“Yeah, I’m going to pass,” Carter said, smirking, and I swear that easy moment hit me like a punch in the chest. Then he turned to me, and the smirk dropped. “Your momma and I are going to be having a chat later about her problem following instructions.”
I swallowed. Damn that freaking stern doctor voice of his.
“It seemed silly to wait. I—thank you.” I was practically gushing. I wanted to roll my eyes at this woman who had invaded my once orderly headspace.
As if I didn’t have enough problems, my mind decided to toss out the image of a shirtless Carter from last night.
He left to get changed before my face burned up, and by the time I carried Adam through to the open lounge, I’d dragged some composure back.
It was easy to be around Carter. He was surprisingly patient, even when Adam decided to have a screaming session as I went to put him in the new crib.
Then night came around again and we slept in the same bed. I didn’t even pretend to resist when he flung an arm around me and drew my back against his chest.
It felt right. When was the last time someone had held me?
My body and mind hummed with the simple pleasure of feeling safe. I wriggled, subconsciously seeking a closer connection. That was when I felt the hard ridge pressing into my ass.
I froze.
“Ignore it,” he said, voice low and a little sleepy, his arm tightening like he sensed I was about to freak out.
I couldn’t ignore it. He was a man with ridiculously floppy brown hair, but still a man in possession of that male instrument of destruction.
If I hated men, I hated their cocks more. There was a time when if the opportunity were given, I’d have liberated every living male of that wicked appendage.
Then Adam arrived, and I determined that they were not all bad. Not even his father, Glenn, whom I’d convinced myself I hated, too.
In the darkness of night, as I lay in the embrace of another man, I reflected that I didn’t hate Adam’s father at all. I loved him, but I hated that he had died and left me alone.
I hated it worse that he’d died trying to protect our unborn child and me.
I’d never cried about it, not once. I cried about Adam, about the lack of ready chocolate, about the sorry state of my threadbare clothes. But I’d never once acknowledged the depression that had gripped me when that good man left this earthly world.
Maybe all the tears had been about Glenn?
Yeah, I thought that they might have been.
I recalled someone saying once that acknowledging a problem was the first step in its resolution. I hadn’t been ready to face my pain before. Memories of the boy who became a man and who stuck with me throughout the dark years after the collapse were too painful. Today, as Carter’s warm oh-so-strong body curved around mine, I thought about Glenn a lot.
Despite my painful emotional awakening, I managed to get some sleep.
All too soon, it was time for me to start my job. Strong, undeterminable emotions gripped me when Carter drew out the brander that hung on a chain around his neck and turned to Adam with intent. “He needs an owner,” he said. “Until he comes of age and can take one of his own.”
Adam had never had an owner. Never had a male figure to look out for him.
My nod was swift, fluttery nerves low in my belly. I didn’t want my baby’s perfect skin to bear any mark. And yet, it wasn’t a terrible mark. I’d even looked at mine for the first time yesterday, bracing myself for the aversion that never came.
The deed was done swiftly. Adam barely fussed.
“He’s mine now,” Carter said, eyes lifting from Adam to me. “Both of you are mine.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Blaine
I HADN’T SEEN Carter since he’d put my brand on Ava, but word had reached me that he’d claimed ownership of another woman from Sanctuary.
Carter, who had zero interest in ownership.
Carter, who had zero interest in babies in any form or proximity, had taken on both a mother and a child.
I’d no interest in them either before Ava blundered into my life. She wasn’t on any birth control, according to Carter’s report. As soon as I’d read that little side note, I’d been obsessed with planting my seed in her belly, and I was fucking into her sore pussy every chance I got.
There were rules around challenges. During pregnancy and for a year after, you couldn’t be challenged. It suited Taylor’s plans to have an expanding population. While the lack of challenge to my ownership was an appealing benefit, I just wanted her good and knocked up.
She had yet to leave my home. I knew that I’d have to let her out eventually or she would go crazy in the apartment alone. But every time I walked in the door, I had her under me and was fucking her into next week.
We barely spoke. Not the best way to create a lasting relationship, which was clearly what I wanted given I was determined to put my kid in her belly. But I couldn’t think straight when I was around her.
I’d have appreciated some respite from Taylor’s domination plans, but his most recent and largest acquisition was far from accepting of its fate. Trouble had kicked off. A small pocket of resistance had holed up in the southern slums, and it had taken the better part of three days to clear it out.
Every inch of my body was battered and bruised. I was soaked through—all it did was fucking rain at this time of year. It had been three days since I’d been home, slept in my own bed, and enjoyed the luxury of feeling clean. At least I’d had the foresight to give Ava a cell phone and had spoken to her twice. Now that order was restored, all I wanted to do was take a shower, eat, sleep, and make sure my woman hadn’t caused any trouble in no particular order.
The message to report to Taylor immediately could not have come at a worse time. If fresh troubles had started, I was going to unleash hell.
I found Taylor in his office, relaxed in his leather wingback chair behind an equally pretentious desk. A tumbler of whiskey rested on the leather top. To his left, rain-splattered windows distorted the nighttime city lights.
He wasn’t alone. Sitting opposite was the political worm, Frank Hurst.
Hurst’s lips curled in a sneer as he inspected me. I was still wearing my fatigues and body armor, which were filthy, torn up in places and spattered with mud and blood.
“Been fraternizing with the locals again, Blaine?” Hurst said. “I think you actually enjoy playing thug. Lucky for you that Taylor’s conquests provide you with the opportunity. You always were more cage fighter material.”
“Fuck off, Hurst,” I replied. I was head and shoulders above him when he was standing and had at least a hundred pounds over him. Given how many verbal altercations we’d had over the years, I had no problem with blatant intimidation.
Taylor chuckled. The self-appointed king might be intelligent, but he was also a psycho and loved nothing better than a little sparring between his close ranks.
“You better leave us to talk, Frank.” Taylor’s grin was all teeth. “He’s looking pissed, and I suspect my news is going to piss him off even more. You probably don’t want to be here when that happens.” He may be talking to Hurst, but it was me he stared at with calculation in his eyes.
What the fuck was he about to tell me?