Claimed: A Forever After Novella Read online

  At loose ends, Lyric couldn’t just aimlessly follow Harleigh all over the country while she was on tour working as Darkness Rising’s manager. Lyric isn’t a man who is capable of sitting idle for long, so when Reid approached him and asked if he would be willing to oversee the bands’ security requirements, he jumped at the opportunity. And that’s where Ford, Eli, and myself come in.

  Lyric called in some favors from, EyeSee, a private investigation company in Dallas, who has worked with Vengeance in the past to gather a list of names of people suited to the kind of work that requires a particular skill set, experience in dealing with all sorts of crazy, and extensive travel. All of us had a different reason for making Lyric’s list, but mine was primarily due to my friendship with one of EyeSee’s owners, Finn.

  I met Finn, a detective for the Dallas PD when I was asked to assist in training some of Dallas' finest in hostage rescue protocol. As the commander of L.A.’s SWAT Team 1, it was part of my job description to aid in educating other police departments. I didn't like it, in fact, I fucking hated it, but it was part of my job description, so there was no getting out of it.

  It took me all of about five seconds to assess the men sitting in front of me on day one of the intensive three-day course and come to the conclusion that it was going to be a long fucking week. Finn was the only man who showed any interest in what I had to teach them, and consequently, we struck up a friendship that's stretched half a decade.

  Reaching for the door handle, Eli pauses.

  “So how long’s this gonna take? Do I have time to hit a coffee joint, or should I wait in the car like a good little accessory?”

  Fuck, he’s a drama queen sometimes, I muse, shaking my head ruefully.

  “Ten minutes, Eli. I’ve just got to drop something off, then we’re out.”

  "How did her doctor's appointment go the other day? I overheard Anna talking to her on the phone, and it sounded like Farrah was upset."

  That’s news to me.

  Since the day I found out that Farrah was carrying my baby, we can barely be in the same room with each other without arguing. I can’t get over her not telling me we were going to have a child together, and she can’t move past the belief that I was just using her as one last fling before I was supposed to get married. It doesn’t matter home many fucking times I’ve told her I was never going to let the wedding go ahead, that I didn’t love Leslie and there was more to the story than she knew, Farrah doesn’t believe me.

  Rationally, I get it. Farrah wasn't privy to the circumstances surrounding my almost-marriage to Leslie. I hadn't told her that I'd been in love with her for years and that I would give my last breath if it meant she was happy. My loyalty to Simon had prevented me from making a move on the only woman that would ever own my heart, and my conscience told me to wait until everything was wrapped up with Leslie before claiming what was rightfully mine.

  There was only one problem with that; I fucked up.

  I lost control and fucked Farrah against a wall in a store room. Regardless that it was the best sex of my life, that I can remember every pulse of her hot, silken pussy around my throbbing cock, and my brain has every second set to instant replay whenever I look at her, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Forget the fact that Farrah was a virgin and that I took her hard and fast against a wall. Forget that I should have confessed how much I loved her before potentially ruining any chance I had at making her mine. And forget that I gave up chasing her and forcing her to talk to me afterward. The biggest nail in my coffin was allowing Farrah to believe I was engaged to a heinous bitch the likes of Leslie.

  On the flip side, I can’t bring myself to regret what we did. Seeing Farrah now, round with my baby and flushed from anger, even if it is at me, makes me hard as a rock. For the most part, all I can think about is throwing her over my shoulder, locking us in the closest empty room, and tearing her clothes off so I can worship her fucking incredible body. Granted, I’ve got more chance of getting a swift kick to the balls than between her creamy thighs, but it doesn’t stop me from fantasizing about what it would be like to feel her cunt gripping my cock again.

  Narrowing my eyes at the smug look on Eli’s face, I bark,

  “What?”

  "Oh, nothing," he smirks. "I just find it interesting that you show up to every doctor's appointment, every scan, and at her apartment, at least twice a day and you're still too fucking stupid to see what's going on right in front of your face."

  "Did your mom drop you on your head one too many times as a kid?" I ask semi-seriously. "Because I don't have the first clue what that's got to do with Farrah being upset yesterday. She was fine during the appointment, and she was okay when I dropped her home, so whatever upset her must have happened after I left."

  “Or another way of looking at it is that she waited until you left to let it all out,” he offers. Eli’s expression sobers as he turns to face me. “Whatever this is,” he says, gesturing to Farrah’s apartment building, “has to stop. You need to make a decision, man. Either make your move and convince the woman you claim to love she’s better off with your dumbass than without, or let her go and move on. This hot and cold shit you’ve got going on with her isn’t doing either of you any favors. It’s only confusing her and putting more undue stress on the baby, Jake.”

  “Come again?” I hiss.

  “Wake the fuck up, Jake,” Eli seethes. “You have the chance at something beautiful – something Anna and I would sell our souls for; a baby. Do you know how long we've been trying to get pregnant? Do you have any idea what it's like to watch your wife break every time a pregnancy test comes up negative? Of course, you fucking don't. You and Farrah fucked once, and you knocked her up. You don't have to rush home to have sex with your wife when she calls to tell you she's ovulating. You don't have to pray every night that this month will be the month you can finally give her what she needs to feel whole.”

  “Jesus, Eli. I didn’t know. Fuck, I’m sorry, man.”

  "Don't apologize, just get it done. Whatever bullshit ideas you've got running around in your head about winning her over and taking it slow, forget them. Farrah needs you now more than ever, and you’re wasting your opportunity by sitting out here and watching her through windows,” he says sternly.

  I’ve never seen Eli this passionate about anything, but then again, I didn’t know the half of what he just shared either. Seems to be, Eli is more gifted at keeping secrets than any of us gave him credit for.

  “I’m going to grab us both a coffee for the road. I’ll give you ten minutes, Jake, but then we’re out of here. Make them count, and for Christ’s sake don’t do anything stupid,” he snaps with more than a hint note of warning in his tone.

  I wish could promise him I won’t, but lately, I’ve made a shit ton of stupid decisions, so the odds are, I’ll probably fuck this up too. Not that I plan to, it’s just that when it comes to Farrah, nothing ever seems to go to plan.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ~ Farrah ~

  “Are you sure this is normal, Sis? You’re five months now, and all the websites I’ve checked out say that morning sickness is supposed to ease up by the end of the first trimester,” my brother, Simon states worriedly.

  Although he was beyond upset when I refused to tell him who the father of my baby is, Simon has become my biggest support. He’s my rock when I need someone to lean on. He’s the glue that holds me together on the days I feel like falling apart. It took him several weeks to get over what he saw as a betrayal – not me getting pregnant, but me not telling him the truth – but he got over it. He had to because I didn't give him a choice.

  When your sister calls you up crying in the middle of the night that her life is over and she doesn’t know how she’ll cope being a mother, Simon being the good brother he is was on my doorstep minutes later, telling me everything would be okay. He stayed with me for three days after my little meltdown, in part to make sure I was all right, but also because I’d scared the crap out o
f him.

  I don’t cry often. In fact, I don’t think Simon has seen me shed a single tear since Jake moved away, and that was years ago. Back then, I could write it off to missing my best friend – something that Simon could understand – we were all thick as thieves after all. How he didn’t see the signs, see past the steady flow of tears that my heart was breaking at Jake leaving is beyond me, but he didn’t. But then again, Simon tends not to see what’s going on around him unless it’s waved directly in front of his face.

  Sighing heavily, I pat his shoulder as I walk past him, heading for the kitchen.

  "It's perfectly normal, Lemon," I smile, using his childhood nickname to calm him down. "And I'm just curious, but why are you on those sites anyway? I already told you the doctor said not all women are the same, that sometimes women have morning sickness all the way up until they give birth."

  Huffing at me in irritation, Simon goes back to clicking away.

  "I know what you told me, and I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I want to check it out for myself."

  “Fine, have at it,” I say dismissively as I take in the meager contents of my fridge.

  Damn, I so have to get out to the grocery store soon because this is abysmal, I grumble to myself. One thing morning sickness hasn’t played havoc with is my appetite. When all the books talk about eating for two, they weren’t wrong. Although, honestly, I feel like most days I’m eating for a football team, not just a little bean.

  In the last month, since I had to confess we had made a baby together to a highly shocked, somewhat furious, Jake, everything has changed. The easy going friendship we once shared is a thing of the past. Jake doesn't trust me anymore, and I don't blame him. I should have sought him out and told him I was carrying his child. I should have done everything in my power to make sure he knew he was going to be a father and given him the choice to be involved. But I didn't.

  I was scared and ashamed. I hated that our baby was conceived while I was playing the part of the other woman, that its daddy had cheated on his wife-to-be with its mother. Sure, I know now that Jake had never actually intended to go through with marrying Leslie, but I didn't then, so as far as I'm concerned, it still equates to the same thing; I was the piece on the side. The dirty secret. And I still am.

  No one besides Sophie knows Jake is my baby’s father, and the only reason she knows is because I broke down after the fifth positive pregnancy test and told her everything. I told her about how he cornered me in the dark hallway of the club, how he touched me like he genuinely cared about me, and how he took my virginity without me even knowing who he was. And that’s my greatest shame; that I didn’t recognize the man I’d been in love with for almost half my life.

  I don’t hold what happened that night against Jake. It wasn’t his fault that I was foolish or naive. If I had told him that I was still a virgin and that I wasn’t on the pill maybe things would have been different. But that said, I can’t bring myself to regret what we did because I wouldn’t have my little bean if I went back in time and changed things.

  Simon breaks into my memories by yelling,

  “Are you going to get that?”

  “Huh?” I mumble.

  “The door, space cadet. Someone’s been knocking while you’ve been over there zoned out,” he chuckles.

  Seriously considering throwing the half a cucumber I have in my hand at him, I shake my head in disgust instead and drop it onto the bench.

  “You know you could have answered it yourself right? Unless you’ve lost all use of your arms and legs, that is.”

  “Nope, still fully functioning,” he grins, folding his arms behind his head. “But see, I wouldn’t get the pleasure of watching you waddle around like an overgrown duck if I got it for you, now would I?”

  “God, you can be an asshole sometimes,” I say with a smile.

  “Yep, but you love me anyway,” he singsongs.

  I mutter,

  “Unfortunately, this is true,” under my breath and yank the door open, coming face to face with Jake, the last person I thought I would see today.

  *****

  There is no probably about it, Jake Hansen is purely and simply the most attractive man ever to grace the face of the earth. At first, I thought I was looking at Jake through the eyes of a teenage girl with her first crush, but it didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t the only girl who viewed him as a God among men.

  Jake's first girlfriend, Amelia was loud, obnoxious, and hated me with a passion. She whispered hateful words to me when she thought Jake and Simon weren't listening and made it abundantly clear that I was nothing more than a charity case to Jake.

  Hearing that he thought of me like that, like I was no more than an annoyance to the boy I considered to be my best friend broke my heart, so I began to retreat to my room when Jake came over to visit. I made flimsy excuses for why I couldn’t go out with them anymore, why I couldn’t take a break to watch a movie with them, and why I preferred to walk to school instead of getting a ride with them. If Simon saw through me, he didn’t say anything, but Jake did. Then again, Jake knew me better than I knew myself, so I should have expected he would know something wasn’t right.

  Opening my bedroom door without knocking, Jake stormed into my room and stood at the end of my bed with his muscled forearms crossed over his chest. He looked angry but more than that, he looked hurt.

  I had made myself scarce when Jake arrived a few hours earlier with Amelia and Simon's girlfriend, Bronwyn in tow. I know when I wasn't wanted, and by the expressions on both girl's faces, my presence was far from appreciated, so I took their less than subtle hint and retreated to my bedroom – where I had been ever since.

  “Jake,” I prompted when he didn’t say anything. My hands were shaking as I wrung them together, nervous about why he was here.

  Jake never came into my room unless I invited him to, and he had never been angry with me before. Sure, I annoyed him from time to time, but he always found my antics more amusing than anything else. Our five-year age difference never mattered to Jake, he treated me the same as he did everyone else; with kindness and respect. So to say this was unusual would be a massive understatement.

  Staring directly at me, his stormy gray eyes hardened momentarily as did his jaw before softening a fraction.

  “Why are you in here and not out there with us?” He finally asked, pointing toward the living room where Simon and the girls were playing a video game.

  When I lowered my eyes to my hands twisting in my lap and didn’t answer him, Jake came to sit beside me and covered my hands to stop the restless movement with one of his own.

  "Talk to me, Farrah. You've been avoiding me for weeks, Babe, and I want to know why. I thought we were friends, that we told each other everything, am I wrong?"

  At his question, I visibly wince and pull away from him. My own anger overtaking me so much so that I speak without thinking first.

  “Yes,” I all but yell.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, you’re wrong,” I snap. “We don’t tell each other everything; I tell you everything. You only tell me what you think I want to hear. What you think I can handle hearing.”

  “Farrah,” he cajoles, but this time my thirteen-year-old self is too incensed to listen to the calming tone of his voice or see the pain in his eyes.

  “I think you should go, Jake,” I demand, my tone wavering slightly. “Just go and leave me alone.”

  "Not going to happen," he says through gritted teeth. "No matter what you believe, I tell you as much as I can, Farrah. Some stuff just isn't appropriate for a kid your age, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to tell you. Maybe when you're older, I promise I'll…"

  I cut him off before he can dig himself a bigger hole, and because I don’t want to hear Jake explain all the ways in which I’m lacking. Amelia and her band of merry bitches have already seen to that.

  “Stop. Please just go, Jake. Go back to whatever you were doing and leave me al
one.”

  “I can’t,” he admits as his voice breaks. “Seeing you walk away with your shoulders slumped and the beautiful smile that lights up a room missing isn’t right. Simon told me to leave you alone, that you’d come back out when you were ready, but after it had been three hours and you still weren’t back, I told him I was coming to check on you.”

  My forehead creases at his admission as curiosity sinks in.

  “But why?”

  His hands clench into fists by his sides and his body becomes rigid at my question. I don’t know why, but Jake looks angry, although not necessarily at me.

  “Because first and foremost, you’re my friend Farrah. I care about you and seeing you upset kills me. I know you don’t understand it, fuck, I hardly do, but it’s my job to make you smile, hear you laugh, make sure nothing ever hurts you. Even me.”