Page 12 of Outlaw

There had been two condoms on the floor that morning—the only ones that had been in my pocket—which I tossed in the trash. I walked away, knowing that the memory of her tight, hot, wet pussy as I had taken her raw wasn’t a hallucination since we had fucked many times. Not just twice. Yet I told myself that she was most likely on birth control. If she hadn’t been, she’d have said something.

I’d gone to the nearest pharmacy and gotten the morning-after pill, just to be safe. Covered all the bases.

When Burl had the swab in its container, he put it in the case, then closed it. “The child’s mother is with her?” he asked.

Legally, the mother had to be with her, but Burl knew I didn’t care about legalities. He was paid well to overlook the times he was asked to break a law.

I nodded. “Yeah. She’s expecting us.”

I started toward the stairs, and he fell into step beside me.

“You think this is another female looking for money?” he asked.

I fucking wished. I shook my head. “No. I’m the one demanding it.”

“Oh.”

The startled sound in that one word wasn’t lost on me.

We climbed the stairs in silence, and the closer I got to the door, the more the foreboding squeezed my chest. I didn’t have to do this. I could sign the fucking divorce papers and let them walk. My lawyers had verified that they were in fact legal. They suggested that I file a petition for an annulment since we never lived together and the marriage wasn’t valid. If not, then they needed to prepare paperwork for her to sign, stating she gave up all rights to my assets and money.

Before a decision was made on that, I needed to know if the kid was mine. Because if she was, it would change things. I might not have wanted another kid, but if I had one, I would support her. Even if her mother didn’t want my money, she’d goddamn take it. Another man wasn’t going to financially support what belonged to me.

Burl didn’t ask any more questions, but then he never did. He didn’t pry; he only knew what we shared with him. He wanted it that way too. The less he knew about the workings inside the family, the better. He handled all our medical needs that we didn’t want taken to the hospital, as well as being available for things such as this. Making house calls for our convenience.

I rapped my knuckles against the door. There seemed to be a struggle on the other side with unlocking it, and I glowered as I waited. When the door eased open, Branwen wasn’t standing there. My eyes dropped to see blue eyes staring up at me, along with a big grin, causing dimples in her cheeks. There was a sprinkling of freckles over her nose that I hadn’t noticed yesterday.

“Hello.” She paused and scrunched her nose. “Mommy is in the bathwoom.”

Burl cleared his throat behind me, masking a chuckle.

The kid was fucking cute. She was going to be a beauty, like her momma. The unease that she might be mine and the males in her future rattled me. I hadn’t thought about that. What if I had a daughter? Especially one who was going to grow up to look like her mother. Fuck. I’d end up murdering teenage boys with my bare hands.

“I’m watchingSpongeBob,” she informed me. “And I don’t nawmally get to watch that show. Mommy says it’s wude and ’noxious.” Her eyes were big and round as she shared that information with me. “But theah isn’t anything else for me to watch.”

She couldn’t say herr’s.

She turned her gaze to Burl. “Who awah you?”

“He’s a friend of mine. A doctor, and he just needs to swab the inside of your cheek,” I told her.

She tilted her tiny body as she peered around me, trying to get a better look at Burl. Her smile had dropped immediately when I said the worddoctor. Her brows puckered. “You don’t look like a doctow,” she told him. “You look like a cowboy.”

This time, Burl did laugh.

The door to the bathroom opened, and my eyes swung up from the kid to the woman walking out. Long legs, the perfect flare to her hips, narrow waist, and tits. Jesus Christ, the set of tits on her. Then, all those pale blonde locks draped over her bare shoulders, curling just over her cleavage. My hands were clenched so tightly that I could feel my short nails biting into my palms. It seemed my cock didn’t care that she might have lied and intended to keep a child she’d had without my knowledge from me. It just wanted to fuck her again.

“Vivi Lu!” she called out. “You know better than to open a doorwithout me.”

The little girl spun around so fast that her blonde curls floated around her head. “But we awn’t at home. We awe at a motel,” she explained as if that made all the difference.

Branwen placed a hand on her hip, and I fought the urge to look at the small sliver of flat, tanned stomach that the shirt she was wearing flashed. The hem didn’t quite meet the waist of her blue linen shorts. “That rule goes for wherever we are. It’s dangerous. Someone bad could be on the other side and snatch you.”

I liked that she wasn’t sugarcoating it. The kid was too fucking adorable for her own good. She needed to be aware that she couldn’t trust people.

“I’m sowwy, Mommy.” She sounded remorseful. “But it wasn’t a bad guy. It was just Mista Outlaw, and he bwought a doctow that looks like a cowboy.”

Branwen’s light-green eyes lifted to me. I wondered if they would be so damn striking without that dark rim around the pale jade color. Why was I thinking about this? It didn’t fucking matter.

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