The Hunt for Summer (NSC Industries) (41 page)

I nodded at her
again as I pulled in a deep breath and opened the door to hell.

***

Layla

“Jesus, fucking, Christ!”
I screamed as Lucas held my hand and I squeezed tight. His whimpers at the pain
had me scowling at him. “What the hell, Lucas. You wanna swap?”

He shook his head
eagerly as his eyes showed his fear of me. “No, baby. You’re doing an excellent
job.”

I scowled at him
“Not like I have a fucking choice, is it? You did this you arsehole. We are
never having sex ever again.”

His face contorted
painfully and I could read the despair on his face at my words. “Now, Red.
Let’s not get a head of ourselves…”

“You twat…” I
shouted as another contraction tore through me, its tightness crippling me and
ripping through me.

“Push, baby,
push...” Lucas whispered against my head softly and I whimpered against him as
I bore down and pushed. I would shove the little blighter out if it was the
last thing I did.

“Red, God. Oh, baby,
she’s here. You did it, Red, God; I love you, baby, I love you…” Lucas cried as
my daughter’s lungs pierced the room.

Thank fuck!

“Well, hello Willow”
Lucas cooed as the nurse handed our baby to him.

His face was pure
rapture and I knew if I never saw the sunshine again I could picture this
moment and be filled with a brightness that was utterly blinding.

He looked over at
me, his wet eyes telling me how much he loved me. “She’s so beautiful, Red.
Just like her Mom.”

I smiled wide and
happily as he passed her to me and I cradled her gently.

“Hey, baby”

Her small plump lips
rolled and parted and the nurse helped me to get her settled on my breast.

She was a gannet,
just like her father, devouring every bloody thing I had in me and Lucas
smirked. “I’m gonna have to fight her for them.”

The nurse laughed
loudly as Sara smacked his arm. “Congratulations you two. She’s beautiful” She
declared.

Lucas pulled her
into a side hug. “Thanks Sare, dunno what I’d have done if you weren’t here to
help.”

She rolled her eyes
but kissed his cheek softly as she went to tell our waiting family the news.

Lucas settled
sideways beside me on the bed and stared up at me. “If I could give you the
world right now, baby, I would. Every single square inch of it because at this
moment I feel like the richest man on the planet.”

I smiled at him as
Willow slurped against me, the moment seeming surreal but I knew it would be
burnt in my memories forever.

“Wait until Troy
sees her” I warned with high brows.

“Oh God, you do know
we’ll never get to her again.”

I laughed and
nodded.

Troy had been a
permanent fixture in our lives since Lucas had found out about him and he was
utterly adorable. He had been counting the days on our calendar until Willow’s
due date and I knew he was going to be very possessive over his sister.

Lucas cradled
Willow’s soft head in his hand as he leaned up to kiss me. “I love you so much,
Red. I’m so glad you made a decent coffee that day when you came into my
office. The way you back chatted me would’ve seen you on your arse if it wasn’t
for your amazing coffee skills.”

I smirked at him.
“And I’m so glad you stopped wearing tie’s baby, because you don’t wanna know
about the visions I had involving those ties and your neck.”

The End

Keep reading for a preview from the second

Room 103 book

Thrilling Heaven

Boss’s Story

By D H Sidebottom

Coming soon

Chapter 1

“Nope”
I shook my head adamantly at her and she practically growled at me.

“Jen,
look…” she persisted.

I
shook my head again, slowly and sternly and concentrated on the spread sheet
currently demanding the taxing part of my brain. “Zoe, how can you pay this
much for ink? Surely you can find it cheaper somewhere else?” I glanced at her
over the top of the laptop screen as I rapidly changed the subject. She smiled
brashly at me with a twinkle in her eye “I can. I do. But the taxman doesn’t
need to know that.”

I
rolled my eyes and tried to set my attention back to Zoe’s tax return, a pile
of receipts and paperwork demanding my concentration but my mind wouldn’t shift
from last night.

I
shuddered and endeavoured to close off his face, his snarl, the crack of his
fist but it was there, right on the frontal hemisphere of my brain… and my
cheekbone.

That
reminded me to pick his dry cleaning up tonight.

Don’t
bloody forget again Jen.

Zoe
sighed heavily and I lifted my gaze to her, finding her watching me forlornly
with her brow furrowed deep “Okay, Jen?”

I
plastered a smile on my face and nodded firmly “Yep, just struggling with your
figures today.”

She
gave herself the once over and winked at me. “Nowt wrong with this figure babe”
she grinned as she slipped her hands provocatively over her breasts and I
smirked, “You’re not wrong there, treacle” I agreed with an exaggerated wink,
using the nickname Shane had always used for her.

I
rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands, tiredness and fatigue blurring them
and stood to stretch my legs, taking a glance at the clock. “Christ its one,
you want a sandwich?” I asked Zoe who nodded absentmindedly from her design
book as she sketched something beside an already complete illustration.

“Sure,
you know where everything is” she told me without moving.

“I’ll
make lunch then…”

She
ignored me, her attention elsewhere and I knew when she had her head in her
tattoos that I wouldn’t hear or see a peep from her.

I
turned to Brett in the corner of the room, his tongue protruding slightly from
his mouth as he currently concentrated on the artwork of an eagle on some huge
guys back, and I mean huge - sumo size huge.

“Brett?”

He
looked over at me and blinked rapidly to adjust the focus in his eyes.
“Sandwich?” I repeated and he nodded “Sure wren, cheese and tomato, pepper and
mayo.”

I
snorted at him “Uhh, I was sure when I last looked this was a tattoo parlour
not Subway.” 

He
grinned and winked “Now Wren, you know you love me and those delicate little
fingers of yours want to work for me.”

I
pursed my lips at him, and then smirked wickedly “And you know I need your
delicate fingers to do my next piercing, don’t you?”

He
lifted a brow at me “Another? Where you want this one?”

I
lifted the corner of my mouth and waggled my eyebrows at him. His own eyes
widened before a grin erupted on his face and Sumo stared at me. “Oh Wren, just
for the privilege I get to pierce your delicious lady parts, I’ll take just
cheese” he conceded.

“Thought
you might” I chuckled as I made my way into the back of Zoe’s shop.

Zoe
had been my brother’s wife for four years, but when Shane died of leukaemia
three years ago we had become inseparable, leaning on each other in our grief
and we became the type of friends that would die for each other.

She
had bought this tattoo shop in memory of Shane. He had made her promise to
fulfil her dreams when he had gone and she had worked her fingers to the bone
to get ‘Slink’s’ going; the ‘S’ in the name was for Shane, the ‘L’ was for our
surname, Linkin and then of course ‘Ink’, but her limit with numbers only
extended to her cash till, so I had been doing her finances for the past two
years.

I’m
sure she only used me to hide her dodgy receipts. Some of them always brought a
chuckle forward. I mean who the hell claims for a spotify account? But give the
girl credit; she got her tax back for it when she declared it as essential,
saying she needed the music to calm the nervous customers.

I
heard a rowdy group enter the shop as I made the sandwiches and mugs of tea.
Stacking the plates on top of one another and grabbing all three mug handles
with the other hand, I made my way back into the main parlour.

The
plates and mugs slipped from my hands and crashed to the floor with a loud
smash when I set my eyes on who had entered Slink’s.

The
tea and bread mashed into a stodge on the floor as my heart dropped right there
with them.

All
eyes in the shop swung to me, but it was only one pair I couldn’t divert from
and I stood open mouthed like a fucking guppy staring at him.

“Jen?”
Ethan stuttered as his jaw dropped as wide as mine, “Christ… Jen?”

The
group he was with eyed us both up and the female lifted her lips in a knowing
smile as she tipped her head to me and held out her hand “Boss seems to have
lost his manners, Hi; I’m E. Short for Eve.”

I
flicked my eyes to her and they widened when I realised who she was. “Oh… yeah,
hi. Jen.” I returned her greeting.

Holy
Fuck! I realised now that the whole of the rock group, Room 103, was currently
stood in Slink’s and it was a shame I was stood like a zombie playing musical
statues when the publicity could have been tremendous for Zoe.

She
smiled kindly and elbowed Ethan in the ribs “Boss…”

He
just stood, silent and staring, his eyes roaming over every inch of me until
they settled on my cheek and I fought against the blush that was creeping up my
face.

My
whole soul reached out and I grit my teeth and commanded it back inside as my
body trembled along with it.

“Jen…”

E
huffed and glared at him “I think we’ve established her name’s Jen, Boss. We
need to move on from that now, to something like hello.”

He
frowned and turned to E who was staring intently at him. “Fuck, E…” he choked
out before he turned and left the shop.

Everyone
kind of fell silent and the vocalist of Room 103, Jax I think his name was,
lifted his eyebrows at E. “Babe?”

She
shook her head at him and plonked a smile on her face before turning back to me
“Boss wanted a tattoo but he’s not very good with needles. Just shit himself
there” she tried to defend Ethan and I smiled and nodded, not believing a word
she said. I was the only one who knew the reason for Ethan’s behaviour, and it
wasn’t a phobia of needles… more a phobia of me.

More
uncomfortable silence fell before a tall dude with pure white hair and covered
in tattoos sucked air through his teeth and smiled, well I say smiled, it was
more of a cringe, “Well, I’ll be fucked if I come into a tat shop without
leaving with some new ink.”

Zoe
was instantly beside me, a purr vibrating from her as she gestured to the
design book “Would you like to take a look at what you want and I can get right
onto that for you.”

I
snorted. I bet you will Zo.

E
and her husband, I think they were married if I remember from the media
coverage of Room 103, sunk into the chairs in the corner of the shop and
started a whispered conversation.

“I
thought you were in America?” I blurted out randomly and rudely.

Jax
raised his eyes to me and E smiled widely. “We were but Jax and I just adopted
a baby and I wanted to bring her up in England, so the guys kind of amalgamated
groups and took lead, kicked me out of the band and decided we should come
back” she said openly with a wide smile and I just nodded dumbly.

“Oh.”

“You
know Boss?” she asked warmly and I frowned at her. “Boss - Ethan” she
rectified.

“Oh,
yeah” I bit my lower lip as memories invaded my mind and I swallowed them back
and turned to Zoe “I’m going Zo, see you later.”

I
didn’t give her chance to respond before I whipped my bag from behind the
counter and left the shop.