Ryker's Baby (9 page)

Ryker scratched his head as he looked down on the mess of wooden pieces. This man used to have to beat the life out of people. A baby's crib was his new enemy now. He picked up and unfolded the white instruction manual. He looked like an explorer, standing on a vista, looking at his map.

“I don't know how anybody is supposed to figure this shit out,” he said.

I watched him from a rocking chair in the corner of the bedroom, trying to hold back my giggles. Moving boxes were stacked against every wall. We'd only just moved in a few days ago. This bedroom was going to be for the baby. “Take a deep breath, honey.”

Ryker took my advice and inhaled sharply. “I think I need a break.” He set down the map on the pieces of the crib and knelt down next to me. “Is our boy going to like his room?” he asked, putting his hand on my stomach.

“I was thinking of going with dark blue on the walls with white sailboats.”

“White sailboats?” Ryker repeated. “Why don't we just paint the room pink and give him Barbies?”

I playfully shoved him away and my chair rocked backwards. “How about race cars then?”

Ryker smiled and showed his teeth. He had been so carefree and happy since our wedding. Like nothing could stop him from being happy. “Sounds good to me. Clay is going to love it.”

“Clay? What kind of a name is that?”

“A boy's name of course.”

“I was thinking of something more like Justin.”

Ryker pondered for a moment and began talking to my stomach. “Are you a Justin, little guy?” Ryker looked up at me. “I think we have a winner.”

Time was moving so fast. One day I was a drug addict, getting high as much as possible. The next, I'm married, pregnant, and happier than ever.

I eventually called my parents and explained everything that happened. Ryker insisted on it after the engagement. He had been insisting on a lot of things lately. They weren't too enthused about me getting married so quickly but their minds changed when they met Ryker. I even invited Sarah, making her my maid of honor.

Once thing I didn't understand was how we were able to afford so much. I was almost done with school and Ryker still hadn't found a job yet. We had just bought a four-bedroom house in a nice suburban neighborhood. A small cry from the crack house I lived in while I was an addict. I didn't think to question it. I just thought that Ryker had some money saved up. But this was different.

“How are we paying for for all this?” I asked, motioning to the entire house.

Ryker grinned and felt my belly again for the baby. “All thanks to the Murphy brothers.”

I cocked my head to the side. “What do you mean?”

The baby kicked and Ryker felt it, keeping his hand on me. “I was the only one that knew where the O'Malleys kept their money. We inherited it all, baby. We have enough to live on and never work again.”

“Holy shit! Why didn't you tell me before?”

Ryker looked down at the floor. He thought I was mad. “I didn't want you to quit your dream of finishing school.”

I lifted his face by his chin. “I love you more than anything, Mr. Ash.”

“And I love you, Mrs. Ash.” Ryker kissed me, his hand sneaking down my shirt and feeling my up my breast. “God damn, your tits are absolutely gigantic now.” Ryker pinched my nipple and I felt that familiar desire between my thighs—that same desire that led me down this pregnant path in the first place.

“We've christened every room but this one,” I said, twirling my hair with my finger.

Ryker bit down on his bottom lip. “Mrs. Ash, you're a dirty girl.”

I giggled as he kissed my neck.

Life couldn't get any better.

I couldn't be with a better man.

Read on for a complete version of Rebel's Baby

Copyright 2016 Lauren Hunt

All Rights Reserved.

Disclaimer: This ebook is a work of fiction. Any resemblance characters in this story may have to real people is coincidental.

No section of this book may be copied or reproduced without the author's permission.

Description

Kayla and I never got our happily ever after. Two weeks before our marriage, I was put in prison for a crime I didn't commit.

Four years later I walk out a free man, but Kayla has moved on and wants nothing to do with me. She still believes I'm guilty. Those beautiful eyes will never forgive me and it's the hardest thing to swallow.

She can hate me all she wants but I won't let her take my heir away.

Time no longer mattered when I painted. Everything in my mind drifted away out to sea. My vision narrowed to a tunnel as the brush stroked against the blank canvas. Nothing came close to the calming effect of art. It put you on another planet—away from all the stress and distractions of the real world.

But there was no paint on the brush.

My hand made the movements of a conductor, guiding an orchestra, swiping the dry brush along the canvas, hoping for inspiration to strike. The white rectangle was telling me nothing. A faded image came into focus. I quickly dabbed my brush into some yellow and flung it onto the canvas before the image in my head dissolved. After some blue paint, I thought I finally had something.

A beach and an ocean, Kayla? That's so amateur. What were you thinking?

I sighed and dropped the brush to the ground. A painting of an ocean wouldn't be good enough for my first art show. I needed a piece that would wow the audience. Something that could evoke an emotion. Get people talking about me.

All that schooling and I couldn't come up with anything. A Bachelor's in Art couldn't help with being creative.

My phone rang. A welcome distraction. “Barbara Ann” by the Beach Boys boomed out of my vibrating phone. I checked the screen and smiled.

“Hey Lily!”

“Kayla, why the hell haven't you called me?”

Lily was my roommate freshman year of college. Even though she was also an art major, we couldn't have been more different. Lily was too preoccupied with boys to really focus on art. Her idea of painting was throwing some streaks of paint on a canvas and calling it a day. I couldn't knock her for it though because she produced some really beautiful pieces. She had natural talent. I on the other hand did not. It took me weeks to produce a somewhat passable painting, sometimes not seeing the sun for days.

“I'm sorry, Lily, I've been a little busy the past week.”

“Oh the art show is next week! How is the painting coming?”

I looked at the blank canvas and laughed. “Will anybody appreciate a framed white canvas?”

“Paint the words “The Beatles” and it will be just like the White Album.”

That was actually a pretty good idea. There were definitely people out there that loved that lazy approach to art. But it wasn't me.

“That's really good but I won't steal your idea, Lily. I need to come up with my own.” I walked away from my work station and into the kitchen, glad to be able to breathe in a different room.

“How did you get in this art show again? I heard it's for some pretty big players.”

“My dad got me into it. Said he had to sell an arm and a leg.”

“Of course it was your father, Kayla.”

Lily was making me feel guilty for being from a rich family again. Better to just change the subject. “Enough about me. Tell me how it's going with that guy...what was his name?”

“Greg? Oh, we've been done for a week now. I actually have a date with this super hot guy I met at a bar last night.”

Lily was always neck deep in men. In college, she was known for sleeping around and nothing had changed since.

I rolled my eyes. “What's the new guy's name?”

Lily couldn't wait to scream out his name. “Walter. He's an engineer or architect. One of those. Doesn't matter. The main thing is he has a brother that he's just as hot. And he's
available...
”

I already knew where she was heading and I wanted nothing to do with it. “No way, Lily. I'm not going on a double date with you.”

“Come on, Kayla. You've been cooped up in that apartment for too long. You need to get out and see the world.”

She wasn't wrong. I couldn't remember the last time I actually left the apartment other than to get food. “Yeah but remember how the last double date went?”

Lily huffed. “You're never going to let me live that one down are you?”

I giggled. “Nope.”

Lily had tricked me into going on a double date with her. Tricked me as in taking me to a bar to “have a couple drinks” and then ambushing me with a guy.

“Just because the guy turned out to be woman didn't mean the date was bad.”

I bent over the kitchen counter and rested on my elbows. “Taylor really was an attractive guy.”

“Well I can promise you this next guy will be one-hundred percent male.”

“No thanks, Lily. You go out and have fun.”

“You're going to have to get over him eventually, Kayla.”

Don't say his name. Don't say his name.

Lily continued. “It's been years since he's been gone. It's time to move on. Find someone who makes you happy. I just want the best for you, Kayla.”

“I know. I know. I'm really just not in the mood to date anybody right now. This art show is the only thing on my mind right now. And I barely have any time to finish this painting.”

“I'm kind of glad we're not roommates anymore. I could never get any sleep when you worked for twenty-four hours straight.”

“Oh really? You could never get any sleep? How about the guys you would sneak into your bed every night? Try sleeping through all that moaning.” We sounded like an old married couple arguing.

Lily laughed. “Sorry, I guess I went a little crazy in college.”

“God bless noise-canceling headphones.”

A knock at the door interrupted our conversation. “Hold on a sec, Lily. There's somebody at the door. Probably my father coming over to teach me how to network or something for the art show.”

I unlocked the front door and opened it to a memory from my past. My jaw dropped and the phone dropped to the floor. I could still hear Lily on the other line trying to talk.

Muscles, tattoos, and that cocky smile.

Rebel was back.

There she was standing in the doorway, her long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a dark blue apron covered in dry paint protecting her clothes. Exactly how I remembered her.

My Kayla.

We stared at each other for an eternity. I wanted to take her in my arms, force my lips against hers. But that wouldn't be appropriate. So much time had passed. How could I ever explain to her how much I missed her?

“Rebel?” Kayla choked out. “What are you doing here?” She shook her head. “I mean how did you get out?”

“Can you invite me in and we can talk?”

Kayla nodded and bent down to pick up the fallen phone. I followed her inside and was amazed at how nice her place looked. Dark hardwood floors, long white drapes covered the windows, and an amazing view of the town from the twelfth floor. Daddy Warbucks had treated her very well since I'd been gone.

Kayla led me to the kitchen that looked straight out of a home magazine. I felt so out of place. My jail cell was literal Hell compared to this.

“When did you get out?” she asked, setting her palms down on the white quartz island.

Kayla was nervous. But why? I expected her to jump into my arms with tears in her eyes when she opened that door. What happened since I was gone?

“Just yesterday. Nobody was there to pick me up so I had to bum a ride to town.”

“...It's been a long time, Rebel.”

I walked around the kitchen island until I was only inches away from Kayla. All those ancient feelings came back. They were always there. But they were dormant. “Four years.
Four
long years.”

Kayla put her hand on my chest to stop my advances. It'd been so long since I held a woman. I dreamed of doing it every day in that prison. My heart pounded against her hand. Something harder pounded in my pants.

“How did you get out? You were sentenced to thirty years.”

Why did she have to ask so many questions? One kiss from me and she'd forget about everything. I jerked off every day in prison to the image of Kayla. Now it was time to make that fantasy come true.

I backed away to give her space. Kayla was obviously shocked at my return. Not exactly the warm reception I was expecting.

“They let me out because of overcrowding.” The reason sounded idiotic in my head but that's what they told me.

“Wait a second.” Kayla sat down at the bar stool next to the island and I joined her on the opposite side. There was an canyon of white quartz between us. “You were put in prison for attempted murder. They couldn't let you out because of overcrowding.”

Why was she making this so hard? I was back. That's all that should matter. “I was put in prison for a crime I didn't commit. The county knew they fucked up and instead of publicly acknowledging it, they gave a bullshit reason.”

Kayla put her head in her hands. “Sorry this is all so much to take in. I didn't think I'd ever see you again.”

“Why didn't you visit me?” The question slipped out of my mouth. I wrote to her almost everyday in jail but never got a response.

Kayla looked away. “I couldn't, Rebel. It would've been too hard.”

“Then why didn't you at least respond to my letters?”

“Letters?” Kayla raised her head with wide eyes. “What letters? I didn't receive anything.” She looked around the kitchen like the letters would just be sitting around.

“I didn't know you moved into this expensive apartment. I sent the letters to your father's house.”

“I never knew...”

“It was your damn father,” I said so loud that the windows could have shattered.

Kayla put her hands up in defense. “Please, don't bring him into this. Whatever he did, he was thinking of the best for me.”

“And that brings us back to that classic argument we could never get over when we were together. Can't you see your father for who he really is?”

Kayla stood up and walked to the window overlooking the town, Saint Marks. “I don't want to argue about him anymore.”

I came up behind her and slipped my arms around her waist. She felt so warm against me. Prison would have been so much easier if I could've seen her face just once. “I want things to go back to the way they were,” I whispered in her ear.

“I don't think they can,” she replied.

Her words were like a shiv in my back but they wouldn't stop me. Nothing would. The whiff of her perfume brought me back to old times. Sitting by the fire, naked, bodies slick with sweat from making love. Talking about the meaning of life until dawn. Those were the memories that stuck with me through all those dark days.

I turned Kayla toward me so she could see my eyes—see how much she affected me. “The only thing that got me through prison was you. I don't know how else to say it, Kayla. You're mine and you always will be.”

“Please Rebel. We can't do this.” Kayla tried to escape out of my arms but I wouldn't let her.

There was only one way to make her remember.

I forced my lips on hers. Adrenaline surged through my veins. My grip on Kayla tightened. The sweet taste of her lip gloss was something that I'd forgotten. It had been too long since I'd been with a woman. My cock throbbed in my pants. If I didn't take her right now, I'd explode. Kayla struggled for just a moment before surrendering in my arms.

She was mine again.