by Lane Hart
“You didn’t?” I say, surprised that I was able to talk him out of doing something so brutal.
“No. And you were right,” he says. “Kennedy wouldn’t have wanted me to kill him.”
“Oh,” I say, deflating a little that it wasn’t just me who influenced him.
“Do you think we could go see my dad and stepmother tomorrow?” he asks. “I haven’t told them about Liam. Wasn’t something I wanted to do on the phone. Or explain. If they see him, maybe they’ll be too distracted to ask me questions.”
“Sure,” I agree.
“Everyone thinks I’m a horrible person for cheating on Kennedy.”
“You didn’t cheat, not in the real sense of the word. I didn’t know about her, and you were, well, under the influence,” I remind him.
“I think cheating is easier than explaining that I was drugged and taken advantage of…” he trails off.
When I glance up, I see that he’s smirking at me, teasing me.
“I didn’t take advantage of you,” I reply with my own grin. “You’re a hard man to say no to when you ask for something.”
“Are you saying that I took advantage of you?” he asks.
“No,” I answer, focusing on the leather and the patch instead of his intense green gaze. “You have a commanding presence. People want to please you, to follow your orders.”
“Must have been something I carried over from the army,” Torin replies. “Except for Kennedy. She rarely did anything I told her to do, starting with the day we met. She refused to give me her number.”
“That obviously didn’t stop you,” I say, even though hearing about his wife makes my throat tighten.
“It didn’t,” he agrees. “I bought the restaurant she worked at to impress her and try to get her to let me take her home. It backfired, though, and she poured a pitcher of tea on me instead.”
“Wow,” I reply with a smile as I picture someone as intimidating as Torin Fury getting doused with tea by a waitress.
“She ended up coming home with me to make up for it, though, so it all worked out…Well, not exactly for her but for me…” He trails off, and I look up to see him staring down at Liam. “He’s asleep,” he whispers when he glances back up at me, eyes wide with surprise.
“Good job,” I tell him as I thread the needle through the fabric. “Now just keep doing what you’re doing for the next eight hours,” I tease.
“You don’t get to sleep much?” he asks.
“No,” I reply. “And when a deep sleep is interrupted every three hours or so, it’s almost worse than no sleep at all.”
“I don’t sleep much either,” Torin says. “Not since… I just can’t sleep.”
“It helps if you’re in a bed and not a chair,” I point out, remembering the nights he tried to sleep in the hotel room chairs.
“Abe’s apartment is empty now,” he replies softly. “I guess I could try sleeping in there.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Or you could sleep in my room.”
“Why would I do that?” Torin asks.
“To get up with Liam when he wakes up,” I answer. “When the possibility of sleep is taken away from you, I bet you would appreciate it more.”
“Okay,” he replies.
“Okay?” I repeat in shock since I didn’t think he would actually agree to sleep in my bed with me.
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve slept together before,” Torin answers. “You know, in the same bed.”
“Right,” I agree. “And I bet I’ll sleep better without being attached to you.”
Pulling the thread through one last stitch, I tie it up on the inside of the cut and then hold the material up to show Torin. “All done.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Want to show me how to put him down?”
“Sure,” I agree even if there are butterflies fluttering around in my stomach at the thought of being alone in a bedroom with Torin again. He’s no longer my kidnapper, and I’m no longer his enemy. Will that make things awkward between us?
I leave his cut lying on the table when I get up from the seat and follow him to my dark apartment. Torin goes right over to the portable crib since he knows where it’s at in the corner.
Whispering to him, I say, “Now just slowly lower him down onto the bed while keeping your hand on the back of his head.”
“Okay,” he agrees as he leans over into the crib. “He’s down. Do I need to cover him up or something?”
“No,” I reply. “Doctors don’t recommend blankets in bed unless babies are swaddled, and he’s never liked them.”
“Oh,” Torin says. “So you just leave him like this?”
“Yeah,” I reply. Then, the two of us just stand there for several long seconds until I break the silence. “I usually sleep on this side of the bed since it’s closer to Liam. You can sleep on the other side, if you want.”
“All right,” Torin says softly before he walks around.
I remove my bra from under my pajama top; and then, while I’m sliding underneath the covers, I hear two whomps that sound like his boots hitting the floor and then the clanging of his belt being undone. I try to figure out how much clothing he’s taking off and get a brief glimpse when he goes over to close the bedroom door. His shirt is off, and he’s only wearing a pair of boxer briefs.
When Torin climbs into the bed, I hold my breath as I lie still on my pillow to see how this is going to work. The mattress dips and then bounces me with his weight as he gets situated and then finally goes still.
“I can hear him breathing,” Torin whispers in the silence.
“Yeah,” I agree with a smile. That’s the first thing I listen for whenever I wake up in the middle of the night or morning.
“Now I’m worried it’ll stop,” he tells me. “That SIDS or whatever. I remember Kennedy talking about it…”
“He’ll be fine, Torin. He’s healthy, and we’re here if he needs us.”
“Okay,” he agrees softly.
“Goodnight,” I say to him.
“Goodnight,” he repeats.
And then I close my eyes, unable to fight sleep for a second longer, even if there is an incredibly hot man in my bed, just inches away.
…
Torin
Why did I ever agree to sleep in the same bed as Lexi? This was the worst idea ever.
I’ve been lying here awake for what feels like hours, listening to the baby’s soft breaths. I can barely hear Lexi, but it’s impossible to forget that she’s close enough for me to touch. And I want to touch her, even if I shouldn’t. There’s this insistent voice in my head and throbbing in my cock that tells me to reach for her, to climb on top of her and sink into the relief that’s waiting for me between her legs.
My head and my cock are both idiots though, so I ignore them. Or at least I try to. They don’t make it easy on me. I’m in pain, just like the night of my bachelor party when I was sitting there watching women dance topless. Not just any women, but Lexi. Lexi was dancing topless for me, even though there were dozens of other men around, including my brothers.
Fuck. All of my brothers have seen her mostly naked. No wonder they’re all so eager to talk to her or play cards with her, even though she’s Hector’s daughter. They’ve seen almost every inch of her tan, sexy body, and they’re jonesing to touch her, just like I am.
Bastards.
I don’t like the idea of Lexi sleeping with one of my brothers or anyone else. And unless I claim her as my old lady, she’s fair game to anyone and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
At first, I think the sound of the whimpering is coming from my cock, but then I realize it’s actually Liam. He must be awake again and hungry. Jeez, Lexi hasn’t even been asleep for a few hours, and she’s gonna have to get back up again.
Unless I take care of feeding the baby for her.
Could I figure out how to make a bottle? Lexi showed me how to do it quickly in the parking lot, so there’s no reason I can’t do it now. I think she
keeps all of the stuff for his bottles upstairs in the kitchen behind the bar. It sucks she has to go all the way up there each time. I should probably set all the supplies up down here to make it easier on her.
Sliding out of bed, I feel my way through the darkness over to the portable crib and reach inside to pick up the baby. Remembering what Lexi said about keeping a hand on the back of his head, I scoop him up with one hand underneath his head and the other under his butt. It’s easy since he barely weighs a thing. Then, I put him on my shoulder, like I’ve seen Lexi do, to free up a hand to open the door and slip out of the room.
Holding a kid while fixing a bottle with one hand is not an easy feat, but I manage, remembering to shake it up before I pop the nipple into Liam’s now very fussy mouth. His cries stop as he starts to suck it down; then he blinks his eyes open to look up at me, and I swear they’re filled with gratitude.
“You’re welcome, buddy,” I tell him aloud.
He’s nearly finished when a bleary-eyed Lexi comes stumbling in, fresh out of bed, her hair messy and her tits perky and unstrained as they bounce around underneath her thin pajama top.
“Everything okay?” she asks with a hand on her forehead to shield the light from her eyes.
“Yeah, he’s almost finished,” I inform her proudly.
“Good,” she says, her narrow shoulders dropping in relief. “Don’t forget to burp him.”
Fuck. I don’t know how to do the burping part.
Before I can ask her, I feel a warm dampness against my bare stomach.
“What the…” I lift the kid up in the air and see that his outfit is wet.
Lexi starts giggling from across the room.
“Did he just piss on me?” I ask her in disbelief.
“Yes,” she answers between howls of laughter. “It’s not…funny…but it is.”
I’m glad someone is amused by the fact that I’m covered in my kid’s urine.
“You have to change him when he wakes up before you feed him,” Lexi explains once she gets her giggling under control.
Now I feel stupid that I didn’t know to do that first.
“You’ll figure it all out,” she says. “He’s peed on me a ton of times, especially when I’m changing his diaper. It’s like he thinks it’s funny to make me his target.”
“He’s finished,” I say when he drains the bottle. I set it on the counter, and then Lexi tells me to put him up on my shoulder, so I do.
“Now gently pat his back until you hear him burp. Usually you’ll want a rag or towel on your shoulder in case he throws up, but he’s been doing that less lately.”
“If I pat his back, I can’t hold his head,” I point out after I try to maneuver him around.
“If you stay still, he’ll keep his head right where it is on your shoulder,” she assures me, so I start patting his back until I hear the small belch.
“Good. Now we can go change him,” Lexi says. I follow her back downstairs where she flips on the light in the room and pulls out a blanket, a diaper, a tub of wipes and another outfit with the snaps at the crotch.
“First, you put down something in case it gets messy,” she says. “And then you lay him down.”
I place the pee-soaked kid on the middle of the blanket and Lexi starts unsnapping the buttons on his outfit to raise it up. She gently pulls his arms out of the short sleeves before removing it over his head.
Taking the new diaper, she spreads it open and then shoves the back of it under the one he’s wearing. “You want to be prepared, ready to secure the new diaper as soon as you remove the old one,” she explains as she unfastens the two tabs on either side and then yanks the old diaper out from underneath his body. Setting it aside, she grabs a wipe and rubs it over his junk and bottom before quickly securing the new tabs on the front of the diaper.
“Once the diaper is taken care of then you can redress him,” Lexi tells me as she slips the new outfit over his head first, then arms, then finally snaps the buttons between his legs. “Easy, right?”
“Yeah, uh-huh,” I mutter.
“Sorry he peed on you and that I laughed,” she says as she straightens up. “Here, let’s clean you up.” Lexi reaches for another wipe from the pack and then rubs the damp cloth across my stomach before I can prepare myself for her touch or the chill. My breath hisses out from between my clenched teeth as my abs tense under her ministrations. There’s also an instant effect on my cock that’s only being restrained by a thin pair of cotton briefs.
Pushing Lexi’s hands away, I tell her, “I’ll just go get a shower,” before I make my escape into the bathroom, shutting the door on Lexi before she can notice the tenting of fabric in my boxers. I don’t even make it into the shower before I start jerking off. As soon as I start the water running, I shove my boxer briefs down to fist my hard, aching length and give it the relief it’s been begging for the last few hours. Or has it been days, maybe weeks or months? Hell, it’s been so long that I can’t remember. With one hand braced on the sink, I tug on my shaft from root to tip as I close my eyes and fantasize about Lexi. I want to hold her wrists above her head while I pound inside of her over and over again and hear her scream for me to take her harder, faster, deeper.
“Fuck,” I shout as my balls tighten and my release pulses from my cock, making a mess on Lexi’s bathroom floor.
“Everything okay?” Lexi asks from the door, having obviously heard me cursing through my release.
“Yeah, great,” I reply as I hang my head and press my back to the wall to catch my breath. I should be ashamed of myself for using her to get myself off, but I’m not. All I am is grateful, because for a few seconds I wasn’t thinking about how I held Kennedy as she bled out in my arms or how for months I’ve been trying to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never see her beautiful face or hear her voice again. For a few short seconds, I even forgot that she was dead, and I felt nothing but peace.
So no, I’m not gonna feel guilty for that. I needed a break from the pain, no matter how brief, so that I could breathe a little easier without the constant, heavy pressure on my chest.
Now, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to finally get some sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lexi
The next morning, I woke up to Liam’s cries and Torin sound asleep on his back and snoring next to me. Looks like he finally got some sleep after he came back from his shower. I shouldn’t have laughed at him when Liam soaked through his diaper. There was no way for Torin to realize he had to change him when he wakes up before taking his bottle, so it was my fault for not informing him. But it was just too funny to see the big, tough, authoritative guy, looking so sexy it physically hurt my lady parts, standing in the kitchen feeding his son in nothing but boxer briefs. Torin as a father is the hottest thing ever and it was hilarious to see him make the same mistakes I did when I first brought Liam home from the hospital. There was no one there to teach me how to take care of a newborn. I had to learn by trial and error.
Now, the two of us are in his SUV with Liam strapped in the back, on our way to meet his parents.
“Our mother left when Chase and I were so young that neither of us remembers her,” Torin says on the way to his father and stepmother’s house.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I don’t remember my mother either.”
“What happened to her?” he asks, glancing over at me briefly before his eyes return to the road.
“My father killed her for having an affair,” I reply.
“Jesus,” he mutters. “How old were you?”
“Three or four I think,” I answer. “I guess it’s good that he killed her when I was young, before I could get attached to her and miss her.”
“I’m so glad that asshole is dead,” Torin says.
“Me too,” I agree with a smile as we bond over not only the fact that we’re happy that my father is gone but also the fact that neither of us had mothers growing up.
“When did your dad remarry?�
� I ask.
“I guess I was about seventeen and Chase was fifteen.”
“Oh, so you were grown. He raised you on his own?” I ask.
“Yeah, he did. He was such a good father that he made up for us not having a mother,” he explains, which also helps me understand why Torin is so determined to be a part of Liam’s life. He had a great role model and plans to be the same type of parent for his son.
It’s not a long drive to his parents’ beach house, a huge and beautiful oceanfront home sitting up on stilts.
“Wow, this place is amazing,” I tell Torin when we climb out and meet at the passenger door to get out Liam’s car seat.
“My house is twice this size,” he says absently as he glances at the residence.
“You have a big, beautiful house that you don’t live in?” I ask. I don’t think he’s left the clubhouse since Liam and I have been staying there.
“Right,” he agrees before he opens the SUV door to retrieve Liam where he is still sleeping in his carrier.
Nerves hit me as I follow Torin up the tall stairs that lead to a screened-in back deck. That’s where an older man and woman are rocking in chairs underneath the covering.
“Oh, hey! We didn’t hear you pull up,” the tall, thin, auburn-haired woman says when she sees us and gets to her feet.
The man, who looks a lot like an older version of Torin but with a little more gray in his hair, doesn’t say anything as he stares at us. He slowly gets to his feet and approaches us cautiously.
“Hi, I’m Carol, Torin’s stepmother,” the lady says when she wraps me in a hug and then Torin.
“This is Lexi,” Torin says by way of introduction. He sits the carrier down on the deck and then gestures with his hand to it. “And this is my son, Liam.”
His stepmother gasps, but his father shouts, “Your son?”
“It’s a long story, Dad,” Torin grumbles. “Can you just not ask any questions?”
“You don’t want me to ask questions?” his father scoffs. “Well, I don’t want to think the worst of my son who I taught to do better…”
