JARED (Lane Brothers Book 4) (60 page)

As I wait for Lucian to come back, I stare down at the rock—the thing is a huge blue boulder that takes up almost all of my first knuckle—totally shell-shocked.

Oh, God in heaven.

This is…

Get a grip, Ash. You knew the man was either gonna use you like a roll of toilet paper or get you stamped. Haven’t you learned anything in the last few weeks?

Yeah, I have. Lucian, like I’ve said, is a force of nature. He sees something he wants, and hoo boy, does he ever go after it with a single-mindedness that I’m still trying to deal with.

I’ve witnessed his seriousness not only in the way he cares for Ben but also in the way he’s on me like white on rice at all hours. For God’s sake, I went to the store yesterday and caught some suit dogging my steps.

How I know that the guy is a bodyguard and not a stalker is simple: I know Lucian too freaking well. The guy is controlling and just plain crazy, and he’d warned me that he wouldn’t let me run, even if I had second thoughts.

This, though, is just…too fast for comfort.

“What the heck?” I yell as soon as his over confident ass comes back in the door.

I’m still slumped at the edge of the bed where I’d fallen when my knees had given out, so when he kneels at my feet, grinning in that same way I’d seen the crazy Cammy do all night, I know my tickets been punched.

Permanently.

“Don’t start, love,” he warns, running his hands up my thighs and beneath the silk tap pants I’m wearing.

“But…but this is, like, a freaking engagement ring!”

The look he gives me says he’s not sure about my intelligence, and I whack his arm hard, letting him know how much I appreciate his messed up sense of humor.

“I know what it is, you mook, I just don’t know why you think shoving the thing on my finger without so much as a word is acceptable. Jesus, Lucian, this is too much. I’m not ready for this type of commitment.”

That sets off that temper of his, and he shoves to his feet to stand over me, his body one hard slab of immovable muscle. When he plants a hand on my chest and shoves me down before pinning me beneath his body, I know I’ve pissed him off beyond the point of return.

“Ready or not, you will marry me and let me put my name on you and my lad,” he growls, shushing me with a glare. “You should have known the moment you allowed me into your body that I wouldn’t give you up. You made the choice to give yourself to me, and now that I have you I have no intention of letting go. Ever. So wrap your brain around the fact that you’re mine and move the fuck on.”

My first inclination is to blast his ass to hell and back and tell him he’s a crazy bastard for even thinking he has the right to issue orders. I’m a modern woman; he can’t just throw a ring at me and expect to get his way in everything.

Love or no love.

But he doesn’t give me the chance to do anything more than moan when he seals his mouth over mine and kisses me into a writhing heap of instant need.

An hour later my mouth is too busy screaming his name as he powers into me with a determination that leaves me blissed out and too addicted to care about his controlling ways.

“Jesus, you’re perfect,” he groans, falling into me after an orgasm that left my toes curling. “You have to marry me, love.”

The grin I get from him when he pulls his face out of my neck is so evil I shudder and lick my lips nervously.

“Why?”

“Because, my love, I’m pretty sure I just put my son inside you.”

***

The next two weeks are everything I never knew I could want. Lucian is attentive and caring, and short of telling me he loves me, I almost feel like maybe he could.

I’ve made strides with Ben, and he’s gone so far as to tell me a few things about why he turned into Rocky and wailed on the kids at his old school.

So yeah, I feel great, and you know what? I look it. My skin’s not gray from fatigue anymore, thanks to Lucian’s insistence that I sleep in and take a nap like a five-year-old in the afternoons.

My hair is shining because of that expensive shampoo he buys, and I’ve picked up a pound or two, making me look nicely curved instead of like a cracked out model wannabe.

And yes, I am so married. Now, don’t get weird and all girly on my ass about not mentioning the wedding. There wasn’t one. I got hitched at the courthouse four days after he put his ring on my finger.

With him it’s important to know that actions speak louder than words and that despite his ‘kindness’ the last few days—once again, his words, not mine—he really isn’t into wasting time.

Why did I acquiesce and get married? Because the guy is right. We hadn’t used protection once since he’d taken me, and I’m not stupid enough to get knocked up without a ring on my finger.

My mom raised me right.

We haven’t had a honeymoon, though, because Lucian says that leaving Ben right now isn’t a good idea, that we need to make him feel included in everything to assure him that his place as ‘our child’ is rock solid and not to be doubted.

Suits me, since I’m a little afraid of being totally alone and without a buffer to temper all that wildness I’ve glimpsed beneath his surface.

In short, my life seems to be absolutely perfect.

The phone rings just as I’m putting the finishing touches on a cake the
Food Network
taught me to bake. God, do I ever love that my husband is pretentious enough to have a flat screen TV and cable in the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Is this Miss Ashley Munro?”

“Nope,” I say, grinning like a loon. “This is Mrs Ashley Jasper. What can I do you for?”

A throat clears tersely, and I lose my grin, dropping the icing bag to the counter beneath me.

“Mrs Jasper, my name is Stewart Ingles. I represent your father, Wesley Munro.”

Warning bells start ringing in my head at the mention of my father’s name. Especially since the guy on the phone sounds like a lawyer and not some chump.

“Um, represent?”

“Yes, Mrs Jasper.”

He goes on to explain how Wesley is shitting a brick about Lucian filing adoption papers to make Ben his—something I didn’t know about, by the way— and by the time he’s done I am so fuming mad I have to force myself to slowly release the phone and not smash it to a million pieces.

That piece of shit thinks he’s gonna come storming back in to take our boy? He’s got another freaking thing coming.

“Lucian.”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, immediately sensing my mood, even though we’re only on the phone.

“I got a call from a lawyer representing Wesley. He wants our kid, Luc.”

There’ll be time for tears later. For now I need to set my junkyard dog on Wesley’s ass before he gets any further in this madness.

I hear a slew of the most vile cursing, something that is so not Lucian. He never curses in my company because—God, I want to laugh every time I remember it. According to him and Ben, ‘a real man does not abuse his woman with vile language’.

“Don’t worry, love. I’ve got this. Okay. No, Brody, tell that son of a bitch I want the whole team in here NOW! I don’t give a bloody fuck what they have going. I need to get this sorted before that smarmy twat gets his filthy hooks into my son.”

Maybe he doesn’t realize I’m still on the phone or something because he’s yelling at poor Brody and flinging around a few obscenities I didn’t know existed.

“Tell Harry to go get my kid and take him home to Ashley. Then I want you to get Judge Masters on the phone.”

Well, phew, if he has a judge in his pocket I feel much better about things. I know how bad it sounds, but now that I have money—Lucian’s billions—behind me, I won’t hesitate to use it in any way possible to get my way.

“Luc?”

“Love, ah, sorry.”

“That’s okay. I’ll leave you to it and go wait at the door for Ben. See you later, babe.”

“Ash, wait,” he says quietly, making me hold my breath.

His tone is way too quiet and leashed for my liking, especially considering the ruckus he’s just made, so I wait, holding my breath.

“Please don’t stress about this. I’ll handle it.”

“I know. That’s why I love you,” I whisper before ending the call to run to the front door.

Luc

Being the kind of man that I am—yes, a controlling, paranoid bastard—I decide to go to the school and get my kid. When I get there to see him waiting on the steps with the principal securely holding his hand, I feel a thousand times better and release the breath I’ve been holding since my woman phoned me.

I know why this is happening, and the knowledge that my vendetta against Wesley Munro has caused this makes acid churn in my belly. I’d contacted his new wife, a very nice woman by the name of Priscilla, and told her the whole sordid truth about his abandonment and theft.

Of course she’d been horrified, and by the end of the call I’d given her a cool quarter million to get her and her son started elsewhere and on the road to a divorce.

Then I’d gone at the man like a shark scenting blood and ripped the rug out from under him. He no longer had a home or the fledgling landscaping business he’d sunk half of my woman’s money into.

I left him with only the clothes on his back and whatever money he had in his wallet.

Seemed only fair, since he’d royally screwed with what I consider mine.

Now he’s out for revenge, and he’s trying to use my family to get it. Well, fuck him! I take care of what’s mine, and when it comes to my family he’d better believe he’s going to suffer for this move.

“Hey, Luc, what’s up?”

“Nothing, lad. I just thought we could play hooky and give Ashley another swimming lesson today. Maybe we can even convince her to let us have ice cream before lunch.”

He babbles the whole way home, his little face excited at the prospect of cutting school and teasing his sister for the rest of the day.

I watch him bound from the car and through the door with an enthusiasm that only the young can possess and follow him in, calling for my wife as I drop my briefcase and make my way to the kitchen, ready to soothe her fears and do what a husband should.

Take care of business.

The sight that greets me when I walk in stops me dead in my tracks, leaching the color from my skin and nearly sending me to my knees.

Glass everywhere. The remains of the chocolate cake she’d promised me this morning littering the floor and smeared over the counter and refrigerator.

Blood, streaking the bottom half of the kitchen island, looking suspiciously like the delicate handprint of my wife.

I roar, long and loud, my rage unstoppable, knowing that searching the house will be useless.

My wife is gone.

Bright lights flicker over the pinkness covering my eyes, adding another excruciating layer of pain to my throbbing head and the sticky gash over my left eye.

At first I can’t say why I feel this way or what the heck is going on. No, I lie perfectly still and keep my eyes screwed shut, waiting for Lucian to come and harass me out of bed.

I’ll say ‘my head’s killing me’, and he’ll be his usual self and practically fall all over himself fixing me up or getting me to the doctor. For some reason, he hates it when I feel anything less than stellar.

I can’t tell you why, either, since sometimes when I catch him looking at me his face is so inscrutable I could swear he feels nothing at all. Then at other times he looks at me in a way I can’t decipher, but…it makes my stomach feel all butterfly wings and nervous joy.

Eventually I realize that this, all these rambling musings, are nothing more than my mind’s way of tricking me into a sense of calmness because I know exactly what’s going on around me, and none of it is even halfway as good as Lucian haranguing me to get up so I can cook him breakfast and kiss him goodbye.

No, this is me trapped in a moving vehicle with the one man I’d hoped never to see again.

When the hysteria that bubbles up lightens a bit—only through sheer force of will and the fear that he’ll know I’m awake—I crack a lid and squint forward, pressing my lips together as the enormity of my situation hits me.

Wesley has me tied, hand and foot, in the backseat of a car expensive enough to have leather seats—ooh, soft and comfy—and is currently driving while listening to Chicago.

Ironic.

In this position, tied as I am—wrists to ankles—I’m pretty sure that he has nothing to worry about. Everything on me is numb and feels like concrete.

Doesn’t stop my limbs and joints from hurting, though, I can tell you that much.

The fear gets worse then, because I’m well and truly at his mercy, something that his actions thus far have pretty much proven he doesn’t feel for me.

Let’s back it up.

After Lucian had called I’d run to the front door and flung it open like an idiot, intent on waiting on the front steps for Ben. Silly me. As soon as that barrier had cleared the frame he’d been there, his face a mask of seething hatred and what I now recognize as his intention to harm me.

“What are you doing here, Wesley?”

He hadn’t answered, had lunged at me instead, and somehow my spazzed out brain had known that he was up to no good. I’d freaked and slammed the door, twisting to run and get back to the phone.

Somehow I’d known what he was going to do—well, not known exactly, but I’d been terrified enough to bolt. He’d tackled me at the kitchen door, taking me down so hard we’d both flown into the counter.

Things are a little sketchy for me after that, since his NFL tactics had landed my eye against the smooth marble and I’d been fighting to stay conscious.

I remember fighting, though. And ruining the surprise birthday cake I’d baked. Sure, Lucian had known I’d made cake. What he hadn’t known was that I was making it to celebrate his birthday, something I shouldn’t have known, since he’d been so closed lipped about it.

Luckily for him I have the memory of an elephant—a very svelte one, thank you very much—and…oh, who am I kidding, I’ve never forgotten his birthday, not once in seven years.

Just happens to be this year I’m baking him a cake instead of drinking cheap wine and toasting ‘the rat bastard asshole butthead’.

Now, though…now I’m probably halfway to death.

“I know you’re awake, Ash, so you can stop pretending.”

Sheeeit.

I roll over onto my side with a groan and open my eyes fully, cursing beneath my breath when a family of rhinocer—is it rhinoceros, rhinoceroses or rhinoceri?

Oh, whatever. The bastards take up residence inside my skull and proceed to mash the hell out of my gray matter.

“I have something for your head if it’s hurting.”

“Okay.”

Shouldn’t I be screaming and yelling at this asshole? I know I should, but as he pulls off to the side of the road and turns to me all I see is the daddy I missed, the man who’d kissed all my booboos and held my hand the first day of kindergarten.

I see the father I haven’t allowed myself to yearn for, and the thought brings immediate tears to my eyes.

“Here.”

I accept the pain medication and water, gulping the clear, cold liquid with desperation and thanks when the coolness relieves some of the pressure behind my eyeballs.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The ridiculousness of the situation, of our responses, hits me, and I chuckle despite myself, feeling that wave of hysteria washing over me. I should be yelling obscenities and trying to get out of the cable ties cutting into my skin.

I should at least make a token effort to kick his face in before telling him what a jackass he is.

I don’t, I just stare at him, willing him to see what a monumental mistake he’s made. Who the heck abandons his own kids for three freaking years and then comes back to kidnap one?

I’m the freaking grown one! Shouldn’t he have gone for Ben?

I know I sound so bad right now, but if he’d made a play for Ben I’d be at home with my family right now while the police worked Wesley over and threw the book at him.

“Don’t look at me like that! You don’t understand any of this, you little bitch,” he grates, shoving me back into the seat before twisting and hitting the gas to get us moving again.

“What? What don’t I understand! You left your family without a second thought, and now you’ve not only kidnapped me from mine but you’ve hurt me!”

Lucian is so gonna kick your ass for hurting me!

The thought comes out of left field, but it’s so right it makes me smile. He may not love me, may not like me most days, but I’m his, and Lucian always takes care of what’s his.

When—not
if
but
when
he does find me…watch out, Wesley, because you’re in sooo much trouble.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you! I just wanted to talk to you…to get you to understand! But you ran before I could say anything,” he mutters, hitting the steering wheel with a huff. “You have to make him stop. Please, Ash, you have to make him leave me alone.”

What? What the hell is he talking about?

“I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about,” I hiss, scooting up and leaning into the seat.

This upright position makes my blood rush back to my deadened limbs, and shit! It hurts a lot.

“He told my wife.” He starts crying then, and I harden my heart against his quiet sobs. “He told her that I… She left me and took my boy. She took him away.”

He… I gasp out a wheezing breath and shake my head forcefully against the bitter tears wetting my eyes.

“You have a wife and kid?”

Everything else ceases to exist for me in that moment, everything but the bitter taste of loathing and resentment. He’s crying about losing a son, about losing his precious boy, when he’s had one all along. One he threw away like garbage. One who has spent three years coming to terms with losing a man I now see isn’t worth a lick of spit.

And then I see Lucian’s face. Lucian smiling at Ben as they romp in the pool. Lucian’s stern face when he corrects Ben’s grammar and chides him for being rude in my presence. Lucian’s pride when he introduces Ben as our kid.

The bitterness recedes beneath a swell of love so fierce I realize I’ve been fooling myself all along. I love him, and not that generic love I felt before, or have fooled myself into thinking I’ve feel lately, but that all-consuming feeling of belonging that scares me half to death.

Crap.

“Yeah. And she left and took him. Then your…husband,” he spits the word like a curse and looks back at me with contempt. “Took all the money. He’s ruined me.”

In this type of situation I would’ve asked a million questions to satisfy my curiosity. Not now, though. Now I’m just biding my time till my man comes to get me.

Strangely, I don’t give a shit what Wesley did in the past or what he feels. I don’t care anymore. And as far as answers, well, I’ll get them from Lucian when he comes.

My silence seems to have a less than calming effect on Wesley, though, and I cringe when he turns the car sharply and we start bouncing over an uneven dirt road leading into the woods.

Oh, crapsickles.

I hate the woods, have had nightmares about getting lost in them since the night I’d snuck downstairs and watched
Friday the 13th
by myself.

I can’t even go camping, thanks to my illogical fear of meeting Jason, the machete-wielding maniac who just doesn’t die.

“Uh, where are we going?”

I so do not wanna go into the woods with him. It had worked out for Meryl Streep and her band of simpletons, but as far as I can tell I’m in a boatload of trouble when this car stops moving, and even if I manage to get loose and run, well, I am so far from survival-ready I may as well just stay with dear old Dad and see what he has in store for me.

“You’ll see.”