“You’re both perfect.” He responds smiling before giving me a soft kiss.

“Greg? Dee?” I ask when he moves away to sit down on the side of my bed.

“Dee is going to be fine. She’s shaken up, shaken up pretty fucking bad but she will be okay. From what she said, Brandon had just tied her hands and taped her mouth. He had only been there for about an hour before you showed up. I think the worst of her injuries are where he clocked her when she opened the front door and a split lip. She’s fine, baby.”

“Where is she?” I ask, looking around the room again.

“Beck made her leave. He is taking her back to his place for a while. She said she was putting the townhouse on the market.”

I take that in and try to process it. I understand, I wouldn’t want to be there anymore either.

“I offered for her to stay with us for a while but she said she would have to think about it.”

I scrunch my nose at that. “Why would she need to think about staying with us?”

“I don’t know, Princess. That’s something you will have to ask her yourself.”

“What about Greg?” I ask, almost afraid to know.

“He’s going to be okay. He came out of surgery a little while ago. It wasn’t anything serious even though it sure as fuck looked like it. Bullet went straight through and missed everything important. He’s one lucky son of a bitch.”

“He’s really okay? There was so much blood, Ax. And he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t moving at all.” My panic is coming back again. Remembering the way Greg looked, lifeless. He looked dead. “Axel, I need to see him!” I yell.

“Hey, hey…calm down baby. I promise he’s okay. He’s in recovery but I’ll see what I can do about getting you on a field trip, okay?”

I look up and catch the slight concern that crosses over his eyes before his quickly masks it. I know he has to be a mess over everything that happened but he is holding it in and being strong for me.

“Okay. I just really need to see him, Axel. I need to see with my own eyes that he is going to be okay.”

“I understand, Princess. I’ll make it happen.” He leans down and gives me a gentle kiss. “Got room for one more on there, baby? I need to feel you close.” His mask slips slightly for me to see the vulnerability simmering under the surface.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” I respond and shift slightly so he can lean his body close to mine. His feet are hanging off the end and a good portion of his body is hanging off the edge but he wraps his arms tightly around me and I cuddle close, breathing him in and letting the peace, only he can give me, wash over my body.

“I never want to feel that fear again, Izzy.” He whispers into my hair and squeezes me tightly. “Never been so scared in my life.”

We lay like that, together and entwined until the nurse comes in. She fusses until he moves back to his chair. I couldn’t help but laugh at the pout he was sporting while she finished up her vital checks. When he hears me, the look is instantly gone and he looks over with a huge smile. “Love that sound, Princess. Most beautiful sound in the whole fucking world.”

I stayed in the hospital overnight. There wasn’t anything wrong with me but they wanted to monitor my vitals and make sure that my head wound was okay. Luckily, I came out of the whole ordeal with a small bump right next to my temple.

When I was released, Axel and I made our way to the floor Greg was on. Maddox and Coop were in the room when we got there. Greg was awake but groggy. I walked into his room on the arm of Axel who hasn’t let me go once since I woke up. Greg looked up and a small smile formed on his pale lips.

“Baby girl.” He said with a tear falling from his eye. “Baby girl, you are a sight.”

I walk over to the side of his bed and push Coop out of the chair he was sitting on, pulling it close to his bed. “Hey.” Yup, that was all I had before I broke down and buried my head in the bed next to his hip. Axel came up behind me and rubbed my back.

“Baby girl, I’m okay. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I thought you were dead, G!” I cry harder into the bed. “Don’t ever do that shit again!”

He laughs but agrees and I sit there holding his hand while the conversation continues around us. Coop is telling Maddox about all the good looking nurses that keep popping in offering sponge baths and how he might have to get shot if that is what’s waiting for him. Maddox was shaking his head but his eyes never left mine.

“You okay girl?” He asks when Coop finally shuts his mouth.

Axel gives my shoulder a squeeze in support and I climb to my feet and walk over to Maddox. He opens his arms when I get closer and I wrap mine around his back. “I’m okay.” I say into his chest.

“Good, that’s good.” He says and gives me a small squeeze before releasing me.

“Get over here, Izzy.” I hear Axel say behind me. I roll my eyes at Maddox before turning around and walking back to Axel. “Mine.” He says to Maddox and pulls me into his body.

We get a rare laugh out of Maddox and just like that the tension in the room is lifted and we are able to breathe easy again.

Greg and Dee are fine. Me and the baby are fine. And Axel’s arms are around me.

Life is good.

Chapter 21

(4 months later)

“You almost ready baby?” Axel asks sliding his arms around my waist and rubbing his hands over my swollen belly. I had started to really show a few weeks ago. My small pouch had gone from making me look slightly overweight to a definite baby bump. I loved it but I loved it more when Axel would come up behind me and place his hands over my small bump.

When I have moments like this, just Axel and me, I am reminded how lucky we are. It’s been a hard road for us both since that day with Brandon. I have been plagued with nightmares and Axel has been dealing with his worry about my mental state. About two months after Brandon’s attack, I made an appointment with Dr. Maxwell. We both knew I wasn’t dealing with taking his life well. Finally, four months later I have come to terms with everything that had happened. My nightmares are few and far between but I am alive and so are the people I love. I have become stronger and stronger every day and it is all because of this man.

I continued to fix my make up while he rolled his fingers around my skin. “We need to get going soon if we’re going to make your appointment.”

“Okay, I’m hurrying. I would have been ready by now but there is nothing that fits anymore.” I put down my mascara and turn in his arms. I step up on my toes and wrap my arms around his neck, burying my hands into his thick hair. I look at myself in the mirror and can’t help the small smile that forms. My hair is hanging in long waves down my back; my makeup is done in neutral tones to match the soft yellow color of my sundress. The material stretches across my ample chest but flares out against my belly.

“Worth it, baby. I love seeing you carrying my baby.” He brings his hands down and pulls me up by my hips and places me on the counter.

“Be careful, Axel. Right now you’re asking to be really late.” I say opening my legs up for him to walk closer to my body. My dress pushes higher up my thighs.

My belly pushes into his hard stomach. He barks out a laugh before pressing his lips to mine and making my toes curl with the heat of his kiss. “Princess, I could take you right now and you wouldn’t even fucking care if we missed that appointment and don’t think I don’t know you’ve been crossing the days off until this one.” He is not wrong. We had our twenty-week baby appointment today and we were finally going to find out if we were having a boy or a girl. Axel was firm that it was a boy. I kept going back and forth but deep down, I hoped it was. I could just picture a little version of Axel running around the house.

I curl my hands into the fabric of his shirt and hum my agreement and lean in for another kiss. Right before his lips hit mine, there is a sharp kick against my belly. Axel snaps back and looks down in complete shock. We have been trying to get him to feel the baby kick for weeks now but either the baby wasn’t having it or Axel just wasn’t there when the baby was active. Either way, this was the first time he had felt any movement.

He looks down at my rounded stomach and then back up to my eyes quickly. The look of pure wonder in his eyes brings a smile to my lips. He is completely transfixed with this little person in my belly.

I reach down and grab his hands before placing them on the center of my bump. The baby kicks a few more times. I keep my eyes glued to Axel’s face watching the emotions play across his handsome features. Shock, awe, and enchantment. He is fascinated with this feeling; the feeling of our baby.

“What are you thinking?” I ask him after a few minutes.

He looks up at me with his smile wide and his eyes bright. “How fucking lucky I am.” He leans down and gives me a kiss, not once removing his hands from my active belly.

“Hey!” We hear Dee yelling up the stairs. “Where are y’all?”

Axel groans and helps me down from the counter. He might have offered for Dee to stay with us, but I could tell she was starting to get under his skin. She has a knack of knowing right when things were heating up. I love her, but right now she is my little happy cock blocker.

“Play nice, Daddy.” I laugh and slap him on the ass before walking around him and out of the bedroom.

I slide my feet into some flip flops and walk down to meet Dee in the foyer. She looks stunning in a long orange maxi dress that fits tight to her body.

“You suck, you skinny bitch.” I say and smile up at her. Of course she towers over me in her four inch heels. I’m the midget around the giants. These days, the only thing that feels good is flip flops.

“Whatever, Iz! You look beautiful! Doesn’t she, Axel?”

He snorts but keeps walking down the stairs.

“Where’s G?” I ask them. It’s debatable who was more excited about the baby when we told everyone, Dee or Greg.

We told everyone together when we had a small ‘family only’ party at the house to welcome Greg home. He had stayed in the hospital for almost two weeks after the shooting but was 100% healed now. When we told them, Dee broke down in tears, Maddox gave me a rare smile, Coop praised Axel on his super swimmers, and Beck offered a polite congratulations. Greg however, had hollered his excitement and pulled me into a big hug, which earned a growl from Axel. Greg just laughed and hugged me tighter.

From that day on, he calls daily and checks on my progress. He has bought baby books and is constantly filling us in on baby info. I knew he would be happy for us but he is over the moon excited to become an uncle.

“He said he was running late, something about an appointment and would meet us at the office.” Axel calls from the kitchen.

I look over at Dee and she just shrugs her shoulders.

I follow Axel’s voice and find him in the kitchen checking his emails on his phone. He looks up and I stop when I see the hunger in his eyes.

“Look good enough to eat, Princess. Can’t wait to get back here so I can drag you back to the bedroom. Need to be buried deep, baby.”