They wound up eating in the living room, Chris in his portable high chair and Brad and Val on the couch. They watched an animated movie—one of Chris’s current favorites—but Brad was simply enjoying their company. He and Val chatted off and on during the movie until a song would start. Chris would “sing” to it, and they enjoyed listening to him.
Long after the meal was over and Chris was out of his high chair, they talked and talked, and it felt like old times to Brad. Not once did he worry about Ethan or the future. It was like he and Val were old friends, long ago when he was crushing on her but before he’d fallen into deep love with her. He realized that when she excused herself, picking drowsy Chris up off the floor so she could tuck him into bed. She was gone for a few minutes and Brad allowed himself to think about all that.
He picked up the plates off the coffee table and took them into the kitchen, then headed back to the living room and carried the high chair back too. He wound up cleaning it off and putting it back where Val had it before they’d taken it to the living room. Then he headed back to the living room and poured himself another half glass of wine. He knew it wasn’t the best idea because he’d have to drive, but he suspected it was contributing to his warm feelings. Then he carried the glass to the kitchen, determined to take care of the dishes.
He spied the dishwasher under the counter next to the sink and opened the door. There were already a few dishes inside, so he loaded in the ones they’d used for dinner. Val walked in the kitchen then and said, “Holy crap. You’re feeling productive. Guess I should invite you over for dinner more often. I didn’t even have to cook.”
He turned around, smiling, and he took a drink of the wine. She walked over to him then and just looked in his eyes. She grabbed the glass out of his hand and placed it on the counter and then rubbed his cheek with her hand. “Thank you…for everything.”
He closed his eyes then. He wanted it to happen—he did—but he knew it was wrong. It would never work. It was a bad idea.
But then he opened his eyes and looked in hers, and when she brought her lips to his, he couldn’t shut himself off.
His arms wrapped around her as he kissed her back. This woman was all he’d ever wanted, and he knew now that she was going to be the death of him.
Fine—let him die. He kissed her again. He didn’t care. She’d been all he’d ever dreamed about for almost as long as he could remember. She would make him complete…or she’d kill him.
But his heart protested. It didn’t want to ache anymore. When they finished kissing, he opened his eyes and looked at her. “Ethan…”
“Ethan is going to be my ex soon.” She must have seen the doubt etched in his eyes. Oh, yes, he’d heard it before, dozens of times, and he couldn’t hide that fear from her. “You don’t believe me.” He didn’t want to say anything. He felt too exposed and raw. One strike and she could fell him like a mighty oak. She smirked and then he felt weak. She knew. She knew the power she had over him and she didn’t care. She let go of him then and walked across the room to the tiny desk tucked in an alcove. She opened the second drawer on the side, pulling out some folded papers and walked back over. She unfolded the papers and held them out for him to see. It took him a little bit, but he was able to put two and two together, thanks to words like Dissolution of Marriage and Ethan Allen Richards, Respondent.
He took a deep breath, and she set the papers on the counter. “Something I’ve been thinking about…a lot. Brad, you’ve been my friend forever—through thick and thin, good times and bad, and you’ve put up with a lot of shit from me.” He smiled and she said, “Don’t deny it. You know it’s true.” He started to say something, but she placed her finger on his lips. “I was so blinded by my feelings for Ethan that I never gave you a fair shot. And that was stupid, because…what you felt for me was pure and—”
He laughed. “Oh, Val, my thoughts were so not pure.”
She giggled then too. “You know what I mean.” He took a deep breath. “I was blind to what was in front of me the whole time.” He felt hesitant but she said, “I love you, Brad. God, I love you, and I was so stupid to not see it. I can’t regret Ethan, because I have Chris, but—”
She loved him?
He took a moment as it sunk in. She loved him. She’d said it. The words his heart had ached for so long to hear, and he could feel the emotion swell inside his chest. The woman he’d loved for so long was saying what he’d longed to hear for more years than he could remember. He could barely believe it.
He kissed her then, this time his passion unrestrained. He continued to feel a niggling doubt at the back of his mind, but he had to let it go and trust her. Yeah, he knew…he knew if she trashed his heart again, he’d be done for, but he couldn’t not try. If he didn’t trust her and walked away, he would always wonder.
The kiss ended but he held her close. “I love you too, Val. I always have.”
He heard her breath catch in her throat and then she swallowed. She inhaled and said, “Always?”
He nodded. Now she’d know what a fucking dumb ass he was. But it didn’t matter. It was the truth…and he wasn’t going to lie to her. “Yeah.”
She blinked and touched his cheek again. What was she thinking? He could see something in her eyes—not a question but something. She finally said, “I had no idea. I knew…” She shook her head. “But I—I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t publicize it.” He kissed her again then, because he didn’t have to wait anymore, didn’t have to worry, and she fucking loved him back. He wanted nothing more than to take her, right then, right there, but too many things were holding him back. The first was her child sleeping not too far away from them. The other was that niggling doubt. The one and only time he and Valerie had spent a night together, Ethan had taken hold of her heart the next day harder than he ever had before. She’d snapped back to the guy like she had a bungee cord wrapped around her heart. If Brad made love to her, he would spend the rest of the week waiting for the other shoe to drop. He kissed her once more and then said, “I should probably go.”
She wrapped her fingers around his neck, shoving her fingers into the hair at the nape, and said, “No…don’t leave.” His eyes searched hers, and he wasn’t sure what to say. “Please. Stay.”
How could he say no to her sweet request? It wasn’t just desire, though it was there, thick and heavy as it flowed through his veins.
He answered her with another kiss. He couldn’t say no to his sweet Valerie, the woman he’d wanted for so long he couldn’t even remember what it was like to not need. As they stayed in that embrace kissing, he heard her breathing change, signaling that she felt the same way he did. She needed him as much as he needed her.
She broke away from his kiss and looked in his eyes. “Do you have any condoms, or do we need to run to Walmart?”
He started laughing, in spite of the fact that he did not. “No, Val. I didn’t come over here tonight planning to get laid.”
“Shit.” He could tell her gears were turning, but he was considering driving to a 7-Eleven. “Actually, hold on.” She grabbed his hand and they left the kitchen. She walked into the bathroom and let go of his hand as she rifled through a drawer under the sink. “Aha!” She pulled out a box of Trojans.
“Better check the expiration date.”
She turned the box over while she talked. “After I had Chris, I didn’t want to get back on the pill since I was breastfeeding. And I could never rely on Ethan to make sure he had any, and, well…I felt like I needed to protect myself in more ways than one—if you catch my drift.”
He did, but he wasn’t going to say a word. He knew exactly what Ethan was like, and at least Val hadn’t been a complete idiot.
She held the box up to his face, grimacing. “They expired last month. Think they’re still okay?”
He shrugged. God, he wanted her, but he wasn’t about to make that decision. “You willing to take that chance?”
She grinned and grabbed
his hand. “Fuck, yes.”
She led him to her bedroom door. He asked, “What about Chris?” He’d had plenty of sex with plenty of women, but children sleeping nearby had never been part of the equation.
“It’s fine. Just…we’ll close the door almost all the way, and lights off. That way if he does come in, we have a little warning.”
“He can’t reach the light switch, can he?”
Val giggled. “No.” She walked over to the nightstand and placed the box of condoms on it. Brad stood near the doorway, almost in disbelief that this was even happening. She strode over to him, all confidence, and fucking hell was she sexy. She was the woman for him and here she was…
She reached over to the light switch near his right shoulder and shut it off. The door was already all but closed and it was dark. He felt her lips on his as she pulled her shirt up and then broke from his kiss to pull it over her head. He placed his hands on her lower back, feeling her warm flesh, and that was when he felt the blood rushing to his cock, filling it with that familiar need. It got even worse when he heard the zipper on her jeans slide down, and she bent down to peel them off.
That was when he figured he’d better undress too. He started pulling his shirt over his head when her fingers attacked his jeans button and her lips assaulted his chest. Oh, fuck, he was gonna have a hell of a time making it, because she had him completely wound up already. His cock was throbbing, dying to be inside her again for the first time in years.
They got the jeans off and then she pulled him toward the bed. He felt blind in the near dark of her room, but somehow it made it hotter, feeling for her instead of seeing her, and he felt behind her back for her bra so he could undo the straps. He got them undone but then she pushed against him, urging him onto the bed. “I need you inside me now.”
Another surge of blood to his dick and all coherence flushed from his brain. He wasn’t about to argue with her, because that was what he needed too. He reached down to yank off his shorts, and he felt her peel her panties off. She shoved a condom in his hand, still wrapped. “Can you take care of that?” He started to answer when he felt her hand on his cock, and he couldn’t help the low groan in his throat. He hadn’t expected her to touch him yet. It felt insane, so fucking good, and she was gonna make him come right this second if he didn’t stop her. So he moved in with the condom and rolled it on.
She moved into position, poised over him, but he knew there was no way he was gonna make it through the ride. He was too turned on, too far past the point. So he slid his finger down her slit. Oh, fuck, yeah, she was wet. That was good. She probably wasn’t too far from climaxing either, but he wanted to make sure she came before she rocked his world. He slid his finger up and down over her clit and she paused in place at first, just enjoying what he was doing to her. She started to move, at first, he thought, to bury him inside her, but no. She was moving against his finger, and so he responded by applying a little more pressure, a little more speed, and a little different motion.
She made it so easy. He could tell she was getting close, because her breathing was erratic and her knees were digging into his hips, her thighs tense, and she kept making little noises of pleasure. He wanted to say something, to urge her to let it go, but he didn’t want to break the mood. He didn’t want to rush her either. Her nails were digging into his chest, and she took a deep breath—followed by a loud moan. “Oh, God, Brad.” She kept moaning, clenching against his sides, burying her nails deeper in his pecs, and he wasn’t gonna stop.
She groaned one last time and then, before he could even move his finger, she lifted her hips and slid him inside her. He’d been on the verge anyway, but hearing her cries had taken him to the brink. Having her slam his cock inside her as far as he could go was the final straw, and he saw fireworks inside his head. Yeah, him and Valerie together at last. It was definite cause for celebration.
Chapter Fifty-eight
THE NEXT COUPLE of months, he spent the night at her house, but once in a while, she and Chris would come to his. He kept waiting for the rehearsal when Ethan would show up and he’d have to tell his friend what was going on. But the guy hadn’t bothered.
Ethan and Zane were pretty close, though, and he knew Ethan had heard it from Zane. He didn’t think there was any malice on Zane’s part when he told Ethan, and the guy was gonna find out eventually.
He did get a (probably drunken) text from Ethan accusing Brad of moving in on his wife. But he knew Ethan knew better. Sure, Ethan had had Val’s heart for a long time, but he also knew that Brad had loved her first.
And, unlike Ethan, he would treat Val right.
He and Val realized it was stupid, just spending the night when they wanted to spend every waking moment together, enjoying the love they’d denied for so long. They didn’t live close by each other either, so it wasn’t just two minutes to be in each other’s arms. So Val asked him to move in with her. He was going to protest and ask her to move in with him, but she had the bigger house, and it was already Chris friendly. He loved his sound studio, but he loved Val more and packed his shit, putting his house up for rent.
He’d go back to practicing in a garage. He didn’t care.
And Chris—that little guy. He’d always loved the kid, but living with him placed the little boy in Brad’s heart forever. The more time he spent with him, the more he saw Valerie in the child. More than that, though, he saw the part of Ethan that he’d always wanted to save. It was the innocence, the wonder.
Val acted like she was starting to hate Ethan, and it killed Brad to see it, but he also knew why. First, his friend hit bottom like he never had before and was ordered into an inpatient rehab program. Brad was sure when he got out, he’d be like his old friend.
Only, no. He was worse. He might have been sober, but he was an asshole to the extreme. It was like Ethan wanted Val to despise him. He was being a real prick, fighting the divorce and threatening to sue for full custody of Chris. Brad wanted to sit down with his friend like old times and talk sense into him, but he knew those days were past. He doubted Ethan would ever forgive him for being with Valerie.
He didn’t know that Ethan and Val would ever have an easy time from this point forward either. Ethan finally got his shit together, apologized for being an asshole, stopped holding up the divorce, and quit threatening for sole custody of his child. Then Valerie let him see Chris, and he first took the boy for a few days. Val was a nervous wreck the entire weekend, and when Ethan showed up, he had a gorgeous redhead with him, but she definitely looked like someone more his type. Yeah, she was wearing professional clothes, but she had that air about her that Ethan liked. Val felt the same way too, because she asked to speak to him in private and chewed his ass, only to find out she was way off base. The gal was Ethan’s drug counselor-turned-girlfriend, a woman named Jenna.
So they both allowed themselves to hope that maybe, maybe Ethan was getting better.
And, with Val’s divorce on the horizon, Brad was inspired to let her know exactly how he felt. One morning when she was in the shower, he took the ring off the sink that she always wore on her right ring finger. It looked like a cord wrapped around her finger but on the front was a microphone, a reminder to Brad that she missed that part of her life. Someday he’d find a way to get her back there, but first he wanted to ensure their permanence as a couple.
He took the ring and traced it, inside and out, on a piece of paper and returned the ring to the bathroom sink. She’d never suspect a thing. He had a date with the jeweler’s.
And while that goddamn ring was being created according to his specifications, Val told him she had a little news.
She was pregnant.
He felt like an idiot. He couldn’t even remember the last time they’d used a condom, and he was more than okay with it. She knew he loved Chris, so to have a child of his own put him out of his mind. He kissed her tummy and asked if he could go with her to her first doctor appointment. “You need to go to the ultrasound too. Tha
t shit’ll blow your mind.”
Knowing he was going to be a father, he would have thought everything would have changed, but it didn’t. He was already like a father, for all intents and purposes. The baby would simply be another child he would love in his life.
Val had been right, though. When he saw the baby’s heartbeat on the weird screen, its little limbs moving around, he felt his eyes grow wet. That baby was part of him. That was huge.
He woke up early one morning, Val and his new baby heavy on his mind. He rolled over and pulled Val close, her back up against his chest. She wasn’t completely asleep, because she muttered a Morning to him and he started kissing the back of her neck. Before he knew it, they were making love, not changing position, but hot and sweet just the same.
She rolled over then, kissing his chest, and he held her close, rubbing her back, grateful to have her there.
Chris threw the door open. “Mommy, mommy!” He ran over to the bed.
“Come on up, sweetie.”
She rolled onto her back. Chris touched her belly. It had been a source of fascination for the boy ever since Val and Brad had explained to him that he had a little sister on the way. “Baby?”
“Yes, baby, honey.”
“We love baby.”
“Yes. We love baby.”
Chris looked up at him. “Daddy Brad?”
“Yeah, buddy?”
“You love baby too?”
He laughed. That kid cracked him up. “Yeah, of course, I love the baby.”
His kissed Val and then picked Chris up, bringing him over to the other side of the bed and giving him a big hug. Val asked, “So what are we doing today?”
“I’m doing band practice this afternoon.” Ethan wasn’t involved…yet. The two of them had talked on the phone and the conversation had been promising. Ethan and his girlfriend were going to be picking Chris up that weekend and Brad planned to find out if Ethan was for sure in or out. Either way, they had an album to make. It had been way too long and the powers that be who had been patient and indulgent and had said that Ethan’s rehab woes and bad behavior were good press had since changed their tune and told the band they needed something—soon. Brad had considered bringing Val on board for a duet too, but she’d been hesitant. It’d be a shame to waste her new vocal cords, though.
Bullet Series Box Set Books 1-8 Page 133
