Colton

I look at Emma when she mutters at me, the psycho bitch who gave birth to her stumbling to her feet, panting and glaring at us. I don’t care if I hurt her when I shoved her off Emma, I hope the idiot bruises for the way she hit my woman.

“You’re allergic to pet hair,” is all I manage to think of and I want to sigh with relief when I feel her shake beside me, her amusement hidden but clear to me.

Good. She’s not pissed at me. I kept this a secret because I fully expected her to be mad at me but it looks as if I’ve hit the jackpot with my girl because she’s not mad, in fact I think she’s enjoying this.

“Did you really dismantle their company?” she asks, her eyes flitting between me and the raging animal standing across from us, her pinched expression showing her age.

I should totally lie, this may just be Emma lulling me, but I promised her no lies and that’s what I’m sticking to. Unless it’s omission because that I don’t count as lying, just protecting her from harsh truths.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Emma, be reasonable, baby. They hurt you.”

“Years ago, Colt,” she mumbles and I smile.

“It doesn’t matter. What they did deserves much worse but I realized that taking their stature and wealth would hurt worse than anything I could dream up. Plus, I’m wicked good at business,” I say, preening when she smiles and leans up to stroke my face.

“Yeah, you are.”

I ignore the softness that seeps into me at her touch, my blood boiling when I see the red handprint forming on her cheek and the bloody grooves on her arm.

Seeing her hurt makes me want to hurt her mother and if I wasn’t averse to hitting women I would slap her blind. As it is, it takes supreme effort on my part to stand still and just glare at her.

“I don’t care what you think or feel, you monster. You hurt an innocent child who had to wait to grow up so she could run away and hide from you. Nothing I do to you or your husband will ever be enough to pay for what you did to your own daughter but I’ll take comfort in knowing that every minute she suffered you will be repaid when you’re forced to look to your sons for shelter and support or be forced to live in a dump because you have to work for yourselves. I don’t care if it’s wrong, if vengeance is wrong. I want you to know what it feels like to be unsafe and alone and have no one to turn to. Now, if you’re quite done making a spectacle of yourself beating up on my fiancé, we’re leaving.”

It takes a lot for me to just turn and walk away. I want to hurt her for daring to touch Emma but I can’t do that and prove to Emma that I am the man she wants.

It’s enough for me to have heard what she said to her mother, although in all honesty, I am still enraged that I don’t know who hurt her. I’ll find out, though, and when I do he’ll suffer as well.

It’s wrong, I’ll probably burn in hell for hurting others this way but I promised to kill all of Emma’s monsters and I will. I’ll use a bullet that is bloodless but no less deadly. Money.

We leave without saying goodbye. Harley won’t mind and the last time I saw Mira she was drinking water her husband forced on her while teasing him about being a fuddy duddy.

Emma is silent as I help her into the back seat but the minute I slide in and close the door she’s on me, her mouth fusing with mine as she kisses me desperately.

“I love you so much, Colt. You didn’t have to do this. I’ve moved passed it-”

“I needed to do it. I want you to know that they will never have power again, Emma. Their money is gone, the clout they have will disappear with it as soon as their social circle knows. The rest will come later. It wasn’t moral or honest but it’s all I have save for doing something I will regret. This is what I can give you. I hope you don’t think-”

“I think you give the best presents ever! Just wait till Doc hears this. She’ll lecture me for hours about closure being a keystone of forgiveness or some crap like that, but it’ll be worth it, Colt, because I know…they’re not monsters anymore. They’re helpless.”

I can’t make love to her in the car. I remind myself of that even when she straddles me and pushes her sex down, grinding herself over my cock while she kisses me deeply.

I feel her breasts against my chest, her small hands grasping my hair and I groan, wanting so badly to be inside her that I feel my dick pulse out a stream of pre-come.

But tonight is not the night for this. I want to take her home, make her comfortable and sleep with her in my arms. She needs time to recover from her encounter with her mother and the anger I still feel inside me is not what I want fueling me when I’m inside her.

So instead of going home, I give the driver instructions and grin when she groans, sliding off my lap as the car turns towards Buck’s apartment.

“You want to visit Buck now, Colt? Now? I just basically gave you the green light to have shower sex with me and you’re turning me down?” She gasps.

I laugh, kissing her and shifting her to the seat, ignoring the steel pipe in my pants to gaze at her.

“I don’t want this night to be about us making love, Emma. I want to bask in your victory and feel for just a moment what it is to have all of you. Don’t think I don’t know that is why you wanted to go to the party. The gift you gave me tonight is worth everything to me. Now I want to take you to tell your family that your monsters are gone,” I say, willing her to understand.

At least part of it.

The rest is not for now. What I have to do now requires more than sex and showing her that I need her. I want the moment to be perfect so that she can take it out every now and then, for the rest of her life and look at it with wonder.

She grins, busses my lips and we walk up to Buck’s apartment hand in hand, her squeal when she sees him poking at my jealousy until I remember that all of her is mine.

“Emma! You didn’t.”

“I did,” she proclaims proudly over the pizza I ordered - having noticed that she hardly ate her food after spotting her mother - and the conversation rebounds back to the beginning of my recounting of the evening.

August is sprawled on Buck’s lap, going at a slice of plain thin crust like an animal while they both laugh and avoid watching Emma eat. Honestly, I’m never going to get her over her shyness of eating in public.

“Jesus, I wish I was there to see that old bitch’s face! You took all of it, Colt?” he asks again for the hundredth time, his enjoyment each time I say yes making me chuckle.

“Goddamn, man! I am so…happy. I know it ain’t right and some Bible thumper will probably try to shame me to hell, but I love knowing they got theirs. I wish it could be all of them, I’m greedy that way, but what you did here, I’ll die happy, man.” He breathes.

I slap his hand to acknowledge his gratitude and watch as Emma ducks and eats two slices of pizza, her lips slick with grease as she smiles at me and mouths her love to me.

We stay for another forty minutes so August can crow about what she did to the apartment because she moved in with Buck, despite his protests - strong willed woman - and I talk to Buck quietly about a job I have in mind for him if he ever wants to leave fighting and stop bouncing at clubs all night.

He considers it and I can see he’s not comfortable with the offer, probably thinks I’m seeing him as a charity case but finally agrees when I point out that he has a good woman and she deserves to have him whole, not broken because he’s killing himself to make money.

“Thanks, man.”

“Don’t mention it. Just don’t ever tell Emma and we’re square,” I say, grinning when he laughs and shakes his head.

“You must really care for that woman if you’re willing to poke that anger of hers. If she ever finds out you’re having security shadow her she’ll kill you.”

“I know. That’s why we’re not telling her. I want you in charge and supervising because I know I can expect a higher standard from you. You love Emma and you’d die before slacking on something this important.”

We shoot the shit for the next few minutes until Emma comes out and yawns, sliding into my arms.

“Bye, Bucky.”

He kisses her on the head and we leave with Emma falling asleep against my chest in the car. I carry her upstairs, undress her and slide a sanitary pad into her panties before undressing and curling into her.

Tonight was just the beginning of a wonderful life for us and I’ll tell you why; it hit me round about the time I heard Emma tell her mom she hates her…I love Emma Harper.

Wanting to keep her, wanting marriage and children and needing her with me always…

I feel whole when I wake up in the morning and she’s beside me. I am happy every single day, no matter what I have to do or what happens, because I go home with her and have her in my arms when I fall asleep.

I don’t feel trapped. I love that she takes care of me and I need to take care of her.

Everything I feel, no matter how small or mundane is about love. It’s not a comfortable feeling, I can attest to that and do it without shame. If I could choose…well I can’t say for sure I’d have let it happen because it is fucking scary as hell.

I worry about her every minute of the day wondering if she’s eaten and healthy and if she needs me because some idiot decided to talk smack to her.

She’s all I think about, all the time, and I know if something ever happened to her I would be nothing. Literally. I don’t think I’d let myself live without her.

Having that epiphany in the middle of a conversation with a man who controls half the Asian shipping market was not what I would call a good moment but have it I did and now that I know…

I’m going to prove it to her in a big way.

I need to because I don’t know how else to prove that I love Emma and I need her to understand how deep it goes.

 

Emma

Colton has been acting weirder and weirder the last few days and it’s been a struggle for me not to yell at him and demand to know what’s on in his mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I mean, it’s sweet the way he’s been so attentive and I can’t ever express to anyone how good it is to have a man who’s not afraid to be a sappy fool.

He makes me breakfast. Okay, well, he orders breakfast, plates it and brings it to me in bed, even if it annoys him that I wake up at six every morning no matter what day of the week it is.

He buys me coffee, those strange lattes with the flavors and asks me which is my favorite. He sends lunch to me and Mira at work so I don’t have to go down to the cafeteria - I thinks that’s because the guy at the meat counter is a starer and it pisses Colt off that he stares at me.

He sent me a singing telegram to ask if I’d have dinner with him and go skating again.

He bought me Sponge Bob pajamas when Buck let it slip that I love that cartoon. I haven’t had the privilege of wearing them yet, but I have hope that it’ll happen before I’m seventy. I think. Colt likes me naked, no matter what, so maybe the pajamas aren’t going to happen. Ever.

He’s also taken to sending me texts all through the day. Sometimes they’re little quotes that are so adorably sweet I could swear they are screaming his love for me.

Of course that bombs and makes me squirm when he sends me sexts telling me exactly what he’s going to do to me that night. So maybe the romance is just seduction again. Whatever, I love it all.

Most recently he hasn’t had sex with me because I have to wait for the pill to work fully and he refuses to use a condom.

And so I am on the verge of going crazy - sex starved and I am not ashamed to admit it - when he calls me in the afternoon after our second week of being together after my mom ambushed me.

I want sex, a lot of sex. Sweaty, naked, hot sex where he licks even the embarrassing parts of me and makes me squeal when I come.

“We’re flying to a friend’s place in Hawaii in about two hours so you need to finish off whatever you’re doing because I’m not taking no for an answer.” He purrs, making me sigh because I hope to God he wants to have sex soon.

“I should go home and pack,” I say in answer.

“Nope. I packed already and I’m on the way to get you,” he says, making me smile.

“Actual clothes?” I tease, getting a wicked chuckle from him.

I roll my eyes and wink at Mira who is smiling indulgently and shut down my computer.

“You shouldn’t even try to fight it! The man is so sweet with you it makes my teeth ache.”

I can’t deny it.

“We’re leaving soon. Hawaii,” I say, feeling a giddy, fearful thrill pass through me because I have something to tell him that is scaring the shit out of me and also making me feel…happy.

I just recently found out I am pregnant. No, I’m not shitting you. I had to go to the doctor when I was feeling ill, I suspected from the pill I’d started again.

They did a pee test before anything else and it was confirmed. I am pregnant. The period I had made me doubt it and I argued vehemently until she told me that it was normal, could happen again, though from the looks of the hormones in my system she suspects it’s not likely.

I have to admit I didn’t hear it all because I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown. Never mind. It all boils down to I am pregnant. The pill has been stopped, well, okay, I stopped officially when I puked all over the doctor’s floor and the pill I had taken just an hour before stared back at me.

So here I am, going to Hawaii with my man and it’s with a bun in the oven and the knowledge that my life will never be the same. And that’s good. That is so good because I love Colt and I know he feels for me, more than I ever imagined he would.

I am truly happy, like seriously happy.

“Go! Meet him downstairs and have a wonderful time. Have a lot of sex. Sleep naked in the sun - with sunscreen, you fair sprite - and just enjoy this time.”

I laugh and jump to my feet, grabbing my bag with my heart skipping a beat because I am so happy. I make it to the elevator only to see a ton of people climb on and my natural instinct is to not be in that soup.

Don’t blame me, like I told Colt, I’m changing but I am still me.

I take the stairs, going slowly because my heels are not conducive to going fast and I’m just passing the last level when I hear running feet coming my way and look up to see-

I scream when hands grab me and I fight like a mad person when he slaps me across the face and I feel my nose spray blood.

“You fucking bitch! That asshole you spread for has ruined everything!”

The look on Duncan’s face is murderous and all I can do is raise an arm to block his blows when I feel him hit me again, so fast I don’t see his hand coming at me.

I scream, hoping to attract attention because I’m frozen with fear and helpless, but he wrenches my arm away and hits me again, this time sending me falling into the wall.

“No!”

“He took everything. I had everything invested with your father and he took it all. You did this,” he yells, throwing me down when I whimper.

I can’t fight back, I’m dizzy, sick to my stomach and wakening when I feel him kick. One to the stomach and then my head. I’m swimming in blackness, my eyes falling when I hear yells, footsteps and then, nothing.