by Sean Michael
Brock snorted and followed them. “I’m now bubble gum flavored.”
Eric grinned, handing Josie a soapy cloth. “Help your daddy Bee, but be careful-careful about his eyes.”
She nodded, so serious. “I not hurt.”
Bending slightly, he smiled and closed his eyes so she didn’t hurt him—he knew she’d never do it on purpose, but figured she didn’t necessarily have the best coordination.
She washed him carefully, only faltering when Eric reached to help her.
“No! No, Daddy. I do it.”
Brock snorted and wound up with soap up his nose, which made him sneeze. That made Josie squeal and grab him, the wet cloth slapping on the back of his neck and sliding down his back.
“Oh, gross. That’s all cold.” He started to tickle her in revenge.
Her laughter was…. It made his heart ache, somehow.
He stopped tickling to squeeze her tight. “All right, I should get back to work. Do you think you can draw me a picture of us all eating ice cream so I can remember it for always?”
“I can, Daddy Bee.” She looked at him, very seriously. “On the Josie paper you bringed me. On the For Josie paper.”
“Excellent. If it’s very good, I’ll even put it on the fridge.” He understood that this was the pinnacle.
“Oh….” Josie ran off, feet banging on the floor, as Eric dissolved into laughter.
Brock chuckled and poked Eric in the ribs on his good side. “Behave—she’s your daughter.”
“That she is.” Eric laughed harder.
He punched Eric in the arm.
“Ow!” Eric danced back, obviously playing with him.
That got him to chuckling. “I really do need to get back to work.” Still, he had time for a brief kiss, right?
“She’s about to nap. I’m going to log on and try to see what my options are for next year, maybe talk to someone about putting the house on the market.”
“That’s a great idea.” He thought it was a positive step for Eric.
“We’ll see.” Eric walked closer. “Can I kiss you?”
“You can.” He opened his arms, encouraging Eric to come close.
Eric fit into his arms perfectly, just like always, and that look was one he’d dreamed about. Their lips fit together like hand and glove and his tongue slipped into Eric’s mouth. He tasted a hint of mocha and Eric himself. Eric fed him the best noise, low and deep.
One of his hands landed on Eric’s ass; the other one slid up to cup the back of Eric’s neck. He could do this all day long, aside from the inevitable pint-sized interruptions, of course. He was starting to expect that, though, and knowing it was coming made the kiss right this second that much sweeter.
Eric’s hand cupped his cheek, thumb sliding on his cheekbone, those eyes open, watching him. He stared back and let Eric in. His stomach grew warm, tight, his cock hard.
“Daddy! Daddy, you’re kissing Daddy Bee!”
Eric nodded, stepping back, but only the tiniest bit. “I am.”
Brock grinned at Eric. “Daddy and Daddy Bee sitting in a tree….”
Eric chuckled, nodded. Josie came up, a massively colored piece of paper in her hand.
“Oh, wow. Look at this.” Brock picked up the paper and made sure to give it his full attention.
Eric’s cheek rested on his shoulder. “Oh, it’s very nice, Jo.”
“Thank you, honey. This is the best you’ve ever done and it deserves its spot on the fridge.” He handed it back to her. “Why don’t you decide where you think it should go?”
“Mermaid magnet.” She went to the fridge, frowned. “Daddy, where is mermaid?”
“It’s at the… other house, Jo.”
“Go get.” She pointed.
“I can’t, Jo. Not today.”
“Daddy! Go! Get!”
Eric sighed. “No, Jo.”
“Not today, honey. We’ll go shopping soon and get you something special for here.” Man, there were land mines everywhere, waiting to get you when you least expected it.
Her bottom lip started trembling, her eyes filling with tears.
“Hey, sometimes things don’t go exactly your way, honey. That’s life. And it’s not like you can’t live without a mermaid magnet,” Brock noted.
“I want my mermaid!” She stamped her foot, face screwing up.
Eric sighed. “Definitely nap time, huh?” He bent down to pick her up, and she pushed at him, making him wince.
“Okay, young lady, that is enough.” Brock used his best boardroom voice and picked her up. “It doesn’t matter how upset you are, you don’t go around hurting people because of it.”
“Daddy!” She kicked and hollered, but, to his surprise, Eric let him take her, put her in her bed, still screaming.
“Daddy! Daddy, no!”
“It’s nap time. And you need to be a good girl and go to sleep so we can all have a nice supper together later. And if you stop screaming and kicking, I’ll tuck you in and give you a kiss.”
“Daddy Bee….” She wrapped around him, crying into the shoulder of his shirt.
“Aw, honey. You’re just tired.” He patted her back.
“Is… is Daddy Bee coming to Josie’s house?”
“No, sweetie, Josie’s going to stay at Daddy Bee’s house.” God, he hoped she wasn’t too young for this whole situation to stick with her.
“Forever and ever?”
“Your daddy and I need to talk about that, honey.”
“Daddy! Daddy, c’mere!”
“Not right now, honey. You are supposed to be napping.” He wasn’t sure he was ready for this conversation yet, and certainly not with Josie listening in.
Eric’s head popped in. “Everything okay?”
Josie nodded. “We stay at Daddy Bee’s? This our house?”
Eric smiled at her. “This is Daddy Bee’s house, Jo, but this is your room.”
Eric was still living out of a suitcase, Brock supposed. Why didn’t he know for sure?
“And this will always be your room, okay?” He and Eric needed to talk now, whether they were ready or not.
Eric pulled back the covers of her little bed. “In, kiddo. Nap time.”
Brock grinned. “I’ll get the hang of not letting her distract me from getting her to lie down and go to sleep.”
“You will.” Eric nodded, tucked her in. “Kisses?”
“Not you. Daddy Bee.”
“Ouch. Sorry, man.” He winked at Eric and then leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You be good and go to sleep now, okay?”
“Uh-huh.” Her dark eyes stared up at Eric. “You now.”
“Oh, me now, huh?” Eric smiled, kissed her cheek.
“Sleep tight, honey.”
“Love you, Jo.”
They shuffled out together.
He slid his arm around Eric’s waist. “I have to get back to work, but we need to talk about what we’re going to do when this is all over.”
“I know. I know. I need to make plans. I will, Brock. I swear to you. I’ll get out of your hair.”
He shook his head. “This is why we need to talk. After I call Stephanie and make sure everything’s covered for the day.”
“Okay.” He got another quick kiss and then Eric headed into the living room.
He couldn’t quite believe what he was thinking, what he was wanting.
And he had work to do, so he pushed it to the back of his mind, grabbed his earphone, and got his head into the money.
Where it belonged.
Chapter Thirteen
BROCK WAS still buried in his paperwork when the doorbell rang. He grunted and told Eric to sit back down. He wasn’t letting Eric or Josie anywhere near that door until that little punk asshole was behind bars.
He went over and checked the peephole. Gordon and Max. Excellent. Brock opened the door, letting them in. “Hey, guys.”
“Boss. Eric. Josie.”
Josie looked at Gordon, eyes wide. “You’re pretty.”
Brock bit the side of his mouth to hold his grin back. He very much doubted anyone had ever called Gordon “pretty” before.
Josie stood up and went right to Gordon, who crouched down, grinned. “Hey, you. I’m pretty, am I?”
She nodded, fascinated.
Max hooted. “That’s my man—pretty.”
Brock had a feeling Gordon was never going to live that down.
She reached out to touch Gordon’s face, and Eric cleared his throat. “That’s not polite, Jo.”
“Oh, she’s good.” Gordon leaned into her touch, then blew a raspberry on her fingers.
Josie squealed and giggled, and Brock chuckled, glad to see he wasn’t the only one who’d been taken by this little slip of a girl.
Max looked at Gordon, a genuine warmth in his eyes.
“Okay, Josie, why don’t you draw a couple of pictures for Gordon and Max?” It was a great way to get her occupied with something else.
“Okay.” She nodded and zoomed off, singing at the top of her lungs.
“Sorry, Gordon.” Eric smiled. “She just has no filters.”
Max cackled again and patted his man on the butt. “She’s great.”
Brock snorted and they all moved to the dining room table.
“So, what’s the deal with the house? With Tim McCarthy?” Eric asked.
Brock nodded. “Give us the news—good and bad.”
“The kid hasn’t been back to the house, but the cops were there for hours yesterday, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he saw them and figured, once they were gone, the place would be under surveillance—it’s one of the few places we know he’s been.”
Max flipped open his book. “Our best bet for catching him is still to wait until he shows up here. Have there been any more calls from him?”
Brock shook his head. “No.”
“What about getting it cleaned up?” Eric asked. “Is that possible?”
“I’ll hire a service to take care of that,” Brock insisted.
Gordon and Max both looked relieved at his words.
“Yeah? You’re sure? I could go over and get to work….”
Gordon shook his head. “That’s a bad idea.”
“Just let me pay for the service, Eric. Once it’s clean, Gordon and Max will pick up anything you want to keep and we’ll get it listed for sale. You never have to go back there.”
Eric looked like he might argue, then just reached out, squeezed his fingers.
He squeezed back, holding Eric’s eyes for a moment. It’s going to be okay, baby. “We just need to talk. Together. Us.”
“We will. Tonight, when we can do it without little ears listening in.”
“Yeah.” Eric looked at Gordon, Max. “Sorry, guys.”
“Not your fault, man.”
“No,” growled Brock. “It’s that little asshole’s.”
“Do you really think he’ll come here?” Eric still sounded a little lost over the whole thing.
Gordon nodded. “I think he’ll have to, man. He needs some sort of end game.”
“You and Josie are safe here, baby. Gordon is on the case.”
“I know. I just…. This is ridiculous.”
“Josie was kidnapped, you were shot, as was Gordon. How is this ridiculous?”
Eric looked at him, head tilting. “How isn’t it?”
“Okay. You might have a point—it’s all ridiculous. But it’s also real and happening. So we deal with it.”
“Daddy?” Josie came walking out, paper in hand. “Is it pizza night?”
Eric chuckled. “I don’t know if it’s Friday or not, Jo.”
“Pizza is a good idea. Gordon, Max, you can join us,” Brock suggested.
Josie squealed, launching herself into his arms. “Pizza!”
His chair nearly went over, but he managed to grab the edge of the table with one hand while he wrapped the other around her. “Is that your favorite food?”
“Like pizza!” She settled in his lap like she belonged there.
Who knew, just maybe she did.
Chapter Fourteen
BROCK SUPPOSED no news was good news, but they were stuck indoors and that made for a cranky Josie at the end of the day. Gordon and Max had left after pizza with nothing else to report. Josie had been fractious during her bath and her stories, and had taken ages to settle.
Finally it was just him and Eric again. “You want a drink?”
“God, yes.” Eric rubbed the back of his neck.
He poured them each a whiskey and handed one of the tumblers over to Eric before settling down on the couch with a sigh. Eric joined him, close enough that he could feel the warmth coming off his lover’s body, far enough away they weren’t touching.
“I want you and Josie being here to be permanent.” He hadn’t realized that was what he was going to say until the words were out of his mouth.
“What?”
“Maybe I’m presuming, but you’ve told her all about me, you named me her guardian if anything happens to you, so I have to think, somewhere in your head, you were hoping we’d get back together again.”
“Praying.” The single word fell between them. “With all my heart.”
“Then you’ll stay with me. Both of you.” It was what he wanted.
“Really? You want us?” Eric scooted closer.
“I kind of thought that was obvious last night.”
“Well…. You have a lifestyle and…. God, kiss me, Brock. Now. Before I fuck this up.”
“A lifestyle.” He chuckled, pulling Eric in close. “If you call working nights and weekends a lifestyle, then sure.”
Then he kissed Eric, taking his time, luxuriating in the taste of his lover’s lips. Eric pressed into his arms, breath hitching, arms wrapped around him. He put all his feelings into the kiss, the love that had never gone away, not in nine years.
His lover. His. His family. His life.
Eric settled against him so that they were heart to heart.
“It feels right, doesn’t it?” Brock figured Eric had to be feeling it, too.
“I just…. Everything seems like a hallucination lately.”
He took Eric’s hand and set it on his erection. “This feel like a hallucination?”
“No. God, no. I—not at all.”
“Good.” He brought their mouths back together again and this time he plundered Eric’s mouth.
Eric moaned for him, moving to sit in his lap, fingers framing his face. “Love.”
“Yeah, that’s the idea.” He took another kiss, his hands finding Eric’s ass and kneading it, feeling his lover up.
His. Fuck, yeah. This was his. He trailed his lips from Eric’s, down along his lover’s jaw to the warm neck.
“We can stay? Permanently?”
“Yes. I’ll call the lawyer. I’ll have your name added to the condo as co-owner. We’ll get adoption proceedings going. Anything happens to you, I want a thick, solid paper trail between me and your batshit-crazy mother.”
“Yes. I want Josie to be with her Bee. I always have.”
Brock laughed suddenly. “Trust you to leave and still get your way with me.”
“I had to go. I didn’t want to.”
“I can’t argue with your results, even if a part of me is grumbling about wasting nine years.” Not that he’d have had anything to do with adopting a baby nine years ago. Hell, he wouldn’t have a couple of months ago, either. Josie had kind of wormed her way into his heart.
“We didn’t waste it. We just needed space to do it right.”
“And I guess the whole kidnapping business was the universe’s way of saying ‘get on with it already.’”
“No. That was some crazy little fucker trying to hurt my daughter.”
“Yeah.” He hugged Eric to him. “They’ll catch him and throw him in jail.”
“You think so? You think they’ll find him?”
“I think he’s too stupid to stay hidden.”
Eric sighed. “I�
��m scared for Jo, Brock.”
“Nothing is going to happen to her, baby. She’s got lots of big, strong men around to look after her.” He winked. “And you.”
“Oh, you butthead.” Eric swatted his hip. Hard.
Brock laughed. “If we’re going to get kinky, we should probably move this to the bedroom.”
Eric’s laughter joined his. “Does that mean I get a side of the bed that’s my own?”
“I guess I could agree to that.”
“You guess?” Eric tackled him playfully, not pushing too hard, but still better.
He kept teasing. “I like my bed. A lot.”
“Oh…. You turd.” Eric’s fingers knew just where he was ticklish. He bucked as he laughed, Eric’s body riding his. “Love you, you big lug.”
“Lug? Big lug?” He retaliated, tickling Eric gently.
“Mmm-hmm…. My big lug.”
“Yeah, I’ll give you that.” He went back to the kissing, licking the inside of Eric’s mouth. Eric settled, fingers sliding on his skin. His cock responded to the change in mood immediately, making it known that it was totally interested in moving this along in a nontalking direction.
“Are we supposed to be having a discussion?” Eric moaned the words against his lips.
“We finished the discussion ages ago. You and Josie are moving in. I’m adopting her. You get the left side of the bed. Now shut up and kiss me.”
Eric cupped his face, mouth pressing hard against his, sealing the deal. He sucked on Eric’s tongue, pulled it into his own mouth. No one—not all the lovers and one-night stands and fuck buddies—no one else had ever kissed him like it was the most important thing in the universe.
“Love you,” he whispered into Eric’s mouth.
Eric’s eyes fastened onto his. “I’m sorry I had to leave, but I’m so glad…. So glad your heart is here, Brock.”
“It is, baby. It was never anywhere else.” He wrapped his hands around Eric’s ass and stood, carrying his lover off.
Chapter Fifteen
BROCK WOKE up slowly. He was warm and snuggled against a hot body, his hard cock nestled along Eric’s ass. This time he knew it was right and good, and he rocked his hips, cock sliding along the hot crack. Eric groaned, brought one of Brock’s hands up to his hungry mouth, and began to suck the tips of Brock’s fingers. Brock’s cock jumped and he moaned softly.
