Joy (Hell's Handlers MC 7)

As proof of her words, their child kicked directly into his hand.

Another difference between Izzy and his wife. Callie had loved being pregnant. She’d reveled in the changes to her body and even the weight gain, whereas Izzy struggled with the inability to push her body to the max as she’d done prior.

In a move so un-Izzy, he blinked to make sure she was really the one next to him, she lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed his palm before returning it to her stomach. Once again, the baby inside nudged him. “You know it’s not going to happen, right?”

“Huh?” He shifted to find Izzy’s head resting against the couch, facing him. “What’s not going to happen?”

“You’re not going to lose us.”

His throat thickened. For a few moments, they just stared at each other until the baby punted again.

A soft smile tipped Izzy’s lips. “If you tell anyone I said this, I’ll kill you in your sleep, but I’m really going to miss feeling your spawn moving around in there.”

That statement did nothing to ease his tension. Only served to remind him of how amazing his woman was.

She must have sensed his distress because she placed her hand over his. “I mean it, Jig. Nothing is going to happen to us. We’re safe, happy, and prepared for more of life’s troubles than you were back then. I’m not Callie. Not that there was anything inadequate about her, but I can handle myself. I can protect myself and our child in ways most women can’t. And you can protect us. Then there’s the back up of your brothers. We’re safe, baby. Safer than most. You don’t need to worry about anything bad happening to us.”

The scar on his face tingled until he couldn’t ignore the prickles and rubbed it. Izzy caught his hand, pulling it down before she pressed a kiss to the raised skin of his cheek. “I want you to enjoy this,” she whispered in his ear. “To enjoy being a father. Enjoy watching me fumble around as a mother. You can’t do that if you’re worried about what’s lurking around every corner.”

“How’d you know?”

Her rare sweet smile warmed him every time. “Because I know you, baby. I know how you think and how you stress.”

God, she was killing him. Ripping his heart out and exposing every insecurity that plagued him. He should have known she was on to him and wouldn’t let him stew in silence. Izzy confronted problems head-on with guns blazing. This conversation, so reminiscent of one they’d had months ago, when he first told her about his past, had some pressure finally easing out of him. Back then, they’d sat on this very couch, and he’d bared his soul for the first time. Izzy had said all the right things then as well.

“Nothing. Will. Happen. To. Us. I will fight with everything in me to ensure we get our happy ending, Jig. And you know this bitch can throw down.”

He chuckled, as had probably been her intent. She could only handle so much intense emotion. “Fuck, Isabella, I love you.”

She tilted her head as she ran her hand up and down the ridges of his abdomen. Since he never slept in anything more than boxer briefs, if that, the hardening of his cock wasn’t exactly hidden. But Izzy made no move toward sex.

“You know that’s okay, too, right?”

“What?”

“It’s okay for you to love me as much as I know you do. It’s okay for you to love a woman who is nothing like the woman you married. From what you’ve told me of her, she’d want this for you.”

Jesus, was she a fucking mind reader? “I—” Fuck, what the hell was happening to him? He couldn’t even fucking speak.

“You show me every day, Jig. And I know you. You’re hard and lethal, with steel at your core. Different from what you’ve told me of the man you used to be. But he’s not gone, Jig. He’s still there. He’s there every time you rub my aching back or surprise me with a milkshake. He’s there when you make me dinner and let me ramble on if I’ve had a shit day. He’s especially there when you wake up in the middle of the night and whisper in my ear that you love me.”

She knew about that? He’d thought she’d been asleep all those times.

“He’s there in everything you do, but it’s okay that he’s changed. It’s okay that he’s no longer Linc, but now Jigsaw. Life is basically us doing the best we can to manage the circumstances we’ve been given. And you were given far worse than most. What you went through would change anyone, baby. Anyone. So it’s okay that you’re not the same version of you. Callie would have wanted you to find love. She’d have wanted me for you even if she wouldn’t have understood me. Because I love you, Jig. And I love her, Lincoln. I’ll take care of you both, and your spawn,” she said as she rubbed over her stomach, “with the fierceness of a lion.”