“Ajax, it’s so nice of you to try and pretend we don’t have a connection, but you can’t deny it. I’ll be seeing you too. See you both later.” She hung up. I couldn’t take it anymore. My stomach was in revolt. I stood up and raced to the bathroom just down the hall from the common room. I barely made it before the contents of my stomach came up. I heaved into the toilet. A hand on my back had me looking up to find Ajax standing over me with concern on his face. Out in the hall, I could hear other voices. How humiliating.
“Baby, please don’t do this. I swear to God and on my club, I never did anything with her. I don’t want her. I want you,” he begged. I held up my hand.
“I know. I’m not throwing up because I think that. I’m sick due to the flashback it caused to Johnny and Ricardo. She’s never going to stop. Not until I’m dead and the money is theirs,” I told him. A sob broke my voice. I’d finally found happiness, and they might take it away forever.
He helped me stand and cross over to the sink. I rinsed out my mouth as he gave me mouthwash from under the sink. Once I felt the acrid taste was gone, he wrapped me in his arms and walked me back out to the common room.
All the others were anxiously asking if I was okay, even the single guys. Their care and love made me warm. I finally had a family. As Ajax sat me down, Tate came over with ginger ale. No doubt, he had been learning with all these pregnant ladies around.
“Thank you, Tate.”
“No problem, Jess. Let me know if you need anything else,” he told me with a gentle smile. Ajax tried to break the tension.
“You flirting with my woman, prospect?”
Tate played along with him and made me laugh.
“I sure as hell am. I want her to see I’m a better option. And she’s almost there. Give it another week or so, and she’ll be kicking you to the curb,” he teased. Ajax growled and pretended to be shooting him with a gun he made with his hands.
“Stop it, you two. You’re crazy. I’m fine and thanks for the offer, Tate, but I’ll have to stick with Ajax. He’s kind of grown on me.” Tate groaned and rolled his eyes before going back to the bar.
“He’s grown on you? You mean like a fungus?” Rebel asked with a grin. Ajax punched him. We were all laughing when Outlaw came back into the room. I’d forgotten he’d run off when Melody called. He came over to us.
“They’re positively in Tennessee. She was calling on a cell and it was pinging off various cell towers, so she was driving when she called. I took the number and programmed it so if Jess gets more calls, it will automatically start searching. If we can get her to call and stay on the line longer, or when she’s stationary, we can get an exact location. I talked to Smoke. The drawings will work just fine with his program, Jess.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d been worried they couldn’t use them. This call only made it even more obvious we needed to find them. I couldn’t have this hanging over my head, and I didn’t want to chance the others getting hurt, especially the women and babies.
“Thanks, Outlaw, we appreciate it,” Ajax told him. I gave him a smile and a nod. The call ended our night of fun. Not long after that, we said our goodnights to all of them and headed to bed. I wanted to escape into the oblivion of sleep if I could. But first, I needed Ajax to hold me.
Ajax:
As Jessica and I headed home, I could tell the call from Melody was still playing on her mind. She’d talked all evening but had been more subdued. She’d been lost more than once in her thoughts when someone had said something to her.
As I closed the door, she headed to the bathroom. I knew exactly what she needed—a long soak in the tub would hopefully relax her. I didn’t want her and the baby to be under so much stress.
As she removed her clothes, I started the bath water. I dropped in a soothing citrus-scented bath bomb. I had never even heard of those until I met her. She loved them. Then I began to take off my clothes. She was turned away from me, so I could look at her uninterrupted.
She thought her expanding belly would be a turn off, but it only seemed to turn me on more. The visual of her carrying my baby and nurturing it with her body made me want her even more, and I had wanted her constantly as it was. She turned around and saw me watching her.
Her eyes moved down my body and back up. She stopped midway each time. I couldn’t hide the erection she gave me. She blushed, which I thought was fucking cute as hell. We had sex all the time and she still could blush like that. I glided over to her and took her in my arms. I pressed myself into her hard tummy.
“Let’s get you into the bath to relax. Then I have plans for you, baby, if you’re feeling up to it,” I whispered as I nibbled on her earlobe. She shuddered, then her hand grasped my hard cock.
“I think I will definitely feel up to it. You know I can’t resist this,” she teased back. I groaned at the feel of her hand on me. A part of me wanted to say the hell with the bath and take her to bed right now, but she needed to relax. I reluctantly stepped back.
She gave me a pouty face. I laughed and held on to her hand as she stepped into the bathtub. After she was seated, I got in behind her. I had never been one to take a bath until her. I loved to soak with her in my arms. I was damn glad when this place had been built, they had made sure to put in big tubs rather than those puny ones you find in hotels. No way I’d be able to ever get into one of those on my own, let alone with Jess.
She relaxed back into me with a sigh. I rubbed my hands down her arms and across her little stomach. She was now twenty-five weeks along. She complained about her weight gain, but I knew she was still behind. Her tummy was a little ball. I held my hands to either side.
I was about to ask her how she was feeling when I felt something under my hands. I jerked in surprise. She looked over her shoulder at me with a smile. I looked at her in amazement.
“Is that…?”
“It is. Your daughter seems to want to make sure you know she’s here. She seems to like to get active when I try to rest.” I held my hands still to see if I could feel it again. Jess pressed down on my hands, and I felt what had to be a nudge. I laughed.
“She’s already a handful. I can’t wait to see what she’s going to be like. I know I need more guns, but maybe higher walls around here. She might be a hellion.” Jessica laughed.
“If she’s anything like her daddy, then yes, we might need to have higher walls and a tracker on her.” Her mentioning the tracker made me jerk. Why in the hell hadn’t I thought of this sooner? She looked at me with a frown on her face.