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I watched Piper take Brynn into the house. As much as I wanted to follow her, as much as I wanted her back in my arms, something was off. I couldn’t figure out what it was. But maybe she was right. There was no rush. Although I wasn’t a patient person, not everything needed to feel normal right away.
The house looked small from the outside, but I couldn’t wait to make it a home with Piper and our daughter.
Taking a deep breath, I headed toward the house and followed Piper inside. I shut the door behind me, taking in every inch that lay before me. She was right. The house was small. But I liked it. It was perfect.
As soon as you entered, you were brought to an open concept which held the living room and dining room. The kitchen was off to the right with an island separating it from the rest of the large room. You also had to walk up two steps to reach it.
“I like it,” I finally said.
Piper placed Brynn in her playpen and turned to me. “Yeah? It was fixed up a bit, but the backyard is huge. When Brynn gets older, she’ll love it.” She walked to the large patio door leading out to the back of the house.
I joined her, standing behind her and following her gaze. There was a sandbox, a swing set, and a shed. “It needs a pool.”
Piper looked up at me. “I agree but I can’t maintain it myself. That’s why I haven’t gotten one yet.”
“I can do it.”
She stared at me. “Really?”
“Why not?” But I knew the reason she was questioning me. We never did put a label on what we were doing. Hell, I never even wanted kids but when I found out she was pregnant with my baby, I wanted to fuck more babies into her. She had been the only one who could ever reach a part of me I never wanted to give to anyone else and I could never thank her enough for that.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, her voice lowering.
I pinched her chin, placing a soft peck on her forehead, nose, and then I hesitated before placing one on her mouth.
Her breath caught. Snaking her arms around my neck, she pulled me closer.
Wrapping my hand in her hair, I pulled her head back and deepened the kiss. This, this right here was the reason I survived. With her mouth fused to mine, it was the only thing I had been itching to come home to. Beside our daughter, Piper was my very existence.
She was the reason I made it out of jail alive.
She was the reason I didn’t give up.
She was the reason I lived.
I swallowed her moan, taking in every inch of her mouth. Her breaths were mine. I consumed and breathed her in, reveling in the way she felt in my arms after all of our time apart.
Piper broke the kiss, leaning her head to the side, her chest rising and falling.
I took that as a hint and brushed my mouth up the length of her neck.
“Jaron,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I murmured against her throat.
“We can’t.”
“I know.” But it didn’t mean I couldn’t tease us a little. Running my hand down her back, I cupped her ass and pulled her flush against me. Making sure to push every inch of me into her, I wanted her to feel how my body reacted to hers. I didn’t want her to doubt for one single second that I didn’t want her as much as she wanted me.
“God,” she panted. “It’s been way too long.”
“It has.” I scraped my teeth along the length of her jaw. “I’m going to have so much fun getting reacquainted with your body.”
“When Brynn goes to bed, we can...we can continue,” Piper suggested softly.
I responded by placing a peck on her nose but we both knew that we needed to wait. Didn’t we? Wouldn’t it be too soon to jump right back into bed when that started our problem in the first place?
Piper pushed out of my hold, but she didn’t get very far. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back against me.
“We can’t do this here.” But she didn’t push away from me again.
“If you’re worried about me fucking you in front of our daughter, I won’t. I don’t mind the kinky shit but that’s too far. Even for me.”
A breathless laugh escaped her. “What kind of kinky shit are you into, Jaron?” she asked, turning in my arms and placing her hands against my chest.
I covered them and brought them up to my mouth, kissing her knuckles. “Shit we’ll eventually explore but right now...” I brushed my thumb along her bottom lip. “Whatever you’re thinking, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Her deep blue eyes met mine. “Promise?”
“Baby, I’ve been yours since Paris. Probably even before that.” It had been a few months since before we met up in Europe, that I’d last had sex. Women hinted but I shot them down. Fast. The guys always gave me a hard time about it, but I finally decided to get my head out of my ass and search Piper out. “Didn’t you know that I went to Paris, looking for you?”
“What?” Her eyes widened. “No, I didn’t know that. I thought you were there on vacation and it was just a coincidence that we were there at the same time.”
“I was only there because you were. I had been going through a rut,” I explained. “Nothing was doing it for me. I saw you that summer before you went to Europe. Do you remember that?”
“I do. My parents held a going-away party for me. You hardly talked to me that night.” She frowned. “Why was that?”
“Because the things I wanted to say to you...” My body stirred. “I wanted to fuck you, Piper. I wanted you to go to Europe remembering how my cock felt deep inside you. I wanted to own every inch of your body. I had every intention of pulling you to the corner of the house and swallowing you fucking whole in the shadows. But I never got a chance because when I went to approach you, you were with the twins. I could never get you alone.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks reddened.
How the hell she got me to say exactly what was on my mind, was beyond me. I always listened first before speaking. I watched and waited but Piper forced the thoughts out of me like she had control of my words.
I reached out, running my thumb along her cheek. “So instead, I brought Sammy and Cyrus with me and we went to Europe ourselves. But I gave you a little bit. And eventually found you at that café.”
“How did you find me?”
“I followed your trip on Instagram.” I shrugged like I didn’t just confess to stalking her.
“You were stalking me?”
My body stirred. She had been the only woman to ever call me out on my shit. It was what made me fall for her in the first place.
“And then I went back to your hotel with you,” Piper added.
“You did.”
She licked her lips. “That was the best night of my life but now that you’re home, this is the best night.”
“I agree, baby,” I murmured, kissing the side of her head.
She sighed. “Want to help me get Brynn ready for bed? She won’t be going down for at least an hour, but I like to get her changed and ready anyway just in case she falls asleep. Then I don’t have to disturb her.”
I headed to the playpen, reached inside and pulled our daughter out of it. She had woken up on the car ride home but now, with her snuggled against me, I found I just wanted to hold her and never let her go. “Can she stay up a little later tonight? I just...” I swallowed hard, running my hand over her head of dark curls. “I need this.”
“Of course.” Piper gave me a small smile. “We can get her ready for bed and then we can come out here and watch a movie.”
That sounded damn near perfect.
Piper
Watching Jaron with Brynn was something I thought I’d never actually see. He had promised to come home to me whenever he was released, but a part of me felt that they were just words and he didn’t actually mean them. I knew I shouldn’t have doubted him, but it wasn’t like we ever made our relationship official. We had a fling and then I got pregnant with his baby. I didn’t want him to feel pressured into staying with me just because of Brynn. We didn’t have to be together for him to be a good father. I just wanted him, us, happy.
Even before he went to jail, a part of me feared that he wouldn’t want anything to do with me after a while. In the beginning when I told him I was pregnant, the silence that had fallen between us was deafening. He spoke without telling me. He liked the fact that I was pregnant with his baby.
“Have you ever changed a diaper before?” I asked Jaron, grabbing a onesie out of Brynn’s dresser. We ended up watching a movie first. Brynn had been wide awake through the whole thing, so we made sure to watch something she liked. Now we were getting her ready for bed since she started yawning during the credits.
Jaron was standing by the far wall that had pictures of him hanging on it. I wanted Brynn to see his face as often as she could. Even if he wasn’t around.
“Jaron?”
He looked at me over his shoulder. “Sorry, what?”
“Have you ever changed a diaper?”
“I have.” He went up to Brynn who was lying on the change table and tickled her belly.
She giggled, slapping her hands against his cheeks. “Dada.”
“That’s right, baby girl. I’m your daddy.” He grinned, grabbing her hands and kissing her fingers.
My heart swelled at the exchange taking place before me. “That’s her second word.”
“Yeah?” He tickled her belly. “What was her first?”
“Mama. She’s said some other stuff, but it was mostly babble. Tell me about the time you changed a diaper.”
“A club brother’s son brought his baby to the clubhouse,” Jaron told me. “They bet me a hundred bucks that I couldn’t change the diaper.”
“And did you?”
“Fucking right I did.” He chuckled. “It was the easiest hundred I’ve ever made.”
I laughed. “When I first changed hers, it fell off.” I shrugged. “But we got it figured out.”
“You did.”
I handed him the onesie.
He took it and changed Brynn with no fuss from her. It had amazed me how she didn’t cry with him like she did with everyone else. I was the only one who could hold her without her freaking out. It was like she knew. It had only been her and I for months and now that Jaron was home, things changed. It was different but she accepted it with open arms.
“There.” Jaron picked her up off the change table. “How does she look, Mama?” he asked, bringing her over to me.
“Perfect.” I kissed her cheek. “You sleep well, baby girl.”
Jaron placed her in her crib and put her stuffed pig in her arms. “Dream of puppies and kittens, little princess.”
I turned off the light before we left the bedroom and closed the door nearly all the way, but left it open partially.
I almost asked, now what?
But Jaron led the way into the living room. Just when I thought he was going to sit on the couch, he headed into the kitchen instead.
I moved to the couch, sat down, and breathed. Everything that happened in the past few hours, hit me. Jaron being back. The father of my daughter being here. With me. With us. Finally.
“I’m pregnant.”
“Fuck me. You are?” Jaron’s voice lowered.
The tiny hairs on my skin tingled. “I am.”
He had been happy about it. And when I had Sammy bring him the picture of the ultrasound, he had called me as soon as he could.
“You’re pregnant. With my baby. My baby is growing inside of you. That tiny, tight as fuck, little body.”
I smiled to myself, remembering that it had turned him on.
Jaron took that point to join me on the couch. He handed me a beer before taking a swig of his own. “Fuck. I missed this.”
“I guess you don’t really have beer in jail, do you?” I asked, taking a sip of my own.
“No. Although I’m sure if you’re a good boy, you could probably swindle your way into getting some but who the fuck knows what you have to do for that.”
I lifted my knee onto the couch and turned toward him. “Are you happy to be home?”
His eyes flicked to mine. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I mean...” I shrugged. “I don’t know what I mean. I just want you happy.”
Jaron turned his full body in my direction and grabbed my hand. “A lot of shit happened while I was...” He cleared his throat, placing his beer on the table in front of us. “I can’t go back to the way things were. I don’t think I’ll ever get back there.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, taking in the light scars on his knuckles. What did he have to do to survive? He was big, but I knew that if he had been jumped by several guys all at once, even he couldn’t take them on.
“Piper.” Jaron pinched my chin, tilting my head back to meet his dark gaze. “I’m not the man I was before.”
I swallowed hard, taking in the slate orbs staring back at me. The air crackled around us. An electric energy zapped its way between us. I licked my lips, needing just a taste.
His eyes dropped to my mouth, his nostrils flaring. “I’m not him, Piper.” His thumb brushed along my jaw line. “I’m not a good guy. I want to be. For both of you. But I had to do shit to survive. Can you handle that?” he asked, his voice lowering. His hand slipped into my hair, to the back of my head. “Can you handle knowing the father of your baby would do anything to make it through each day? To make it back to his family. To his girls.”
I reached out, cupping his face.
He covered my hand, pushing his cheek into my palm. “You are the only reason I’m here. That I made it through that hell. The only reason.”
“What about your parents?” I murmured, my heart jumping to my throat at his confession.
“I love my parents and the club. I love them with every inch of me but what I feel for you goes beyond that.”
“Tell me,” I demanded, my voice turning husky.
He gave me a small smirk. “Not yet, baby.”
“Jaron, please. I need to know how you feel.” We had been going back and forth for months. I needed to hear the words. I needed to hear him say that he was in love with me.
“I can’t.”
I pulled out of his grip and shot up from the couch. “Fine.” Stomping to the kitchen, I downed the rest of my beer before throwing the empty bottle into the recycling bin.
“Babe.” Jaron came up behind me.
“No.” I spun around. “Don’t babe me. I haven’t seen you in over a year. I haven’t touched you. Kissed you. Made love to you. I need something. At least your words. Tell me. Please. Tell me how you feel.”
Jaron’s brows narrowed. “Then you tell me.”
“What?” I frowned, taken aback by what he was suggesting.
“Tell me how you feel.” He closed the distance between us. “You’re demanding it from me, but I don’t hear you saying it.”
“That’s because you told me you didn’t want us to say it until I was wrapped around you.”
Jaron chuckled. “Come on, baby. Since when do you ever listen to other people? Especially me? Your parents raised you better than that. Or did having my baby turn you into a pushover?”
My jaw clenched. I crossed my arms under my chest, jutting my chin defiantly. “Fuck you.”
“Hmm...” His gaze raked over me. “I will. But not tonight.”
“Whatever.” I spun on my heel and headed down the hall. “Your surprise is in the basement,” I called out. Once I reached my bedroom, I rushed inside and shut the door behind me. Blowing out a slow breath, I leaned against it and dropped to the floor.
***
