More Than Forever (Providence Series Book 2) (36 page)

“I hate this,” he whispered. “I should be keeping her safe! She should be relaxing and enjoying her pregnancy and preparing for the baby, but instead we’re constantly looking over our shoulders and living under the shadow of whatever is going to happen next.”  

“I get it.” And I did because I felt the same way. “When Isla’s car was bombed, I assumed that would be the worst, but when she was shot? Fuck man…” I needed to clear my throat because it always choked me up thinking about it. “I don’t know who it is or why they’re doing it, but I do know that they’ll get caught and when they are, they’re fucked.” We walked to the entrance to the tent and I stopped and turned to face him. “We need to leave the He-Man shit to the experts now, Ren, and focus on our wives and our babies. We remain vigilant at all times and we do not take any breaks in this bullshit for granted, okay?” 

Nodding his head, he ran his hands through his hair in frustration. Looking into the tent, we saw our wives standing there talking to a couple of guests. Isla stood smiling with her hand on her bump while Maya threw her head back and laughed. 

They must have felt it because they both turned their heads in our direction at the same time and grinned, and as easy as that, the weight riding my shoulders lifted; Ren must have felt it too because he let out a long breath and then strode up to Maya and picked her up.  

I got to Isla just after him and as she reached up to give me a kiss she whispered, “Don’t think you’re off the hook. I want to know what happened, but right now I want to dance with my husband, so get moving.” 

I didn’t need to be told twice, so I walked onto the dance floor and took her in my arms.
I was the luckiest guy in the world
. 

I
sla
 

Lying back on the lounger
on the beach, I looked across the crystal blue water in front of me and listened to the relaxing sound of the surf. Luke had refused to tell me where we were going and when we’d got into the small plane and taken off it had been very early morning, so I ended up falling asleep. When we landed at the private air strip, there hadn't been any clues around telling me where we were. I’d been blindfolded for the car journey to what I later found out was a dock, where one of his friend’s yachts was waiting to take us to their small private island. It was absolutely beautiful and never in a million years would I have thought that I would get to enjoy something as lavish and beautiful as this. Especially, not with the man that I’d been in love with since the first day I met him. 

“Are you comfortable,
sayang
?” my husband asked from behind me, leaning over to kiss my neck. I hadn’t heard him walk up in the sand and hearing him call me the special nickname that I loved, had me grinning as goosebumps broke out over my arms. Sitting down next to me on the lounger, I watched the sea water fall off his hair onto his chest and then trail down it to the band of swim shorts. “Isla?” His chuckle broke through my water hypnosis. 

“Hmm?” I looked up as he burst out laughing. 

“I asked if you were comfortable and what you wanted to do for the rest of the day?” 

I’d been diagnosed with the onset of a condition called PGP, pelvic girdle pain, because of the weight of the twins. It wasn’t exactly agony, but it did feel like I’d been kicked between the legs sometimes and others it was a dull ache that could flare up for no reason. Because of this, Luke had gone into overdrive making sure that I hardly walked anywhere when he was around, that he ran after me, and that I was always as comfortable as possible. 

“I think I might go into the sea for a bit,” I murmured looking out across it and thinking that this sounded like heaven. 

“Isla,” I looked quickly in his direction because of the panic in his voice. He looked at the sea and swallowed audibly before looking back at me. “There’s sharks in the sea.” 

“Sharks?” Had I heard him right? I looked back at the water looking for a fin or something and didn’t see any. 

Nodding his head, he grabbed my hand. “Blacktips, Hammerheads, Bull’s, Tigers…”  

It was a bad moment to laugh, but every time I heard about Tiger sharks now, I thought of the story of Cole bouncing on Maya’s bed and screaming at a spider and going on about the fake sharks or whatever it was. Luke’s eyes narrowed on me so I replied with the one word that would explain it all, “Cole.” 

“Isla, please, there’s too many, Angel.” Obviously, he couldn’t be distracted. 

“Luke, there were probably more in the Gilies.” I tried to help him rationalize his worry, but this didn’t help because he went even paler than he had been since I brought up going into the sea. Sighing, I looked back out at the water and thought about the situation. After what had happened and what we’d been through, we still didn’t know if we were safe, so it was understandable that he would pick up on every danger now. “Can I at least go to where the water reaches my chest?” He started chewing his lip anxiously so I tried again. “Waist? And you’ll be with me, too!” 

He thought about it for a second and then nodded and picked me up to take me into the sea. He hadn’t said anything yet and Luke only got really quiet when he was worried, a high level of angry, or upset, and I hated that he had to feel like this when we should be happy. I was scared and worried, too; I wasn’t ready to go anywhere on my own yet not that I was able to with the security that we still had, but if I was put in that situation I don’t think I would be able to cope. The only time I felt properly safe was when I was with the man holding me. 

He stood in the water holding me and I burst out laughing. “This wasn’t the deal honey,” I giggled, kicking my legs and splashing water over both of us. He let out a laugh, but his heart just wasn’t in it so I relaxed as he held me and snuggled into him, enjoying the peace and being with him until he turned around and walked us back to where I’d been lying under an umbrella. 

We were snuggled on the lounger together and he was running his hand down my back. “I was going to take you to Disneyworld because I knew you had always wanted to go,” he broke the silence. “Right now, it just isn’t safe enough, so I’m going to take you and the babies as soon as all of this shit is resolved.” 

I froze where I was rubbing my cheek on his chest and slowly looked up at him. The only time that I’d mentioned that to him was when we first met, so he must have remembered it for all of those years. Proving that pregnancy hormones were a bitch, I burst into tears on him again. “Shit, I’m sorry, Angel, it’s just - it’s not safe enough and I know you want to go but I can’t let you get hurt…” 

“It’s not that,” I sniffled, cutting him off. “You’ve remembered all of these years!” 

He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Of course I did.” It must have hit him what I meant, seeing as my own father hadn’t even celebrated or remembered my birthdays. Lifting me higher up whilst being careful with my mega bump, he brought me eye level with him. “The day I met you, you had braids either side of your head with a pale blue bow at the end. Your favorite tee when you were eleven had the Brain dude from
Pinky and the Brain
on it. When you were fourteen, you got a pair of bubble gum pink
Dr. Martens
from your Gram and refused to wear anything else for a year. When you were fifteen, you fell and grazed your knee and had
Harry Potter
Band-Aids on it for a week.” Pushing my hair gently out of my face, he continued. “I remember everything, and any dreams that you have, from now on, I’m going to move mountains to make them happen.” 

Even with tears falling down my face, I managed to laugh. “Mountains, huh?” 

“Hell yeah,” he growled and kissed his biceps. “Check out these guns! I can totally move mountains without breaking a sweat.” I burst out laughing at his serious face. “Don’t believe me?” He jumped up off the lounge. “I’ll just start here,” he said, picking me up and running toward the house with me laughing the whole way.  

“I love you,” I got out through my giggles as he placed me onto the bed. 

“I love you more,” he said before kissing me. “Now shush, I have something I need to prove to you.” 

We were lying on the four poster
bed with the sliding doors fully open listening to the sounds of the sea and enjoying some peace. I thought when Luke ran into the room that we’d be twisting in the sheets immediately, but he’d lain me down and said he just wanted to hold me for a moment. Part of me was touched by it and the other part of me that wasn’t getting touched by him and wanted to be was pissed off. 

“Luke,” I said, my tone warning him of imminent pain. 

“Just a minute,” he said stroking my hair. “In the not too distant future, we’re going to have two babies that will scream for us and we won’t want to put down. Right now, right here, I just want this memory of when it was just the two of us.” My heart melted a bit at what he was saying. 

“It won’t be that bad!” 

“I’m not saying it will be bad. What I’m saying is that, I want this moment just the two of us firmly stored in my brain before we start adding memories of us as a family of four.” 

That was so beautiful that I couldn’t stop myself from lunging at him which was quite difficult to do when you were the size of Shamu. Crawling onto all fours, I leaned over him and kissed him gently trying to just convey how much that meant to me. Luke had never been a patient man, though, and within minutes it had gone from soft and slow to hard and wet.  

“Lie back,” he murmured, which was a relief because the weight of two babies hanging down was very uncomfortable. 

I changed positions as he lay over me, caging me with his long legs and arms. “I love you so much, Isla Montgomery, and I love our babies. There will never be a day when I don’t love you.” 

“You might not feel that way when I’m giving birth and I tear your balls from your body?” I smirked, but deep down I had a feeling that it would be an accurate prediction. 

“You wouldn’t do that,” he sounded so confident. “You love my balls too much!”  

Leaning back down, he kissed me again and his hand moved to undo the strings of the bikini top that was around my neck and back, and then the strings either side of my bottoms and pulled both items away from me throwing them over his shoulder. 

“These have gotten bigger,” he said, moving his hands to cup both breasts as he leaned down onto his elbows above me. Unfortunately, I was that big now that my bump almost touched his rock hard flat abs, but he made me forget about it when he leaned down and sucked first one nipple and then licked slowly over to the other.  

“You just noticed that?” I asked breathlessly.  

“No,” he mumbled, continuing his ministrations. I was beginning to worry that this would be all it took to take me over the edge, but then he stopped and kissed over my baby bump. “I think I’ll miss this when they’re here. I like you with a bump.” 

I snorted because it’s true, he really did. He had become obsessed with it from day one and spent a lot of time kissing and talking to it. 

“And I’ll miss being able to take you by surprise here,” he said, giving me a long lick up my center. “Because it blocks what I’m doing from you and keeps you on edge.” He licked again and then sucked my clit hard. If I hadn’t had such a large bump, I’m pretty certain my back would have arched off the bed, but it was impossible when you were carrying two little humans. 

I didn’t get to reply because he chose that moment to lick again, and then inserted his finger slowly while he gave little pulsing sucks to my clit. One perk of being pregnant was that it didn’t take much to take me over the edge and on the next pulsing suck, I crashed and cried out. 

“And I’ll miss that,” he said, getting onto his knees and moving between my legs and lifting them over the crooks of his arms. Given that our heights were so different, it wasn’t actually impossible to have sex like this, but the further into the pregnancy I got, the more difficult it became to find a position that worked, although Luke had spent a lot of time mastering the ones that worked. He changed his mind and put my legs back down so that I had both feet on the bed and my legs were bent to a comfortable angle and crawled back over me.