I stomped my foot as he started to walk away. I actually stomped my foot.

“You haven’t even kissed me!” I yelled, my emotions all over the place. “We don’t need to call the doctor right now! I need you to kiss me and tell me you love me and then fuck me on our four hundred dollar bed that you insisted we have!”

My chest was heaving as he turned back around, the most beautiful smile pulling at his cheeks and crinkling his eyes.

“You’re having our baby,” he roared loudly, lifting me so high by the backs of my thighs that I had to lean forward or bump my head on the ceiling. I laughed hysterically as he spun in a circle. “I love you and you’re having my baby.”

“Yeah,” I whispered, my smile trembling.

He carefully slid me down his body until my legs were wrapped around his waist and grabbed the back of my head.

“I love you,” he murmured into my mouth. “Best thing I ever did—taking you outta that house. I’d change a lotta shit that came after if I could, but even if I did, we still woulda ended up right here where we are now.”

He kissed me hard as he laid me down on the bed.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered as he softly rubbed his thumb back and forth below my belly button. “What’d I do to deserve you?”

“You saved me,” I whispered back.

Chapter 57

Grease

If I’d thought leaving Callie was hard before, it was nothing compared to leaving her then. Shit was heating up big time with the Jimenez gang, and I had to get back to Oregon to deal with it. Stuff like that made me glad Slider was head of the club. He was able to see the big picture, where I would’ve flown off the handle a year before.

The Jimenez brothers had fucked up badly when they sent me into Jose’s. Not only had they practically shoved me into a fucking trap, but they’d still owed us thousands of dollars when all was said and done. They’d played like they’d had no idea what was happening with Jose—that he’d acted on his own—but it didn’t matter what they’d claimed. They’d successfully put themselves on Slider’s radar which was never a good thing.

Over the past two years they’d continued to fuck up, talking shit to the wrong people and claiming an alliance with the Aces as they did it, leaving us to smooth shit over with clubs we’d never had a problem with before. It was bullshit.

The latest in a long line of shit was with a club out of Montana and we hadn’t smoothed that one over. We’d thrown the Jimenez boys under the bus, breaking all affiliation instead. Slider hadn’t been willing to overlook shit anymore and was somewhat friends with the club president up in Montana. He drew the line on fucking with the guy.

It burned me that my brother Deke was a part of those assholes, but there was nothing I could do about it. I’d given him more than enough chances to break with them with no blowback, but he hadn’t taken them. I don’t know which was his biggest issue: his loyalty to them or the meth they were supplying to him. I had to let him hang himself, which was exactly what was going to happen if Slider found proof that they’d put the hit out on Echo.

Slider would find out what happened, and God help the person who’d sanctioned the hit. They not only took one of ours, but could’ve killed his daughter. He wasn’t going to let that shit pass, and the more we dug, the more we found that all signs pointed to southern California.

I’d taken Callie to the doctor and made sure everything was fine with her and our kid. They’d even done an ultrasound to see how far along she was. In the movies, they’d put some shit on her belly and then rub it with a little wand, but apparently she was too early for that shit. When they pulled out this fucking probe that they were going to stick inside her, I think we both went a little pale. Watching anyone, even a woman doctor, lube that shit up so they could put it inside a place that was meant for me made me sick. I’d had a hard time even focusing on the little screen they were showing us, my skin feeling too tight for my body all of a sudden, and I’d been happy as hell when it was all over. I’d made her take a bath when we’d gotten home, anxious to wash that shit off.

We’d also talked to the owner of her apartment and convinced him to let her move into the unit next door that had two bedrooms. I wasn’t sure how long she’d be staying there—I was anxious to have her with me—but she couldn’t keep sleeping on the fucking couch with Farrah and Gram in our bed. Cody’d gone to San Diego to make sure all was okay with Gram’s house, but eventually he’d be back, and there were too many people for a fucking one-bedroom apartment. It was easy to move her, we only had to carry shit a few feet down the walkway, and I could see how relieved she was when we were all done. We’d have our own bedroom again. Thank fuck.

I was getting ready to leave, packing up my saddle bags, when Callie came stumbling down the stairs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She was wearing a little black tank top with no bra, and I thanked the pregnancy gods for the way her tits had grown. I’d thought she was perfect before, but holy shit, they seemed to be growing more by the day—I couldn’t keep my hands off them.

When she was at the bottom of the stairs, she froze, her eyes opening wide. My body tensed and I searched the area for anything out of place, but couldn’t see anything that would freak her out.

“Hey, Sugar,” I called, smiling. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just tired,” she answered cautiously, watching the neighborhood carefully as she came to me.