“How do you feel about it?” In all of my depression and pulling away from him, we’d hardly discussed how he felt and I was mad at myself for not considering his feelings more.
“Harlow, if you asked me for fuckin’ triplets tomorrow, I’d do everything in my power to make that shit happen. I want a family with you, baby, and whether that happens this year or in five years, I don’t mind, so long as I have you. And so long as you’re happy.” The way he looked at me with his serious eyes that didn’t blink, and the way his body had pressed against me again revealed the truth in his words.
Happiness flared from deep within and my tummy fluttered. “I know I’m on this rollercoaster of emotions at the moment, but I need you to know that you make me happy. And more than anything, I’m looking forward to the day we begin adding to our family.”
If I’d thought his words had made me happy before, what he did next only added to that. He smiled. It was only a small Scott-Cole-kind-of-smile, but at the same time, his eyes crinkled. I hadn’t seen his crinkles for a while now, and I’d missed them. He then dropped his lips to mine and claimed me again.
As our kiss deepened, his hands moved down my body, skimming my curves and circling my waist before resting on my ass. He groaned a moment later when his phone rang. I wanted to tell him to ignore it, but I knew it could be something important to do with the club so I let him go and tried to step out of his hold. However, he frowned down at me as I tried, and his hand tightened its hold on me, keeping my body close to his.
He checked his caller ID before answering, and then said, “Lisa, what’s up, darlin’?”
As Lisa spoke, his eyes met mine, concerned, and he finally let me go. “I’m coming over now,” he said and hung up.
“What’s up?” I watched as he shoved his phone in his jeans pocket.
“Michelle’s sick and Lisa is worried about her. Says Michelle hasn’t woken up since she got home from school and that she’s burning up.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, can you finish cooking dinner while I do this? We’ve got enough there for Lisa to eat; I’m guessing she hasn’t had dinner yet.”
“Good idea.”
I watched him leave and then turned my attention to dinner. Ten minutes later, I had all the vegetables chopped and the meat ready to cook when I heard a crashing sound on the back deck. Stilling, I listened closely to see if I could work out what had caused it.
Crash!
I had no idea what it was, and my natural instinct to investigate kicked in. Reaching into one of the kitchen drawers, I pulled out the rolling pin; if there was someone out there, I wouldn’t hesitate to use it.
Treading silently, I made my way to the back door and opened it. No more noises had sounded so I remained hopeful no one would surprise me, but when I flicked on the light, a tall, well-built man loomed in front of me.
“Oh my God!” I screamed and let the rolling pin loose on him.
His arm shot up to stop my weapon from hitting him, and he easily yanked it out of my hand. “Fuck, woman, go easy.” His deep voice sounded pissed off, which annoyed the hell out of me.
“Buddy, this is my house, not yours,” I snapped as I folded my arms across my chest. “Who the hell are you? And why are you standing on my back deck?” I glared at him while I waited for an answer, taking in the Storm cut he wore.
“Last I knew, this was Scott Cole’s place.” He frowned. “And last I knew, Scott Cole didn’t date, so if this is your place and you’re not fucking Scott, where the hell is he?”
“Rogue.” Scott’s voice sounded behind me, and his arm slid around my waist from behind.
The guy eyed Scott and jerked his chin at me as he said, “Got yourself a firecracker there, mate.”
“Why are you holding a rolling pin?” Scott asked.
“Your woman here tried to knock me out with it.”
“Well, if you hadn’t been crashing around out here in the dark, I wouldn’t have had to do that,” I muttered, feeling irritated with this Rogue dude and not even sure why.
“Babe, Lisa’s inside waiting for dinner. You wanna go take care of that?” Scott’s warm breath tickling my neck as he spoke would usually cause my tummy to flutter, but the irritation coursing through me prevented that this time.
I turned in his hold and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll leave you two guys to catch up. Is Michelle okay?”
“She’s running a fever so I dosed her up on medication. I’ll go back later and check on her.” He gave me a quick kiss. “Thanks for sorting out dinner for Lisa while I do this.”
I gave him a smile. “No worries.”
I’d barely left them when I heard Scott giving Rogue hell for swearing at me earlier. I didn’t need him to fight my battles for me, but I loved him for it anyway.
3
Scott