This Game Called Life (Kingdom Book 4) (23 page)

“Do you know what
I see when I watch the way our bodies fit?” Jake asked his voice a deep rumble.
“I see how much I want you. I see how wet you are for me. I see the way I
stretch you, the way I fill you up. The way you take me, all of me. This is
real MacKenzie. This is how much you turn me on.”

“God, Jake, you
feel so good. I want more give me more!”

“Anything you
want, lovely. Do you want to come, MacKenzie? Should I make you come so hard
all you can think of is me?”

His questions were
Jake’s last attempts at holding off the heat that was gathering in his cock. He
knew he couldn’t hold on for much longer. The deliberate slowness of his
strokes were killing him, but at the same time everything he did and said had
the desired effect. Her body began to tighten. It was what he had been waiting
for.

Jake felt her body
constrict around him and sucked him in. When her climax hit, he gathered her
close and held her tightly against his chest. As her body tightened and released
around him, Jake gave up all constraint as he followed her into the most
powerful orgasm of his life.

Chapter 31

The next morning
at breakfast, everyone was sitting around the table, eating, drinking and
laughing. Jake was in a particularly good mood, and everything, at that moment,
was perfect in his world.

MacKenzie and
Noelle were safe in his home. By now Carlos was thousands of miles away, and
Diana was soon to be out of their lives forever. Smiling over at MacKenzie,
Jake was completely unaware of the looks that had passed between her and Aviva
only moments before.

Jason was watching
his wife with a look Jake could only call speculative. With a shrug, he looked
away. Something was going on with them, and he had no intention of getting
involved.

The door to the
dining room opened, and Mr. Ronson entered with his arms full to overflowing
with the biggest bouquet of flowers Jake had ever seen. Mentally kicking
himself, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of getting flowers for MacKenzie. It
would seem that he would have to take a few lines out of his brother’s book
when it came to romancing his woman.

Jake watched as
Ronson, bypassed Aviva and continued on around the table. When he stopped
beside MacKenzie, Jake felt his ire rise at who could be sending her flowers.

“These are for
you, sir,” Ronson intoned as he handed Jake the flowers.

Jake blinked at
the older man, uncertain of what he had just said.

“There’s a card,
sir. Would you like me to read it for you?”

“No!” Jake barked,
not meaning for his refusal to be so loud.

“I don’t know
about the rest of you, but I for one would love to hear what’s written on that
card,” Josh teased.

“Yes, Mr. Ronson,
please read it. This is so romantic!” Aviva said with a sigh as she batted her
eyelashes at Jake.

Jake felt heat
rush to his face as every pair of eyes in the room bore into him; waiting for
him to take the flowers. Cutting his gaze to MacKenzie, he could see that her
eyes sparkled with mischief.

Jake took hold of
the now ridiculous looking bouquet. Unsure of what to do with them, he held
them at arm’s length and cast a glaring look around the table. At some point in
the midst of his bafflement, Mrs. Emerson had arrived and was now standing on
his other side.

“These are for
you, sir.” Mrs. Emerson then handed him the largest box of Belgium chocolates
known to man. Jake refused to take them.

Everyone was
laughing at him, including Noelle, who was bouncing around in her mother’s
arms. “I’m sure, Ronson could have brought those at the same time as the
flowers, Mrs. Emerson.” Jake reprimanded.

“Of course, he
could, but there was no way I was going to be the only one to miss the look on
your face, when you were presented with flowers and chocolates!” Mrs. Emerson
laughed at his expense.

“Give those to
me!” Jake snapped, snatching the offending chocolates out of her hands, and all
but throwing them on the table.

“Read the card,
Jake.” MacKenzie suggested.

Only just hearing
her voice above the sounds of laughter, he was tempted to ignore her. Thinking
better of it, he pulled out the card nestled between the blooms. Ripping open
the envelope, he pulled out the card, feeling even more ridiculous at how small
it looked in his large hand. With one final glare around the table, he cut his
eyes to the note and read the words written there.

You gave me a bed full of flowers as my
new beginning. Thank you. May the sound of laughter and the feeling of love
always surround you and those you hold dear.

MacKenzie

Jake handed the
bouquet back to a still hovering Ronson. Mindful of Noelle, who was still in
her mother’s arms, Jake carefully lifted MacKenzie out of her chair and onto
his lap. Uncaring of his audience, he spoke the words that he had kept locked
inside for far too long. “I hold you both dear, and I love you MacKenzie Braithwaite.”

A hush fell over
the room as though all the occupants knew this was a perfect moment.

“We love you too,
Jake,” was MacKenzie’s simple reply. Probably sensing something monumental was
afoot, Noelle pushed up in her mother’s arms and grabbed hold of Jake’s nose.
When he transferred his attention to her, she gave him a big gummy smile. Her
smile was followed by a hiccup that seemed to startle her. Then Noelle emitted
a deep belly laugh that Jake would have been proud to produce. In shock, the
rest of his family looked at the baby. Jake had heard the laugh before, and if he
hadn’t known better, he would have sworn Noelle preened at being the center of
attention.

***********

“Jason Kingdom,
you had better have a good reason that a perfect stranger is refusing to allow
us to take a car and leave the property!” Aviva glowered at the phone even
though her husband couldn’t see her.

“Us?” Jason
questioned.

“Don’t you dare
start with me, Jason! By your own admission and those of your family, it’s now
safe to get on with our lives. Well, MacKenzie and I want to go shopping.
Therefore, I find it difficult to understand why a man I have never met is
preventing us from taking a car!”

“Calm down,
Angel,” Jason said in a placating tone.

“As a matter of
fact, I don’t want to bloody well calm down. I want to know what’s going on.”
By the time Aviva finished speaking, her teeth were bared, and the tendons were
standing up in her neck. Only just managing to suppress the urge to fling the
phone across the room, she drew in a deep breath as she battled to find her
inner calm.

Assailed by
feelings of what she had gone through only months before, she tried to push the
disquieting thoughts from her mind. As for her recent accident, Aviva refused
to give the thought even a moment to gain purchase in her mind. She had been
through enough, and she refused to be coddled. To do so would be to give others
power over her. Aviva decided to call her husband’s bluff. She wasn’t a fool,
if there was still a chance of any of them being in real danger, she would
remain at the house. She just needed to know what was going on.

“You told me that
everything was okay. The reporters have moved on. Therefore, I am going to take
the car, and MacKenzie and I are going out. I’m going to trust that you, your
brothers and your father are not keeping anything from MacKenzie and me.”

Aviva knew by
Jason’s hesitation that she had backed him into a corner.

“Where are you
thinking of going, Angel?”

“I’m not sure, I’m
leaving that up to MacKenzie,” knowing he only had their well-being at heart,
Aviva softened once she had made her point. “Baby, I know you want to keep us
all safe, so I have no objections that the bodyguard comes with us. I also have
no doubt that as soon as we reach our destination, he will be on the blower
telling you exactly where we are.”

“Blower?” Jason
queried.

“Phone, baby,”
Aviva qualified with a laugh. “Another word to add to your list of cockney
slang. By the time I’m finished with you, you’re going to be bilingual.”

“I’m already bilingual.
Didn’t I mention that to you before? Just so you know, I speak; Spanish,
Portuguese, French, Japanese, Cantonese and I have a strong grasp of Russian.”

“You are such a
show off. Well, I bet you don’t know how to speak Jamaican patois, so, yu can
jus galang wid yu ova achievement self.”

“Come on, Angel.
That’s easy. Do you honestly think I wouldn’t make it a point to learn the
stuff you mutter under your breath when you’re mad at me? You said that I
should continue over-achieving and that no matter what, you would continue to
love me.”

“I did not say
that last part.” Aviva corrected.

“I know, but if I
had given you a few more moments, you would have,” Jason laughed. “It’s all
arranged, enjoy your trip and I’ll speak to you later.”

**********

Aviva, MacKenzie,
Noelle and their grim-faced guard entered the third store of their shopping
trip. It was MacKenzie’s idea that they went lingerie shopping. Looking over at
the guard, Aviva had never seen a grown man so uncomfortable at the sight of
women’s underwear.

“Take it easy,
Alan, why don’t you wait by the door,” Aviva suggested. “That way you can still
keep an eye on things without being overwhelmed by lace.”

With a nod and an
unchanged expression, the guard turned and headed back towards the entrance.
Aviva shook her head as she strolled over to join MacKenzie, who was looking
through some rather risqué undergarments.

“What do you
think,” MacKenzie asked, holding up a pair of panties that looked to Aviva to
be missing its crotch.

“Girl, I’m about
to get Jason a pair of those!” Aviva laughed, pulling the garment out of her
friend’s hand for closer inspection.

“Well, it looks as
though your husband is in for a treat,” said a sophisticated older woman. “I’m
sure my sons would just love for their wives to wear something like that. Their
father always did.”

Exchanging a brief
glance with MacKenzie, Aviva looked at the woman and smiled. For some reason,
she also glanced over at the door to make sure that their guard still had them
in his sight. Catching sight of him, Aviva noted that he displayed no signs of
anything being out of the ordinary.

MacKenzie was
chatting away to the woman, and Aviva got the distinct impression that somehow
she was deliberately being excluded from the conversation. Not bothered in the
slightest, she moved away to look at more bits of frilly lace.

A short while
later a commotion caught Aviva’s attention, and her head snapped up. Across the
store, a couple were involved in a loud altercation. The sounds of their raised
voices held her attention for a few moments. Feeling embarrassed on their
behalf, Aviva turned away. When she looked at MacKenzie, she saw that she too
had been distracted by the raised voices.

Noticing that the
older woman had disappeared, Aviva cast her eyes towards the spot where
Noelle’s stroller had been sitting. It wasn’t there. Thinking MacKenzie must
have moved it; Aviva called out to her friend.

“MacKenzie,
where’s the baby?”

“What?” She
answered, sounding distracted.

“MacKenzie, the
baby... where is she?”

Startled into action,
MacKenzie dropped the garment in her hands and spun around in a circle, her
eyes darting in every direction at once.

“Oh, my God...
where is she? I only took my eyes off her for a moment. I promise, it was just
for a moment.”

Her heart pounding
against her ribs, Aviva didn’t bother to reply as she too looked around, hoping
for a sight of the baby.

“My baby, where’s
my baby?” MacKenzie cried. “Someone’s taken my baby!”

“My dear girl,
she’s right here,” said the older woman who moments before had been nowhere in
sight; her perfectly manicured hands resting on the handle of the stroller.

The look of relief
reflected on MacKenzie’s face only registered with Aviva on a subliminal level.
Her attention was riveted on the woman with the cold eyes. While a crying
MacKenzie clutched her daughter close, Aviva’s gaze was held captive by the
smiling woman.

“Who are you?”
Aviva demanded.

The older woman’s pretense
of a smile was gone in an instance. “Why my dear, I’m just a concerned
bystander.”

“Get away from
us!” Aviva cried.

“You should
consider how you speak to me. All this,” the woman waved her hand in the air,
“could have been so much worse.”

“Is everything
okay, Ms. Braithwaite?” Asked the guard, now standing beside them.

“This woman...”
Aviva trailed off as she pointed to where the older woman had been standing.
Frantically looking around, she was nowhere in sight.

“Mrs. Kingdom?”
The guard questioned, looking at her with concern.

Refusing to give
up her search, Aviva was just in time to spot the small woman with the black
hair exit the store.

The whole incident
had taken less than three minutes, yet in her mind she likened it to a
prolonged nightmare.

Even though she
had never seen a picture of Diana, Aviva knew it had been her. She also knew
that they had just been given the most graphic of threats.