My finger drags over the plastic sleeve covering a picture of Archie as a newborn.
Born August 14th at 2:33 p.m.
Maggie’s familiar perfect handwriting sits above it and all the rest, too. My finger moves over them all, landing on one that says he’s seven months old and crawling.
Archie’s on all fours, smiling at the camera with a string of drool hanging from his tiny bottom lip.
God, I love him.
Sure, he’s my son and I expected to, but I had no idea it’d be like this. That I’d feel like a whole different person and start to see things so differently after knowing him for such a short span of time.
Turning the page over, Maggie’s smile has my chest constricting. Her face lit up with love and affection as she holds our boy on her lap and looks down into his upturned face.
The caption reads eight months old.
I remember a time when it wasn’t hard to get her to smile like that whenever I wanted her to. Her laughter … Christ. I’d almost forgotten what it sounded like. It’s one of my favorite things about her.
What happened to that girl?
Did I drag her through the muck of my life too much and for too long before it irrevocably changed her?
Tonight, I saw glimpses of her. The one who stood by me, forfeiting her plans because she fell in love with an asshole from the wrong side of the tracks.
So why did she betray me? And after everything she’s done for me over the years, all we’ve been through, why is it so hard for me to forgive her?
Maybe I do. Maybe I fucking get it. If I’m being honest, I wouldn’t want my kid visiting someone in jail. But I’m a selfish bastard, and my need to know him would’ve had me begging her to bring him back every chance she could, regardless.
Still, she went and did this. She created an album full of memories that I’ll never hold within my own mind or heart.
And it’s my fault. It all started with the desperate, stupid decision I made that led us here.
Placing the album on the bed, I grab my keys and head out of the house to the garage, starting up my bike and clipping on my helmet.
It’s getting late, but I doubt Jared and Vera are asleep, so I don’t really give a shit how loud I am as I peel out of the driveway.
I just need the wind on my face and my thoughts to quiet the fuck down.
I ride for what feels like hours, though, in reality, it’s probably only an hour before I find myself turning onto the now familiar street and letting my bike idle into the driveway.
I wheel it down the side of the house, chucking my helmet on the seat and shoving my keys into my pocket before marching through the side gate.
Knocking on the door, I suddenly realize I have no idea what I’m fucking doing. Or how I ended up here. But I think if left to its own devices, the part of me that belongs to her will always lead me back to her.
“Felix?” Maggie slides open the door, her auburn hair mussed but her eyes wide and alert, like she hasn’t slept yet even though it’s probably close to eleven at night. It’s dark in her little house. The glow from the TV behind her the only source of light.
I don’t say a word. The blood rushes from my head in a wave that almost makes my knees buckle as it flows straight to my cock. Her loose tank top outlines the perfect swells of her tits, her nipples hardening under my gaze. My cock turns painfully hard, then she’s in my arms, the door closing behind me before I lower my mouth to hers, absorbing her surprised squeak and walking us backward into her small living room.
She stumbles over a toy, but I keep her upright and lower us to the couch, groaning when she finally opens those soft lips for me to dip my tongue inside. She tastes exactly how I remember, sweet and perfect and all fucking mine.
“Felix.” She pants, her hands grabbing the sides of my face and forcing my lips away from hers. I growl, hating it, and grind my rock-hard dick into her softness.
She moans, and I grin. “Miss me, Little Doe?” My brows lower as I study her flushed cheeks and the glazed look in her big brown eyes.
Nodding, she bites her lip. “But what are you …” She trails off, her lashes fluttering when those eyes drop to my mouth.
“Need you, so fucking bad.” I take her lips with mine again, harder this time. She’s delusional if she thinks either of us are going to be able to stop this.
She doesn’t stop me, though, and instead, runs her hands over my back, trying to lift my t-shirt. I pull away to tear it over my head and damn near lose my mind when I hear her harsh intake of breath. Her hands smooth over the planes of my chest and travel down to my abs.
Fuck me, I think I’m about to come in my pants with the way she’s looking at me. That and it’s been so fucking long.
Moving back, I tug her sleep shorts and panties down her long legs, throwing them to the floor then unzip my jeans and shove my boots off.
Settling back between her creamy thighs, I don’t waste another fucking minute. She whimpers when my finger tunnels inside her pussy. So wet and warm. My dick feels like it’s on fire. I pull my finger out, watching those doe eyes glow as I suck her wetness from it.
She reaches down, aligning me at her entrance, and I thrust forward, sinking inside instantly.
“Holy fucking mother of …” My eyes almost roll back. Tight, so deliciously tight.
I stay buried to the hilt, my head dropping down to her neck, teeth biting her soft skin while I try to control myself. Tingles shoot up and down my spine, and her ragged breaths fill my ear.
When I think I’m good, I rear back, grabbing her leg and putting it over the back of the couch for me to go even deeper.
Then I move; hard, deep, and almost crazed by the sensations tearing through my body.
She takes it, whimpering with each thrust when I start pounding into her with a desperation I’ve never felt before. Her nails score into my biceps, her breath hitching and brown eyes flaring when I rotate my hips on each pump, hitting that sweet spot I remember so fucking well.
Her pussy tightens, and she soon explodes, silent cries escaping her parted lips as her body shakes. I follow, grunting and pounding into her as I fill her pussy with my cum. That knowledge seems to make my orgasm go on and on as I think about filling it all night long.
Her nails run over the short hair at the nape of my neck a few minutes later, her beating heart slowing back to a normal rhythm beneath my cheek. “Felix.” Her voice is quiet and tinged with uncertainty, even as she touches me as if there’s nothing else she’d rather be doing.
“Don’t.” I lift my head from her breasts, staring down at her. “Tonight, you’re mine again.”
Seeing the protest forming in her eyes, I don’t give her a chance to voice it. I kiss her softly, gentle pecks that soon have her sucking my tongue into her mouth. Her legs wrap around me when my lips journey over her neck, and I shove her tank up to suck on her tits and squeeze them. She grinds into my already hard again cock, and I reach down, kicking my jeans all the way off before positioning myself and slipping easily back inside her.
At the ass-crack of dawn, I stumble half asleep from her tiny house to the side gate, still doing up my jeans.
Maggie’s still asleep on the couch, so I grabbed a blanket from her room and laid it over her, watching her mumble something in her sleep before turning over, soft snores leaving her perfect lips.
My heart and head feel like they’ve been at war for an eternity, but despite how much she’s hurt me, I know with a certainty that makes every step away from her painful that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let her go.
She didn’t say she loved me, but she didn’t need to. I could feel it with every touch of her hands and every look in her eyes. Which only makes it that much harder to leave. But I’ve got a business to help run, and a ton of shit to sort out before I go charging full force into her life again.
This time, we’re not teens with no idea of what we’re doing. This time, it needs to be fair. She needs to talk, and I need to listen, to try to understand why she never came to me. I need to somehow see where she’s coming from even if I don’t agree with it.
Because I know she’s not telling me everything, and it’s about time she did.
My tired eyes open wide when I close the gate quietly behind me and find a familiar tall guy leaning against the seat of my bike.
“Felix.”
I nod, feeling like a teenager who’s been busted doing the walk of shame. Something that’s never actually happened to me.
“Jake,” he supplies when I just stand there.
“Right.” I fold my arms over my chest, jerking my head at my bike. “I know it’s loud, but I really need to get going.”
Jake tilts his head, eyes narrowing on me before he glances at the gate, in the direction of where I just came from. “I won’t hold you up.”
He straightens, grabbing a small, blue box from behind him off the seat of my bike. “She might hate me for this, but you should know. And she’s too damn stubborn and worried about you to tell you anything herself.” He sighs, shoving the box at my chest. Frowning, I grab it before it can tumble to the grass. “You don’t need to read them now. Tomorrow. Or next week. But you will read them.” His eyes demand almost as firmly as his words. “They won’t tell you everything. But until she’s ready, they’ll tell you enough.”
With that, he walks away, leaving me confused as fuck.
I don’t have time to ponder it or open the damn thing, though. Slipping it into my saddle bag, I then do my best to wheel my bike away from the house before starting it. But the damn thing weighs a ton, so I give in, starting it and taking off quickly, in hopes that it will help in some way.
The sun finishes its journey into the sky by the time I pull into my driveway twenty-five minutes later. I jump off, forgetting all about the box in my haste to get inside, shower, and get over to the garage. After backing up and grabbing the box, I’m about to leap up the steps when a figure sitting on the top one suddenly says, “Long time, no see, buddy.”
Fuck. Ryan? I step back, taking in the small smirk and the blond hair. He hasn’t changed much since the last time I saw him, but something about him seems wary, and it puts me on edge. My rush to get to work on time vanishes.
“Heard you’ve been asking for me,” he says when I just continue to stare at him. “I should’ve come to see you sooner, but the truth is …” He sighs, standing and walking down the steps. “I’ve been a bit of a pussy.”
“What’s this shit about me owing you money?” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth.
He chuckles. “Yeah, it all comes back to that, doesn’t it?” Cursing, he blurts out in a rush, “It wasn’t that big a deal, looking back. But that’s the thing about perspective, huh? It always chooses the worst time to show up.”
“Spit it out. What the fuck are you getting at?”
“Guess you really don’t know shit then.” He glances away, then gives me a look I’ve never seen on him before. Fear. Such a strange thing to find on this wise ass who’d do anything and everything to make a buck, not giving a damn who he tramples over or ruins in the process. “Sam’s always loved you. You know that, right?” I don’t say anything, and he goes on. “I thought she’d gotten over it. But women … confusing fucking things, they are.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I told the guys I needed that five-grand back when I found out you’d be doing time. Hellsy and Smith, those feral fuckers can get money out of a stone; that’s why they work for me. But I didn’t know—”
“Didn’t know what?” My voice lowers, trepidation fueling an inferno that’s now blazing inside my chest.
“That they’d hurt her. Chicks, I mean, it’s just common sense, isn’t it?” He laughs. Laughs as if it’s a joke. “You don’t hurt them; fuck ’em, sure, but not hurt them. Besides, I told the guys to get the money from you. I didn’t know until it was too late that Sam told them you probably didn’t have it, and that if anyone did, it would be Maggie, with you going to jail and all.”
My vision turns blurry, then turns red. The little box falls to the ground, and my hands are grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, pinning him to the railing of the porch. “What the fuck did they do to her?”
The front door bursts open a second later, Jared jumping down the steps and trying to tug me away from Ryan. I manage to shrug him off as Ryan says, “They beat her up, man. But as fucked up as I am, I’d never condone that shit. And I didn’t know … I didn’t know until days later. I swear to you.”
My fist flies, connecting with his jaw with a force that sends his head banging into the metal of the railing so loudly that even my ears ring. I swing again, hitting him in the mouth before Jared grabs me, shoving me hard until I almost stumble onto my ass.
“You fucking sent your dumbass henchmen after my woman?” My heart is screaming in my ears. “And she was fucking pregnant!”
“What the fuck?” Jared growls, still trying to hold me back.
Ryan rights himself, his jaw already swelling and blood dripping from his split lip. “I’ll let those two slide, but you’re not getting any more.” He straightens the collar of his dress shirt. “I tried to make sure she was okay after I found out. Even went to pay her hospital bills, but they’d already been taken care of.”
“Why the fuck wouldn’t you just ask me?” My hands squeeze my head, grief and anger warring together. The pit of my stomach swirling and knotting.
“That’s what I told them to do, talk to you or Jared. Like I said, I never would’ve sent them after her. Call me old school, sexist, whatever—women have no business in my business. Sam wasn’t even an exception, but still, she knew too much.”
“Sam?” Jared asks, bewildered. He lets go of my arm, but I don’t go after Ryan. There’s nothing more he can tell me anyway.
“For what it’s worth,” he says from the open door of his Corvette, “I really am sorry, and hey, you’ve got no debt with me anymore. Congrats on the kid, man.”
His car speeds off at the same time I collapse onto the grass and throw the empty contents of my stomach up.
“Holy fucking shit,” Jared breathes.