Brawler's Baby: An MMA Mob Romance (Mob City Book 1) (37 page)

I
can't help
but smile broadly, the corners of my mouth almost reaching my ears as I see the return address on the thick yellow envelope I've just pulled out of the mailbox, but alongside that smile is a slight hint of concern. After making it this far, I don't know if I could take it if she doesn't succeed – not that that's really an option. After all, Katie's never relied on her looks – although she could – because she's about the most hard-working girl I've ever met.

The smudged letters read "Denver Veterinary College", and they’re followed by an address that’s no longer visible, probably as a result of the early spring rain. All around me the Rocky Mountains are still capped with white, and judging by our experience for the last two years – the two happiest years of my life – they'll stay that way almost until June, when the hot summer sun finally overwhelms them for a brief period, before the harsh winter sets in again. About two hundred yards in front of me, Jake’s playing in the long grass with a half dozen, almost identical dogs.

"Hey buddy," I call out, before jamming my fingers into my mouth and letting out a loud, ear piercing whistle, "time to go home!"

In the distance, I see Jake, my faithful old friend, leap to his feet and shake spring blossom off of his fur. I let the hand carrying the post drop to my leg, and almost absentmindedly give it a little stroke. Most of the time, the pain has completely disappeared; Katie puts it down to all the walking we do these days – up and down the mountains with these dogs. And probably a bit of carrying little Tommy around, too.

And hell, who am I to argue with her… I'm just some dumb grunt. Even now, sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe it's really true, and that I'm not just dreaming – she really did choose to marry me, out of all the hundreds of other guys who must've been chasing after her.

But out of all of them, she chose me.

I look up, ready to call Jake again – but as usual he's way ahead of me. He barks twice, the sharp sound echoing off the rocky outcroppings all around us, and the other five dogs snap to attention. It's almost, I think myself in amusement, like they're soldiers.

"Good boy," I say under my breath, even though he's still hundreds of feet away from me. It’s done him a world of good getting out here into the wild, and it's the one thing I'll never be able to thank Katie for enough. I have no idea how she convinced the army to just give me a dog they spent $50,000 training! That girl, I tell you – she's smart. So smart that I know there's no way the envelope in my palm won't contain good news – good news she’s worked hard for, while giving birth to and then raising our son.

And yet, my mind still worries that it won't. After all, she followed me out here into the wild, into the Rocky Mountains, giving up her career as a nurse. Sure, she was as jaded and burnt out as I was – but still, all she ever wanted to do was help people. And if I somehow took that away from her, I don't know if I would ever be able to forgive myself, even though I know she’d forgive me in a heartbeat.

I turn, striding back up the road towards our cabin, and hear the dogs barking happily in the distance behind me. I don't need to worry that they won't follow me, Jake's got them whipped into shape, and I look up with pride as I walk past a hand carved, wooden sign that reads: "Carson Shelter for Working Dogs".

It’s our pride and joy, this shelter. It’s allowed us to ‘retire’ from the real world, and heal ourselves – both of us. For me, it’s helped me forget the terror of combat, the fear of losing friends, and the grief that comes naturally with their deaths.

For Katie, well – she’s had it every bit as bad as me, if not more. After all, at least I once had training to deal with the kind of the kind of trauma a warzone brings. Katie? Not so much. She was on her way to burnout when I first met her, after months upon months of ceaselessly helping save some of the most badly injured men on the planet. And often, through no fault of her own, failing.

Katie and I lived up here in a trailer for months, building our cabin and all the outbuildings almost by hand, though I can't say we did it without help – as soon as that lady at the post office saw my mail from the Veteran’s Administration, not a day went by without someone turning out to give us a helping hand. And it wasn’t just the locals – after the nightly news somehow got ahold of some footage of Jake, for a couple of months donations flooded in! Easily enough to take care of us, and help the dogs we’ve adopted.

The last twenty yards melts away in my excitement to reach Katie and stick the envelope into her hand. The short walk in the brisk, cool spring breeze has eliminated any concern that I might be the bearer of bad news. No way, no how – she's worked way too hard for anything go wrong now.

"Katie?" I call out loudly as I reach the cabin, not knowing if she's inside or – as she often does – taken the truck down into town to pick up some supplies for the dogs. Not this time though.

"Yes, honey?" I hear her reply, her tinkling, upbeat voice lifting my mood as it always does, "what's up?" she asks, appearing from behind the cabin, just as I leap up the three stairs leading to our front door. I throw myself to a halt, spin around, and jump excitedly down onto the ground, ignoring the steps in the process, and almost crushing one of the dogs, as all six of them are now gamboling merrily near my pretty wife, jumping up to steal a kiss.

"Hey!" I call out amusedly, "get off her, Lily – that's my job!"

"Now, now, no need to be jealous," Katie chides me with a grin on her face, "I've got enough love to go around…"

I close the short distance between us, and sweep her into a long, passionate kiss, closing my hands around her tiny waist that firmed up so quickly after giving birth, and pull her in towards me, feeling her soft cheeks graze against my short stubble.

"Sorry," I say hurriedly, "I meant to shave earlier… "

"No," she says smiling, raising her hand to my grizzled cheek, "I like it – makes you look like a mountain man."

"I am a mountain man," I replied, kicking myself almost before the words come out of my mouth. God, it's hard to believe that a woman this smart and pretty ever settled down with me! Every time I look at her, it's as though all conscious thought it operates from my brain, only to be replaced by caveman-like babble.
"I am a mountain man," I think to myself, replaying the moment in my mind – what an idiot!

"And I love you," Katie replies with a sweet smile on her face, completely unaware of the little internal monologue going on in my mind. "What's that in your hand? Anything interesting?"

Straight to the heart of the matter, as usual. Absentmindedly, I reply "I love you too," and I see her stand a little taller with happiness, a sight that fills my heart with joy. Wordlessly, I hold up the thick yellow envelope for her to look at.

All the blood drains from her face, and for a second I think I've made a terrible mistake. "Oh my God," she says, "that's not what I think it is, is it?"

I nod, the broad smile returning to my face. "Oh, I'm pretty sure it is – this feels too weighty and thick to be a bill," I say, "though – knowing the college, I wouldn't put it past them…" I finish up, throwing a joke in for good measure.

I thrust out the envelope towards her, waiting for her to take it off me, but it's like she's afraid, and I see this brave, smart woman almost shrinking away from my arm.

"Oh come on," I say jovially, "surely you're not scared to open it? What's the worst that could happen?"

She fixes me with a stern glare before replying, and it's my turn to shrink away! "
What's the worst that can happen?
," she replies, mimicking me, "are you serious! I've spent more than a year training up for this, think about what it will mean for all our plans if I don't pass… How will we pay for all the things Tommy needs? Diapers aren’t cheap, you know!"

I see her clenching her fists, and a slight reddish hue on her face indicating that she's building up the moment too much in her head. "Seriously," I say, reaching out and putting my free hand reassuringly on her shoulder, "we've been through way bigger things together than some silly exam, haven't we?"

Katie looks up at me, finally meeting my gaze again, and nods. I see her relax, and she opens her mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm being silly – aren't I?"

"Hey, it's no bad thing to be worried, but seriously – worst case, you do it again, does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? And seriously – do diapers really cost that much?"

"I," she begins, stuttering, "I guess not…"

"Good," I reply firmly, "now let's open this damn envelope!"

For a brief second after I hand it over, Katie's hands tremble over the paper, but as usual, she pulls some resolve out of thin air, and start tearing into the paper sheath. Again, she hesitates before she pulls out the contents, and but as quickly as she overcame her previous dalliance, she pushes through that small barrier as well, hungrily unfolding the folded white paper in front of me. I'm about to cry out, desperate to know what she's reading, but I hold back, biting my tongue – this is her moment, and I don't want to ruin it.

Katie lets the hand holding the papers drop to her side, and for a brief second just looks at me with an unreadable expression on her face.

"So…" I venture.

"So…" she says, rolling the word out on her tongue to extend my agony, "I did it!"

The words seem to take a long time for my brain to process, but when my mind finally catches up to my ears, I shout loudly in glee and lurch towards her, arms open. The dogs milling around us look at me like I've gone mad, but I've made a habit out of ignoring their judgment over the last couple of years, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

"You did it! I'm so happy for you, Katie," I say, well aware of the inadequacy of my words to express the depths of my joy for her success, but it doesn't seem to matter in the slightest, and she grabs me and clings to me as if she's about to collapse from exhaustion.

"I wasn't sure I was going to make it…"

I
t's
like in one moment, every decision I've made over the last two years since meeting Mike has been validated. Sometimes I feel like after all he's been through, and after all we've been through together, that I need to bring more to the table – after all, he's the God damn hero who saved my life!

I know it's not true, and Mike's way too good a guy to ever say something like that to me, or even think it – hell, if he even knew about these moments of doubt I have, he'd be shocked, because he's genuinely the best man I've ever known. And I know that bringing up a kid is no small job, but even so, after all this money I've been spending to get my veterinary degree, even though we aren't doing badly for cash, especially since the kidnapping insurance payment came through; and even though I've been able to do a smaller version of the degree, because a lot of the basic credits were already covered by my nursing license – even after all that, sometimes I feel like he's too good for me.

But seeing the words: "congratulations on successfully completing your degree course at Denver Veterinary College…" immediately washes all those doubts away, and I can't help but squeal excitedly as I wrap my arms around Mike's broad back, and press my head into the crook between his head and shoulder.

He leans in, and whispered into my ear with his stumble deliciously grazing my skin, "you made it, honey."

I don't have to think either long or hard about my response. "No,
we
made it! No way I could have done it without you, any of it."

"Good of you to say," he whispers, and again I feel his stubble graze against my cheek, and smell the manly scent of a hard day's work on his body. All of a sudden, every single one of my head seems to stand on end, and I'm suddenly – uncomfortably – aware of how close both of our bodies are.

Sometimes, even up here in our pretty little cabin in the mountains, there's a time for candles, a nice hot bath, and a passionate session of gentle, soft lovemaking. I mean, sex like that's some of my favorite. But right now, that's not what I want –
not nearly what I want
.

I think there's something about Mike smelling like this, and maybe the feel of the breeze sweeping through my long hair, the scents of fresh spring blossom, wildflowers and cut grass intersecting with the rougher tinge on the air of the smoke from burning firewood – still necessary to take the wicked chill off the evenings at this time of year; but hell – I don't know. It could just be that after all this time, Mike still gets me as wet and excited as a new lover, perhaps even more so now than ever, now his body's hard and chiseled by our vigorous, active mountain life.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's because Mike's hard as a rock – and pressing his manhood against the top of my stomach.

"Oh, so you are happy for me – aren't you?" I ask with an amused grin on my face, raising my eyebrow cheekily. To Mike's credit, he goes bright red – I know he thinks that his, ahem, package is an unwanted guest, even though nothing could be further from the truth.

"Oh, sorry about that…" he tails off awkwardly, shuffling on one foot. I bite down on the inside of my lip, desperate not to grin and give him an out. But, try as hard as I might, my horniness gets the better of me, and I can't help but lean in once again to catch another hint of that scent of hard work on his body. It's like a drug, it hooked me from the very first time I smelled it in Afghanistan, and it's got me now. If I have to be addicted to something, I think myself wickedly, there are worse things than this…

"I don't want you to be sorry, Mike," I say, standing up on tiptoes and whispering into his ear in a sultry a tone of voice as I can manage, "I want you to fuck me…"

The look on Mike's face as the gears turn in his mind is almost comical – he goes from looking bright red and nervous to hungry and animalistic almost a second. It's good to know, in moments like that, that he still desires me as much as he did the day we first met…

"You had me going there…" he whispers into my ear, squeezing his arms around my body hard, and in the process pressing his rock hard manhood into my stomach once again, so hard I can feel the heat pulsating off it, so close that I can almost feel his desire vibrating through my body.

I stifle a chuckle as he lifts me bodily of the floor and slings me over one shoulder. I remember the first time he did that, I kicked and punched at him until he threw me down, but as soon as his lips met mine on the bed, I stopped fighting and gave into him completely. Now, I love it when he does it…

"Jake," he calls out loudly, and I feel the vibrations of his voice reverberating through my tiny body, "give us some time, will you?" The first time I heard might try that trick, I thought he'd lost the plot. But one of the good things about taking care of retired military dogs every day is that – without exception – they're damn well the best trained dogs you'll ever come across. If you tell them to run off and play, they'll do it – but without fail they'll stay within ear shot, just in case they need to protect their master. Or mistress…

"Good," I giggle as they run off into the woods, "they shouldn't see what we're about to do. It might scar them for life."

"I wouldn't go that far," Mike grunts beneath me as I hear the sound of his heavy boots climbing the stairs up to the front door of the cabin, and then the thud of his arm pushing the heavy oak door open, and the barest hint of the sound of well oiled hinges opening, "I think I've got quite a nice ass, thank you very much…"

I giggle and reach down – his ass one of the only things I can reach in this odd position he's got me in, tossed backwards over one shoulder. I reach down and grab one of his muscular, toned cheeks lustily. "You do," I agree. And just like that, conversation time’s over.

Mike throws me down onto the soft, luxurious couch we had made by a local craftsmen from down in the town, and the small fall briefly knocks the wind from my lungs, but before I can recover, he's on top of me, kissing every exposed part of my skin, his hands roaming across the rest of my body like he hasn't touched me for days. Not that that's anywhere close to the truth…

My skin feels like it's on fire, and it's like Mike's desperately trying to pat it down – only every single time he touches me, the sensation drives me wild, making me but my hips in a wild, desperate attempts to grind my pussy against his thick, muscular leg. Only, that's not what Mike's got planned – not at all.

He grabs my wrists roughly and forces them up above my head him, and I pout, knowing exactly what's on his mind.

"Mike…" I whine desperately, "I want you – no, I
need you –
to fuck me right now, I mean it!"

He breaks away from relentlessly roaming his hands across my body for a brief, torturous second and his smug, grinning face pops up right in front of my eyes. "I thought I was?" he says, knowing perfectly well what I want. It's infuriating! I look at him, and all I can see is that perfectly contoured jawline, the fact there's not an ounce of fat on him, and even the bead of sweat trickling down his cheek doesn't detract in the slightest from the fact that to me this man is the very image of perfection. Even right now, when he's doing his very best to irritate me. No, that's not fair – he's trying his hardest to tease me, and is working – because regardless of the fact that I'm not sure if I've ever been this wet, the slip between my legs is actually on fire…

"You know what I mean, Mike. I can feel how fucking hard you up, it's digging into my leg – why can't you just stick it into me! You're not fooling anyone, you know…" I finish with a cheeky grin on my face, trying to goad him into giving me what I want.

But this isn’t Mike's first rodeo, that's for damn sure… He knows what I'm like, and he knows that every time I beg him like this - beg him just to rip my pants off and fuck me like a dirty slut, I'm telling the truth – but not the whole truth, far from it. Hey, sue me – I can be capricious like that.

He knows from long, sweaty, sexy experience, that what I really like is to be teased, for him to graze his stubble across my nipples and down the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, sending electric sparks flying down every nerve ending my body; to kiss all around my dripping wet pussy, and to lick it just once, and then to dart away, not to return until I'm quite literally begging for it, and then when my body and brain are so confused, so desperate to be filled, so beyond the point of no return – where words don't even really make sense to me any more, and my eyes can barely process light – that's when I want him to stick his cock into me. Because then I know for sure we aren't going to fuck for ten minutes and finally bring me to orgasm; no – we're going to fuck for ten minutes – and it's going to be one long, intense, thigh clenching orgasm.

And Mike's kink is that sometimes he likes to be in control, so in a way we make a perfect match. He attacks my mouth with his, still pressing my wrists into the arm of the couch, somewhere above my head, and grinds his free hand into the small scrap of clothing covering the wet mound of my pussy. I grown into his mouth, thrusting my hips forward to take advantage of the brief, momentary pleasure, and he closes his palm around my engorged lips, squeezing my crotch harder than I would have believed would be pleasurable – but he knows exactly where my limits are, and knows he isn't even close. I grown again, and bite down hard on his lip and I hear the low, bass, baritone sound of him chuckling away into my ear.

"What do you want me to do?" he growls into my ear, and I barely hear him, because I'm so excited by the feeling of grinding my crotch into his hard leg, which has found its way in between mine. I struggle half-heartedly to release my wrists from his grasp, but give up, panting slightly as he looks down at me with a combination of love and lust in his eyes.

"You've gone all red, you know that?" I ask, looking up at him angelically. He raises his eyebrow, as though testing me, and I quickly move on – knowing that the way Mike is, he wouldn't be averse to just leaving me here to stew in my own horniness, refusing to allow me to get myself off, and then return in an hour when I'm desperate for his cock inside me to finally finish the job. Sometimes, don't get me wrong, I love it when he treats me like that. But not right now.

"I want you inside me, Mike," I say, biting my lip in anticipation and hoping that this is the moment that he cracks. He pauses, and in my head I count off the seconds.

One…

Two…

Three…

The silence begins to stretch off into the distance, and I begin to wonder if he'll ever say anything, when he snaps into action, almost in the fast, viper-like way he was trained to move in the special forces. I prefer it this way – there's no danger to him, and I get a man to fuck me like no one's ever tried before.

He releases my wrists from above my head, and before I even get a chance to move them around and get feeling back into them, he's tearing the buttons of my shirt, and somehow – before I even realize it – it's on the floor, and his fingers working at the buckle of my pants. I try and help them along, but he's done this before, and before long they too join my shirt, somewhere on the floor of our cabin.

I'm not wearing a bra, and my nipples are standing at attention, partly because of the slightly chilly temperature in the room, and partly because I'm so completely, furiously horny that I don't have a choice. He kisses me once on the lips – a hard kiss, one that doesn't give me a choice other than to respond in kind, and I press my lips fiercely against his, but before I can fully lean into it, he breaks away.

He kisses my breastbone, and gently drags his stubbled chin down the soft curvature in the middle of my rib cage, and my hips buck involuntarily at the delicious sensation. I gasp aloud, and as I do so, Mike seems to remember that now he's released my wrists, he's got two hands to play with again…

Not stopping the slow, torturous descent of his chin down my body, the movement that's almost sending me over the edge into an orgasm, all on its own, he traces his right hand down the side of my rib cage, and then forces it underneath me, grabbing my right ass cheek firmly and squeezing. He groans, and the sound is so deep that I hear it reverberate through my whole body.

With his other hand, at precisely the moment that his chin reaches the delicate, erogenous skin at the top of my right breast, he grabs my left and rolls my sensitive nipple between his thumb and forefinger, sending an electric shock down the center of my body to my crotch. Again, my hips buck, and again my wet pussy grinds against his leg, and this time I contract my ass and keep it there, rubbing against the muscular limb, and whimpering with the pleasure.

"Oh, yes…" I whisper, and Mike takes that as his cue to take my right nipple into his mouth and suck, and suddenly the pleasure is almost overwhelming. More than a few times, he's got me off just for my nipples alone, so he knows exactly how sensitive they can be – and right now, I know I'm pretty close.

"Mike!" I beg, and he knows how close I am this time, knows not to push it. It's not what I said – it's what I can't say, because I literally can't formulate anything more complex in my mind than his name. He growls, and tears my panties away, throwing them onto the floor and plunges a finger into my dripping wet pussy, all in one motion.

Unbidden, I gasp, and bite down on his shoulder, groaning with pleasure.