by Aly Martinez
“Dad,” he repeated, wrapping his arms around my waist, his shoulders shaking in time with my own.
“Hey, Trav,” I choked out, patting his back while setting my squirming daughter down so she could get in on the love too.
“Travis!” she giggled, stepping into his side, mirroring his hold on me, and hugging the life out of him.
Warmth filled my chest as I dropped to my knees and palmed each side of his face. I planted a kiss to his forehead that, only a week ago, he would have complained about. Now, he wiggled even closer, tears streaming down his cheeks.
I sat at the foot of the bed, and he followed me closely, wedging himself between my legs, Hannah still attached to him.
He rested his head against my shoulder like he had done so often when he had been younger, but not in years.
“How you doing, buddy?” I asked quietly, smoothing his hair down before pressing another kiss to the top of his head.
“I want to come home,” he whined.
“I know. I want that too.”
He peered up at me expectantly. “Then why can’t I?”
The vise on my chest wrenched tight, and I lifted my gaze to the doorway.
Charlotte was standing there, twin rivers pouring from her eyes, a myriad of emotions etched in her face, all of them terrorizing her.
With my heart in my throat, I glanced around at the absolute devastation Catherine had caused all of us.
My son was fighting the battle of his life with his health; he didn’t need this shit on top of it.
My daughter was hurting and confused because she was losing her big brother and best friend.
Charlotte had been lost for almost a decade, and now, she had her son back, but she was living, breathing, and suffering through his pain the way any good mother would.
And I… Well, I was falling apart. But I was also the only one left to pick up the pieces.
“We’re going to figure this out,” I announced to the entire room. “I’m here now. And we’re together. That’s all that matters.”
Charlotte nodded and started to back out of the room.
“Sweetheart,” I called, and her sad gaze lifted to mine. “Thank you,” I whispered.
She nodded again and started to pull the door closed.
My body screamed for me to stop her.
To ask her to stay.
To drag her into the darkness and ease both of our hearts.
But, judging by Travis’s death grip around my neck, my son needed some time with his father in the light.
“Don’t go far,” I told her.
She slid her gaze to Travis. “I couldn’t if I tried.”
“Charlotte,” I breathed in apology.
She faked a smile. “I’ll see what I can drum up for dinner.” She paused and then added, “For all of us.”
The door clicked softly behind her.
My body sagged in a confusing mixture of relief and defeat.
“Daddy,” Hannah whispered, patting my thigh.
I looked down at her. “Yeah?”
With wide eyes, she shook her head. “Guess what? There’s no TV in Travis’s new room.”
“There’s no TV in the whole place,” Travis complained.
I slapped a hand over my heart and cried out dramatically, “Oh God, say it ain’t so!”
Travis glowered.
Hannah giggled.
And I smiled because, regardless that our lives were in shambles, in that moment, with Travis on my right and Hannah on my left, everything was right.
Over the next two hours, the three of us stayed locked in that room. Alone while the chaos of reality continued to roar outside.
Travis asked questions I didn’t have the answers to. I made promises I couldn’t possibly uphold. But, for those minutes with him lying in the bed beside me, a game of Minecraft playing on his iPad, his heart beating slow and steady, his breaths even and easy, I felt not an ounce of guilt for lying to him.
He needed that.
The simple.
The predictable.
The monotony.
And, a few hours later, as he fell asleep next to his sister, the sun barely sinking over the horizon, I learned how badly they both needed it.
And I had a feeling they weren’t the only ones.
* * *
I was sitting on my couch, my knees pulled to my chest, a glass of untouched wine on the end table, my mind lost in thought, when I heard the bedroom door open.
I fought the urge to fly up off the couch.
“Pizza’s on the counter,” I called, keeping my eyes aimed at the wall. “I wasn’t sure what kind you guys would like so I got a few different—ooph.”
I was cut off when Porter’s hard body hit me. One of his arms hooked under my knees, the other wrapping around my back. And then the couch disappeared from beneath me.
“What the—”
“Shh!” he demanded.
“What are you doing?” I whisper-yelled, looping my arms around his neck to balance myself.
“Your apartment’s too small,” he rumbled, carrying me straight to the bathroom in the hallway.
“I’m working on getting a house. It’s just taking some time.”
“Mm,” he hummed, setting my ass on the bathroom vanity. Bending at the waist, he rested his hands on either side of me and got in my face, his piercing, blue eyes searching mine. “Please tell me you believe me when I say that I had nothing to do with Catherine taking your son.”
“I…uh…know. I heard your message.”
His gaze darkened. “You listen to all of it?”
I licked my lips and nodded. “I just got it last night. Brady blocked your number on my phone.”
“Right,” he mumbled.
“I’m sorr—”
“I had no fucking idea he was your son. You have to believe me or this is as far as we can ever go.”
My heart swelled. “I believe you.”
He eyed me warily and then warned, “No faking it, Charlotte.”
I leaned into him and brushed my lips with his. “I believe you, Porter.”
In one swift movement, he locked the bathroom door and flipped the lights off.
I gasped as the familiar darkness flooded the room. My whole body sagged, but my pulse quickened in anticipation.
Porter’s large frame moved toward me, his hips forcing my knees apart as he wedged his body between them. Gliding a hand into the back of my hair, he tucked my face into his neck. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I lied, fisting the back of his shirt and nuzzling my cheek against his jaw, the most amazing calm of my life engulfing me.
Using my hair to turn my head, he swept his lips up my neck, and then his breath flittered across my skin as he whispered in my ear, “No questions. No judgments. No faking it. No apologies. Give it to me.”
A shiver traveled down my spine, and I swayed into him, our chests becoming flush.
And then I gave it to him. Everything I could never give anyone else.
“I think he hates me.”
No sooner than the words had cleared my lips, he followed it up with a confession of his own. “I’m drowning in that car all over again without him.”
My breath hitched, an apology burning on the tip of my tongue. But that wasn’t what Porter and I did in the darkness.
Turning my head, I brushed my lips with his. “He told me that I only loved Lucas, and Catherine only wanted him to replace Travis.” I paused to collect myself. “He thinks you were the only one who ever wanted him.”
His body turned to stone, but his head hung low. “Jesus.”
My throat became thick, and I was barely able to speak. “I love him. I swear I do. But he’s right. I want him to be Lucas.”
His fingers tensed in my hair, but the pain at my scalp did nothing to distract me from the anguish in my chest.
“God, it feels so filthy even saying it out loud. You have to know that I love him. Down to the c
ore of my soul, but he’s like a stranger to me.” I tried to push off the counter, desperate for some space, but Porter moved in closer, blocking my retreat.
“He was a stranger to me once. Now, he is the core to my soul. He and Hannah. That’s my life. That love wasn’t ingrained into me at birth the way it was you, but it grew into a wildfire. And I don’t know how to turn it off. And I’m terrified the courts are going to ask me to do just that.”
“Oh God,” I breathed, hooking my legs around his hips and locking them at the ankle as if I could hug him tight enough to erase the pain.
His hand drifted down my back and then crept under the hem of my shirt, flesh to flesh. “Your turn, Charlotte.”
“I can’t give him to you.”
“I’ll never ask you to. But I won’t ever stop trying to get him back.”
My body locked up tight, panic blasting through my system. “W…what?”
He shook his head and pressed his lips to my temple. “There’s enough of him for both of us. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. He’s your son. But I’m begging you not to forget that he’s mine too.”
Closing my eyes, even though the room was already pitch-black, I whispered, “I have no idea what I’m doing. These should be the happiest days of my life, and I can’t stop crying because I know he’s hurting.”
His head came up, and while I couldn’t see him, I could feel his blue stare burning into me. “You’re hurting too.”
It wasn’t a question.
It wasn’t an accusation.
It also wasn’t a lie.
“We’re all hurting,” I admitted, clinging to his shoulders.
“Not tonight,” he whispered. “Tonight, he’s happy. Tonight, I’m here with you. Tonight, we’re together. Tonight, nothing outside this apartment matters. Tonight, your son sleeps safely in your bed. Tonight, my kids sleep soundly for the first time in a week. And, tonight, we can share the darkness.”
My mind drifted back to only a few weeks earlier, the first time Porter had taken me to the confessional in the darkness. It was a night I’d never forget because it was the first time I’d ever given myself to someone else. Not physically, though that had happened too. But emotionally. I’d offered him my deepest, darkest secrets. And he’d taken them, devoured them, and made them his own. He’d made the darkness a beautiful place filled with understanding and acceptance.
Porter was like that. Everything was easier with him
Everything except losing him.
So I asked him the same question he’d asked me that first night together. “What’s going to happen when we turn on the lights?”
“Just don’t let go and it won’t matter.”
“How are we going to do this? Technically, Porter, you’re breaking the law by even being here. The police—”
“I had nothing to do with the kidnapping,” he growled.
“I know! And I believe you. But the police are still investigating you. You end up in jail for breaking the protection order, it’s not going to help anyone.”
“So we lay low for a few weeks. But, damn it, Charlotte, we will find a way to make this work. This is my life. This is your life. This is his life. And her life. This is our life and you know it. We’ll figure out the details later, but for now, all I need from you is a promise that we are going to do this. No matter what. We’re in this together.”
My heart soared higher than I ever thought possible. Porter had the most amazing knack of getting into my subconscious and untying the knots I so often made out of obstacles. With him, my thoughts weren’t jumbled and my fears weren’t roadblocks.
“God, I missed you,” I breathed, giving him my very last confession.
“Does that mean you’re with me?”
“Yeah, baby. I’m with you.”
“And we’re going to do this, right?”
“Yeah. We’re going to do this.”
And then Porter gave me his last confession, only his was a little more tangible.
His lips crashed down on mine, our mouths opening and our tongues tangling, needy and desperate.
His lips felt like velvet, smooth even as they were rough and demanding. And, with his every touch, a week’s worth of panic and anxiety ebbed from my system. In its absence, every nerve ending in my body came alive, desire filling me.
I tugged at the bottom of his shirt, frantic to feel more of him—all of him.
He broke the kiss long enough to snatch it over his head, mine meeting the same fate less than a second later.
His mouth once again covered mine, and he yanked my bra down, both of my breasts popping free of the cups. His dexterous fingers immediately found my nipples, plucking and rolling, sending sparks to my clit.
“Yes,” I breathed, falling back on the sink until my shoulders hit the cold mirror.
Using my legs to force him forward, I rolled my hips against his, finding glorious friction against his hard length hidden behind his zipper.
“Fuck,” he ground out, releasing my breasts and moving his hands down to my core. His fingers dipped into my yoga pants, swept my panties to the side, and then pressed in deep.
My back arched and my ass slipped off the vanity, but Porter held me in place with an arm hooked under my hips.
“Keep going,” he encouraged in a jagged voice as I began working myself against his hand. His thumb dropped to my clit, drawing slow circles as his fingers curled inside me. “Come on, sweetheart. Give it to me,” he urged before hunching over to suck my nipple into his mouth.
The combination was too much, beautiful and agonizing at the same time. My nerve endings became overloaded with sensations to the point I couldn’t focus anymore, but Porter never slowed.
His fingers twisted.
His tongue swirled.
His thumb circled.
“Porter,” I cried, my release tearing through me.
His head popped up, sealing over my mouth as he swallowed my moans until I sagged in his arms.
And then…he was gone.
My pants were ripped down my legs, and the sound of his zipper played the harmony to my labored breathing.
And then…he was everywhere.
His mouth came back to mine, his hand guided his thick shaft to my entrance, and his strong body surged forward as he drove inside me.
I clung to his shoulders as he dragged me to the edge of the counter, the lip of it biting into my ass as his hips began a relentless rhythm that lit the fuse on yet another orgasm.
“Oh God,” I moaned as he planted himself at the hilt.
“Shh,” he ordered, pressing up onto his toes to change the angle, as if he could possibly get deeper. “You have to be quiet.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me, yet he somehow understood.
He resumed his tortuous rhythm, driving into me in the hunt for his own release. “Fuck, Charlotte,” he groaned, his breaths coming quicker, his shaft swelling inside me.
He was close.
I was closer.
Circling my hips, I ground against him. “Baby,” I called in a whisper.
“I’m right here, Charlotte,” he swore. “Always.”
My release climbed higher until I wasn’t sure I could hold on any longer, and when I felt Porter step off the edge, I eagerly followed him over.
He folded forward, burying his face in my neck, his hips never faltering as we rode our orgasms out together.
Lazily, I trailed my fingertips up and down his back, his large frame hovering over me, both of us panting.
“Jesus,” he breathed.
I smiled.
Righting himself, he gripped my hips so I didn’t teeter off the edge of the counter and grumbled, “Why is there never a fucking bed in the darkness?”
There was no way I could have stopped the loud bubble of laughter that came from my throat.
His shoulders shook as he joined me. Cupping the back of my neck, he pressed his smiling lips to mine in a kiss that meant more to me tha
n he would ever be able to comprehend. Sans the incredible sex that had preceded it, there was nothing special about that kiss.
But maybe that was what made it so perfect.
It was easy, and it made the overwhelming world outside my apartment feel easy too.
“Close your eyes. I’m gonna turn on the lights,” he whispered.
My stomach sank, and I gripped his shoulders tight. “Nothing’s going to change when you do, right?”
He caught my hand and folded his around it, intertwining our fingers before bringing it to his lips. “Everything’s going to change, Charlotte. And I swear to you, no matter what happens, we’re going to do that together, okay?”
My nose began to sting. Fucking Porter and his hand holding.
God, I loved it so much.
“Okay, baby. Turn on the lights.”
“I didn’t know!” I defended.
Porter smirked across the kitchen, his hip propped against the counter and his long legs crossed at the ankle. “Seven?”
“I didn’t know!” I repeated.
After we’d cleaned up, which was surprisingly convenient when you have sex in the bathroom, we’d gotten dressed and begrudgingly left our private sanctuary. I hadn’t been eating much over the last few days, and with Porter securely holding my hand, making my mind blessedly quiet, food had become a priority. On the way to the kitchen, I’d stopped at the bedroom door, cracking it open to peer in at Travis, as I had done so many times over the last few days. Every time I’d done it before, half of me had expected him not to be there. That fear had become a reality only hours earlier, after he’d climbed out the window in an attempt to escape me.
But that escape had become the precipice that had brought Porter back to us.
“Seven though?” he teased, lifting a piece of pizza to his mouth.
I glared at him, all the while smiling on the inside. “Well, he likes mushrooms.” I waved my hand at one box before amending, “Sometimes, anyway.” I swung my hand toward another box. “But then I wasn’t sure about Hannah, but all kids like cheese, right?”
He swallowed a bite and washed it down with beer before saying, “So that’s two. You got five more to go.”
I took a sip of my wine. Not the warm one from the end table. Porter had poured me a new glass. “Well, I figured, with you being a grown man, you’d probably want yours to be a little heartier. I’m sorry to say they didn’t have your precious Wagyu on the menu, but I got you all the other meats.”
