“Can you sit up?” he asked, hoping that she was going to say no, because he wasn’t sure that he was ready to go inside and deal with his family, their questions and the bullshit that they were going to put him through for bringing Rebecca with him.
“Probably,” came the muffled response while Rebecca continued to absently trace circles on the leg that she was using as a pillow.
Not that he was complaining since it gave him a reason to sit there. They were pro
bably going to miss dinner, but maybe that was for the best. He’d rather get this talk out of the way so that he could get back to the Fire & Brimstone and get his mind off of things for a while.
“Are you okay?” she asked with a heavy sigh as she gave up on playing with his knee and rolled over onto her back.
Staring out the window, he nodded. “I’m fine.”
“You haven’t said anything about what just happened,” she pointed out, drawing her knees in to get more comfortable on the bench seat of his truck.
“Neither have you.”
“I was too busy having a nervous breakdown,” she explained.
“We should go inside,” he said, carefully pulling his hand away, but she wasn’t letting him off that easily.
Tightening her hold on his hand, she placed it right back on her soft belly. “We need to at least pretend to talk about this,” she stubbornly said, but he knew that talking about this was the last thing that she wanted to do.
While he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in the Fire & Brimstone, she was probably dying to go home, shove Melanie off the couch and distract herself with horror movies and Hershey Kisses. Maybe he should put this off for another night and take her home so that she could do just that.
“What exactly do you want to talk about?” he asked, suddenly feeling exhausted and not even the idea of digging into his mother’s cooking could get him to move.
“I’m not ready to have a baby yet, Christopher,” she said softly as though it was something to be ashamed of.
Smiling down at her, he said, “Neither am I, but,” he said, adding that “but” in there no doubt to scare her before he continued, “even if things had turned out differently, it would have been fine.”
She snorted at that. “That’s easy for you to say.”
He chuckled as he leaned his head back against the seat. “What worried you more, the diapers or the delivery?”
There was a slight pause before she admitted, “The diapers.”
“We would have survived,” he teased, even as he had to admit that the idea of changing a diaper terrified him.
“Okay then. That’s all I wanted to know,” she said with a relieved sigh and a firm nod as she sat up and reached for the door handle only to end up shooting him a questioning look. “Umm, where are we exactly?”
“Hell,” he said, reaching over to turn off the truck, “we’re in hell.”
Chapter 46
“Maybe we could do this some other time?” she suggested somewhat hysterically as she tried to dig her heals in and stop Lucifer from dragging her inside to face his family.
“You’ve already met them,” he said, clearly not understanding her current moral dilemma.
“Yeah, so then I don’t need to come tonight,” she said, trying to push his hand off hers so that she could turn around and make a run for it.
“And pass up a chance to help my father torment me?” he said dryly, making her pause, because there was that…
God, she loved tormenting him.
Giving herself a mental shake, she renewed her efforts to break free, but the large bastard kept walking, taking her with him.
“I have things to do!” she said, giving up on trying to fight it and decided to try reasoning with him.
“Like?” he asked in a tone that said it all.
The bastard didn’t think that she had a life!
How dare he?
“I have a lot of stuff to do!”
“Like what?” he asked, throwing her a knowing look that was just not appreciated!
“Like stuff. Now would you let me go?” she demanded, absolutely refusing to go inside and-
“Life what?” he asked teasingly as he stopped walking so that he could interrogate her on his parent’s walkway.
“If you must know, I had a very busy night planned,” she snapped, yanking her arm free so that she could cross her arms over her chest as she explained exactly how busy she was.
“A romantic night by the television with Mojo drooling everywhere?” he teased, causing her eyes to narrow.
“No, I had plans to attend an orgy tonight and thanks to you, I’m going to be late,” she said with a huff as she turned around, giving him her back and started to walk away.
“Well,” he said with a sigh as he easily caught up to her and took her hand so that he could lead her back to the front door, “I’m afraid that they’re going to have to get along without you.”
“That might be difficult,” she said with a groan as she found herself once again being led towards the house.
“And why’s that?”
“Because I was the only woman attending,” she said, loving the way he chuckled.
“Yeah, that might make things difficult,” he said with that smile that did funny things to her.
“I was also supposed to bring the lube,” she admitted with a forlorn sigh.
“Ouch,” he said, shooting her a wink.
“Are you going to let me go?” she asked, feeling hopeful.
“Not a chance,” he said, making her shoulders sag as he continued leading her to the front stairs and to what promised to be a really uncomfortable evening.
“Does it not matter to you that I don’t want to go?” she asked even as she tried to resign herself to a night of hiding in the bathroom and avoiding making eye contact.
“No, but it does piss me off,” he said, sighing when they reached the front door.
“Which is why I’ll be waiting in the car,” she said brightly, hoping that he’d go for it.
“Nice try,” he said, using his hold on her hand to bring her closer so that he could kiss her.
Desperate, and realizing that she was seconds away from being forced to go inside and face his mother, who probably knew about the pregnancy test and the knowledge that she’d been having her way with her son, Rebecca did what she had to do.
“I’m sorry!” she said, wincing as she picked up her foot, slammed it down on his instep and took off running the second that he let go.
“Forgive me!” she yelled over her shoulder as she ran as fast as her legs would take her, praying that she’d managed to hobble him for as long as it would take her to make it to Main Street and flag down a taxi.
*-*-*-*
“I,” gasp, “hate,” another gasp, “you,” Rebecca finally managed to get out as he carried her back to his truck.
“Stop. You’re making me blush,” he said dryly as he carefully loaded the violent woman into his truck.
He considered using the child safety lock to stop her from running away again, but there really was no need since she’d barely made it two hundred yards before she’d fallen to her knees, gasping for air and begging him to put her out of her misery to save her from the leg cramp that had brought her escape to a swift end.
When she fell over onto her side, still panting like she’d run a marathon instead of less than half a block, he gave her a patronizing slap on the ass and shut the door. Shaking his head, he walked around his truck and climbed in, careful of Rebecca’s head. After pushing a strand of hair out of her face, he started the short ride back to his parents’ house where his parents, Aidan and the two annoying bastards that he couldn’t seem to shake were waiting for them.
“Dying,” the little bully gasped from where she lay beside him.
“Uh huh,” he said absently as he put the truck in park and shook off the slight throbbing in his leg.
The tap at his window let him know that his short reprieve was over and that it was time to face what promised to be a very long and painful night, but that was to be expected the first time you brought a woman home to meet the family, especially his family. Biting back a groan, he rolled down his window.
Smiling, his father focused on Rebecca, who was currently trying to lower herself to the floor where she probably planned on hiding for the rest of the night, but it seemed that she didn’t