Saving Lawson (Loving Lawson Book 2) (17 page)

I couldn’t think about it anymore in fear of breaking down again.

I left Heath and Kayden like that, chatting to each other as more animal sounds erupted. I entered the bathroom in the master bedroom and stripped. Standing in front of the mirror, I spun around, taking in every single inch of my body. I didn’t do this often like I did after I’d had Kayden. God, I’d been plastered to every imperfection back then, but now… Well, now they suited me and I’d learned to accept change. Change not just in myself, but in everything around me.

I stepped into the shower and drenched myself in hot water. I quickly shaved and brushed my teeth, getting all the essential parts of cleanliness out of the way. The door opened as I rinsed my mouth and Heath stepped in. He gave me one look before he threw his own clothes off and joined me.

“Little man’s fallen back asleep,” he told me, grabbing the body scrub and squirting it on the loofah.

“I think he purposely gets up so you can read him that book,” I remarked, smiling at him.

He nodded and turned my back against him. Slowly, he ran the loofah up and down my spine.

“I don’t mind it. I love every minute I get with him.”

              He lathered all of my back and ass before pulling me flush against his front. I shut my eyes when he started to kiss along my shoulder. His hand palmed my breast and he lightly stroked at my nipple. I arched my back to him and pressed my ass into his cock. He tensed at the feeling and sucked a little harder.

              “Heath,” I moaned.

              Slowly his lips climbed up my neck before wrapping around my earlobe. Tremors wracked my body and I gasped when his other hand travelled between my thighs. He only lightly brushed along my clit, stirring small bursts of pleasure. It was so nice to finally be touched! To finally be wanted after he’d avoided me like a plague over something meaningless like his brother.

              “You want me, don’t you?” he asked breathlessly, hardening from behind the more he touched me.

              I opened my glazed eyes. “Just you. I promise.”

              “Why?”

              “Because I love you.”

              “Even after everything?”

              I grabbed at his hand to stop him, and he stilled. I turned to him and wrapped a hand behind his neck. With the other one, I lightly ran my finger along his passive face, tracing the lines along his forehead before sliding my fingertip down his straight nose. Then I went over the curve of his lips, wishing for them to pull up into a smile. I missed that smile more than anything. I missed his stark humour. His ego and his confidence. Aside from his immense love for us, he was a shell.

              My fingers then moved away from his face and slid slowly down to his throat. His entire being froze when I went over the thick line. I traced it from ear to ear before glancing into his pained eyes. I frowned at the sadness that lurked there.

              “Even after everything,” I whispered to him as the water beat down on us. “I’m never leaving your side. Even after everything, I’ve stuck by you because we belong together.”

              He swallowed hard and leaned down to kiss me. I stopped him again. His brows came together in confusion.

              “As much as I love you, though,” I added, fighting back my emotions, “I still miss the old Heath. The one that smiled and stole my heart away.”

              He considered my words, those eyes leaping from side to side. Then he managed a stiff nod, and I let him kiss me after that. I let him pick me up and lead me to the bedroom where he placed me on the edge of the bed and slid into me hard. He took me with desperate need, biting and nipping at my flesh while I dug my fingers into his back and encouraged him not to stop. Harder and harder, he pounded within me, like he wanted to leave a part of himself long after he’d finished.  He dug his strong fingers deep into my flesh, thrusting into me with his heart out in the open.

              And regardless of his search for pleasure and something more, he still made me come first. He took into consideration my own needs, showing me there was still a huge part of his old self buried within him. He stared into my eyes, and they were bright and filled with love. He put his guard down when he took me, and he muttered his love in my ear, saying it more to himself than to me.

              Heath was still there, lurking in the corners of his being, begging to show on the surface. But he was concealed with a roughness I knew was impenetrable to anyone he didn’t care for.

              Afterwards, when we were sprawled on top of one another, stroking each other’s hair, I opened my mouth and told him everything Ryker said to me in the motel. I ran it through to him several times, and vented my frustrations and cried against his chest as he held me tighter, giving me the affection I craved.

              Heath didn’t look surprised by any of the news, and I went to bed wondering why it seemed like he already knew.

Heath

“They’re back again,” Marko told me, nudging my side.

              Juggling my toothpick from one corner of my mouth to the other, I turned away from the two men sparring in the boxing ring and looked toward the entrance. Walking into our gym was another group of men from the Syndicate. I watched them wearily, wondering where in the fuck they had the balls to come in here and demand more answers like they fucking owned the place.

              I knew this was going to happen. Nobody like Marko or me would have been able to leave their jobs and buy
in cash
a warehouse and revamp the entire interior into the largest, most modern gym around. We weren’t depending on New Year’s customers with failing resolutions to pay our bills. No, we were making our money using the boxing ring. After striking an expensive deal with the local police to keep it running for underground fights, we drew a crowd in every week. More people showed up now that it was in a more professional looking environment. Furthermore, Marko hired a whole line up of scantily clad ladies to serve drinks and food on those days, creating a bit of eye candy – and eye candy was good for business, I learned.

              We were making a fucking killing.

              “Tell ‘em to fuck off,” I told Marko.

              They’d had their talk with Marko before. Ever since Ryker got out three weeks ago and shined the spotlight on us, we were seeing these fuckers everywhere.

              Marko rolled up his sleeves, a small smirk playing at his lips, and he walked to them. He met them halfway, putting up his hand to stop them from going further. The three men stopped, but they snarled curses at him like they were bigger and more badass. Silly fucking idiots. Throw them all together and he was still bigger than them.

              “We want to talk to Heath this time,” Maggot Number One – clearly the spokesperson of the group – said.

              “Lawson only does appointments,” Marko casually replied.

              He pointed at me. “He’s right fuckin’
there
!”

              Marko shrugged. “He could be breathing down your fucking neck right this second and he’ll still require an appointment.”

              “That’s bullshit!”

              “Bullshit or not, that’s just the way it is.”

              Maggot Number Two took the calm route, asking, “Well… when do you think we can make the earliest appointment?”

             
Fuckin’ idiot.

              Marko thought for a moment. “The earliest one for scumbags like you… is fucking
never
. So fuck off.”

              “Do you know who we work for?” Maggot One hollered. “You know the kind of hell I could rain on you fuckers with just one phone call?”

              Marko nodded, reasonably composed, and amused. “To answer your question, yeah, we know who you work for, and we know the kind of hell you could rain on us, but we’re prepared. And the fact remains, if you want to talk to Lawson… you still need to make an appointment.”

              “No, I’ve had enough playing games with you fuckers, thinking we’re fucking soft! That’s what you think, right? That we’re soft?
We ain’t soft!
”

              Neither of us flinched when all three maggots began pulling out their guns, shouting curses at him and me, demanding to get what they want. Immediately, our guys around the gym abandoned their posts having already caught on to what was happening. Fighters that trained here and earned a wage for being my muscle jumped into action. All ten of them – muscled and huge in their own right – crowded around the maggots, removing their own weapons: knives, guns, even a fucking
hammer
– the fuck?! – I didn’t even know could be hidden so discreetly in a pair of sweatpants.

              Amused, I bit on the toothpick and suppressed the urge to smile. This is why they were hired in the first place. They were my weapon. I didn’t need a gun or a knife as some kind of fuckin’ indication of how strong I was. I just needed men.

Indispensable, loyal men.

              “Well, isn’t this interesting,” Marko mused, staring around at all our muscle. “You see all this? This is just one little taste of the hell we can rain down on you
soft
fuckers.”

              The maggots had gone still, staring in shock at the men that’d walled themselves around them.

              “You threaten
us
, then you’re threatening
all
of us,” Marko growled out, stepping closer to them as their guns wavered.

              Maggot Number One looked over Marko’s shoulder and stared straight at me. Spitting out my toothpick, I stared on back, my body already jumping with the adrenaline to knock them out clean. Violence didn’t make sense to me before unless I was fighting for money. But now it made as much sense as it was to breathe. It didn’t get to me. Blood didn’t fuss me anymore. I’d relish in the kill of anybody who wanted to kill me first. Just like the two fuck-heads that put this mark on my throat.

              I was hardened, and I was cruel. And I didn’t give a fuck about either of those things. I’d changed out of necessity because the man I was before would have never done what I did out of moral obligation. But times had changed. Survival wasn’t about what was right or wrong. It was about striking before you were struck first.

              When the maggot saw the raw look of rage in my eyes, he put his gun down. The other two followed, and seconds later they were hurrying out of the gym, and my men followed them right up until the parking lot.

              Marko turned to me and grinned. “Fuckin’ pussies,” he muttered.

              I nodded. “Fuckin’ pussies,” I repeated.

              “They’ll go and report it to mum and daddy, huh?”

              “Oh, yeah. They’ll be crying long and hard about this. Big fuckin’ targets on our backs now.”

              He nodded and came to stand beside me. Following my line of sight to the doors, he asked, “You feeling alright, man? We’re nearing the end of the line here. Nervous?”

              “No, not nervous. Just hungry.”

              Hungry for revenge.

              “If I showed up tonight, will Allie skin my ass alive?”

              I scoffed. “Don’t be like that, man. She doesn’t hate you so much anymore.”

              “No, ever since the attack, she’s been kind of alright, I guess.”

              The attack.

              I didn’t like to remember the way she screamed and hurried to me. The tears that fell from her eyes as she apologized over and over again. Apologized for
what
, though?

              I’d felt my life slipping away. My body had gone limp and I hadn’t felt much of it anymore. The corners of my vision had darkened, and I was acutely aware I was approaching my death. It was almost tempting to just let go. But I couldn’t leave her. There were so many things I hadn’t done. There were so many words I wanted to say.

              I fought for Allie. For a chance to make things right and to give her the happily ever after she’d always dreamed about.

              What I didn’t expect when I woke up in a hospital bed was to feel the deep void inside of me. My emotions had dwindled. They told me I was in shock and probably traumatized. That it was most likely self-preservation, or whatever psychoanalysis babble they wanted to feed me at the time.

              If it was anything like that, it would have gone away by now, right? Instead, my shoulders still felt weighed down, and my anger… I had a goddamn, motherfucking anger problem! It didn’t help Allie had to go and make it worse by visiting Ryker. I understood why she did it, but I was boiling in rage hearing that she’d stepped into his motel room. I was tempted to go there myself and beat seven shades of shit out of him, but I couldn’t.

              I had to wait.

              When she came through the door, all of that anger and irrational, predator-like instinct within me just had to fucking know if she’d done something to deceive me. In hindsight, I regretted not trusting her instead. In my heart I knew she wouldn’t have done anything. But years of hearing all the mouths talk, predicting she’d cheat and leave me for him the second he got out, had left me paranoid. Especially when she looked like she wanted to see him when Matt opened his mouth about the news.

              “I moved the money, by the way,” Marko said, stirring me out of my reveries.

              “Three hundred big ones?” I asked.

              “Yep, all put aside in the car at Location R.”

              We’d divided up the money soon after the attack. While I’d been on the hospital bed, Marko had unburied all of it in case somebody really had found out everything. We later thought up places that would never be known. We never wrote down the locations anywhere – that would have been as dumb as what Ricardo did with his book – and we relied, instead, on our memory.

              “Good,” I told him with a firm nod. “That means everything should be solid.”

              If it wasn’t, I was going to be a fucking dead man.

*

The men were smiling at me oddly as I made my way to the office after lunch. I was tempted to tell them to turn their fucking eyes inside out or I’d do it for them. Instead, I breathed through my annoyances and opened the door.

              Immediately the sound of a tiny voice caught my attention. On the floor beside my desk was Kayden and Allie.

              “Here he is!” cheered Allie.

              When Kayden saw me, his eyes widened and he stood up. He rushed to me and I kneeled down just in time for his hug.

              “Daddy!” he shrieked.

              “What’s this surprise?” I asked. I truly hadn’t expected this. It wasn’t often they visited me here with Allie’s busy schedule.

              “Biday,” he answered.

              I raised a brow at Allie and she laughed and translated, “Birthday. He knows it’s your birthday. I thought we’d show up and surprise you.”

              “My birthday? I didn’t even remember.”

              “Naughty daddy,” she teased. “Anyway, he wanted to give you something. Kayden, what did you want to give to daddy?”

              Kayden left my arms and went to Allie’s purse. She held it out for him and he dug in and pulled out a piece of green construction paper. He hurried to me, a giant Ryker-like smile on his face that made my pulse quicken. I took the piece of paper from him and stared down at a set of round scribbles.

              I didn’t know what the hell I was looking at, but I raised my brows and stared up at Kayden like he was Pablo Picasso.

              “This is the best picture I’ve ever seen in my life,” I told him, and I actually meant it.

              “It tells a story,” Allie explained, seemingly giddy about this. “About you. What did you call daddy, Kay?”

              Kayden smiled shyly, retreating into his shell a little as he whispered, “Hewo.”

              “Hero?” I asked.

              He nodded.

              “He said you were a hero, and that he wants to fight like you,” Allie explained, looking warmly at him.

              He’d never actually seen me in a real fight. Sometimes Allie had come and he’d watch me spar or help train the guys, and he seemed really enamoured by it.

              I took Kayden to me and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. He wrapped his arm around my neck and kissed me back. “You want to fight like me when you grow up?” I muttered to him. He nodded and I chuckled. “Then you’re going to fight like me. I’m going to make you into the best fighter there ever was. A real one. Not some silly little underground fighter like me. Something even better.”

              Kayden’s eyes brightened and he nodded enthusiastically at all that I said. I raised my hands out like I always did with him, and he formed his hands into fists and punched them each clumsily. His coordination needed work, but he was giving it his best, and that was all that mattered at the end of the day.

              The thought of me doing this with him for fun as he grew made me excited for the future. He was two and calling me a hero, and I had to breathe through the deep emotion that stirred in me. If someone was going to fix me emotionally, it was going to be Kayden through and through.

              “You’re not silly,” Allie then said, frowning. “And you haven’t fought in a long time. I actually wondered if you missed it.”

              “No,” I told her with conviction. “I don’t miss it at all. It wasn’t the right way to make money. It was just a shortcut. And now I’m just glad I don’t have to come home bloody and bruised for Kayden to see.”

              Allie crawled over to me, interrupting Kayden’s punches. I immediately brought her close to me and kissed her softly. I loved that she melted into my side like she was as affected by my touch like the beginning. We watched Kayden draw on a fresh sheet of paper for a half hour, and it was nice forgetting all the bullshit for a while.