Here we go.
“Hey kiddos. Jason, you didn’t need to drop Jax over. We could have picked her up,” he said, while giving Jax a tentative hug.
When he drew her away, he held her upper arms and looked her over. His fair brows furrowed, and his lips pursed in a tight smile, yet I could see amplified affection in his light-brown eyes.
I had to clear my throat before answering him. “It’s no problem, Mr Carmichael. We’ve just been at Mum and Dad’s for dinner.”
He barked a laugh and snapped his gaze to me, brows now raised in surprise. “Since when do you call me anything other than Steve?”
“Since I’m hoping to walk out of here with my balls still intact.”
Jax stepped back a pace to stand firmly against my side, unifying us and subtly showing where her alliances lay.
“And why would you—?” Steve’s eyes flicked between us as he drew his own conclusions. Maria placed a hand on his arm to try to calm the beast as it woke.
Darren got his quick temper from their father and a temper was all it was. There was no physical violence or verbal abuse, just a rapid response to fire up. Both Darren and Steve usually cooled down reasonably quick as well. However, based on Steve’s body language, he was going to need more than a few deep breaths to reinstate calm.
Jax started to explain, even though he had well and truly got the gist of what was going on. “Papi, Jace and I, well you know, and he’s my baby’s—”
“You jumped up little shit!”
J flinched at his shout, then hurried to the side when Steve came for me. His chest hit mine, and I looked down slightly to meet him head on.
“Steve,” I started, but he cut me off by yelling,“Mr Carmichael!”in my face.
The seconds stretched out as we held our glare. His jaw clenched and nostrils flared with every furious breath. Tempered anger simmered just below the surface of my entire body. I hated getting reprimanded like a kid, though I understood his reaction. Jax was still—in his eyes—his little girl who should not, in any way, shape or form, be anywhere near a man’s penis. Especially mine.
“Okay. Mama, Papi, we’re leaving,” Jax announced.
Steve and I hadn’t blinked. Our stand-off still didn’t break when the house phone rang in the background.
I tried to keep the condescending tone from my voice. “Mr Carmichael, that’ll be my father.”
Steve gave me one last glare and sniffed sharply before turning on his heel. He snatched the phone from its cradle, then stormed from view toward the rear of the house.
“Well, that’s one way to break the ice,” Maria said. “Trust me, love, he’ll come around. Give him a few days. I’ll let Jax know when tensions have eased. Does Darren know yet?”
“That’s a negative, Mama, so keep quiet for a bit longer. You’ve got Kath to gossip with now.”
“You have my word, mijita. Call if you need anything.”
Jax hugged her mum. “Thanks, Mami.”
Maria released J, then gathered me into her crushing hug. “Adiós, Jason. Look after my bebés.”
TWELVE
JACE
The next morning, Sunday, my second coffee of the day sat stone cold and discarded on the bedside table. In front of me, my laptop had multiple tabs up, all with various information regarding pregnancy and having a baby. The amount of advice was outright bewildering. I thought a little net-surfing was going to help get my head around our pending arrival, not bury me under the overwhelming pile of dos and don’ts of child raising.
I wasn’t even the one who had to do the hard part. Poor Jax had to heave the thing around inside her tiny frame for another seven months, then push it out of her lady parts. That thought alone made my loins involuntarily clench and recoil until flashbacks of J laid out under me, naked and wild, shifted my focus.
My pulse spiked with the memory and my breath grew shallow. The more I thought about having her, the more my dick wanted a repeat. Setting the laptop aside, I freed my aching cock from my underwear and stroked up and down the shaft. I moaned, imagining J’s mouth working up and down my length.
With shit-ass timing, my phone came to life. My head snapped up from its tilted position against the headboard to see Jax’s name on the screen. I chose to ignore it—I had more pressing matters to take care of—until the nagging thought of J needing help crept into my mind.
Fuuuuck.