I shrugged again. “Not as often now that Campbell is around to help out, but on days it’s just me and her, it happens.”
Remy sighed and gave her head a shake. “Like I said, she’s going to need you, so you have to take care of yourself. Don’t skip meals. Call me for help if you need someone to watch her for a few minutes. I work from home. I can always pop over.”
The offer made me grin. She hadn’t been able to be that selfless when she was younger. It was one of the things she’d grown into that I truly appreciated.
“Stay the night, Remy.” Hollyn opened and closed her hands excitedly and knocked the sides of the bottle as she ate. “After I give Hollyn a bath and put her down for the night, we can hang out.”
“Aren’t you tired?” She cocked her head to the side and considered me thoughtfully. “Besides, you sleep in the nursery most nights. I already told you I’m not sleeping in your brand-new bed before you do.”
I made a clicking sound at the baby and walked back to the table. Without a word, I handed the baby to Remy and took my seat next to her. She looked confused as I continued, and I verbally walked her through how she should coax Hollyn to burp, so I could continue to eat. It really was a bit of a luxury to have an extra set of hands so I could take care of mundane tasks.
After a while, I told her with total seriousness, “If you’re in my bed, there’s no other place I want to be.”
Of course, I would still have to get up and tend to the baby, but if Remy was in my room and in my bed, the nights wouldn’t feel so long and lonely.
“Stay.” I wasn’t going to beg her, but I kind of wanted to.
After the baby let out a delicate belch, Remy giggled and finally agreed. “Fine. I’ll stay tonight, but I need to be gone before Daire shows up in the morning. I’m not ready to explain whatever this is to my family. I don’t want her reading more into it or be disappointed if things don’t work out and I get all weird again. Right now, she’s the weird one, and I want her to be able to work through her feelings and trust me without wondering where else my head might be.”
I pushed my empty plate away and leaned on the edge of the table over my crossed forearms. “That girl loves to gossip. If she found you here in the morning, she’d be thrilled she’d have something to talk about for the next few weeks. I think she’d also appreciate having someone to help her annoy Campbell. I swear her new favorite hobby is trying to get under his skin. It’s a good thing I only asked her to hang around for a few weeks. They might kill one another, then I’ll have to find someone else to watch Hollyn while I’m at work.”
Remy cocked her head to the side, and her eyebrows quirked questioningly. “Daire is a handful, but she usually gets along with everyone. I hope this new animosity isn’t a symptom of something deeper.”
I scoffed. “They just don’t like each other. But I don’t think Daire should take it personally. Campbell doesn’t come across as the friendly type. I’d say he tolerates me more than anything. But he genuinely cares about the baby, so I don’t mind. He’s an interesting character.”
I probably wouldn’t be as accepting if I didn’t have an uncle who was also prickly and went out of his way to keep people at arm’s length.
“I’m curious to meet him, but not first thing in the morning when I’m trying to sneak out unnoticed.” She wrinkled her nose at the baby and mentioned she might need to be changed.
I didn’t say anything, but eventually, she would have to admit we were doing more than having fun, and everyone in our lives was going to find out about it. I knew she was worried about it working out and how any fallout would affect everyone, but I had faith it would be fine. Things had already gotten as bad as they could once before, and we were never doing that again.
I got up and motioned for her to follow. “Come on. I’ll teach you how to give a wiggly, wet baby a bath. Sometimes it feels like trying to hold onto a greased piglet.”
Remy laughed as she got up to follow.
It was all so domestic… and normal. Two things I never had with anyone else, and two things I never would’ve considered Remy being capable of before. She was honestly better at making a place feel like home than I was. Once again, I thought I had a lot to learn from her, and I really, really couldn’t wait to go to sleep with and wake up next to her.
Remy
WHATEVER I THOUGHT might happen when I agreed to stay the night definitely didn’t happen. At least not when we first crawled into bed together. It was obvious Hyde was very tired. He barely made it through the movie I suggested we watch after laying the baby down for the night. His eyes were droopy, and he hardly held up his end of any conversation I tried to start. As soon as the lights were out in his barely used room, I expected him to crash, but he didn’t. Instead, he started asking me questions.
So many questions.
Where was my favorite place I’d lived when I started moving around? Denver was by far my favorite, but I also really liked New Orleans and Seattle.
What was my favorite job I’d had so far? The one I was doing now. I liked working with other creatives and making my own hours. It was the only job I had that didn’t feel too much like work.
Was I serious about any of the boys who drifted in and out of my life? Hard no.
What did I miss most when I was away from home? Zowen, hands down. Followed closely by the rest of my family.
Did I ever think about him after he left? Of course, I did. But the things I thought about weren’t always happy memories or recollections of easier times. Sometimes I thought it was better that I didn’t know what was going on with him, because if I kept track of his deployments and where he was in the world, I would’ve been a nervous wreck.
The questions switched to more mundane topics such as my favorite color, favorite foods, TV shows, and music. He asked about my friends and family. I thought it was funny he didn’t seem the least bit surprised that Bowe and Ry were involved or that my brother was secretly in love with Ry’s ex-girlfriend. I would never share Zowen’s closest held secret, but apparently, he wasn’t as good at hiding his feelings as he thought he was. When I told Hyde my brother was considering taking a break from school and going to California to race professionally, he asked me if the decision was really about racing or about Aston. I had no idea how he was in the loop with everything going on here in Denver when he’d been out of touch for so long. When I questioned him, he sleepily told me that Daire often watched Joss’s kids when she needed a babysitter. He knew Daire liked to gossip, not because she was suddenly back to her talkative self while she was keeping an eye on Campbell, but because she talked his cousin’s ear off about everything whenever she was at her house. Joss knew the reason Daire was always so chatty was because she wanted to pass the information along to Hyde so he could still feel like he was part of things. She happily obliged and kept Hyde in the loop without him having to awkwardly ask.
Daire was such a crafty, clever girl. I was insanely proud of her.
Just as I was about to turn the tables and quiz him on all the important bits and pieces of who he was now, I realized he’d gone quiet and his breathing was deep and even. He nearly fell asleep mid-sentence. I stared at him in the darkness for a while, remembering that we used to do this when we were little. We would lie next to each other and play twenty questions, trying to figure each other out until the early hours of the morning. I suddenly realized it was Hyde’s way of trying to figure out how my brain worked. All of a sudden, those questions didn’t feel as insignificant as I thought.
It was still pretty early for me to fall asleep, so I settled in next to Hyde and found a romance novel to read on my phone. Since I was working on book covers, I’d started to read various genres to get a feel for whatever I was working on. Previously, I’d tended to prefer graphic novels and comic books because of the art. But romance novels were so much fun. I liked how human and sexy they were. My favorite part was that everyone was pretty much guaranteed a happy ending of some sort.
/> If only real life worked that way. Getting even close to something happy often felt grueling and impossible.
I was just getting tired, and my eyes were starting to feel heavy when I heard a sound come through the baby monitor. It didn’t sound like a cry, just a little squawk that could mean anything. I was going to get out of bed and check on Hollyn so Hyde didn’t have to get up. He clearly needed sleep more than I did. However, before I could even throw back the sheet, he was out of bed and moving toward the nursery. Hollyn had him trained well.
As I watched the muscles in his broad back flex and shift as he walked, I wondered how he managed to remain a tattoo virgin all this time. I thought it was slightly odd since his father was covered from his neck down in intricate, detailed artwork, and it was so rare for young soldiers not to get at least one permanent memento of some kind. It wasn’t that his skin was totally blank. There were scars and rough patches of skin on his back and sides that I felt rather than saw the previous time we were in bed together. I guess those were a different kind of memento etched into his skin, and he felt it was enough. It was another way he took after my father. Probably without even realizing.
I was also mostly free of ink, even though I had a heavily inked parent who’d worked in a tattoo shop for a long time. I had my last name tattooed in very small, delicate letters on the inside of one wrist and a tiny Columbine flower behind one ear that I got when I was especially homesick. My brother was the one who followed in our mom’s footsteps when it came to body modification. He asked our Uncle Rule to design a massive back piece for him as a graduation present when he finished high school. He was well on his way to being the second most tattooed Archer after Uncle Rule.
Hyde came into the room after twenty minutes or so. He yawned and stretched his arms up over his head. Those gray sweatpants shifted on his lean hips and left very little to the imagination as he ambled over to the bed. For an article of clothing that was supposed to be comfy and nondescript, they were provocative and sexy. He scratched his chest and lifted his dark eyebrows as he stepped to the side of the bed, where I propped myself up on a stack of pillows to watch him.
“Did I wake you up?” Hyde reached out a hand and pushed some of my curls off my forehead.
“No. I was reading. I was going to go check on the baby, but you beat me to it. I have no idea how you woke up so fast.” Since he was playing with my hair, I reached out and wrapped the white string at the waist of his pants around my finger, tugging the soft fabric away from his lower abdomen.
“It’s partly being accustomed to listening for Hollyn, but mostly from being in the Army. You sleep when you can, for as long as you can, and get your ass in gear as quickly as possible. It can literally be the difference between life and death.”
The pressure I applied to the string pulled his sweats down far enough that I could tell he hadn’t bothered to put anything on underneath after his shower. His abs were taut, and the very tip of his cock peeked over the top of the waistband. He was effortlessly sexy, and it was good for my ego to see how quickly he responded to me. It was also good I wasn’t the only one who quickly got turned on by the simplest things that happened between us.
“You seemed really tired earlier. Maybe you should go back to sleep.” The words were a bit breathless because I really hoped he was going to say he wasn’t tired anymore.
Hyde ran the tips of his fingers over the arch of my eyebrow and down the side of my face. He used his thumb to caress my lower lip as his bright green eyes practically glowed in the dark.
“Nope. I’m wide awake now, but I’m game to let you do your best to wear me out.” Once again, I thought he was really good with words when he wanted to be.
Instead of telling him I was more than happy to help him burn off any excess energy, I leaned forward and kissed his flat stomach right above his belly button. I pulled down his sweatpants and dragged my tongue up the length of his quickly hardening cock. I circled the smooth tip with my mouth and sucked lightly. Hyde threaded his fingers through my hair near my temples and tilted his head back as he let out a deep groan. I wrapped a hand around the lower part of his erection and gave the stiff shaft a squeeze. He tasted clean and fresh from his shower, and I liked whatever he used to wash with; it smelled like mint. His skin was warm and velvety under my tongue, and each time his cock pulsed in my mouth, I felt my body quiver in response. I dug the fingers of my free hand into the curve of his hip as he started to gently move back and forth. I swallowed hard as he pushed deeper and harder into the soft suction. His hold tightened on my head, and I heard air leave his lungs in a hard whoosh. I felt the heavy vein on the underside of his hard length throb against my tongue, and he growled my name with both pleasure and pain as I started to use just the very edge of my teeth when he thrust a bit more forcibly.
He grunted when his tip touched the back of my throat, so I squeezed the firm flesh I was holding in a warning. I was going to gag if he didn’t take it down a notch, and while I didn’t mind things getting a touch rough in bed, I wasn’t interested in having my airways blocked while my partner got off.
Hyde immediately adjusted his pace and tilted his head down so he could give me an apologetic smile. When my cheeks hollowed out as I sucked even harder, he shifted his hold on my head so he could press his thumbs into the indentations left in my cheeks.
“Sorry. I got too excited for a second.” The words were breathless and choppy. He was clearly struggling to get his brain to function. “Can’t say that’s ever happened before. You make me forget myself.”
His words were slightly ironic, considering that when I was with him, I remembered myself. All the good parts of me he used to be so fond of and all the worst parts I still needed to work on. They were crystal clear when we were together.
I couldn’t respond since my mouth was full, but I used my tongue and mouth to let him know I appreciated the compliment. I was perfectly fine putting all my acquired skills to use, giving him the kind of orgasm that would absolutely wring him out and put him back to sleep, but once his cock was all shiny and slippery wet, and his body was coiled tightly from top to bottom, he suddenly pulled away. He kicked off his sweats and reached down to throw the blanket I was under out of his way. Once again, all I had on was an oversized t-shirt. This one belonged to him, and apparently, he wanted it back.
He pulled the fabric away from my body and lifted it over my head. He bent down and pressed his mouth to mine. It was a hard kiss, and his hands were full of impatience and possession as they raced over my heated skin. He knelt on the bed with his knee between my legs as he reached past me toward one of the funky mirrored nightstands perched on either side of the bed. I was pretty sure he was searching in a drawer for protection, so I kissed him back as he took care of the business portion of sex and seduction. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of me. Even in the dim light, his face was stupidly handsome as it hovered over me. I’d always liked the way he looked, but now that I knew the kind of expressions he made when he was drowning in pleasure or intent on making me lose my mind in a good way, I thought he was even better looking. His serious face softened, and his sharp eyes felt less intimidating and distant when we were together like this.
Hyde put a hand above my head on the wall behind the bed and lowered his head so he could kiss his way across my collarbone. I skimmed my fingers over his wide shoulders and down the length of his spine. My fingertips rubbed over a couple of those scars I was thinking about earlier, and I wondered if I was ever going to get my turn to ask twenty questions. He’d been through so much when we were apart, and I wanted to know all about it. I wanted him to trust me enough to share the harder parts of his recent history with me. I wanted him to trust that I didn’t let the darkness consume me in all the ways I had before, because I’d learned how to control those emotions and taught myself how to fight back.
Hyde hooked a hand around one of my knees and pulled my leg up and over his hip. He lowered his body over m
ine and situated himself between my legs. His mouth moved in a series of sucking, biting kisses that were bound to leave marks across the tops of my breasts. His breath was hot, and the slight scruff decorating his chin left tingles in its wake as it lightly abraded my skin.
“I’ve lost a lot of sleep lately. Tonight, I don’t mind it so much. And I can always blame it on the baby when anyone asks me why I look so tired tomorrow.” He chuckled, and I felt the vibration all the way through my body.
My insides clenched with excitement, and my legs shifted restlessly against his as he rocked his hips forward, pushing the very tip of his cock against my already wet opening. He pressed forward a little bit more, and the tapered head tapped precisely against my clit. The motion made my insides quiver and stole the air from my lungs.
“If we do this right, you’ll look well fucked, not tired. Then you shouldn’t have to explain it to anyone.”
He laughed against the side of my throat and pushed the rest of the way into my body. My hands clutched at his shoulders, and I tossed my head back onto the stack of pillows behind me. My hips lifted toward him, and I cried out his name as he started to move with purpose.
“We’ll do it right. When it’s you and me, I don’t think there’s any way it can be wrong.”
He was right. We both had enough experience to know this felt different when it was the two of us. It was right, and it definitely was worth the wait.
His hand skimmed the outside of my thigh and shifted so he was holding onto my backside as he thrust into me. He lifted me up just a little, making each hit deeper, and brought our lower bodies closer together. Every time he ground his hips and rocked them forward, I could feel the pressure on my clit. His teeth nipped at the front of my throat, and I buried mine in the curve of his shoulder when his movements picked up speed.
I wasn’t the only one who acquired some skills over the years.
Prodigal Son: A Sexy Single Dad Romance: Book 2 in the Marked Men 2nd Generation Series (The Forever Marked Series) Page 17
