyes fell on the way her lips wrapped around the neck of the bottle as she drank from it. His cock, which so far had behaved himself all day, woke up like it was hooked up to the mains and stood at attention. He took a step sideways to adjust it, so that if she looked down, she wouldn’t see it beating at his zipper, trying to get out. He finally took a drink of his own beer, if for nothing else than to cool off. Nicole walked over to the kitchen table and sat down, so Zack followed her. She looked like she had something on her mind, but he figured she’d tell him what it was when she was ready. In an attempt to make conversation that might bore his cock enough to at least deflate some, he said:

“I’ll get in touch with that girl later, the one I told you about that I thought would be a good sitter for Liam. Her name is Naomi and she’s great with kids. I think you’ll like her.”

“I’m sure she’s nice, Zack…but…”

“You don’t have to get a job right away, you know? This place is paid for and I can have one of the guys pick you up when you need to go to town and…”

“Zack. I’m not staying.”

“What?” he asked, confused. He thought the decision had already been made when she agreed to go to Texas with him. “Why?”

She shook her head and took another drink of the beer. “I won’t give my son a life on the run as his legacy. He deserves better than that.”

“And you deserve better than to be terrorized by the likes of Spider.”

“I agree, and I will have more than that someday. The first step was leaving him, right? I did that.” She sighed and said, “I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about this. I have been a part of Spider’s world long enough to know that one of the lowest, if not the lowest scum in an MC’s eyes, is a snitch…but I have to protect myself and my child, so if he continues to harass me, I will get the police involved.”

Zack was staring at her with his mouth open, not because he had a problem with her calling the police on Spider, but because he knew guys like Spider, and that was only going to piss him off. Zack’s club had one of the best attorneys in Tennessee on retainer and he would be willing to bet that the Defenders did too. Spider wouldn’t do any real time…unless, God forbid, he killed her, and once he was out, he’d just give her an even harder time. “Nicole…I’m not sure you’ve thought this through…”

“Yeah, I have. Zack, I appreciate everything you’ve done for us, but I don’t want to be hidden away or followed around and watched. I want to live a normal life with my son, work at the bakery and take classes at the community college and maybe be a pastry chef someday.”

“You can do that here.”

“Until Spider finds me, and he will. I’d rather just face him and get it over with than look over my shoulder for him forever.”

“Then maybe the solution is to make it so no one ever has to worry about Spider again,” Zack muttered.

Nicole’s pretty eyes went wide. “Zack, no! Promise me you won’t do something…permanent.”

Zack chuckled at that. She was so damned cute. “Who would miss him?” he asked.

“Probably no one, but no, Zack. For one thing, I know enough about club life to know it would cause you a lot of problems. You need your club and your president’s okay for something like that. And then there’s the fact that as much as I hate it, he is Liam’s father. One of these days my son will ask about him and as hard as it will be to tell him that his father is a bad man, I don’t want to look into his beautiful face, knowing I had anything to do with his father being gone forever, and lie about it. Spider’s choices will come back to haunt him one day, but ours don’t have to.”

She was right about his club. If Spider disappeared, Zack would be the first one they came looking for and that could draw his club into a bloody war. It was just too bad that as far as he was concerned, taking Spider out would be akin to squashing a cockroach in the kitchen. Zack wasn’t a killer by nature, not like his father, but when it came to kill or be killed, he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. Nicole’s situation felt like that to him. He was afraid that left unchecked, Spider would kill her someday, and she was too innocent to realize that. “Okay,” he finally said, “I won’t kill him, as long as he doesn’t hurt you again.”

“Zack.”

“I mean it, Nicole. That yellow bruise you still have on your face makes me want to kill him every time I look at it. I’m apologizing to you in advance because if he hurts you again, I won’t be responsible for what I do to him.”

She sighed. “I really hate that I involved you in this. I never should have come here. I was just so overwhelmed that day and you put the offer out there and…”

“You couldn’t resist the idea of spending a few days alone with me.” That made her smile.

“That too,” she said.

“Too?” He put his hand over his heart and said, “You mean I wasn’t the major draw? Women travel here from all over the world just for that reason alone.”

She laughed. “I’m sure they do.”

“You’re being sarcastic, but it’s true. I mean, look at me.” He was joking, trying to cheer both her and himself up. But when he said that, Nicole did look at him and he could see that same desire burning in her hazel eyes that he’d seen the night before and was feeling himself, every time she was near him. She ran her tongue absently over her bottom lip and that flipped his switch. He stood up, grabbed her hand, and pulled her to her feet. She was breathing heavily, but he didn’t think it was because she was scared. He was sure it was because she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He leaned in close so that his lips hovered just over hers and said, “What woman could resist me?”

She didn’t move or speak, but she was breathing as hard as he was. He let his lips touch hers and then he stroked her bottom one with his tongue. She closed her eyes and moaned. Zack smiled just before gently biting her bottom lip and then sucking it into his mouth as his hands went to the hem of her shirt and he began pushing it up. He got it up past her bra and she opened her eyes and seemed to make a decision in that moment. She finished pulling it over her head, and his fingers went to the clasp of her bra and unhooked that. As soon as she had the shirt out of the way, he pulled the bra down her arms and tossed it aside. He kissed her mouth again and then drew a line with his tongue all the way down her mouth to her gorgeous breasts. Her nipples were hard as rocks, and he took one in his mouth and let his tongue circle the outside of it, before applying more pressure and sucking on it. Her hands went to his hair and she held him to her chest, moving him back and forth at her whim while he licked and sucked at her breasts. He loved listening to her moan and knowing that he was making her feel good. She deserved to feel good. She deserved so much more than the crappy hand she’d been dealt, and surprisingly he found himself wanting to be the man to give it to her.

While he sucked and nibbled on her breasts, his hands went down to unbutton and unzip her jeans. Once he had them open, he slid one of his hands inside and found her hot, wet center. Her moans grew louder and more urgent as he ran his fingers along her slit, flicking and pinching at her clit every so often. At last he detached his mouth from her breasts and covered hers with it again. He pulled his hand away from her hot pussy and used both to slide her jeans down over her smooth thighs and calves and down to her ankles. She stepped out of them and the red panties that he’d slid down with them. She was naked and gorgeous and sexy in his kitchen and he was about to have a feast. He put his big hands on her waist and lifted her up onto the table. She gasped as the cold wood contacted her bare skin and gasped again when he pushed her legs open and dropped to his knees in between them. He slipped his hands underneath her and raised her up so that he could bury his tongue in her pussy. Her legs went around his head and she once again gripped his hair with both hands, pulling on it desperately as he made a feast out of her. He caressed her lips with his tongue and then slid his tongue up inside of her and moved it around against the tight walls. His cock was aching in his pants and while he licked her slit and sucked on her clit, he gently lowered her butt down to the wood again and reached down and unzipped his pants. He shoved a hand down inside of them and grasped his throbbing cock, stroking it up and down while he continued to eat her pussy like a starving man. She tasted so sweet and as he stroked himself, relieving some of the pressure he was feeling, he thought that he could do this all night…he liked making her moan and whimper and writhe under his touch.

He kissed and licked and sucked and when he used his free hand to work two fingers into her hot pussy, she let out a wild, almost animalistic sound just before her body began to convulse and shake. He felt and tasted her release and it almost caused him to have an orgasm of his own, but he held back. He wanted more.