Chapter 7

7

Ripley

It’s pretty surreal to be on a date with my Uncle Mase.

We’ve had plenty of meals together at my house and celebrated a few milestones at various restaurants back home, but this is different. For one, he’s sitting on the same side of the table as me with his arm propped along the back of the booth, his fingertips brushing up and down my bare shoulder. As if that’s not making me breathless enough, our thighs are pressed together and I can see the outline of his bulge. I mean, it’s just sitting there like a ticking time bomb, all stiff and thick. How am I supposed to eat my sandwich?

I tried to get Alana to come along with us to the café located in a small square just outside our housing complex, but she wanted to explore the neighborhood with her camera. My best friend has been kind of pensive since the night in the brothel—and frustratingly tightlipped. I’m sure she’ll open up eventually about what happened with her customer, but for now, I have to let her process. And that leaves me alone with Mase.

Right where I’ve always, always wanted to be.

He’s holding me like I’m his girlfriend, daring every man that passes to glance in my direction. His bottle of beer sits next to my pink milkshake, probably making our age difference even more obvious to everyone in this restaurant. Not that I’ve ever cared about the age gap.

No, I have much bigger concerns now.

Like whether or not Mase is courting me now out of a sense of duty.

It hurts to think that might be the case.

That my pregnancy is forcing him to step up and do the right thing.

More than life itself, I want to believe the adoration I see in Mase’s eyes, but I already trapped him once. I refuse to do it again.

“You have to try and eat, sweetheart.” His lips brush my ear. “For our baby.” The words our baby make my core clench. I try not to let my breathless reaction show on my face, but he must notice, because he chuckles. His laughter dies, however, when a thought seems to occur. “You aren’t feeling sick because of the pregnancy, are you? I could ask for some ginger ale—”

“No, it’s okay.” To appease him, I pick up a French fry and chew on the end. “I keep waiting for the queasiness to hit. But maybe it’s too early.”

He relaxes somewhat. “So why can’t you eat?”

I swallow. “You’ve just given me so much to think about.”

“Good.” Determination flares in his face. “Keep thinking. Take as long as you need. I’m not going anywhere, Ripley.”

Relief floods me, despite my best efforts to keep it dammed. How long am I going to keep my resolve when he’s determined to prove he’s committed? “What about the shop?”

His eyes run down the front of me, lingering on my breasts. “I thought I’d spend tomorrow looking at garage space around here,” he answers gruffly, not so subtly adjusting the ridge in his jeans. “I’ll be back in time to pick you up from class.”

The very idea of Mase sitting on his Harley with his black, windswept hair when I emerge from the lecture hall makes my pulse clamor giddily. Still, he might just feel obligated. Or protective since I’m pregnant. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Have to?” He shakes his head. “I don’t think you get it, Ripley.”

“Get what?”

A beat passes. “That I would trade my last breath to have you climb onto the back of my bike.” His voice resonates with such intensity that I can’t help but hold my breath. “To have you put your arms around me, knowing I’ll keep you safe. Knowing I’ll be there again tomorrow.” He turns toward me in the booth, sliding his hand up my inner thigh, stopping just beneath the hem of the skirt I changed into for dinner. “To have Ripley depend on me, trust me, smile when she sees me. What else could a man want out of life?”

“Oh, Mase…” I whisper, letting him nuzzle our mouths together.

“I’m not here out of obligation, Ripley.” His hand disappears farther up my skirt, his knuckle driving softly into my folds to rub my clit gently. “I’m here because I can’t live without you. Not for one fucking day.”

Moisture rushes to the apex of my thighs, the noise from the restaurant nothing more than a muffled din around us. “Take me somewhere.”

“Not until you let me back into the sunshine.” His mouth skates up the slope of my neck. “I want my chance. I want us. You and me. A family.”

His touch is almost overwhelming me, but still, I hesitate. Everything is going so fast…

“Mase?” says a raspy male voice. “Is that you?”

My uncle goes very still against me, his hand going from seductive to unmoving between my thighs. He takes two centering breaths, then straightens. No longer is his hand under my skirt, but he tucks me even more protectively to his side than before. Blinking our surroundings back into focus, I notice two men standing beside our table. They’re wearing leather vests with their names stitched into patches over their hearts. Chavez. Clint.

“You’re a long way from home,” one of them drawls, his eyes dancing with amusement.

“I could say the same about you,” Mase responds with a chill in his voice. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Oh come on,” says the other one. “We couldn’t pass up a chance to meet your famous niece. Think of the bragging rights this is going to give us back at the club.”

Mase’s steel hold flexes around me dangerously.

Famous niece? What does that mean?

“Walk away,” Mase warns the men.

Chavez holds up his hands, palms out. “We don’t mean any harm.” His eyes glint wickedly. “But I guess the mystery is solved why you left the club for her. She’s a little more than just a niece to you, isn’t she, man?” He elbows Clint in the ribs. “Unless that hand up her skirt was an optical illusion.”

My uncle’s fist slams down on the table with enough force to knock his beer over and upset the silverware. I’ve never seen him like this. There is murder in his eyes and it’s centered on these two men. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life than I am that Mase is about to commit a double homicide.

Which means he’ll be taken away from me.

For life?

Chills wrack me. The idea of him back behind bars is so terrifying, I whimper in my throat and his gaze flies to my face, incorrectly interpreting where my fear stems from. He thinks I’m scared of the men and it fuels his rage even more, his nostrils flaring, his body vibrating with barely leashed violence. This is the man my father tells stories about. The force to be reckoned with who, at one time, ruled the streets from the seat of his bike. His head whips back around and whatever look he pins on the men sends them back a step. Then another. “Mase,” Clint laughs nervously. “We were just joking around. Whatever you do is your business.”

“Stay put.” Mase growls the order at me, moving to leave the booth. But I know I can’t let that happen. If he gets his hands on those men, he’s going to pound their bones to dust.

“No, please. Wait.” I sling my leg across his lap and haul myself up until I’m straddling him, my arms wrapping around his neck. “Don’t. Please. I need you here with me and the baby. Please don’t do something that’ll get you taken away from me.”

“They scared you,” he shouts, his murderous gaze fixed over my shoulder.

“No. Only the thought of you leaving scares me.”

His barrel chest heaves. “They disrespected you, too.” He tries to leave the booth again, but I clamp my legs around his waist, so when he stands, I’m clinging to him like a monkey. “I have to handle this, Ripley.”

“No, you don’t.” My near-paralyzing fear of Mase being taken away has made me realize how stupid I was to think I could send him away. To think I could be without him. To think I could raise this baby alone when having him near me is a necessity. “I love you,” I say truthfully, dropping kisses on his face. “I love you and I need you to take me home. I-I need you to pick me up from class every day and make sure I’m eating for the baby.”

The anger starts to clear from his eyes as he looks at me, leaving wonder in its wake. “You love me, Ripley?”

I nod enthusiastically, tears forming in my eyes. And for the first time, it occurs to me what the men said when they approached our table. It really sinks in. “You left the club for me?”

“Of course I did.” He leans in and whispers the rest beside my ear. “You were the purest light I’d ever seen. You baptized me. Made me new. Made me want to be worthy of five minutes in the same room as you. I love you.”

Euphoria rolls through me at his confession. How ridiculous I must have sounded, accusing him of wanting a relationship out of obligation because of the baby. He changed his whole life for me years ago and never said a word. “Forget about them.” Aware of the multitude of eyes on us, I squeeze his hips with my thighs as subtly as possible. “I need you so bad,” I sob quietly into his neck. “Now.”

He’s already striding toward the back of the restaurant.

* * *

Mase

Christ,I shouldn’t fuck her when I’m this worked up, but nothing is going to stop me.

Ripley’s pussy grinds down on my cock as I stomp through the noisy kitchen, kicking the back door open with my boot and carrying her into the dark alley where I parked my bike earlier. The sun has set since we entered the restaurant, leaving nothing but moonlight to guide my way as I take two steps and pin her to the brick building opposite the door we just exited.

I ram my cock up between her thighs and she cries out, her fingernails digging into my shoulders. “Mase. Yes. Yes. Please.”

“You’re giving me forever, Ripley,” I groan, almost delirious from how good it feels to hump her after an hour in the restaurant sitting beside her looking so sexy. “Say it.”

“Forever. Forever,” she chants, jarred by my thrusts. “Forever.”

Ripley was never supposed to come that close to my former life. None of it was ever supposed to touch her and I’m still reeling over my past and present colliding. As pissed off as I am about Chavez and Clint daring to breathe in my girl’s direction, though…maybe it was a good thing. The reminder of who I used to be forces me to acknowledge who I still am.

A possessive bastard. Her possessive bastard.

I need her to acknowledge it, too. And I pray it doesn’t scare her.

“Ripley, do you remember what I said to you when I spanked you that night in the brothel?”

Her expression is dazed, but she visibly tries to focus. “Um. I remember…there was a part of me that l-liked it.”

“Getting spanked?” My cock pulses hotter. “Being punished?”

She nods, her cheeks pinkening. “I didn’t cry because it hurt. I cried because you pushed me away.” When I heave a miserable sound, she soothes me by tracing circles on my chest. “You told me…you’d do that if I didn’t answer your phone calls. Or if I smile at another man.” A breath shudders past her lips, her eyelids drooping. “You said you’re my master.”

I struggle to focus after she repeats the words back, hearing them in her voice is such an aphrodisiac. Having her acknowledge my possessiveness and not turn away from it. “I meant all of it, Ripley. Every word, do you hear me?” I reach down between us and yank her skirt up to her waist. Then I grip her pussy roughly. “You want me, you have to understand that I’m consumed by thoughts of you. Your body. Your safety. Your perfect heart. This cunt.” I squeeze her flesh and she whimpers, her eyes losing focus. “I’m not some chump who’ll be content with text messages and a fucking movie date once in a while. Your free time is going to be spent riding my cock like a good princess. And my free time will be spent coming up with a million ways to make you happy and safe. You won’t be my girlfriend, you’ll be mine. Plain and simple. You’ll be property of Mase, no exceptions.”

“And y-you’ll be property of Ripley?” she sobs the question through swollen lips, her wetness already pooling in the center of my palm.

My head tilts out of pure incredulity. “You really have to ask me that, sweetheart? Do you think I’ve ever wanted to lay down these rules for someone besides you? No. No, these are Ripley specific. You made me this way, niece. This insanity of mine is all for you. I’m going to obsess over you until the day I die.” I slide my hand around the back of her panties so I can knead her supple ass. “I can’t live without you being happy. Tell me again I’m getting that chance. Tell me again you want every fucked up thing that comes with me.”

She looks me in the eye and whispers, “I want it. I want you. All of you.”

I can’t get her panties ripped off fast enough. My dick is throbbing, ordering me to claim her, and my heart is still held in thrall over her confession of love. I’m fucking shaking with desire and emotion as I unzip my jeans, my shaft slapping out right where it needs to go, without being guided. It searches for her tight little hole, finds it, spurts come against it—and I slam home, cutting off her scream with my mouth. Keeping our lips suctioned tightly, I fuck her in a frenzy, wedging my hands between her back and the wall so not a scratch finds her.

She bucks her hips like a goddamn wildcat, moaning in her throat, not a single complaint even though I’m banging her harder than I have any right to, this only being her second time. I can’t imagine it ever being another way for us, though, and she seems to agree. Seems to love my rough reentries to her body, even opening her thighs wider to receive them harder.

“Yes, Uncle Mase. Yes. Faster.”

Growling into her neck, I angle her against the building and jackhammer her tight, slick cunt, clenching my teeth against the need to come too fast. “God help me,” I grit out, raking her neck with my teeth. “Our babies are going to have my last name. And so are you. You’ll be my wife before my come finishes drying on your thighs.”

She whimpers, “Yes. Yes.” Her pussy spasms, her thighs jerking tight, and I bounce her through the climax, groaning over the way her titties shake for my entertainment.

And with her pleasure seen to, I take my own, grinding her down hard on my lap, tight enough to put an unholy pressure on my aching balls—and I let her clenching pussy milk the seed right out of me, the entire sweet piece of her rippling around me, root to tip. Rippling. “That’s where you really get your name, isn’t it baby? Couldn’t keep it a secret from me forever, could you?” I pant, kneading her butt, my knees dipping under the rush of the best orgasm of my thirty-eight years, because she’s finally mine. All mine. “Oh Christ. Yeah, sweetheart, just like that. Let me feel why I’m such a lucky motherfucker. Ahhhh. God.”

It’s a long time until she stops trembling and sighs into my sweaty neck. “I love you.”

I kiss her with every ounce of love in my soul, love that will multiply and grow more intense every minute for the rest of my life. “I love you, too, baby.”