Keys To My Cuffs (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 4) (23 page)

Parker got the cuffs on Mick’s side, rolled him over quickly, and cuffed his arms together behind his back.

Mick heaved. “He’s the one who slit your throat, Bryce. How perfect is this? It’s like a fucking family reunion!”

I blinked, unsure what to say.

Lowering the gun, I stared at Parker, finally realizing what it was about him.

I knew him a long, long time ago.

“That true?” I asked, raising my gun again.

Sterling came in with one arm under Cleo’s, supporting half his bodyweight.

Sterling sat him down, and took in the interaction between me and Parker.

He was torn. I could see he was torn. However, he chose me, coming to stand directly behind me.

“What’s going on?” Sterling asked.

“Parker’s the one who gave me this decorative necklace,” I explained to him, fingering my neck, and the scar that ringed it.

Sterling stayed silent as Parker’s head hung. “It’s true.”

I lowered my gun, and then re-holstered it. “Are there anymore out there?”

Sterling shook his head. Cleo was the one who answered though.

“Nope. There were only four of them. I think they spread themselves too thin. They didn’t do much recon when they were hitting this place. Otherwise they would’ve known the room was divided into practically two halves. Lucky for us they didn’t, otherwise we all would’ve been tagged with that grenade,” Cleo declared.

I kept my eyes on Parker, who’d looked up at me in confusion.

“I’ve regretted that day for fifteen years,” Parker said quietly.

I blinked. “You’ve regretted it? You nearly killed me.”

He shook his head. “I was a nine year old kid. I was dumb and full of myself. I have nightmares. I live those moments over and over in my sleep. My dreams are on repeat. They’re on a continuous loop of when you looked at me in such horror. Remembering what it felt like…sounded like when the knife sliced through your skin. It’s nauseating, and I hear it in my sleep.”

I stared at him for a long time, ignoring Mick’s snickers at how awkward the situation was.

I wasn’t mad at Parker, though. I’d have done the same thing when I first got in, too.

It was hard not to. It was either survive or die in those times, and I had a feeling the same went for Parker, too.

“Fuck,” I said scrubbing my hands over my face.

“Yes, please,” Cleo grinned.

I flipped him the bird and went to the holding cells.

“Anyone let the geezers out yet?” I asked as I walked towards the cell.

I walked up on the two men playing cards.

“Got any 7’s?” My stepfather asked Silas.

“Go fish,” Silas replied.

What. The. Fuck.

I walked into the room, heart in my throat.

The room was dark, except for the green lights of the monitors.

A weird rhythmic thump-thump had my eyes zeroing in on the monitor to the side of the bed before they focused back on the sleeping figure in the bed.

Channing was asleep on her back.

Her hand, the one not connected to an IV, was thrown up above her head.

Her hair was a mess, scattered this way and that around her head.

The gown she was wearing did nothing but swamp her figure, and my heart constricted once more to see her small body dwarfed in the oversized hospital bed.

“They gave her some sleeping meds. She was freaking out when she couldn’t find you. It was either sleep, or they’d have had to cuff her to the bed. I chose sleep,” my mother’s
tear filled voice said from beside me.

“Is she okay?” I choked.

My mom was sitting in the very corner. Her phone lighting up her face with what appeared to be a book on the screen.

“Yes, baby. She’s okay. They kept her overnight because her blood pressure skyrocketed. They weren’t sure what it was from, but they wanted to keep her just in case they needed to do something about it. That’s not good for the baby,” she said softly. “Her arm’s going to be sore for a very long time. That man stepped on the back of her arm, pinning it down to the ground with her forearm caught in between his boot and the floor,” she shook her head as if to clear the awful image from her brain. “I shot him.”

I blinked.

I hadn’t heard that part, but then again, I’d been busy giving a statement to not only the local police, but also the state police, the Sherriff’s department, and the FBI.

I’d been detained because of my reluctance to talk with anyone until I saw Channing. However, that hadn’t worked out so well in my favor.

They’d tried to pin an obstruction of justice charge on me, but Silas and my stepfather had talked the stuck up suit out of it on account of I was ‘distraught’ over the possible harm to my girlfriend.

The two old men had come together as if they were best buddies as they ran the investigation like two people who hadn’t been doing their best to undermine each other only a few hours before.

I placed a soft kiss on Channing’s forehead before walking over to my mom and crouching down in front of her. “Are you okay?”

She placed her cool palm on the side of my head, rubbing her thumb across the scruff covering my jaw.

“You scared the living crud out of us today. Don’t do that to me anymore. I don’t think my heart can take another one,” she whimpered.

Something inside of me broke free. “I won’t, mom. I’ve got Channing to keep me in line now. I’m gonna ask her to marry me soon.”

My mom snickered. “She told me today she wasn’t marrying you until this baby was born, no matter how much you cried.”

I looked over at the woman currently the topic of our discussion. “I’m sure I can convince her.”

The only reason I’d kick you out of bed was if you wanted to be fucked on the floor.

-Loki and his thoughts about mood swings

Loki

One month later

I stopped beside Channing’s car and set the stand down. Swinging my leg over, I saw the ‘FOR RENT’ sign in the front of my yard and grinned.

I grabbed the box out of my saddlebags and started walking towards Channing’s front door.

Cabe was kicking me out, but that was okay. I’d purchased a home, signing on the dotted line only this morning.

Now all I had to do was move my shit into it, and then move Channing’s shit into it. Then we’d have a home.

That was if she didn’t freak out.

Stopping beside the front door, I pulled my keys out, dropping the velvet box, I’d also gotten today, in the dirt.

Stooping down, I picked it up, flicked the top open, and stared.

“She’s going to say no,” I muttered to myself as I slipped the ring back into my pocket, and tucked the garment box underneath my arm.

Then I opened the door to the Channing’s house.

“Channing?” I called as I closed the door behind me.

I stepped out of my boots, and then kicked them into the corner under the coffee table.

Walking through the living room, I checked the kitchen but found no sign of her there, either.

“Chan?” I called again.

I found her in the bedroom cuddled up to Lucy.

Looking at the clock to double check that I had enough time, I slipped my shirt off over my head, shucked my jeans, and crawled in behind her.

Lucy moved to the floor, as was his usual since I wasn’t a big fan of sleeping with dogs.

Channing moved, pressing her back closer to my front, before falling back asleep again.

My hand went from her chest to her belly, where I could feel our baby moving away inside of her.

How Channing slept like that, I don’t know, but I commended her for it.

The kid was going to be hell on wheels when he finally got here.

I fell asleep to the rhythmic movement of our child moving against my hand, and didn’t wake up again until two hours later, sans Channing.

Stretching my arms above my head, a small groan escaped me as I worked the tiredness from my body and stood up.

I didn’t bother with pants, instead walking straight out to the kitchen to find Channing eating a bowl of cereal in her navy blue scrubs that she was wearing to work for the night.

“Hey,” I said just before leaning down and giving her a kiss.

She turned her head at the last moment, so my kiss was deflected from her lips and landed on her jaw instead.

I looked at her warily. “What?”

“You weren’t going to tell me?” her voice quivered with unshed tears.

I looked at her warily.

Channing cried at the drop of a hat lately.

She cried when she dropped an onion. She cried when she gained a pound. She cried when I brought the baby a shirt.

If it was a day that ended in y, she cried about it.

“Tell you what?” I asked.

Had she found my presents?

“That you were moving out of your place,” she blubbered.

“Fuck,” I sighed and pulled her into my chest. “I wasn’t moving into my new place without you, silly girl.”

I heard her mouth slurp, and looked down at her just as she slipped another spoonful of Lucky Charms into her mouth before chewing loudly.

I rolled my eyes. The woman was a nut, what could I say? Apparently, I went for the crazy chicks.

“I have something for you,” I said carefully.

She leaned back, taking another bite of cereal before asking, “What?”

“Come,” I instructed as I took her hand and led her into the bedroom where my discarded pants and the box were.

She sat heavily on the bed, waiting in anticipation.

I picked the box up first, placing it on her lap before backing away slightly.

I watched as she opened it, tearing the pieces of tape carefully before unwrapping the present exactly the way it was wrapped. “Tear into it.”

She shook her head and finished opening the box, folding each individual piece of tissue paper before she got to the final piece.

Yanking it away, the anticipation of the act killing me, she stared in shock at the leather vest.

“I know it probably doesn’t fit right now,” I started. “But I want you to wear my patch. I want you to be mine.”

She looked up, tears swimming in her eyes. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Going two for two, I bent down and retrieved the little silver box from my pocket, and then dropped down to one knee.

“What are you doing?” She asked breathlessly.

I lifted her shoes up off the floor and showed her. “Helping you put on your shoes.”

Her face fell, and I knew I had her.

“After that, I’m going to give you this ring, and you’re going to put it on,” I said as I slipped first one shoe, and then the other onto her feet. “We’ll get married after the baby gets here, okay?”

She was giggling at that point.

“You had me at, ‘helping you put on your shoes,’” she said just before she launched herself from the bed, into my arms.

I caught her carefully, sinking to the ground until she was straddling my thighs, her big belly pressed up against my taught one.

“I love you more than tuna fish,” she said just before ripping the scrub top over her head, and then reaching for the vest that was on the bed behind her.

She slipped it on over her shoulders, and then tried in vain to button the thing.

She looked fucking sexy.

My name was on the back of her, and her tits were hanging out the front like ripe, juicy peaches. “God, you look sexy. I wish I could memorialize you like this forever.”

She smiled saucily at me. “I think that can be arranged.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked as I ran my bearded jaw along the side of her exposed neck.

She shivered and pressed in even closer. “I have to be at work in twenty minutes.”

Then she kissed me.

Her mouth was a hot, wet trap that sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go.

Her tongue played with mine. Teasing, licking,
sucking.

Her teeth caught my bottom lip and nipped it gently.

I wasn’t a talker during sex; I was more of a doer.

In that moment, though, I wanted nothing more than to let her know just exactly how beautiful she was to me right then.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” I said as I ran my hands up the inside of her thighs, coming to a stop at the underside of her breasts.

“I have stretch marks,” she grimaced.

She did, that was no lie.

However, they didn’t detract from the beauty of her body.

I’d never been more turned on than when I finally started see a definite difference in her body.

“We’ve had the best sex of our lives, the last couple of months. I’m not even thinking about your big belly, or your ass when I’m fucking you,” I explained.

Her eyes narrowed. “I never said anything about my ass being big.”

“Your ass is perfect. I love grabbing handfuls of it when I fuck you from behind.”

Putting my hands underneath her arms, I pushed her to her feet, yanked her pants down to her ankles, and then ripped them roughly from her legs.

She fell backwards onto the bed, exactly where I wanted her.

One shoe came off in the process, and I threw that aside too.

All I was left with were her panties, but they proved to be no barrier at all as I slipped them to the side, lined my cock up with her entrance, and thrust forward.

Her wet folds parted for me effortlessly. The lips of her sex freshly lubricated with her excitement.

The property patch was still on her naked torso. She saw me looking, and released the front clasp of her bra, letting her bountiful breasts slip free of their confinement.

With each thrust forward, her tits would shake, knocking forward and backwards so roughly that she had to hold onto them.

I leaned forward, curling over her belly, searching for her nipple.

She fed me her breast, offering it up like a feast for a starving man.

Which I was.

I couldn’t get enough of her.

The curves covering her body rounded her out nicely, giving me something soft to hold onto as I took her any way I wanted her.

My balls slapped against the seam of her panties, knocking against her ass hard enough to send tiny sparks of electricity up my spine.