Three Kinds of Trouble by Anne Malcom

Chapter Twenty

“What the fuck are you doin’, carryin’ that?” a voice boomed.

Two seconds after the boom—two seconds exactly—a very large and very pissed off biker snatched the box from me and glared. “What the fuck, Freya?”

I rolled my eyes. “Hades, that box is full of nothing but lingerie. You could literally hold that with your pinky finger.”

I didn’t know why I was even bothering.

“I don’t give a fuck,” he snapped. “You are not to carry a single box, or I swear to fuck I’ll put you over my knee.”

My stomach dipped delightfully, my body pulsing with need. Pregnancy hormones and Hades made it impossible to think of much else other than sex. I did my best to distract myself with unpacking, decorating the nursery, catching up with everyone and starting a new series on YouTube about pregnancy.

It was obvious I couldn’t go back to work for Kallum. Or stripping in general. I hadn’t technically needed the money for a couple of years anyway, but I’d made it while I could, saving it for a rainy day. Or a market crash. Or whatever.

My income from day trading and the channel was more than enough. Plenty, in fact. Enough money for ten years of mortgage payments was stored in a high yield bank account.

So I was sorted.

Wewere sorted.

It meant something to me, to be able to do that. To give us a home. Our family.

It meant something to Hades too.

Some of the boxes we were moving belonged to Hades. To be fair, about three percent of them were his, considering all he valued was his cut, his motorcycle and a wardrobe full of black.

“What am I supposed to do while you unpack boxes?” I whined, feeling almost petty enough to stomp my foot. “Stay in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant?”

His eyes twinkled. “I wouldn’t object to that.”

“Nuh uh,” I scoffed. “I’m not giving up everything to be a stay-at-home mom. This is the twenty-first century, I can do both. I’ll be raising our child and bringing home the bacon.”

Something flashed in Hades’s eyes. Something that said he was not amused by my teasing. “We will both be raisin’ this baby.” His palm was on my stomach. “And I am taking care of the other shit now.”

Though I was pretty sure I knew what he meant, I really hoped I was wrong. “What shit?” I asked slowly.

“I’m takin’ care of the mortgage. Household expenses”

I was not wrong. “What?”

A crinkle formed between Hades’s brows. “Sold my house, Freya. Didn’t make a ton, but I made decent coin. Lived my life pretty fuckin’ simple, which means I do have a ton saved. Enough to pay off the mortgage. Add some more rooms.”

Although I was pretty pissed, I just stared at him. “Add on more rooms?”

Hades nodded, putting his hands on my belly. “Thought you wanted to fill this place with kids. It’s plenty big, but I know you won’t give up your filming room. Don’t want you to. Also know that with more kids and your shopping habits, there’s gonna be a lot more shit in this house. It’s plenty big now, but not once we’re finished... Kids can share when they’re young, but it’s good for them to have their own space when they get older.”

I continued to stare at Hades. No, it was safe to say I was gaping. “You went from no kids to multiple kids in the space of six months?”

“I went from having a wasteland to a fuckin’ world, Freya,” he corrected.

My heart did a flip. “You’re making it really hard to be mad at you,” I snapped.

His eyes kept fucking twinkling. “Be mad all you like, Freya, it’s happenin’.”

My eyes narrowed. “Just because you grunt ‘it’s happenin’ ’ without using the letter g doesn’t mean your word turns into law.”

“I think it can,” he argued.

Now I was pissed. I stepped away so he wasn’t touching me anymore. I couldn’t think with him touching me.

“Hades, I’ve worked my entire fucking life to be able to take care of myself,” I huffed. “I’ve worked hard. You can’t just take all of that away from me because you’re an alpha male who needs to feel manly by paying for everything.”

“Fuck,” he muttered as he thrust a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to take shit away from you, Freya. What you’ve done, what you’ve built ... it’s fucking magnificent.” His eyes went around the house, our house, which was almost completely unpacked. “I’ve built nothing in my life except a pile of fuckin’ bodies. Me taking care of you isn’t about feeling like a man, or fuck, maybe part of it is. Most of it is me meeting the reaper, knowin’ that I helped build something magnificent.”

Tears filled my eyes as he stepped forward again, pulling me to him until our bodies met. The process was rather different now with my growing belly, but it worked. No complaints here.

“Now, let me fuck you so you’re not mad at me,” he murmured.

And he did just that.

I wasn’t mad at him anymore.

He also took over the mortgage.

* * *

I’d caught up with everyone in town and had re-established my weekly dates with Des, which Hades came to sporadically. He wasn’t allowed to attend every single time since Des said he ‘fucked with his mojo and killed his game.’ There was one person who had been scarce since I came back into town. Someone who finally turned up at our door over a month after we moved back. We’d had a welcome home party which he’d been invited to but hadn’t attended. I didn’t know if it was because the entire club was there, or if he was just being petty.

I was too happy to see him. He was sitting at the breakfast bar, coffee and a plate of cookies in front of him. I’d already eaten five of my own. We had been chatting about nothing and everything. Natasha was doing well at the club. His mom. His sisters. Everything except the elephant in the room.

Kallum’s eyes went up and down my body, pausing at my belly. “You’re happy.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway, cradling my stomach. “Yeah, I really, really am.”

He sighed, long and heavy. “That makes it that much harder to hate him.” He nodded to where Hades was speaking on the phone outside. He hung out there a lot, even though he’d given up smoking. At that moment, I knew he was out there because Kallum was in here.

“Come on, you can’t hate the father of my child,” I teased.

Kallum’s jaw tightened, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t,” he agreed.

“Why do you hate them so much?” I asked. “The Sons?”

It was the question that had been on my mind for a long time, one that felt much heavier since I’d met Hades.

He shrugged. “Fuck, Freya, I don’t know. I guess because they remind me of the gang I used to run with, all the shit I got tangled up in. Fuck, they remind me of what I wanted from that. A brotherhood, yet all I got was a fuck-load of blood and death.” He paused, looking into his coffee like he’d find the answers there. “I still don’t know whether they’re really that much different. There’s gonna be blood and death in your future, being involved with them, Freya, and I fucking hate that.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, thinking of everything that Hades had told me the night I found out my father died. “But I’m going to have a family. One that loves fiercely. Who fight for each other. We both know I never would’ve been able to have a normal, white picket fence life.”

Kallum chuckled. “No, you’d be bored shitless.”

I examined Kallum then. The lines at the corners of his eyes seemed to have deepened since the last time I saw him, only making him more handsome.

“What about you?” I asked. “Where’s your happiness?”

He contemplated that for a long time, but he never answered me.

Because my happiness walked in from outside, nodding to Kallum once before wrapping his arms around me.

Kallum downed his coffee, gave me a peck on the cheek in goodbye, grabbed a handful of cookies then all but ran out the door.

“He doesn’t like me,” Hades commented, nuzzling my neck.

I relaxed into him. “He doesn’t know you. Once he does, he’ll love you.”

“No, babe. No one loves me once they get to know me. Only you.”

I smiled up at him. “Because I’m the only one you show the real you to.”

His eyes glittered. “Plan on you being the only one for the rest of my life, Freya.”

My entire body thrummed, and our daughter kicked his hand. “We’re happy with that,” I whispered.

And I was. Happy. Home. Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Not long after, my biker and I were both naked in that kitchen.