Saving Lawson (Loving Lawson Book 2) (4 page)

“Jesus.” I shook at the wet feeling of his tongue, lapping me gently up and down.

He spread my legs wide, keeping them pinned to the mattress as he continued to tease me. I lifted my head and watched his head move slightly as he increased the speed of his tongue. I moaned and tugged against the sheets as the sparks began to fly through me. Jesus Christ, I felt like I
was
flying! I’d heard from a conversation somewhere that drugs were like orgasms – a high that had you entombed in its pleasure – and now I was making sense of it all.

Heath.

Heath Lawson was my drug.

He wasn’t greedy. He didn’t tease me. He gave me that amazing high before pulling away quickly. The feeling had been exquisite. I hadn’t even come down from my orgasm when I heard the tear of the condom packet. Moments later he was back over me, my legs still spread to easily accommodate his impressive width. I felt that hard, thick length press against my folds. His hot breaths hit my face, those already wet lips skirted against mine as he whispered, “I fucking love you, Allie,” before sliding all the way inside of me.

We both moaned in unison. “Holy shit.”

I wrapped my arms tightly around him as he gently took me, asking me repeatedly if I was alright and not uncomfortable. It was surprising. All this time he’d been pent up with lust and need. I was expecting a rougher touch. Even in sex Heath was doting. His concern for my well-being overshadowed his own hunger, and as much as I loved it, I wanted him to let go.

“Heath,” I breathlessly said against his lips, already feeling another spark surface, “I’m not glass.”

His face darkened as my words slowly settled in. Then he kissed me again, harsher this time before muttering, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You never will.” There was a different meaning to my words. He knew what they meant. Something flickered in his dark eyes. We had something dangerously good between us, and it was dangerous only because of how invested we were in each other. It meant the fall would be a devastating one, but I trusted him to never let me go. He had kept me whole this last year, sacrificing everything in his life in order to be there for me. He had shown me what selflessness was, and he had gone to great heights to prove it.

Heath was not capable of hurting me, and that made me love him with a depth that couldn’t be measured.

Slowly he let go, fisting my hair with one hand while clenching my ass with the other as he slammed into me. He groaned again, louder this time, and there was something about his voice in pleasure that made me hotter than the sun.

“Holy shit, Allie, you feel good,” he said in disbelief as he pulled out and swiftly thrust back in.

He didn’t treat me like glass anymore. He used me, and fuck, I loved being used. I loved him finding his pleasure in me. Even when my scalp began to ache from his grip, and my breaths came out short and fast, I moaned along with him right up until his release. I felt him jerk inside of me before he buried his head into my chest.

I ran my fingers through his hair for a while. Sex wasn’t everything in a relationship, but this time it made me feel closer to Heath than ever. After a short while, he quickly pulled away and discarded the condom before slipping back into bed with me.

He was still breathing a little hard when he rested against my side, his hand drifting over my stomach. I felt used, in a good way. My skin was gleaming with sweat. My hair was tangled and all over the place. Instead of the scent of Cherry Blossom body spray, I was now covered in the raw masculine scent called Heath.

It was better than Cherry Blossom.

“Why won’t you let me see you?” he suddenly asked, his fingers skirting the edges of my night gown.

“I’ve changed,” I answered quietly, unable to look him in the eye. I stared at the ceiling instead. I was an idiot to think he wouldn’t notice my apprehension. He noticed everything. “My body’s… changed, Heath.”

“So?”

“So… I don’t look the same as I did before.”

“Of course you don’t look the same. You had a baby, Allie. People don’t look the way they did six weeks after they had a baby.”

“Yeah, but I’ll never look that way again.”

He took my face into his warm hand and turned it to him. His eyes stared deeply into my own, and I felt picked apart by them.

“You’re beautiful to me,” he whispered solemnly. “Nothing will change that for me.”

“I’m insecure,” I replied, swallowing the lump in my throat as I began to admit everything I never said out loud. “You don’t like insecure. You don’t like needy girls who need reassurance all the time. You can have anyone without having to deal with their bullshit self-esteem problems. But that’s me in a nutshell. I’ve had a beautiful baby but I feel ugly.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” he replied softly, a small smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. “With you, I like insecure. That gives me more reason to compliment you, and I like doing that. It’s a win/win on both sides.”

I sighed and resisted rolling my eyes. At this point in my life, he would probably have to compliment me for a hundred lifetimes. As if sensing my mood, he shifted even closer to me. His lips skirted along my face as he whispered, “I love every inch of you, no matter how different it looks. It’s mine, and anything that I deem is mine is going to be enough to keep me satisfied for the rest of my life.”

“Every inch?” I asked quietly.

“Every” – his hand slowly roamed my body – “Inch.”

I smiled out of reflex, but I was quivering on the inside. His words were always so soothing, but it was the way he said them, so filled with conviction, that made me want to cry. Maybe it wasn’t wrong to have self-esteem issues after all. Maybe it was normal, and all a woman really needed was a good guy like Heath to help make it better.

“Be proud of every change your body holds,” he continued. “You sacrificed it to have the most beautiful baby. You earned every one of those changes. It’s a matter of perspective, Allie. You can look at them and think they’re horrible. Or you can look at them and think, ‘wow, my body did the most incredible thing: it gave life.’”

Now my smile was genuine. My body slowly relaxed in the mattress. As usual, I wondered what I did to deserve him. Then again, maybe relationships were supposed to be this way. Without wanting to, my mind jumped straight to Ryker and how he treated me. Despite him chasing me in the beginning, I’d gone through so much indifference. He’d been distant for months before he’d even showed me another side to him. I’d always wanted to understand why. What made him want me to begin with? Why had he been insincere and distant at the start?

I bit down on my lip, not wanting to ask the dreaded question: are you going to see your brother again? I’d explained what Ryker had said to me the last time I was there. And the times after that, he refused to leave his cell to see me. I had been cut off, and I would be a liar if I said it didn’t hurt. It hurt because he had a son, and he’d made no effort to even want to know about him. No, instead, Heath had stepped up to the plate and blew me away. I still struggled with how fast things changed, but I didn’t want to dwell. I told myself to be adaptable. Whatever the future brought, I’d face it with my head held high.

But it would have been difficult on Heath too. He’d gone to see Ryker after I did, and when he came back, he said the meeting had gone nowhere. That Ryker had got up and left him when he asked to talk everything through. Since then, he didn’t want to talk about it. He was hurting. Ryker was his brother, after all.

“So tell me about the fight?” I said, breaking the silence between us.

“You’re half-asleep, Allie. I think the last thing you want to know about is my fight.”

“What does it matter if I’m half-asleep?”

He chuckled. “Because every time I talk about a fight, you get concerned and work yourself up about them. You dwell on every bruise I have and how many times I got hit. I’d rather not talk about it. You need to sleep. Not be concerned over something silly.”

“Silly?” I repeated, raising a brow in offense. “Is it wrong that I worry about the man I love?”

He looked at me then in the warmest way, like I’d just made his night by telling him he was the man I loved. That look – it tightened my heart and made me hot all over.

“Yeah,” he finally said, quietly, “it’s very wrong. I’m a big boy, beautiful. I don’t need your worry. It’s me that worries for you and Kayden.”

I smiled and kissed him softly, rubbing my nose tenderly against his. “We’re fine. We’ve got you and that’s all that matters.”

Again, that warm look. He stroked my cheek, whispering, “I won the lottery the second you asked me for help, Allie. You’ve changed me. Everything that’s happened between us has changed me.”

“I know,” I said with a slight frown. “I just wish you wouldn’t obsess about money so much. It’s hard seeing you fight and work over time so much. It’s not easy feeling like I can’t contribute just to ease your workload.”

“You know why I’m fighting to get as much money up. When Kayden got sick and rushed to the hospital, I felt helpless. If it’d gotten any worse – if he’d been seriously sick in any other way – I wouldn’t have been able to afford his treatments. It was the scariest night of my life. I just want to make sure we’re taken care of so that never happens again. I never want to feel unprepared.”

I nodded, thinking back on four weeks ago. Kayden was just two weeks old when he caught the cold. I’d panicked when his fever kept rising. We rushed him to the hospital and had been there the entire night, waiting for the fever to go down while the nurses tried to reassure us it was going to be alright. It hadn’t been for Heath. When he’d felt how hot Kayden was, his face had paled significantly, and I knew what he was thinking. He was remembering his own brother – the one we’d named Kayden after – who had died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome when Heath was just six years old. He didn’t talk about it often, but he’d spoken about how devastated his mother had been, and how she’d never been the same after that. So naming him Kayden was a way for me to show him that the memory of his youngest brother could still live on.

Ever since that night, Heath obsessed over our finances. Everything was about money and having enough in case of emergencies. While I understood his panic, I also missed him and would have preferred having more time with him than all the riches in the world. I just wished he felt the same too.

“I’m sure everything will be alright,” I told him. “He’s a beautiful, healthy boy.”

He nodded, but his face stated otherwise. When he let his guard down, I could read him so clearly. Other times, I was not so fortunate.

He held me to him for a little while, and when we started kissing again, his insatiable thirst returned. He climbed back over me and took me gently and slowly. This time there was no rush. Just the simple, quiet thrusts accompanied by his loving kisses and warm eyes. He watched me intently, knowing when I was close, and holding off on his own pleasure until I got there. He came with me this time, panting hard against me as we rode it out together.

I was limp and thoroughly fucked after that. So when the sound of a frustrated cry erupted, I groaned in exhaustion. With a sigh, I made to move when Heath’s hand pushed me back down.

“I’ll take care of him,” he whispered. “You need to sleep.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I need to spend time with my little man anyway. Missed him too much. I’ll be in there. Get your rest.”

Fighting with him on this was futile. He always won. So I gave him a quick kiss in thanks and watched him leave the bedroom, completely nude and sexy. To my surprise, it was merely minutes before sleep won me over.

Heath

He was tiny. So damn tiny, he was swimming in his warm suit. He fidgeted, that mouth opening wide, reminding me of the jaws of a shark before it consumed. And that’s all Kayden did:
consumed
. His stomach was a bottomless pit, and after every bottle, that tiny belly of his would bloat and poke through his baggy clothes. Soon after, he’d burp and a bit of milk would spurt out from that mouth. It would trickle down the corner of his red, thin lips and to his chin. I wiped it away before it pooled along his neck fat – the fat that spoke of how well fed he was.

              Kayden.

              This was
my
Kayden.

              Nobody could take me away from him. I soaked up every minute of him and yet it was never enough. I thought about him all day at work. Of his cheeky smile. Of the way his blue eyes would open up and stare at the world around him, looking so fascinated and engrossed in his surroundings. I loved the tiny noises he made. I loved when he grunted in frustration and cried to be held. The way he squirmed and kicked his blanket off when he started to get hungry, or the way he suckled your finger with that toothless mouth. What I liked the most, though, was when those blue eyes stared deeply into my own like I was his entire world. Every one of these moments we shared, those eyes drank me in, and I felt connected to him in a way I never anticipated. I didn’t think of these things during Allie’s pregnancy. I’d only set my eyes on her and what she needed. Never before would I have thought I’d have fallen so deeply in love with a fussy, stubborn baby that made my life before him seem empty and bleak. That old me had died. It had fallen into a sinkhole, buried away in darkness, never to be returned again.

              It was life changing. My heart always beat harder when I had quiet moments like this with him. Staring down at him in my arms as he slowly dozed back to sleep after a bottle and a half. I stroked the top of his fuzzy head and took in his every feature. He had Lawson all over him. The same chin, the same brows and ears. He had Allie’s eyes and the same pale skin, and as much as I tried not to see it, he had Ryker’s thin lips.

If I was being honest about it, deep inside I really did like seeing Ryker in him. In a way, I wanted to save a Lawson and give him opportunities kids like Ryker and I would have dreamed of. However, personally, I envisioned Kayden as a tiny little Ryker, only this time he was growing up the
right
way. And goddammit, nothing was going to take him away from me. I was going to make sure of that.

              If I wanted the best for Kayden, I had to be sure I could always provide. It was becoming difficult as of lately. Street fighting in Hedley was growing in popularity. It was also attracting more cut throat men that were damn good at it. I thought of the crazy man I fought tonight. I could tell straight off the bat he was some drug-deprived monkey in need of his next hit. Most of the fighters needed money, or they did it for the attention. Sometimes they even did it to prove something to themselves. However, there were ones that came through that went far more than that. They did it because they were desperate, and you could never underestimate the power a man in need of a drug had. Addiction turned people into animals.

              So, yeah, he fought hard, but I fought harder in the end. I walked away with a wad of money that was going to easily see us through for a good while. While I was somewhat desperate, the image of the duffel bag loaded with cash always came back to me.

Nobody came looking for me for that fifty thousand dollar debt. That day came and went, and it had been spent pacing with nerves until the early hours of the morning. I waited the day after that and still nothing. It was like the calm before the storm. I’d stayed up throughout the night over the course of two weeks, expecting the door to get knocked down and to be sent to my death by enraged drug dealers who knew I’d stolen their money.

Only… that didn’t happen.

Instead, the streets descended into chaos. Ryker’s gang had emerged and revealed themselves. The Syndicate, they called themselves, and they turned against the small gangs they supplied, knocking them out one after the other until shootings around Hedley were so commonplace, people stayed in their homes just to wait it out. The sound of police sirens became background noise for a long while after Ricardo’s death, and nobody understood what was going on. They didn’t know what the falling out between them was in regards to.

              Except me.

              I knew everything.

              This was the chain reaction I’d hoped for. While the Syndicate tried to avenge Ricardo’s death by going against others, I lurked in the shadows, completely untraceable.

              Nobody came for me. I’d probably been shelved. An unimportant debt that didn’t need tending to until they got to the bottom of what happened. They probably cared about the money more than Ricardo beaten to death. After all, it was over a hundred thousand dollars. A hundred thousand dollars I’d buried away next to a marked tree in the middle of the bush forty minutes outside of Hedley.

              It was money that couldn’t be touched. I needed to lay low, not flaunt my sudden wealth to people. I had to make do without it and continue living and providing by my own means. It was harder than I thought it would be. That temptation to not fight grew every day that passed with Kayden. I didn’t want to come home with bruises and have to lie to a little boy about where they came from. I wanted to be better than that. I wanted to be someone he could look up to. Being a street fighter just wasn’t enough anymore, and the money buried away became all the more alluring.

              I couldn’t explore options or get it off my chest by bringing it to Allie. I couldn’t tell her about the money because I couldn’t endanger her life if they sniffed around here and demanded answers. At times, truth was a burden, and telling it meant someone else had to carry it with you. Allie didn’t deserve to know. She needed to focus on her education and her little boy. She needed to trust that I would take care of it all.

              But I had a plan. It was dangerous, it was crazy, and it warranted help from someone equally as fucked up as me. It was the only way to get to my goal of ensuring a good life for the ones I loved – something I’d obsessed about for a very long time.

              And as always, when I thought of everything that happened, I reflected on seeing Ryker after Kayden had been born. I wanted peace. I wanted him to tell me everything, but fuck, that guy was stubborn.

              When I saw his face, I knew he wanted nothing more than to kill me. He dragged his feet, apprehensive about getting any closer to me, all the while frowning like
h
e had a reason to be angry.

              My entire body was tense and wound up tight by the time he sat on the bolted down chair. We said nothing for a while. The silence was loud somehow, drowning out my riotous heart beats. We were hardly even breathing.

              Ryker looked older by some means. His cheeks were covered in stubble, his hair a little longer than he’d ever let it grow before. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. His eyes wandered about my face, and for a moment it was like he was staring at someone unfamiliar to him. I knew I was different. I
felt
different. Ever since I killed a man, I’d lost a part of my identity, and I wasn’t sure it could be reclaimed.

              “Are we just going to sit here and stare at each other all day?” I said, breaking the silence.

              He didn’t respond. He continued staring at me, barely blinking.

              “Stop acting like I’m the one that fucked up,” I growled, leaning forward to look at him closely. “I never asked for any of this, Ryker. All of it happened, and it wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for you and your stupidity. You’re sitting on that side of the table because you fucked up, and I’m still the one cleaning up after your mistakes. So how about you open your goddamn mouth and talk like a man?”

              He smirked at me. If I’d spoken to him like this before, he’d have fought me tooth and nail to show me that he was a man. I’d played this game many times before, saying things that I knew would push his buttons. I was seeking a reaction, trying to stir him out of his silence in order to talk to me. Even if he spoke in anger.

              “I’m thinkin’ about how I’m going to kill you,” he said softly, tilting his head to the side. “Thinkin’ about how I’m going to cut your fucking throat after I’ve torn you limb from limb.”

              I scoffed, completely unbothered by his words. “If anyone deserves to get killed, it’s your ass. You want to play this sob story? Bet you’re telling yourself I’m some thief: took your woman, took your kid, took a life you could have had and all that bullshit losers like to tell themselves when they’ve fucked up. That’s what you’re doing, right? Well, listen here, you little shit, I’m not a thief. I got given all your responsibilities, and unlike you, I’m not fucking it up. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and it could have been the best thing to ever happen to you too. But it isn’t. And that’s because you threw it all away.”

              “You don’t know shit about me,” he retorted, swallowing hard. “You don’t know what I’ve been through to get where I am right now. So how about you get the fuck out of my face? I’m not going to sit here and take your insults like you know one cent about me –”

              “I’m here because we’re going to talk, Ryker,” I interrupted sharply. “We’re going to talk about it all, or as much as we can in the half hour I’ve got.”

              “I’ve got nothing to say –”

              “Bullshit you don’t! You sit here telling me I don’t know one thing about you. How about you start opening your mouth and filling me in? The only way to mend this shit is by being honest –”

              “I’m not mendin’ shit with you! And last I heard, honesty wasn’t your fuckin’ priority when you sat across from me like you are right now, promising me you’ll take care of my woman.”

              My woman, he said. Like Allie still belonged to him. It had me boiling in anger because she wasn’t his. She was mine now.

              He saw my reaction and leaned forward, that smirk intensifying. “She’s with you out of convenience, Heath. Because you’re looking after her. The second I’m out of here, she’ll come back to me, like she always has. Every fight we ever had, every time she ever walked away from me, I always got her back. Always made her realize she was only half of herself without me. And it’s going to happen again, Heath.”

              “Fuck you,” I spat out. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

              He didn’t relent. Instead, there was mischief in his eyes as he curiously asked, “How does it feel to know she was with me first? I was her first kiss. Her first fuck. She’d kept her virginity close to her, Heath, and she gave it to
me
. Did you know that? Did you know she held onto it and waited for the perfect guy? That’s what she called me, Heath: the ‘perfect guy’. I was there for her when her father died. She cried on
my
shoulder. She listened to me soothe her. She told me things she’ll probably never open up to you. We have a history you’ll never touch. Memories you’ll never have.”

              I was trembling. It was painful hearing it because a lot of it was true. He was her first everything, and I felt like the rebound sometimes. But then I reflected on the way she looked at me. With warmth and love. No, she loved me. She was with me because I was the right guy for her.

              “If you were so spectacular,” I said on a sneer, “then why didn’t she wait for you?”

              The protruding vein at the base of his throat twitched. His eyes hardened and just as much as I was hurting at hearing what he was saying, I realized he was hurting worse. Fuck, I hadn’t come here for this.

              “Ryker –”

              “Fuck off and don’t come back again.” He stood up and made to leave.

              “Ryker, I’m sorry,” I quickly apologized. “Look, man, I’m not here to fight. I just want to talk. Please, just talk. Tell me everything. We can work this out! Remove her from the picture for two minutes and just talk to me, man. You’re my brother.”

              “We’re not brothers,” he snapped back as he took a step away from me. “And there’s nothing more to say.”

I snapped out of that memory, shuddering at the guilt that swamped me every time I remembered his pain. It was dangerous thinking back on it. It made me wonder too much about his relationship with Allie and if they really did have something better between them. I wanted to be her best memories. I needed to believe I was.

As soon as Kayden fell back asleep, I set up the bassinet in the bedroom next to our bed. Then I moved Kayden to it, making sure his pacifier was in his mouth and he was dry and changed. He was a smelly little man, farted up a storm after every feed. He’d eaten a lot just now and nine times out of ten he slept through until five in the morning. Hopefully he wouldn’t fuss and wake Allie up while I was away. She didn’t need to know I was gone.

I slipped on my black hoodie and changed into dark jeans. I grabbed my keys and a pocket knife from inside my work bag and stuffed them in my pocket. Before leaving, I crawled into bed and held Allie for a couple minutes. Her days were long and hard. She was so exhausted she didn’t even stir. My chest felt heavy with my love for her, and for a moment I considered getting the job done tomorrow.