Page 75 of Surprise Baby for the Enemy

Emma looks to Raleigh, who puts both thumbs up, then back to Thomas. “Y-Yes- yes sir.”

With Iris close behind her, she’s marched away to Thomas’s office. I don’t envy her position one bit.

“So… now what?”

I turn to see Raleigh with her arms crossed, pointing her own intense gaze directly at me. I know what she’s thinking about- her bold claim about marriage to Emma before we left the bar. It’s not that I’ve forgotten. But I’m also a little devastated that we’ve reached a point when the words have to be said and I don’t have a ring, or a dinner reservation, or anything.

It’s not that our relationship has ever been conventional. Hell, it’s hard to even call it a relationship when we reunited as I was slapping her in handcuffs less than a week ago. But whatever tradition dictates, what’s happened between us is real, and it’s intense, and I want it to last for the rest of my life.

Then it hits me.

I hold out my hand to her. “Come with me.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, she obeys.

I take her to the garage at the back of the house, where a dozen vehicles are parked in a building as large as my mother’s stables. I reparked my cruiser in here last night, and when I climb into the driver’s seat, Raleigh follows. We readjust until she’s straddling my lap, then I grab the handcuffs, abandoned in the passenger seat yesterday.

It’s a familiar motion now, to put one cuff on my wrist and one cuff on hers.

“I thought I had my entire life planned out perfectly,” I say, my throat suddenly tight with desire. I brush my thumb over her delicate wrist, feel the galloping pace of her heart. I press a light kiss to that leaping pulse, and Raleigh brushes her hand through my hair. “But I ended up making so many sacrifices to get where I am that I don’t even recognize myself anymore.” I lean my head back against the headrest, my gaze locking with hers. “We almost had a one-night stand after meeting at a bar. Can you imagine? If we’d walked away from each other and never looked back?”

She swallows, her eyes already glassy. “I don’t want to,” she says, and leans into my hand when I cup her cheek.

“I love you, Raleigh Warwick,” I tell her. “I love you for everything you are, but- I also love you because you saved my fucking life. You shook my whole world to pieces and rebuilt it from the foundation up, better than I could have ever imagined it. Now I’m going to give you as good a life as you’ve given me. I swear it. I don’t have a ring for you yet.”

Raleigh leans down, pressing her forehead to mine. “I’ll take you. Right here, right now,” she says, then takes a shuddering breath, dropping the bravado. “I love you too, Derrick Lindman. You saw right through the person I thought I had to be and let me be the person I am. I… I can never thank you enough for that.”

Her lips whisper over mine, and I tilt my head up to capture them. I taste the salt of her tears and reach back to grip her neck, comforting, possessive. For a long time, I just hold her there in my arms, memorizing her scent, her heat, the weight of her against me. In the next few months, a lot of that will change, and I’ll be right here, rememorizing her and falling in love all over again.

I open my mouth for her, and Raleigh licks across my teeth. My cock is getting hard, but abruptly, she pulls back. “What now?”

“Well,” I say, trying to catch my breath, “we can go to the backseat if you’re impatient, or up to your room if you can hold out a couple minutes. Because I’m not sure I can.”

She rolls her eyes with a smile. “My room,please. I do not want to be caught by one of the generals in here. And then what’ll you do?”

“After today?” I ask. I think I know what she’s getting at, but I’d rather feign blissful ignorance for just a little bit longer. “We’ll have to get our own place, since I don’t know how long your brother will tolerate me hanging around. I say we build one near my mother’s house. Only if you want, of course. But you seemed to like it-”

“Ilovedit,” Raleigh agrees. “And I would love to live close to your mother. But that’s not what I meant.”

“After the house is started, we should have the wedding, obviously.”

She laughs. “Yes Derrick. Andthenwhat’ll you do?”

“The honeymoon, of course.”

“Derrick.”

I smile wryly and let the joke die. I know what she’s asking for now, but I don’t want to think about it. Not when husbandry, fatherhood, and general domestic bliss is on the horizon. But it’s a question I need to answer, sooner rather than later.

In fact, I need to answer it before the county comes looking for its missing police cruiser, which we’re currently sitting in.

So. Do I give up the search for Silver now that ‘Silver’ no longer exists? I could fake his death, I suppose. Paste his identity onto some other criminal after they OD or get knifed in an alley. It would be easy enough to do, especially with the wealth of mafia connections at my fingertips once again. Then all thetaxpayer’s dollars spent on the manhunt wouldn’t look like atotalwaste.

Then again, putting on a show for the public has begun to sound very… exhausting. And isn’t that what led to Silver’s creation in the first place? Who’s to say I wouldn’t be inciting some other criminal to come after me for the truth?

One of these days, my lies are going to catch up with me. And I need to make sure they can’t hurt the people around me when they do.

“I imagine Silver’s gang will dissolve now that its leader is gone,” I muse.

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