Havoc & Carla Ten Years Later

Carla

Six months after Colt Epilogue

“Carla,” Madison says, drawing my attention from my husband who is standing out on our back deck talking with J and Scott. “We’re gonna get going soon. Is there anything else you want me to help you with before we leave?”

I eye her two-year-old daughter, Dallas, wriggling in her arms and smile. Dallas is an adorably happy little girl and so freaking gorgeous with her dark ringlets, chubby cheeks, and smile that never leaves her face. “No, you girls have done everything already. Go home and put your feet up.”

I threw Havoc a birthday party today. Madison and the girls helped me plan it, host it, and clean it all up. I couldn’t have managed such a fantastic party without their help.

The guys join us as I tell Madison to put her feet up. J moves to his wife and takes Dallas from her. “She’s got other things to do besides putting her feet up,” he says.

Madison shakes her head at him. “Seriously, aren’t you getting tired and worn out in your old age? No one has any energy left for sex after running around after kids all afternoon.”

“You didn’t do any running around,” he says. “You’ve got enough energy for both of us.”

Madison’s eyes widen. “Seriously, J, you’re treading on dangerous ground here. I did plenty of running around this afternoon.” She shoves her bag filled with all the things their kids need at him. “You can carry that too.”

He grins as he takes the bag. He doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t need to. We all know J loves to rile his wife up. He likes the sex it leads to.

Harlow enters the living room where we all are, her two children, and J and Madison’s other two girls with her. Eyeing Madison, she says, “Right, so I’ll drop the girls back to you around eight tomorrow morning. Is that good for you guys?” The girls are having a sleepover at Harlow’s and Scott’s tonight.

Madison nods. “Yes, J will be up and ready for them while I enjoy my Sunday morning sleep in.”

I laugh as Havoc moves behind me, curving his arm around my waist. I’m always amused by Madison and J’s antics. Lately, she’s insisted on sleeping in every Sunday morning. It’s common knowledge around here that if she misses that sleep in, J will miss out on many things during the coming week.

“Right,” J says, rounding up his wife, “Let’s go.”

Madison hugs me. “It was a great party, babe.” She looks up at Havoc behind me. “Enjoy the rest of your birthday.”

“I intend to,” he rumbles, the gravel in his tone affecting me the way it has for a decade. I also intend for him to enjoy the rest of his birthday.

Madison smiles. “I don’t doubt it.”

J slaps her on the ass. “Come on, woman. Dallas needs sleep.”

Madison shakes her head at him again. “We both know Dallas won’t be asleep for hours.” She looks at me. “Seriously, make the most of Ruby being six months old. When she’s two, you won’t find it as easy to enjoy your birthdays all night long.”

With that, she follows J outside to their car. Harlow and Scott say their goodbyes too and we follow them all out.

I smile as I watch J and Madison banter their way into their car and then out of our driveway. I’m convinced those two will never change. Always arguing. Always loving deeply. It’s just their way.

Harlow and Scott, on the other hand, are much quieter about the way they move through life, but just as in love as they’ve always been. Maybe more. I can’t count the number of times I’ve gone to Harlow for relationship advice. She’s full of wisdom when it comes to this stuff and always knows what I need to hear. Lately, she’s been talking me through my thoughts over whether I want another baby or not.

“Where are your thoughts, darlin’?” Havoc asks, bringing his mouth to my ear. His warm breath whispers across my skin, along with more of that gravel I can never get enough of.

He’s standing behind me again and I grip his hand that’s settled itself on my stomach. “I was just thinking about how grateful I am to have Harlow and Madison in my life.” I turn in his embrace after Scott pulls his LandCruiser out of the driveway. Placing my hands to his chest, I add, “I was also thinking about how grateful I am to your sister for taking Ruby for the night. I have birthday presents to give you.”

Heat flares in his eyes as his hands find their way to my ass. That’s never a hard thing for them; I’m certain Havoc’s hands were born with a sixth sense for my ass. “Let’s not waste any time getting those presents to me,” he growls before leading me back inside.

Less than two minutes later, I’m on my back on our bed and Havoc is pulling his T-shirt over his head.

I sit up and reach for his belt. Undoing it, I find his eyes. They’re glued to mine, the heat in them intensifying. “Can you believe your wife is married to a man who is now forty-one?”

He brings his hand to my hair and runs his fingers through it before gripping a handful. Angling my head back, he dips his mouth to my neck and kisses his way up to my lips. “Thank fuck she is. And thank fuck she knows how to give good fuckin’ birthday presents.”

Havoc never takes the bait when his age is mentioned. Not that I mention it often. His sister does, though. Yvette and Havoc give each other shit for everything. It’s how they show their love. She often brings up our eight-year age gap and wonders out loud about him having to fight off younger men in his old age. I’m always amused by their conversations, but equally glad that he doesn’t ever take it seriously.

I lower his zip and reach for his cock. The hiss that falls from his lips when I wrap my hand around it is a sound I live for.

I bend my mouth to him and circle my tongue over the tip, loving the taste of him. His hand comes to the top of my head as I take him in.

“Fuck,” he rasps, his hand pressing my face to him.

I suck him slowly, making sure to treat him to my tongue in the exact way I know he loves. After ten years with him I know all his favourites, and blowjobs rank high on that list, so I’ve had a lot of practice.

I suck and lick, taking him as far back to my throat as I can, losing myself to the sounds he makes and the way he grips my hair.

And then, my phone rings.

It’s my mother’s ringtone.

I ignore it and keep sucking.

The ringing stops but starts up again almost instantly.

Again, I ignore it.

When it stops and starts again, Havoc growls, “Jesus, your mother always knows when you’ve got your lips around my dick.”

I look up at him, still sucking. I have no intention of answering her call, but he has other ideas.

Pulling his dick from my mouth, he says, “Answer it.”

“No. She can wait.”

I try to reach for him, to bring him back to my mouth, but he shakes his head. “Answer it, Carla. We both know she’s not going to stop calling. And it might be important.”

I arch my brows. “We both know it’s likely not something important.” Mum tends to call with recipe suggestions, or ideas for fun things she wants to do with our daughter, or requests for me to take her somewhere during the next week.

Havoc grabs my phone off the chest of drawers and hands it to me. “The sooner you answer her, the sooner I can get inside you.”

I take the phone while grumbling, “It’s at times like this I think I should have married an asshole who would never stop me sucking his dick so I could talk to my mother about recipes.” I then answer the phone with, “Please tell me this is about more than a new recipe you found.”

“Well, I did find a new meatloaf recipe Havoc would love, but that’s not what I’m calling about. I need Havoc to call his plumber mate again.”

“Oh God, you’re toilet’s blocked again?”

“No, it’s the shower this time. The bathroom flooded tonight when I took a shower, and the water won’t go down the drain.”

“Did you try that Easy Off Drain Cleaner that Havoc told you about? It works so well for us.” I track Havoc’s ass while he exits the bedroom, wishing like hell I’d put my phone on silent. This conversation could definitely have waited.

“Yes, it didn’t work. Havoc told me to let him know if it didn’t work and he’d send his mate over to take a look. Can you please let him know to do that?”

“Yes, will do. I’ll text you once I know when the guy will be there.” I contemplate what my husband is doing and how many seconds until I’ll have his dick again. Leaving the bedroom, I go in search of him, ready to get back to where we were.

“I also need help with something else,” Mum says as I run into Havoc in the hallway. His eyes meet mine questioningly. I don’t even need to hear his question; I know what it is. How much longer?

I move into him and place my hand to his bare chest. “Can this wait, Mum? I was in the middle of something.”

“Not really. There’s a snake in my bathroom. I can’t get hold of Nash to come and get it out. Can you ask Havoc if he’ll come over, please?”

“Oh my God, why didn’t you start with this? We’ll come over now.” At Havoc’s frown, I enlighten him, “There’s a snake in her house.”

He nods and moves into action, leaving me alone in the hallway.

“It’s a carpet snake. It’s not going to hurt me. But I would prefer it not be in my home.”

“Jesus, Mum, a snake’s a snake as far as I’m concerned,” I say as I locate shoes. “We’ll see you soon.”

“Thank you, darling. Oh, and there’s chocolate cake here I made this morning. I’ll make some tea for you two to have with it while you’re here.”

We end the call and I walk into the bedroom where Havoc’s sitting on the bed putting his boots on. “As soon as you’re done with this snake, we’re coming back here to finish what we started. When Mum offers you cake, you say no.”

He looks up at me. “What cake has she made?”

I groan. Mum’s cakes are amazing, and Havoc is an addict. “It doesn’t matter. You’re not having any tonight.”

He finishes lacing his boots and stands. “It’s my birthday, Carla. I’m having cake.”

“You’re choosing cake over my birthday present?”

He bends his mouth to mine to claim a quick kiss before saying, “No darlin’, I’m choosing both. First the cake, then your pussy.”

I grip the shirt he’s put back on, moving into him. “Have we reached the point in our marriage where you choose food over sex? Like, do I need to work on this?”

His arm is around me before I know it and he’s got me pressed hard to his body. “Baby, you don’t need to work on any-fuckin’-thing. If there’s ever a choice to be made, you know there’s not a chance in hell of food winning.”

I smile up at him, taking in the face I love and the eyes that never fail to see the things others don’t. The little things I try to hide from the world, but that Havoc will never not see.

This conversation is one of those things. I’m bantering like I’m joking about him choosing food over me, and mostly I am teasing, but Havoc knows my heart and all the patched-up cracks in it. He knows that while I feel secure in our marriage, those old scars sometimes hurt and cause self-doubt to flare. He knows that the damage my father did when he walked out of my life can never be fully erased. It will always lie deep in my soul and sometimes require my husband’s love to soothe it.

Havoc never falters.

He never grows tired of having to reassure me.

His love is patient.

The kind of patient I know will help our daughter grow into a woman with deep faith in herself. And same the kind of self-love that I’ve learned to give myself thanks to her father.

He narrows his eyes at me when I don’t respond straight away to what he said about never choosing food before me. “Your thoughts are drifting away a lot today. What’s going on?”

I’m aware we need to get to Mum’s place to save her from the snake, but since it’s not a life-threatening snake, I take this moment to be with Havoc. With each passing year, I feel stronger about living in the moments and not rushing them.

“I want us to think about having another baby,” I say softly.

His eyes search mine, filled with love and care and all the things that are Havoc at his core. I’ve never met a man more thoughtful and kinder than him, and right now, he’s giving me his all. “We took ten years and a fuckload of help to get here. Are you sure you wanna go down that track again?”

A tidal wave of emotion sweeps across my heart and soul. And before I know it, tears form in my eyes. Havoc would do anything to have another child. Anything but wanting me to go through what I went through to have Ruby.

It took us many years and five rounds of IVF to have a baby.

It cost us money we didn’t have.

It cost me a job I loved.

It’s been days, weeks, months, and years of tears and uncertainty and hell on my body.

We agreed never again after Ruby was born, but lately I can’t stop thinking about wanting to add to our family. I always wanted to be a parent, but I never imagined that having a child could feel so right; that it could feel like the thing I was put on this earth to do. I also never imagined loving my husband more while watching him be a father.

I smile through my tears. “I was made to be a mother.”

He takes that in. I see him process every beat of it. I also see him struggle with it. “Yeah, baby, you were.” His voice is rough. Raw with his own emotion. “But fuck, I don’t know if I have it in me to watch you go through IVF again.”

Havoc is the toughest man I know. He’s the kind of guy who would quite literally go to the ends of the earth for those he loves. Fear either doesn’t live in him or just doesn’t affect him in the way it does most people.

Except, it does live in him because I live in him.

Havoc fears bad things happening to Ruby or to me.

“I get that,” I say, “but I think I have it in me to do it again. I think together we can get through anything.” I truly believe that. Havoc gives me strength in the times I don’t think I can go on. And I know I do the same for him.

His eyes keep searching mine and I give him the space to think. Finally, he says, “If we have a boy, no fuckin’ way is my dad getting anywhere near naming him.”

The tidal wave of emotion that swept across my heart grows so big it fills my entire body. Every inch of skin, every nerve ending, every finger, every toe feels it.

I cannot love this man any more than I do.

I love that he knows for me to have brought this up I’ve already clocked enough hours of thought on it to know it’s what I want, and that I don’t require him to get into an in-depth conversation over it. He will if I want that or if he senses any doubt, but he knows and trusts my heart in the same way I know and trust his, and mostly leaves me to be the one to decide what I need and want.

I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him slowly and deeply, letting him feel what I’m feeling. When I end it, I say, “Agreed. I love your dad, but he has the worst ideas for boy names.”

When we were pregnant with Ruby, we didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl. Al came up with a range of boy names for us and all of them were bad. Birch was his top pick. Havoc had let him run with the name suggestions, but at that point he put his foot down and said no fuckin’ way was he naming his son Birch.

I’d found the whole thing amusing, but I agree with him that his dad can’t be involved in naming our child.

His hands find my ass like they always do. “Also, I want time with you and Ruby before we do this.”

“I do too. How long are you thinking?”

“At least a year.”

I tighten my arms around his neck. “See, this is why you’re the perfect husband. You think the same way I do.”

His brows arrow. “That’s not true. We sure as shit didn’t think the same way yesterday morning.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?”

“Fuck no.”

“You need to. You were wrong and I was right. End of story. And”—I brush my lips over his—“if you ever want my mouth around your dick again, you’ll acknowledge that I did in fact ask you to buy milk, not bread.”

“Baby, you fuckin’ didn’t. And we both know you couldn’t stop yourself from sucking my dick even if you tried.”

I sent Havoc to the supermarket yesterday morning to buy three things, milk being one of them, bread not even getting a look in on that list. I’d lost my shit when he came home without the milk because I needed it for the banana bread I was baking. Banana bread that I needed to take to a play group that Ruby and I were attending for the first time. Banana bread that would ensure we were welcomed into the group with open arms.

Yes, I admit I was a little ridiculous over the whole thing.

Banana bread doesn’t have that power and really, who cares if those women didn’t welcome us. My hormones were out of control and when Havoc pointed that out, I fully lost my shit at him.

We had the kind of argument we barely ever have. In the end, he had to be the one to put his weapons down. I did apologise to him hours later for losing my temper, but I still made it clear he was wrong. Being the smart man he is, he didn’t argue again. Which was a good thing, because I really was right.

He smacks my ass. “We need to go. Your mother will be blowing up your phone again any minute.”

I keep my hands around his neck, intent on savouring every second of this moment with him. “That’s because she adores you and is always looking for ways to get you to her house. She said she couldn’t get hold of Nash to come over, but I bet she didn’t actually call him.”

“Well, whatever the fuck she’s smoking, we need to get some so I can give it to you the next time you try to rip my balls from my body.”

I grin. “I love you, Havoc Caldwell, even if you don’t listen to me when I tell you the shopping list.”

He shakes his head. “I love you too, darlin’, but trust me when I tell you, I’m not fuckin’ backing down the next time you’re wrong.”

I keep grinning. “We both know you’re all talk. You love me enough to let me win even when you know I’m wrong. Just sayin’ though that I wasn’t wrong.”

“You’ll be the fuckin’ death of me, woman,” he growls right before giving me his lips again. He kisses me like he wants nothing more than to strip me and fuck me. When he finally lets me go, his eyes are full of heat and regret. “Get your ass out to the bike. And I’ve changed my mind. We’re not having any cake tonight.”