Page 50 of Coyote

“I’m glad you liked it,” he murmured back, clearly pleased with himself.

“I guess we’ll be doing that a lot, right?”

“Nope. If we did, what would be left to distinguish the holidays.” I could tell by the note of amusement in his voice that he was joking. It made me smile. God, everything with this man was so endearing. After reconnecting, I couldn’t imagine being separated from him again.

Eventually, he lowered us onto our sides and curled protectively around me with his cock still inside me.

I don’t think I have ever been happier than I was in this moment. A feeling of deep peace and contentment settled over me. I trusted Coyote and his club to protect me and my daughter, come what may. These men had exposed and dismantled a cult, driven away the mafia and held a rival outlaw biker club at bay. Surely, nothing going on with me would rival the conquests they’ve already made.

I drifted off to sleep feeling like I had finally come home and been embraced fully by my long-lost love. Now, if I could just find a way to tell him that he might be Nessa’s father without spoiling the bond we’d created, I might have a chance of hanging onto the life we were building together. Nessa needed a father, and I needed the man I loved. I would have to find a way to keep this new dream alive.

Chapter Twenty

Bethany

I’d woken bright and early in preparation for the family day at the clubhouse. It was going to be a huge event, and in a way, it was nice to go to something like that and not actually be responsible for planning it. I had managed to get Coyote’s club a discount on the inflatable castle rental through one of my connections, so I felt like in a way I was contributing. I was looking forward to catching up with the Dark Slayers and their wives. There had been a lot of changes since I left town, back then I’d gotten quite close to Storm’s wife, Zoe, her sister, Alison, and Alison’s husband, Grit, who had given me a job at his gym.

I was already making breakfast when Coyote came downstairs. While I had been tempted to stay in bed with him and continue on from last night’s pleasures, I knew my little girl would be getting fidgety. We’d told her about the special day earlier in the week and bless her, she’d thought it was her birthday. I’d explained that her birthday was still a month away, but we could call this a practice party. When she turned two, she was still a bit too young to really appreciate things, so we’d just had a quiet party at Reggie’s with his nieces. This year I promised her a party at Patterdale Waterpark, and we could invite her friends from daycare. Callie and Breaker’s kids would be coming too, and I suspect, knowing how good Nessa was at making friends, that she’d probably come back today with a whole bunch of new best buddies.

“Morning, beautiful,” Coyote said as he stood behind me and kissed the back of my neck. I leaned against him feeling the hard planes of his chest against my back. I was tempted to press my ass into a certain area to see if anything else was hard, but Nessa would no doubt be awake any minute. I’d taken the baby monitor with me so I could listen out for her waking up and go and get her ready—while at almost three, she could dress herself, if left to her own devices the resulting outfit could be quite interesting. I flipped the pancakes and turned around to kiss Coyote.

“Good morning, handsome.” Before either of us could say anything more, we heard the noise of childish giggles and yipping coming from the monitor, “Looks like someone is awake.”

“Do you want me to see to her while you finish breakfast?” Coyote asked.

“If you could, that would be great,” I responded as I poured more batter into the pan. “I left her outfit over the chair, if she insists on the fairy wings then let her wear them.” Noticing his bemused look I added, “We had a bunch of kid’s Halloween costumes come into the store last week. One of the packages was damaged and there were a pair of gauze fairy wings loose. We couldn’t sell them, so I brought them back, she’s been asking to wear them every morning and me being bad mommy said she couldn’t.”

Coyote laughed, “So you’re bad cop and I’m good cop?”

“Something like that,” I said. As he went upstairs to get Nessa ready, I pondered what he’d said for a moment. In the week that we’d been staying with him we’d fallen into an easy routine with him helping out with Nessa like we were a real family. It was making keeping secrets from him even more difficult. I’d decided after the weekend I would bite the bullet and get one of the home paternity test kits. I figured that way I could use anonymous names on the form, my paranoia was so great that Cyclops would discover what I’d done. I knew that was crazy, but the way he’d looked at Nessa at the opening of Coyote’s auto repair shop had chilled me to the bone.

Truth be told, that encounter had really spooked me, even though I’d not seen hide nor hair of him since. Just seeing him brought back all those memories of being violated, and the uneasy calm I’d managed to build up in the last three and a half years felt fragile as if it would collapse at any moment. I had to stay strong for Nessa, but it was making me jumpy. On Thursday evening when I’d left work, I’d thought someone was following me as I drove the hour-long journey back to Coyote’s house. I’d kept glancing in the rear-view mirror but hadn’t seen anything suspicious, at least no bikes. I don’t know if Coyote still had his prospects shadowing me, after Rufus had been dealt with, and the cops deciding that the fire was arson, I doubted he had much reason to keep an eye on me.

“Mommy, look at me!” A little voice called out and I lifted my head up and smiled. Nessa looked so cute, she was wearing the red and white polka dot sundress I’d bought her and a pair of matching red sneakers. Coyote had braided her hair and added a couple of flower barrettes. The outfit was topped with a large pair of glittery fairy wings, and she was carrying a wand.

“Wow! You’re a fairy queen,” I said and smiled up at Coyote as my daughter danced around the room with Ruby hot on her heels. I asked him, “Where did you get the wand?”

“Remember the old sheriff’s badge I used to wear on my cut, back when I thought it was cool? I taped it to a wheel spoke.”

“Creative and handsome,” I quipped.

“Told you I had some uses,” he said as he arranged our plates on the kitchen table and got out the maple syrup.

“Does fairy princess Nessa want her pancakes?” I shouted, as my daughter skipped back into the kitchen with a puzzled look on her face.

“What’s up?” Coyote asked.

“Doesn’t work,” she said while shaking the homemade wand and screwing up her eyebrows in deep concentration.

“What are you trying to do, sweetheart?” I asked as I lifted her up onto her booster seat.

“Ruby wants wings.”

“Ah,” Coyote said sounding deadly serious. “I’m sorry princess, I think the wand doesn’t work on dogs.”

I sensed a tantrum, so before her bottom lip started to wobble, I placed a plate with two small pancakes on it in front of her, and it worked like magic, “Booberries and bananananas!” she exclaimed happily as she grabbed her fork.

“Yes, blueberries and bananas, don’t eat too many though, because a little bird told me there’ll be cotton candy later.”