HONORED: The Mountain Man's Babies Read online

  On her back and against the wall. In the green grass and in the water. With her on her knees and my cock deep inside her. From behind, my hands on her luscious, creamy ass. I’ll fuck her until we collapse, and I’ll fuck her until we can’t see straight.

  But now I fill her up, looking down at her like the goddess she is, her long hair strewn out, her pale blue eyes locked on mine, and I want to be the best man in the world, I want to carry her in my arms and make a home for her and protect her from the beasts in the world who don’t know what it means to take care of a woman.

  “Oh, Hawk,” she cries, coming hard, her body pushing against me as I hold her close, as I pound her perfect pussy until I come too.

  Until I feel a rip, and the reality hits me.

  “Fuck.”

  “What?” she manages as if trying to remember how to breathe. “What is it?”

  “The condom,” I tell her as I come in her, wincing at the realization of what’s just happened. “I think it fucking broke.”

  Her eyes go soft.

  “Are you on the pill?” I ask, brushing her hair from her eyes.

  She shakes her head no, ever so softly. “But I think we’re okay,” she tells me.

  “Fuck, you sure?”

  “I know my cycle really well. I think we’re okay.”

  I pull out of her, taking off the ripped condom. “In that case, let me fuck you again without that on.”

  She blushes so hard I can see it under the light of the moon. “You want to... have me again?”

  “No, I want to fuck you again.”

  She nods. “Let’s.”

  I roll beside her in the truck bed, and wrap my arm around her shoulders, she nestles against me. “I think we should get another condom first, Honor. The last thing I want to do is get you knocked up. You’re way too young to be a mother.”

  At this, I feel her stiffen in my arms.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “I should get home, actually.” She sits up, suddenly in a hurry.

  “Let me get dressed and I’ll drive you back then.”

  “Thanks, Hawk.” She smiles, slipping on her panties. “That was...”

  “Fucking amazing,” I fill in for her.

  She laughs, pulling on her dress. “Yes, it most certainly was.”

  In the parking lot of Rosie’s diner, I realize I’m starving. I didn’t have dinner and only took a few bites of the pie.

  “You wanna come in and get something to eat?” I ask. “I’m gonna go get a burger.”

  She shakes her head. “No, I really need to go.”

  “Well, I need your number first. Because, baby, this isn’t the last you’ll be seeing of me.”

  She blushes again, her feelings so completely revealed, and I love that. She isn’t putting on a fucking show. She is exactly who she says she is.

  “I don’t actually know my number...”

  “What?” I cock a brow at her. “How do you not know your phone number?”

  “I got a phone last week and haven’t memorized it.”

  “You trying to get rid of me?”

  She laughs. “No. Not at all. It’s just I honestly don’t know. Hey, why don’t you give me your number and I’ll call you?”

  I nod, find a scrap of paper in the glove box and she presents me a pen from her purse.

  I write the digits and hand it to her. “You better call me or I’ll be looking up and down this mountain for you. Understand?”

  Smiling, she takes it. “Understood.”

  “You sure you’ll be okay driving home alone?”

  She looks at me like I’m crazy. “I know how to take care of myself,” she says.

  I nod, taking her hand and kissing it. “I believe you know how to do a lot of things, Honor.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. Like you knew how to steal my fucking heart.”

  She bites her bottom lip.

  “You mean that, Hawk?”

  I nod. “I never say things I don’t mean.”

  She leans over, kisses me softly, a kiss that could be mistaken for a whisper. “Neither do I.”

  “So, if I tell you I’ve fallen for you in the space of one night, what would you say to that?” I ask.

  She runs her hand over my beard, through my hair, touching me so tenderly that there is no denying she has the hands of a saint. She could fucking heal my hard edges with those hands.

  “I’d say I am one very lucky woman.” She kisses me again, then adds, “And I’d say my wish came true.”

  She gets out of the truck, then, not looking back and I watch her climb into a minivan, with rusted hubcaps and a crack down the front window. She drives away and all I can do is hope like hell she calls.

  If not, I’ll be combing this mountain for her.

  8

  Harper and Jaxon want to know how my night went, and I thank them for giving me a few uninterrupted hours.

  “Of course; we’re family,” Harper says. She and Jax are snuggled up on the couch with their youngest between them. The rest of the house is asleep.

  “Speaking of family, it sounds like my cousin is gonna be here tonight. He texted me a few hours ago, saying he was coming into town a day earlier than we expected him.”

  “Is it rude if I don’t stay up to greet him?” I ask, feeling exhausted. I’m craving alone time to think through what I did tonight.

  “Not at all,” Jax says. “You’ll meet tomorrow.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I say. “Goodnight then.”

  In my room, I check on the boys, all three of them are out cold, and I step into the Jack and Jill bathroom and lock the other door, connecting to the other guest room. I’m not sure when Jaxon’s cousin will be getting in and I want to take a shower before I go to bed.

  I turn on the hot water and slip off my clothes. I look at myself in the full-length mirror, my breasts feeling full since it’s been a few hours since I’ve nursed Titus. I trace the places Hawk touched me, not feeling ashamed for sleeping with a stranger, letting a man I’d never known before fill me with himself.

  My body has changed so much over the last three years, my boys all less than a year apart. I’m grateful Hawk saw me in the dark, when my less beautiful parts were hidden, I don’t think I would have had the guts to strip to nothing in front of him with the lights on.

  I step into the shower and wash away the night, but not the memory. No, that is tucked close to my heart, and not going anywhere.

  In the morning, the first thing I hear is someone knocking. Not on my door, but on a different one. I jolt out of bed, not having slept so soundly in ages, but apparently, my body needed a massive orgasm in order to sleep through the night. Titus is in bed with me, still out cold, and Timothy and Thomas are sleeping too. It must be early.

  I roll my arm out from under Titus, careful not to wake him, and tiptoe from the bed, pulling at my tank top as I walk to the noise in the bathroom.

  I open my door and realize the knocking is from the other side of the bathroom door. You can only access the bathroom from the guest rooms and I realize I left that door locked last night.

  And Jax’s cousin is coming in.

  I’m in a pair of leggings, and my breasts, while not in a bra, are at least covered.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I totally locked you out.”

  I open the door and just about fall on my face.

  “What?” I sputter, looking at the man before me. “Uh, who, wha… uh? Hawk?”

  He looks equally shocked.

  “Honor?”

  “Did you follow me home? Why are you? What is...”

  He shakes his head. “I didn’t follow you. Hell, let me get this straight.” He pauses, running his hand down his beard as if trying to process seeing me here. I’m trying to process it too. “You’re Harper’s cousin?”

  “Yes. And you are?”

  “Benjamin Hawk.”

  “Ben. Cousin Ben. You are Jaxon’s cousin?”

  He nod
s, grinning now, and steps toward me. “I want to talk, I really do, but I gotta piss like a motherfucker.”

  I shake my head. “You can’t talk like that; not here,” I tell him.

  He steps past me and pulls out the glorious cock I had inside of me the night before. I can’t breathe.

  “No,” I hiss. “The kids.”

  He shrugs. “Harper and Jax have their kids upstairs with them. And the house is still asleep.”

  I shake my head, unable to get out a sentence.

  “I thought it was too good to be true, that I met you last night. But it wasn’t just in my head. This is destiny, Honor,” he tells me, looking over his shoulder at me as he pees in the toilet.

  How is this even my life?

  “No,” I wave my hands in the air. “It’s not... it’s complicated.”

  He pulls up his boxers, looking cocky and disheveled with his bed head, his shirtless chest, his tattoos more menacing in the light.

  “Not that complicated. Just a few crazy kids shacking up at their cousins’ place. Doesn’t seem complicated, seems like fate.”

  I exhale, distraught. My high from last night fading fast as the reality of the day glares in my face.

  I don’t know what to say, but I don’t have to say anything at all. Titus’ cry says more than my words ever could.

  “Shit, did we wake up Harper’s babies?”

  I laugh a little too sharply. Colder than I ever am. But also sad, realizing more than ever that whatever magic washed over Hawk and I last night is going to fade fast. I already made my choices. Three choices named Thomas, Timothy, and Titus.

  “That’s not Harper’s babies,” I tell him, stepping back in my room, the door opening wide enough for him to see the truth. “Those are my babies.”

  I know Hawk’s eyes are on me as I take Titus from the bed and pull him into my arms, but I don’t know what to say. I wasn’t lying when I said it was complicated.

  “You’re a mother?” he asks, stepping into my room. A movement that surprises me, because honestly, I thought for sure he’d run away.

  I nod, sitting on my bed, cradling my three-month-old in one arm, and pulling down my top, offering him my milk.

  “A mother of three.”

  Hawk is in the middle of my room, in his boxers, and looks at Timothy, then Thomas in their respective Pack ‘n Plays.

  He swallows, and I swear he looks... choked up. Is that possible? “Are you a wife, too?” he asks, his jaw tight, his eyebrows in a firm line.

  I shake my head. “Not exactly.” I swallow. “But like I said... it’s complicated.”

  “Want to try and untangle it?” he asks, sitting down beside me on the bed.

  He doesn’t walk away, he stays. Like he genuinely wants to find the ends of the string and thread them back through properly.

  “You won’t like my story.”

  He laughs softly. “You won’t like mine, either.”

  Titus has fallen back to sleep, and I stand and set him in his crib, knowing with this last feeding he is going to sleep for another few hours.

  “I’m gonna need some coffee to explain this.”

  Hawk looks around the baby-filled room. “I think I’m gonna need something stronger than that.”

  9

  I follow Honor into the kitchen, where she’s making coffee in a long bathrobe. It’s fucking unreal that she is here and I am here. I need the whole story, now.

  But more than that... was everything I thought last night... that she and I were destined to meet, that me being here, now, was fate—was it all a fucking joke?

  She’s a mother of three... and more than that... I need a clearer answer on whether she is married. I can’t imagine a woman as sweet as her lying about something so big.

  No. It’s impossible. This woman is a treasure, mother or not—hell, wife or not. I still know she is meant to be mine.

  “Hey, angel,” I say, coming up behind her, kissing her neck.

  She steps away from me, turns to look me in the eye. “Don’t. You can’t. I mean. Harper can’t know that...”

  I lean in close. “That I fucked you last night? That you cried out my name as I filled you up?”

  She bites her lip, holding in a gasp. “Yes, that, exactly.”

  I reach behind her and grab my cup. “Where do they keep the whiskey?” I ask.

  Before I get an answer, though, Jaxon bounds down the steps, eying me coolly. “You looking for whiskey your first day on my crew? No way in hell, asshat.”

  I raise a hand in defense, knowing if I just explained what I just learned this morning, he’d certainly understand. But Honor shakes her head with a fierceness I don’t expect. Hissing she begs, “Don’t. Please.”

  Jaxon doesn’t hear, and when Honor hands him her cup of coffee he just says thanks, and as he lifts it to his lips he says, “So you two met, I take it?”

  I nearly choke on my coffee, but I can’t see Honor’s face because she is already back at the coffee pot pouring some for herself, but her shoulders stiffen, and I hate that. What I really want to do is step behind her and rub her back; she is a mom with a newborn. If anyone needs a break it’s her. I’m ashamed at how lax I’ve been the last few months. I should have worked harder at getting my shop set up. Made more of an effort to get my life in order so I would be ready for her to enter it.

  Now, I feel like I’m a thousand steps behind.

  “We met,” I tell him, keeping it civil. But I’m unable to resist adding one comment. “You never told me Harper’s cousin was so beautiful.”

  Jax reaches for a banana, and peeling it, he explains. “Well, Honor hasn’t exactly been on the playing field.”

  I frown, looking over at her, but her eyes are on the ground. I need to know this angel’s story, but I don’t want to hear it from Jaxon.

  “When do we head out for the day?” I ask.

  “In fifteen minutes. I was actually coming down thinking I would have to come wake your sorry ass up, but here you are, up and at ‘em.”

  Honor twists her lips, about to say something, but holds back.

  “Why are you up so early, Honor?” Jax asks her. “Did Hawk wake up your kids?”

  “No, Hawk didn’t do anything wrong. Titus was crying earlier,” she tells him. “I couldn’t fall back asleep.”

  Jax nods. “I’m glad I caught you, actually. Last night after you went to bed I got some really messed up texts.”

  I see Honor melt at this words. And not in a good way. In a lost way.

  “Luke?” she asks.

  Jax nods. “He’s getting really aggressive. I know you said you don’t want a restraining order but I don’t think he is happy with the story you gave him.”

  “I didn’t lie. I told him I needed time away,” she says, huffing. “And I do.” Her eyes brim with tears, and I want to wrap her in my arms, but Jax is here, and she’s clearly uncomfortable with him knowing about our night.

  Jaxon shrugs. “Look, either you need to talk to him yourself or you need to involve the police.”

  She shakes her head, adamantly. “Not the police. It wouldn’t be fair to the other wives. The children.”

  My eyes narrow at this. Other wives?

  “He is still your husband,” Jax says. “And the father of your children.”

  “He’s not my husband, not by law. You know how awful he is—better than most.” She shakes her head, tears were gone now, now she is just plain old angry. “I don’t want to involve the police. If that is what you want to do, I’m going to go back home... it’s too risky for the other people I love.”

  Jaxon sets down his coffee. “Look, I’m not trying to upset you. Harper will be wringing my neck when she finds out I upset you. But look, Honor, you need a plan.”

  “Why?” she asks. “Are you kicking me out?”

  Jaxon rolls his eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. I’m not kicking anyone anywhere but—”

  “But what?”

  “But a plan will help everyon
e. Even Luke.”

  I take in this information, not saying a word, knowing it’s not my place.

  Honor fills a thermos with coffee, handing it to the man who just upset her. “Take this,” she says. “And I'll think about what you’ve said. I’ll make some calls to the YWCA, I heard I might be able to get help with housing.”

  Jaxon nods. “Thanks, Honor, but you can stay here as long as you need. You are family, and we can make a plan together.” Then, clapping me on the back, he says, “Time for us to get to the job site. You ready to start the first day of the rest of your life? Or some shit like that?”

  I try not to look at Honor because I know my eyes will betray my feelings for her.

  Instead, I will myself to reply nonchalantly. “Sure, some shit like that.”

  Honor wasn’t kidding when she said her life was complicated.

  And considering I’ve fallen for her, mine just got a hell of a lot more complicated, too.

  10

  The day goes well...ish. My mind is clouded with the conversation I had with Jaxon about Luke this morning, and the only silver lining I can find is knowing that at the end of the day Hawk is going to walk through that door.

  I know it’s insanity... thinking about this man this way... but I can’t help it. Deep down I know that what we shared wasn’t a fleeting moment of passion. He saw my sons this morning and instead of backing away, he greeted me in the kitchen by wrapping his arms around me and calling me Angel.

  “Your head’s in the clouds, Honor,” Harper says, eying me suspiciously. We’re folding clothes while the babies are napping and her three-year-olds are playing with Duplos on the carpet in front of us. “What’s on your mind?”

  I shake my head, not wanting to lie, but most certainly not wanting to discuss Hawk.

  “Is it about Luke?” she asks. When I don’t reply and instead start sorting socks, she sighs. “I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through. And I know Jaxon talked to you this morning about him... I hope it didn’t stress you out.”

  I shrug, not knowing what to say. Of course, it stresses me out. “I don’t want the police to get involved.”