Finally. He slipped in beside her and pulled her into his arms. With their future hanging in the balance, he didn’t plan to miss a minute of having her as close as possible.
“Don’t you think it might be time to tell them?”
Cassie fell silent. Then, just when he thought she’d fallen asleep, she said, “No. Not yet. Izzy’s due any second now, and Christmas is next week. Holly struggles this time of year since her birthday is always a reminder of the sister she lost. And something is bothering Shell, I just haven’t figured out what yet. It’s not the right time to lay something as heavy as this on them.”
His woman was the definition of selfless. “And that’s why they all love you so damn much, Mama V,” he said. “You take care of each one of those chicks as though they were your own.”
“Mmm, they are mine.”
“Yeah, but, woman, do you have any idea what they’re going to do to me when they find out you’ve been keeping this quiet for months? They’re a vicious bunch of bloodthirsty bitches, and once that baby is out of Izzy, all bets are off. She’ll kick my ass, no questions asked.”
With a soft chuckle, Cassie huddled even deeper into his embrace. “Just want all of us to enjoy Christmas together without the sadness of cancer ruining the mood. This might be my last, and I’m not going to spend it being gawked at with pity and watching my girls cry for me.”
Her last Christmas? Jesus Christ, Viper’s heart had never hurt as much as it did right then. He wanted to deny it, tell her there was no fucking way this would be her last Christmas, but they both knew the words would only be that…words. They had a very real enemy attacking them from all angles.
They were fighting her cancer with every weapon in modern medicine’s arsenal, but both knew there were no guarantees in life. They’d both seen and survived too much to view the world through rose-colored glasses. But that wouldn’t stop them from fighting like hell to survive this. And as they battled, Viper would grant her every wish, and make sure she knew just how much she was loved.
If that meant getting his ass kicked by Izzy, so be it.
His ol’ lady was going to have the merriest fucking Christmas of her life.
CHAPTER TWO
SCREW
Screw blew into his hands then rubbed them together, trapping the heat of his breath. The move warmed him for about ten seconds, but then the cold took over again. So much for being a tough biker who didn’t need gloves.
What the fuck was taking her so long?
Shit couldn’t have gone better. Even Mother fucking Nature got her ass in gear to make this night go exactly as he’d planned. As he’d been planning for months. And if all continued to coast along as expected, Screw would be buried balls deep in Jazz within the hour.
No woman could resist all the stops he’d pulled out tonight. And this particular woman would be spreading her legs and begging him to fuck her.
Finally.
Jazz had the privilege of being the first woman—first person—to ever turn him down flat. And stick to her guns. That meant she was also the first woman to receive genuine effort from him. For fuck’s sake, he’d been working on her for months. Anything more than twenty minutes of work was out of his norm. Sure, his track record wasn’t one hundred percent right out the gate, but even those who turned down a night in his bed initially were easily swayed. A few heated looks, casual-yet-anything-but touches, and some whispered dirty words had the women and men falling into Screw’s bed without much effort.
Just as he liked it.
He liked to fuck, and he liked to fuck often.
And hard.
And dirty.
Shit, just thinking about fucking had him growing hard. He needed to rein that shit in if he wanted to convince Jazz to spread for him. The usual tricks wouldn’t work with her, and if she caught him rocking a boner out the gate, she’d be more apt to knee him in the balls than give them a lick or a tug.
A flash of light out of the corner of his eye had him turning just in time to catch Jazz’s small SUV pull into the driveway of the two-bedroom house she’d been renting for a little over a year.
He studied her for a moment as she sat behind the wheel of her car, staring through the windshield. Though the dark kept him from making out her exact features, Screw knew exactly what expression she wore in that moment. Lips compressed, face a mask of seriousness, eyes on the wrong side of sad. If anyone needed a good fucking, it was Jazz.
Lucky for her, Screw was up for the job.