Honey to Burn (Sweet & Dirty BBW MC Romance Book 10) Read online

  “Hi, Mac,” they chorused.

  Before he knew it, he had a lapful of woman—no, make that women, both with an arm wrapped around him and their free hands busy messing with his hair and his shirt.

  “Hey, what?” he said, then laughed when fingers tickled his belly through his open shirt. “Ladies, no—I have a…”

  The redhead bent in and kissed him, so he didn’t get to finish his protest, or his thought for that matter. Hard to think with whiskey coursing through his veins and a woman’s tongue in his mouth while her friend cupped his groin.

  Things got out of control fast. Way out of control.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  RaeAnn pulled up before the long, low building and sat for a moment. This must be the Devil’s Flyers’ clubhouse. It fit Mac’s description and the directions he’d messaged her that afternoon.

  She kind of couldn’t believe she was here. She’d changed her mind ten times in the past few days. But finally, she’d decided Dee was right. If she wanted to be with Mac, and she did, she had to reach out a little bit, and meet his friends.

  And she’d gotten his message from an hour ago, too. The one where he demanded to know where she was and if she was coming at all.

  Too bad he hadn’t waited for her to answer her phone, because she just hadn’t felt comfortable messaging him back on someone else’s phone.

  She’d fixed her hair in long waves and dressed up in her new cream top and boot-cut jeans—her first pair of maternity jeans, with a panel of elastic on the front instead of a zipper. She wore her gray wool coat open in the front because she was warm despite the cold winter evening. Pregnancy was like having an extra heater inside her.

  It was six-thirty, though already dark of course. The snow on the ground lightened up the parking lot, so she could see to pick her way carefully across the frosty ruts and between vehicles.

  There were several cars in the lot and a few motorcycles backed in before the front walk.

  Brrr, too cold for her to ride on one, not to mention slippery. She’d have to ask Mac to please drive his truck when it was slippery. He had responsibilities now.

  But he was certainly willing to assume them. She smiled as she recalled the way he’d kissed her belly so tenderly after they made love. Surprise, her biker man was ready to be a family man.

  She couldn’t believe they’d waited so long to make love again. That needed to be a regular thing from now on. Until she couldn’t anymore, of course.

  Maybe… maybe he’d even ask her to marry him.

  She made her way across a patch of ice to the front doors and grasped the handle, ready to pull it open. To walk in and meet Mac’s friends. Not that she was going to want to hang out here a lot, or bring the baby here or anything, but she could show him she accepted his club.

  The front doors had glass on their upper halves, although they also bore security bars.

  Rae peered through the glass at the men and women milling around the big room. Why, it was just a bar, essentially. Country music played, muffled by the glass, and there were a couple of pool tables to one side.

  She’d find Mac in the crowd, then be able to walk straight to him without standing in the doorway being self-conscious.

  However, when she found him, she froze in place, nearly unable to believe her eyes.

  Mac was there all right.

  But he was not alone.

  He had not one, but two women on his lap, both slim, attractive, and dressed like they were about to star in some sexy music video.

  One of them was kissing him. And he did not seem to mind this one bit.

  Anymore than he minded the other woman unfastening his jeans and slipping her hand right inside them.

  He’d invited her, RaeAnn, to come here, to witness this? Him making out with two women and letting them do sexy things to him, right in front of all his friends… and her?

  Was this how little she meant to him?

  Rae gasped for breath, her lungs nearly refusing to work.

  She took a step back away from the door and the sight inside.

  Slipping on the ice, she would have fallen had it not been for the wooden railing. As it was, she jerked her back and she was sure the railing would leave a bruise on her thigh.

  She turned away and somehow found her way back through the parked vehicles to her car.

  She dropped her keys in the snow and had to find them with bare hands. Finally, she managed to stop shaking long enough to unlock her car door and open it.

  Then she got in, started the motor, and got the heck out of there.

  Away from Mac Carson and the stupid, stupid dreams she’d begun to build around him.

  Her mother was right. She should’ve known better than to think he’d stick around—or to be faithful.

  He might be handsome, and funny, and charming… but in the ways that counted, he was no good.

  Not for her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Mac took another drink of Coke and waited. Okay, that was staying down all right. He had another sip.

  He was back home at his trailer. He’d hung his new Flyers’ cut carefully over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, tossed his clothes in the laundry, and enjoyed a long, hot shower.

  Now, dressed in a clean tee, long sleeved shirt, his new cut and clean jeans, he felt almost human.

  He didn’t know how much he’d had to drink yesterday, but it had been a lot, for certain. The last thing he remembered was getting sucked off right there in front of the crowd, while the brothers watched and called lewd suggestions.

  He’d awakened on one of the sofas in the back, alone, and made a run for the nearest john to hurl.

  Guilt nagged at him now, like an added layer of pain in his pounding head. Fuck him, he hadn’t meant to get near any of the sweetbutts. Not while he was with RaeAnn.

  Now, he was gonna have to get tested at a clinic before he got near her again. And God forbid she ever got even a hint of what had gone down at his patch-in party.

  Of course, it wasn’t like she’d be gossiping with any of the strippers, so he was safe. None of his brothers would give him up, that was for sure.

  No, a confession would only hurt her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. He’d just be extra good to her from now on, and things would be fine.

  He finished his Coke, gathered up his keys and phone, shrugged on his jacket, and headed out. Needed to get his phone fixed or replaced, then go by and see his baby mama.

  Maybe he’d take her some flowers, or something. She’d like that.

  An hour later, Mac stood inside RaeAnn’s front door. A bouquet of pink and red carnations hung forgotten in his hand, as he stared at her, trying to process the way she was looking at him.

  She sat on her sofa, pretty as a picture. But the look in her eyes… that was pure ice.

  “You don’t have to bring me flowers, Mac,” she said in a nearly toneless voice. “We’re going to be parents together. But that’s pretty much all, right?”

  Mac shook his head. “You mind tellin’ me what is wrong?” he asked.

  Jesus, had she shown up at the club last night and been disgusted by the wild shit going on? Because there had been plenty of that, including, if he remembered right, a naked conga line of strippers.

  And of course, his public blow job.

  She tossed her hair back over her shoulder and pursed her pretty lips. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said in that flat voice. “I just… don’t think we need to be trying to live in each other’s hip pockets, that’s all.”

  When he simply stared, a frown gathering on his face and she shook her head at him. “Oh, stop. Let’s not pretend this is some… big romance, when it’s not. We hooked up, I got pregnant, now we’re gonna be parents. That’s all.”

  A hollow thud reverberated through his chest, like she’d sucker-punched him. He couldn’t have been any more shocked, sure as fuck.

  “That’s all,” he repeated. “And I guess that’s why y
ou didn’t bother to show up at my party, or let me know you wouldn’t be there.”

  She blinked and looked away, as if the view out her front window was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. “I guess so. Just… not my kind of thing.”

  “Fuck. Me,” he muttered. “Feel like I showed up at the wrong damn house. Guess I’m in the right place, you’re just not the gal I thought you were. Congratulations, you’re a chip off the old block—just like your damn mother.”

  He turned back to the door, remembered the flowers, and tossed them at her. “Here, these are for you.”

  The flowers landed on the coffee table before her, droplets of water splattering across the neat array of magazines and over RaeAnn’s pants.

  He honestly couldn't have cared less.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  July 15, 2003

  The life of Connor Carson-Denton began as it would go on, with both his mother and his father present... along with his maternal grandmother.

  Mac sat between RaeAnn's legs on the delivery table, his face alight with excitement as their baby's head crowned in the opening of her vulva.

  "Okay, mama," he said jubilantly, his gloved hands poised to catch their baby. "Push! Push! That's it, that's it... Good job. Here he comes."

  Rae let out a cross between a growl and a scream and pushed with all her might.

  The baby gushed forth from her body headfirst, into his father's hands.

  "Here's my boy!" crowed Mac. "Mama, you gave us a beautiful son."

  Rae lay back, panting. "Really? Is he... Is he okay?"

  "He's perfect," Mac assured her. He cradled their son up in his hands, against his chest and smiled down at the baby. "Hey there, Connor,” he crooned. “Welcome to the world.."

  Mac 's heart had surely never been this full.

  Oh, he loved his Cassie girl, no one better mistake that. But he hadn't been at her birth, nor been the one to capture her as she spurted from her mother's body, wet and wriggling and blinking her eyes as she took her first blurry look at this new world she would inhabit.

  Mac held his son carefully, as if he were made of spun glass, while the doctor and nurses worked around him helping RaeAnn expel the afterbirth and getting her cleaned up,

  Mac's heart swelled so big in his chest that he felt light enough to float, and yet anchored securely to the ground, and to this tiny person in his grasp.

  He would be an anchor for his boy, he would.

  No matter what.

  The ‘what’ made itself known the very next second, as RaeAnn's mama pushed forward from the side of the room. "Give him to his mother now. She's the one who did all the work, she should be the one holding him." The words 'not you' hung in the air like a blinking neon sign.

  Luckily, because all Mac's arms wanted to do in that moment was hold his son even tighter, the doctor spoke up. "RaeAnn, you can hold your son in a few moments. We need to cut that umbilical cord and get him cleaned up and weighed. Then you can have him."

  Mac handed his son over to the careful grasp of one of the nurses, a real nice gal named Bethany, who smiled at him and murmured, "We’ll take real good care of him, daddy. Why don't you wash up at the sink over there?"

  Mac stood and moved around the bed. He gave Rae a tender smile and leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. Her hair was wet with sweat, her face pale and bruised looking, her eyes heavy, but he noticed none of these things. He saw the woman who’d just given him a son.

  "You did good, mama," he murmured. "You were a trooper. Now that's done and we can get to enjoying our boy."

  "Go wash your hands and arms," RaeAnn's mother ordered sharply from across the narrow bed. She gave him a look that said he was disgusting in his current state.

  He wondered how in the hell she'd gotten through the act of sex itself to conceive her daughter, since she thought bodily fluids were so revolting.

  After that, things rolled right along. RaeAnn's labor had lasted six hours, and she was exhausted, so after holding her son briefly—now cleaned up with a tiny pale blue cap on his head and a pale blue blanket wrapped around him—she went to sleep.

  And somehow, Rae's mom got there before Mac and took the baby from Rae's arms. "It's my turn to hold my grandson."

  Mac was exhausted, too, because he'd worked a full shift on the ambulance before getting the text that alerted him to get to the hospital.

  Stifling a gargantuan yawn, he went to get himself a big cup of coffee and something to eat.

  When he got back to Rae's room, she was still asleep, the covers now tucked over her. Her mother sat in the corner rocking the baby, her face soft—the first time he’d ever seen that look on her.

  Mac watched her and the baby for a moment and then took a breath.

  This was a deciding moment—was he going to roll over for Rae and her mom and do what they’d both made so clear during the last five months they wanted—for him to fade into the background of their lives? Or was he going to assert his rights as his son's daddy?

  He set his jaw and moved into the room. That wasn't even a choice.

  Moving over to the rocker, he bent and held out his arms. "I'll take him now," he said. For a moment, Mac and Ellen Denton stared at each other like gunfighters facing off in an old western movie.

  Then, with obvious reluctance, she handed him the baby. Not without a dramatic gasp of alarm as they made the hand-off, of course. He ignored her and cradled his son against his chest in his left arm. With his free hand, he carefully drew the blanket away from that little face, still red and purple from the trauma of being squeezed through the birth canal.

  "Hey there," Mac crooned, drawing his fingertip carefully across the baby's cheek. Connor's head turned slightly toward him and his impossibly soft rosebud lips worked, pursing in an adorable way.

  With a chuckle of pure jubilation and love, Mac bent his head and pressed soft kisses on the baby’s cheek. Inhaling his newborn scent, Mac closed his eyes and rocked his son gently back and forth, hoping that he could hold this moment fresh in his memory for the rest of his life.

  "You may as well take the rocking chair," Ellen said. "At least that way, you won't drop him."

  RaeAnn's mother would have a fit at the comparison, but she honestly kind of reminded him of Snake at times.

  The older biker liked nothing better than to snark at someone, including the prospects at the club, until they snarked back. Then the guy would sneer and say something worse. Hoping for a good fight.

  Mac didn't mind battling verbally with Snake—within the confines of the respect he owed his Flyer brothers, of course—but he wasn't about to get into that habit with Connor’s grandma.

  Thus, he nodded to her. "Thanks," he replied, sitting in the chair to hold his son and rock him. A little bit later, he’d ask one of the nurses to take some pictures of him and Connor, to send to his folks and to have for himself.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Rae was never, ever getting pregnant again.

  And if that meant she had to abstain from sex for the rest of her reproductive years, that was fine with her.

  She had been in labor for over five hours. A couple of hours of walking the halls of the hospital, with her mom at her side, and later Mac because even though they now treated each other with painful politeness, Rae needed stronger arms to support her as the pains hit. Also, he was good at ignoring the words that came out of her mouth then, which her mother was not.

  Finally, they put her to bed in a small, cozy delivery room with soft lights and some of her favorite music playing quietly in the background from her phone.

  And her labor got worse, fast.

  It felt as if her body was trying to squeeze her uterus into a torpedo and use it to fire her baby out through her vagina.

  Which did not seem to be working, but her body kept trying. And the agony as it did so was so intense, Rae felt crazed with pain.

  And Mac, the nurses, and the middle-aged doctor who wandered in finally, were all crazy, t
oo.

  Because they kept telling her stupid things like 'you're doing great!' and ‘just a little longer now.'

  Her least favorite was 'don't push yet. Not yet... not quite ready.'

  Finally, she let go of Mac's hand, which she had been mangling during contractions, grabbed the front of his scrubs, and used this to yank him down to her.

  "Make them stop saying that," she snarled to him. "I have to push. I'm going to, and no one is going to stop me!"

  Because he was one of the crazies who surrounded her, he looked to the doctor, then grinned down at her. "Okay, mama, just give me a chance to get where I can catch him, and you can push with all your might."

  And she did, growling like a bear as she used every bit of her remaining strength to get her baby out into the world.

  When the pressure finally gave, she sank back in the delivery bed, gasping for breath. "Is he out?" She mumbled. "Did we make it?"

  Someone chuckled, and when she dragged her eyes open, everyone was smiling at her like she just won an Olympic event.

  Which she had—the 'push out an incredibly large object through an incredibly small space' event.

  It was over. Labor was finally over, and she'd lived to tell about it.

  Only of course it wasn't over, because one of the nurses massaged her belly briskly and painfully, telling her this pain was also good, as her uterus worked to expel the afterbirth.

  So that happened, and then it really was over and they cleaned her up, tucked blankets over her, and Mac brought her the baby.

  Despite having carried him in her womb for nine long months, felt him move inside her, and seeing sonograms of him as he developed, Rae could not believe the gush of pure love that enveloped her as Mac laid the small, pale blue clad bundle on her chest.

  "Oh-hh, you're so tiny," she crooned to her son, gazing at his little, flushed face with awe. His lashes lay like tiny feathered crescents on his red cheeks, and his lips were an impossibly beautiful rosebud, his nose a button. "You sure didn't feel that way when mommy was trying to push you out."