Devil's Heart, page 15
part #1 of Executioners MC Series
We both pause at the knock at the door. It’s late afternoon, the summer sun shafting in like a beam of light right from heaven. Or maybe it’s from hell, reflecting down from heaven. Nobody ever knocks on the apartment door. They use the buzzer downstairs. I shrug and walk over to it.
“Be careful,” Tiffany whispers.
But the war is over, isn’t it? I walk into the empty hallway. Nothing but the dim light bulb and the smell of spiced meats coming from a few doors down. When I turn to head back into the apartment, I spot the note on the doormat.
Look outside.
“What is it?” Tiffany asks when I return to the apartment.
I hand her the note.
“Don’t go near the windows!” she warns.
“It’s over. He’s dead. Don’t worry.”
I head over to the window and look down in the street.
My heart catches in my throat. I’ve heard people say that before, but I’ve never experienced it for myself. It truly does feel like my heart leaps up my neck into the back of my throat, threatening to choke me.
It’s hard to convince myself that my eyes are telling the truth.
There can’t really be a horse and carriage out there, can there?
Mason leans against it with a clean-shaven face and a twinkle in his wolfish eyes. Even from up here, I can see the twinkle. It’s playful and dangerous at the same time. He’s dressed in his leather jacket, jeans, and shiny leather shoes.
“Go,” Tiffany whispers from my shoulder. “Go, Jasmin.”
I run to the door and pull my shoes on. It’s only when I get down to the street that I realize I’m just wearing a hoodie and sweatpants.
I walk over to Mason, the carriage driver sitting there like a butler. An old man with white hair poking out of his cap and his ears.
“I need to change,” I tell Mason. “I can’t …”
He laughs. “If you’re comfortable, don’t worry about it.”
“Are we going somewhere fancy?” I ask.
He nods. “Sort of.”
“Give me half an hour?”
He shrugs, leaning against the carriage again. “We’ve got all the time in the world now. The Pagan’s pricks are done. Take five hours if you need ’em. But let me know, okay?” He pats the carriage with a wry smile on his face. His hand is taped up from where he hurt it during the fight, but otherwise he looks just like the Mason who walked into my life weeks ago. “This thing ain’t cheap.”
I run up to the apartment and get ready quickly. I put on my fanciest dress and shoes, both sparkling blue. With Tiffany’s help, I put my hair into an artful bun. Lastly, I apply some quick makeup.
When I head down, Mason lets out a whistle. “Goddamn, Jasmin. I could’ve waited a year for that.” He walks over and offers me his arm. “Come on.” He helps me up into the carriage.
“This is like a fairytale,” I whisper, fighting back the tears so that I don’t ruin my makeup. “Mason.”
He kisses me on the cheek as he slides down next to me. “This is just the transport. Don’t get too excited.”
I slap him on the arm. “I thought you wanted nothing to do with me, you asshole.”
He squeezes my knee, letting his hand linger there. It’s warm and gloriously rough. “I want everything to do with you, you silly woman. Driver, take us away.”
I fall forward as he spurs the horses into action. Mason catches me by putting his arm across my chest. “Careful,” he laughs. “You’ve gotta protect that bundle in your belly, remember.”
He moves his hand from my leg to my belly. Tingles move over me, those tingles I thought I would never feel again. They are like home. They are like everything good in the world.
“I thought that was your job,” I counter.
“Well.” He tilts his head in acknowledgment. “You’ve got a point there.”
The carriage rides out into the middle of the desert. I move close to Mason, thinking that any second, Trevor or another one of those horrible men is going to leap out of the lengthening shadows. He puts his arm around me and hugs me close. I rest my head on his shoulders, breathing in the scent of him.
“Wait a second,” I whisper as we rock across the western land. It’s like being two hundred years in the past; pure magic. “Mason Flint, are you wearing cologne?”
His laughter feels like it massages me, the rumbling going from his shoulder and traveling throughout me. I hug even closer to him. I feel like I could just sink into him and completely disappear. Maybe that would be scary if it was anybody else, but this is like sinking into another part of myself.
I put one hand on my belly.
“Yes,” he says a time later. “I was just … I don’t know.”
“Me too. I know exactly what you mean.”
And we do, I realize. Without having to say anything. After another ten minutes or so, I sit up and look around. We’re in the middle of nowhere, the town small and insignificant behind us. The moon appears in the sky like a pale blue coin, looking like something out of a science fiction film in the still-bright sky.
Finally, the carriage pulls up at what looks on the outside like nothing more than a wooden hut. About the size of my apartment, maybe a little smaller. The sun has discolored the slats, making them a rust-like orange.
“Wow,” I say, giving him a playful nudge. “You pulled out all the stops, I see.”
He jumps down from the carriage and walks around to my side. He looks so handsome as he offers me his hand, I feel like I could break.
I take his now-familiar hand and step down from the carriage. He leads me toward the hut, nodding at the driver. “Take an hour, and here.” With his free hand, he hands him a roll of bills.
The driver inclines his head. “Thank you, sir.” Slowly, he trots his horses in a small circle.
A light glows underneath the door of the hut, as well as from the many tiny holes in the surface of the wood. It’s a warm, near-red light.
“What is this?” I ask.
“This is a hut in the middle of the desert,” he says matter-of-factly. He lets go of my hand and walks over to the door, watching my face as though ready to devour my reaction. I can’t help but blush under his intense gaze, my body screaming at me to leap at him, to sink into pleasure right here in the dust.
“But it’s a little more than that, too.” That grin lights up his face, a deeper glow than the one under the door.
He opens the door to reveal a room completely different than the dingy exterior. Tapestries drape all the walls with torches set between them; the source of the glow. At one side of the room sits a table with a white sheet covering it. In the middle sits another table, this one round and smaller. Expensive-looking silverware is laid out. Finally there is a bed at the far end, covered in so many rose petals I can’t tell what color the sheets are.
I walk in to the scent of vanilla. The candles burn from the corners of the room, their yellow light mixing with the red of the torches.
Mason closes the door behind me and then pulls out my chair. I sit down. “I feel like a princess,” I admit, that persistent blush creeping from my neck down to my breasts and further down to my belly. It sits right where the baby is.
“You are a princess.” He drops into the seat opposite. “We’ve got a feast over there.” He nods at the table with the sheet covering it. “And a feast over there.” He nods at the bed.
I squeeze the edge of the table. “This is amazing,” I whisper, tension moving through me like a well-kept promise.
He pauses, becoming suddenly serious. “Listen, Jasmin,” he says. He reaches across the table and takes my hand. “There’s somethin’ I wanna say and then we can eat.” He takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He seems nervous but also determined. “I need you to know that I’m gonna be here for you and the baby for the rest of our lives.”
He pauses, smiling slightly now. “I never thought I’d be able to say a thing like that, but with you and the baby it’s the only thing I want to say. I love you, Jasmin. I love you like a fuckin’ gunshot to the chest.” He laughs gruffly. “I’m not even sure what I mean by that.”
I grab tightly onto his hand, unable to stop the tears from sliding away from my eyelashes. They fall like crystals down my cheeks and pitter-patter onto the tablecloth.
“I know what you mean,” I assure him.
He slides his hand away from me and walks around to my side of the table. “Stand up,” he says softly.
I rise up on shaky legs, my knees almost knocking together.
When he falls to one knee, I can’t help it. The sobs break in my chest like waves on a beach. He takes the ring box from his pocket and opens it in one fluid motion. The ring is a glittering diamond, not too big and not too small. “Jasmin Greene, I love you, and I’m gonna love that kid until the day I die. Will you marry me?”
I throw myself at him, falling to my knees and wrapping my arms around him. Sobbing into his neck, all over his jacket, I manage to say: “Yes, yes, yes! A hundred million times yes, Mason!”
He slides the ring onto my finger. The metal is cool against my skin.
“What’d you reckon?” he says as he stands both of us up. He nods at the table with the food on it and then at the bed. “Which one first? I’ll be a gentleman and let my fiancée decide.”
“Fiancée,” I echo, shivering warmly. Then I grab him by the shoulders and direct him toward the bed.
“You can save that gentleman stuff for after,” I tell him, heart pounding like fireworks. “Right now, I need my outlaw.”
25
Mason
“You reckon pacing’ll make the baby come any quicker?” Danny leans back in the waiting-room chair with the biggest smirk on his face I’ve ever seen. I can tell he’s reveling in how nervous I’m getting, especially since before Jasmin came along he never saw me like this. He’s gone through all this before, so I guess it’s just business as usual for him.
“Maybe not,” I allow. “But smashing your face in might help me to feel better.”
He shrugs. “Maybe it will, Wolf. But is that really how you wanna spend your kid’s first day in this beautiful world of ours?”
I pace to the end of the hallway, near the vending machines, and back again to the other end, near the nurse’s desk. The nurses shoot looks at me, but they don’t say much. I guess they’ve seen it all before.
“I bet you could do with a shot of whiskey right now, eh?” Danny laughs. The mean bastard.
I shake my head. “You know I could, but you know I’m never touchin’ a drop of alcohol again. So go fuck yourself.”
“Come on, Wolf. Just sit down and relax. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“I knew I shoulda gone in there with her,” I growl. “But—dammit.”
“A man’s place is in the waiting room,” Danny says. “Everybody knows that.”
“True,” I agree, thinking of all the brothers who’ve had kids over the years. Not one of them went in there with her. She’s in there with her friend Tiffany. Woman’s business is woman’s business. “Maybe I will for the next one,” I mutter. “I don’t know, man.”
Danny just keeps watching me. After a moment he says, “Do what you think is best, Wolf.”
I go to the nurse’s desk and offer the lady with the heart-framed glasses one of my biggest smiles. “Hello, Julia,” I say, reading her nametag. “I know that I said I didn’t wanna go in there, but I’ve changed my mind. So if you could get me one of those spacesuits, that’d be great. Don’t worry. I won’t go past the towel.”
She looks like she might say no, but then Danny wanders over. “Hello, Julia,” he says.
“Oh, Danny!” She lights up. “How are Wendy and the kids?”
“Good, good. Thanks for asking. Listen, Wolf here really needs to get in that room. I don’t reckon he’d ever forgive himself if he didn’t. He’s decided to go the bitch route, but that’s all right. We all go the bitch route sometimes—Ow, fuckin’ hell!” he roars when I punch him in the arm. “Anyway, you don’t need a damn spacesuit yet, you asshole.”
Jasmin’s face lights up like a bulb when I walk into the room. She puts her hand out to me. She’s covered in sweat, drenched in it. Tiffany sits in the armchair reading a book. When she sees me, she smiles and stands up, picking up her jacket. “I told you he’d come,” she said, heading toward the door.
“You can stay if you want,” I tell her.
She nods a thanks, but then shakes her head. “No, this is your day. Good luck, Jasmin! I’ll be right outside!”
I sit down in the armchair and take both her hands in mine. She squeezes down tightly, plumper than she was when we first met but no less beautiful. If anything she is more beautiful. She looks full of life. She looks like the most alive person I’ve ever laid my eyes on.
“Does it hurt?” I ask.
“A little,” she says. “But mostly it’s just … oh, what if something goes wrong?”
I kiss her sweaty hands. What the hell was I thinking, not coming in here? There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be.
“Nothing’ll go wrong,” I tell her, even if I was just worrying about the same thing. It doesn’t matter. She needs to know that everything will be okay even if I can’t really guarantee that. “Just try to relax, okay?”
She arches an eyebrow at me. “I’d like to see you relax with a desk coming out of your dick!”
We both laugh at that, the room filling with it. We laugh for a long time. When we quiet down, Jasmin grips my hands in hers, staring me firmly in the face. “I want to call him Freddie. Is that okay? If it’s a girl we can choose the name together, but if it’s a boy … What do you think?”
“Freddie, for your little brother? I think it’s the best idea in the world.”
Soon, it really is time to suit up and go into the delivery room. Even though I didn’t go to the classes, I get the hang of it pretty quick. It’s just about being there for her. It comes easily to me since being there for her is the meaning of my life.
“I just thought of something,” I whisper just before we head in.
“What?”
“Freddie. Freddie Flint. Fred Flintstone.”
“Ah!” she snaps, shaking her head in disappointment. “What about Max? His middle name was Max.”
I kiss her as the nurses wheel her out of the room. “Max sounds great.”
My son is born healthy and roaring like a true warrior. He weighs ten pounds. The doctor says he’s one of the healthiest, sturdiest babies he’s ever seen.
Epilogue
Jasmin
I carry Max through the hallway of our five-bedroom home. I almost fainted when Mason brought me to the house. I thought he was joking, but then he ran into the garden and grabbed the For Sale sign out of the grass. He tossed it onto the driveway and turned to me with that irresistible smile on his face. “It’s yours,” he said.
I skipped over to him, heart filled with all the things we’d done together and all the things we had left to do. “No,” I told him. “It’s ours.”
Decorating it took a whole lot of money and a whole lot of time, but now it is a warm place. Everything tells me that I am safe and that we are where we belong. Max coos up at me as I switch on his night-light, blue stars dancing across the ceiling and the wallpaper. I put him down in the crib and settle him.
“You’ve got Daddy’s eyes,” I tell him for what must be the thousandth time. It’s true. He has the same wolfish blues as Mason.
“But he’s got Mommy’s everything else.” Mason wanders into the room wearing only a towel, his chest still wet from the shower. He must be trying to kill me walking around the house like that. Ever since we started trying for a new baby, he’s done it. “Which is a damn fine thing.”
“Hey!” I slap his chest. It’s like slapping a brick wall. “What did I say about that, huh?”
“What? Oh!” He slaps himself in the forehead. “It’s pretty hard, you know. I’ve gone my whole life saying ‘damn’ and now—”
I slap him again. Max makes a giggling sound—not quite a giggle—that will surely chase me into my dreams for weeks to come. “I can do this all day,” I tell him sternly.
“Jasmin,” he says, narrowing his eyes at me. “I think it’s time you got some rest.”
“Night, night, angel.” I give Max one last nuzzle and then head into the hallway.
As soon as I cross the threshold Mason lets his towel drop and tosses me over his shoulder. I let out a squeal of delight as the upside-down world of our house floats by. He takes me into the bedroom and tosses me into the bed. Then he stands there, naked, with his hard cock pointing straight at me. It looks weighty, dangerous.
“Strip for me,” he says.
I climb up onto my knees. I’m wearing a pink tank top and shorts, nothing else. “That won’t exactly take long,” I giggle.
He nods. “Good.”
We both laugh as I take off my clothes. As soon as the tank top is over my head he runs at me, leaping on top of me and pressing me into the bed. I open my legs for him, my body burning all over with his touch. With the anticipation of what we’re going to do to each other, the sharpness of it.
I wrap my legs around my husband’s hips and pull him toward me.
He thrusts up, finding my lips at the same time. Our tongues touch the exact same instant his cock slides into me, the feeling like something is going to burst. Our love is going to burst, it feels like. Burst and then remake itself like it has a hundred times. Burst into primal pleasure and reemerge as something newer and sweeter.
I buck heavily into him, his cock sliding deep inside of me. Immediately it’s like we are one person. The lovemaking we share now is something far greater than when we first got together. We know each other like we know ourselves now; maybe even better. His cock inside of me is like a message I have been waiting for a long time. I bring it in, urge him deeper.
He breaks off the kiss but keeps his face close to mine. His eyes scorch into mine. Our gazes become one just as our bodies do. Our noses tickle each other.
