“Goodbye, girlfriend.” He leaned in with a smile to air kiss both of her cheeks. He then did the same to Dyna, causing the baby to release a happy gurgle. “Bye, munchkin. So damn cute. She’s making my ovaries explode.”
Jemma laughed. Teddy was a trip and she’d had a blast the whole time she sat in his salon chair for her cut and blow out. He even gave her a few makeup pointers for her interview tomorrow.
The man was a town treasure, that was for sure.
She promised him that if she got the job in Williamsport, she’d become a permanent client. That got him wiggling his tush, doing a twirl and pretending to throw glitter up in the air.
He’d been great with Dyna, too. Very patient and understanding when Jemma had to take a quick break to give the baby a bottle.
And burp her.
And change her diaper.
But now with a fresh cut and style, Jemma was ready to slay her interview.
She pointed the stroller toward the municipal lot which was located across Main Street and two blocks down. She took her time walking back to the Volvo, enjoying the July sun on her face and the warmth in her bones. The light summer breeze helped keep it from being a sweltering day.
She smiled down at Dyna in her Future Biker Babe short-sleeved onesie.
Jemma had not only fallen for the baby girl in the stroller, but for the baby’s father.
The last couple of mornings, waking up with Cage wrapped around her, proved it. The uncontrollable heat between them the last couple of nights proved it, too.
Sex had never been like that with any of her previous partners or boyfriends. Even though she’d had some spectacular sex before, with Cage, it was on another level.
It could only be chalked up to the crazy, unexplainable connection they shared.
The weirdness she didn’t understand.
After fucking against the wall in the shed, she had run into the trailer to escape what they did, escape him, escape how that sex made her feel.
Which was scared.
Scared it would make her fall even deeper for Cage and she wouldn’t be able to leave.
But he flayed himself open, made himself vulnerable, something she never expected a man, and a biker, like Cage to do. That speared her right in the heart. And the feelings for the man she’d been shoving down came bubbling back up.
As scared as she was to say yes, she found she couldn’t say no.
Alfred Lord Tennyson once said, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Jemma looked at their situation as the poet did.
Cage knew she was leaving, he accepted it, so what could it hurt to give them both what they wanted? For whatever time left she had in Manning Grove, she’d allow herself to have Cage and for him to have her.
And, damn, did he know how to take what he wanted...
As soon as she’d agreed, he grabbed the baby monitor off the counter bar and tossed it at her without warning. As she instinctively caught it, he rushed over and knocked the wind out of her when he threw her over his shoulder. She muffled her squeal as he barreled into her room only a few steps away.
He fell to the bed with her and, on his hands and knees, caged her beneath him. His longish hair fell free and curtained his face.
“Your ribs!” she scolded.
“They’re fine.” He gave her a panty-melting, crooked grin. “We’re fuckin’ in here, then sleepin’ in my bed after.”
His growled demands caused fire to flicker all the way to her very core. “I can sleep in my own bed.”
Did she want to sleep in his bed next to him? Yes.
But did she still need to protect herself? Also yes.
“Fuck that. Takin’ the time you’re givin’ me and makin’ the most of it.”
He smothered her response with a long, deep, toe-curling kiss. By the time he was done, she’d forgotten what they’d been talking about.
Now on the sidewalk, she gasped softly as the memory overtook her. Her breathing shallowed, her pussy clenched, her fingers tightly clutched the stroller’s handles in an attempt to keep herself grounded in the here and now.
It became impossible.
Lost in that night, she came to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk and let that memory sweep her away.
The way he claimed her lips. How he controlled her breathing, her heartbeat, with every single touch, with every kiss, with every stroke of his tongue.
He yanked her old T-shirt over her head and tossed it behind him. After peeling her panties down her legs, he stood and removed his own briefs.
She rose onto her elbows to watch him, his cock long and hard, flexing within his own fingers as he stared at her naked on the bed, and fisted himself slowly.