Beast: Learning to Breathe (Devil's Blaze MC #5)

“What do you say we go away for a few days?”

“Away?” I question, looking up at Michael. It’s been a couple of weeks now since Crusher and the others left to go back home. There’s still been no sign of Blade, and though I worry, I’m starting to feel better. There’s no reason for him to come here. Michael is probably right, and he’s in Mexico or somewhere now. I was never that important to him, and he never truly wanted Maggie. There’s no reason to think he would risk his life to get some sort of crazy revenge. It’s right after the day at the hospital, I’ve somehow built Blade up to be even more of a monster in my mind. So, knowing he’s out there is always lingering in my thoughts. There’s always this…fear.

“Yeah. There’s a lake in Norman. Let’s load up and go up there for a few days, rent a place out by itself and just relax,” he answers.

We’re on the sofa watching a movie and eating popcorn together. I have my head in Michael’s lap, his legs are stretched out, with his bare feet resting on the coffee table. This is something we do almost every evening together. It usually ends with me falling asleep and Michael carrying me to bed. Sometimes we make love, sometimes he simply holds me—either way it’s perfect. That’s how I would describe my life right now. Perfect. I’m happy.

Michael seems happy. We talk, we laugh and we…love. At least it’s love for me. I admit that to myself. I love Michael. If I had met him earlier, before life went to complete hell, how different would my life have been. I look at our joined hands that are lying over my baby-bump and I know. Deep down in my soul, I know that life would have been completely different. I grieve that loss, but I’ve come to accept what Michael told me the first time we made love together. He is Maggie’s father in every way that counts. He’s going nowhere. I have no idea how I can trust someone—especially a man, after everything, but I do. Unconditional Trust.

“I can’t go anywhere, Michael,” I tell him, regretfully. I’d actually love to go away with him, but it’s not practical.

“Why can’t you?” he asks, and he has that tone. The one that says he’s mildly upset and determined to get his way. Then again, Michael is always determined to get his way.

“Because, I have things to do here,” I reply, not bothering to look up, trying not to engage. I don’t want to argue over this, because what usually happens is I give in. I find it hard to concentrate on anything when Michael looks at me with his dark eyes and those beautiful lips of his smile at me like I’m the only woman in the world that matters. Heck, I find it hard to breathe when he does that.

“What kind of things?” he asks, using the remote to pause the movie we’re watching. The remote to the brand new sixty-five-inch, ultra HD television he bought last week.

Heck, the coffee table his feet are on, he made. He made it with his own hands, and I love it. It’s the most beautiful piece of furniture I’ve ever had in my life. It’s just simple lines, nothing fancy and it’s made out of old barn wood that Michael sanded by hand and then stained it with a dark varnish. He even made two matching end tables. I’ll keep these tables until the day I die. That’s how precious they are to me. When I told Michael that, I was crying in happiness. It’s something I do a lot these days. Michael only shook his head and kissed me.

He’s always doing things like that. In fact, we’re sitting on the new sofa he bought too, and across from the sofa are two matching rocking recliners. His and Hers recliners. All these things he bought because he said they were needed, especially the rocking recliners. He told me he wanted to make sure Maggie could be rocked and happy when we have family night. Family night. Is there any wonder why I’m not completely in love with him? There’s not a woman alive that wouldn’t fall head over heels in love with him—it’s a physical impossibility.

Still, he has to quit spending money like that. He obviously has money, and I can only assume it’s from his time with his club back in Kentucky. But, he’s not in that life anymore. I don’t want him to waste his money on me. I’m terrified of him doing that. If he does that and money gets tight, he might go back to Kentucky. He might leave me…or worse. He might expect me to follow him to Kentucky and become part of his life there.

“I know you’ve been spending money on me like crazy, but Michael, we can’t live like this forever. We have to think of the future, and for me, that means finding a job. I have the bills paid up for another month, and you’ve been insisting on buying the groceries, but I need to have a job before long.”

“The hell you do. You’re not going to work, Hayden. You’re pregnant. Very pregnant. You have to take care of yourself.”

“I have to have a job to support myself.”

“Do I look like that kind of guy?” he growls. Pulling me around so I’m lying on my back, head still in his lap, looking up at him.

From this angle, I can see the scars that run up his neck and I have the strangest urge to reach up and lick them…

“Hayden! Stop ignoring me!”

“I’m not ignoring you,” I defend, with a sigh.

“Then what are you doing? I’m trying to have an argument with you here.”

“I’m thinking about licking your neck,” I tell him, with an annoyed sigh. “And what do you mean, that kind of guy? You’re the one not making sense.”

“You want to lick my neck?” he asks, incredulously.

“All of you really, but I’d start there. If you’d stop being grumpy.”

He grunts in reply, and I can’t help but giggle.

I also sit up, and turn to the side enough so I can place a kiss against his Adam’s apple, then I run my tongue along the groove of the deepest scar there, thankful he let me trim his beard shorter.

“Fuck,” he hisses, as I use my teeth to bite along the corded muscle in his neck. His large hand covers my breast, squeezing it. “You’re trying to distract me,” he grumbles, and he’s right, but still…

“I’m feeling needy,” I whisper into his ear, my fingers burrowing into his hair.

“You’re always needy,” he groans, his hands sliding under the nightshirt I’m wearing.

I’ve given up pajamas lately, opting for Michael’s tshirts, or nightgowns. They give me more freedom with my ever-growing stomach. When his hand reaches underneath and goes straight between my legs, I’m pretty sure I’ll never go back to pajamas. There’s something to be said about easy access.

“You’re bare too,” his hoarse voice growls. His fingers dance across the lips of my pussy, before pushing them apart and zeroing in on my clit, teasing it. “Where’s your underwear, Beauty?”