Who's Your Daddy?

by Gallagher, Lauren

  “Oh fuck…” I groaned. “Fuck, I’m—” Her hands were on the side of my face, and she kissed me a second before the whole building would have heard me come. She didn’t release me until I shivered and relaxed.

  For the longest time, we held each other, just kissing and trembling. We both panted and shook, and had it not been for the wall, we probably would have melted to the floor. And as long as her body was against mine and my own body tingled and ached from that orgasm, I wouldn’t have cared if we had melted to the floor.

  I stroked her hair with a shaking hand, and she ran her fingers through mine. As the trembling stopped and we caught our breath, fatigue set in, and the kisses became lazy and languid. Her nails grazed my scalp, and I shivered.

  “Maybe I should come by your office more often,” she slurred.

  I grinned. “Do feel free.”

  We both laughed softly, and I kissed her again. Damn it, I couldn’t get enough of her. Even now, physically satisfied, I craved more. I wanted her. I wanted her bad.

  But there would be time for that later. Much as I would have been content spending the rest of the afternoon making out and fucking in my office, we both had to pretend to be responsible adults. She had work to do. I had clients to see.

  Reluctantly, and with more than a few kisses that threatened to start us right back at the hungry beginning, we separated. We straightened our clothes, fixed disheveled hair and managed to look presentable.

  After she’d gone, I ducked into the restroom to wash my hands, splash some cold water on my face and make absolutely certain I looked professional and composed. Not like I’d just fucked my lover in my damned office. Scrutinizing myself in the mirror, I scowled at the hint of pink that still flushed my cheeks, but that would probably be gone soon enough. Push came to shove, I could always blame the afternoon sun coming through my office windows.

  The afternoon sun that had lit up Carmen’s features and—

  I shook my head, then rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.

  Get it together, Nolan. Job to do, remember?

  I gave myself one last look, straightened my tie for the fifth time and went back into my office. I dropped into my desk chair and stared blankly at some paperwork that needed my attention. The echoes of my orgasm completely screwed my ability to focus.

  Then my eyes darted toward a framed picture of Donovan and me, and a pang of guilt hit me right in the gut.

  Fuck. What did I just do?

  Of course we were both okay with one of us having sex with Carmen without the other present, but I’d stepped over a line. The whole time, while I was deep inside her up against the wall, while her breath warmed my skin and I’d desperately fucked her, it had been only her. Donovan hadn’t even crossed my mind. It was her and only her.

  Just like it always was with Donovan—no one else in the world existed.

  I sat back in my chair and stared up at the ceiling. Like my attraction to other men had dimmed when I met Donovan, so too had my attraction to women dimmed since I’d been with Carmen. I still noticed them, I still wondered what this or that man or woman would be like in bed, but they didn’t register like before. The girl at the gym whom I’d had a crush on for a while now still caught my eye but didn’t pique my interest like before. One of the nurses at the general practitioner’s clinic across the hall now blended in with the rest of the people moving in and out of the building. I noticed them in the same semi-interested “oh, they’re cute” way I noticed the FedEx driver whenever he came through the office. He was hot, the kind of man I’d have sold my soul to fuck in my younger days, but not now.

  Now it was Carmen and Donovan. No one else.

  And the more I noticed them and no one else, the more I realized my attraction to Carmen had one other thing in common with my attraction to Donovan.

  It wasn’t just physical.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Donovan

  Around five thirty in the evening, the doorbell rang, and my son jumped like someone had shocked him. He practically sprinted out of the kitchen and into the foyer.

  Moments later, he returned to the kitchen with his girlfriend. Kristy sauntered in ahead of him, dressed like she was ready to go work the corner—I mean, go clubbing—rather than go to a movie. At least she didn’t look high for once. Her eyes were relatively clear, and she didn’t carry that distinctive smell of burning leaves that Ryan insisted she’d picked up from being around her older brother, who was no stranger to weed. Even if she had been smoking pot, I wouldn’t have smelled it this time. She’d doused herself in enough perfume to mask any scent she might have carried. She probably could have walked a kilo past a drug-sniffing dog at that point.

  Since the bra strap sticking out from beneath her black blouse was bright red, its visibility was presumably not an accident. I wondered if her parents had a clue she went out in skirts that short and blouses that low-cut.

  My son was certainly aware of it, judging by the way he looked at her on the way into the kitchen. Down-up-down with a grin on his face.

  I cleared my throat. Ryan jumped, quickly wiping that grin off his face and at least having the decency to look embarrassed. After another second or two in the path of my “yes, I saw that” glare, he gulped.

  “Hi, Mr. Morris,” Kristy said.

  “Hi, Kristy.” I forced myself to sound cordial at least. To my son, I said, “You’ll be home, when?”

  “Ten thirty,” he said.

  I nodded. “Have a good time.” I shot him a look that, if he knew what was good for him, he read as but not too good of a time.

  “Will do,” he said. “See you in a few hours.”

  “Bye, Mr. Morris,” Kristy said.

  “Bye, guys.”

  When the front door had closed, I shut my eyes and rubbed my forehead with two fingers. I couldn’t stand the girl, but for whatever reason, my son was certain she was God’s gift to teenaged boys. She had bad news written all over her. That was one of only a handful of things in this world on which Julia and I agreed.

  No amount of warnings on my part had deterred him from seeing her, though, and I didn’t dare forbid the relationship. Even if it had affected his grades, forbidding it would have turned it into something even more tempting. He’d inherited his mother’s stubbornness as well as my own, and he was going to see Kristy with or without our blessing. At least if we gritted our teeth and smiled, maybe he wouldn’t be so tempted to use her for an act of rebellion just to spite us.

  It wasn’t that I was opposed to a little rebellion, or even teenagers experimenting sexually, but there were limits. I probably looked at her no differently than Julia’s parents had looked at me. They’d had a gut feeling about me, that I would lead her down some carnal path, and they tried to move heaven and earth to keep their daughter from seeing me. As a result, we’d moved heaven and earth to be together. By the time we figured out we irritated each other more than we enjoyed pissing off our parents, Julia was pregnant.

  So I bit my tongue and stepped carefully where Ryan’s relationship with Kristy was concerned. It made me nervous whenever they went out. Isaac and I had calmly explained, time and again, why he should wait to have sex. We thought of every argument a girl or his peers or anyone might give to persuade him and debunked every last one of them as best we could. He was neither stupid nor gullible, but adolescent hormones and a girl in fishnets were a bad combination, especially with a side of parental disapproval. Ryan himself was living proof of that.

  I knew what he had in mind whenever he looked at her, and I just hoped we’d instilled enough good sense in him to keep the two of them in their clothes. Or if they did do what teenagers often did, he’d at least use protection. For the love of God, son, please don’t knock her up.

  I barely kept myself from groaning aloud. I am such a damned hypocrite.

  Which reminded me that sooner or later, we’d have to explain our situation with Carmen to Ryan. I didn’t even know where to start that conversati
on. The very thought of having to broach the subject with him turned my stomach. How the hell did I explain to him that Isaac and I had, for all intents and purposes, made the same mistake we’d tried to keep him from making? That, and who the hell wanted to even think about their parents doing anything sexual, especially something like this? Of course he didn’t need details, but unless we made up some story about surrogates and sperm donors, he could put two and two together.

  I blew out a breath. And I thought bringing this up to my dad was difficult.

  In two years, my son would be eighteen, and at thirty-six, I’d be free of the bulk of parenting. I’d always be his dad, of course, but he’d be going to college. Becoming independent. Becoming an adult.

  Could I really go through all the sleepless nights, diaper changes, and endlessly walking up and down the halls with a crying baby? Then came the late nights of homework and last-second science-fair projects. Saving up my sick days in case I needed to stay home with a child who’d likely give me whatever bug they had. Band concerts. Soccer games. The heart-stopping experience of teaching him or her to drive. I shuddered. I was deferring driver’s ed to Isaac and Carmen for this one.

  I laughed to myself at that thought, but the humor didn’t last long. Whether this kid was mine or Isaac’s, he or she would be our joint responsibility. I wouldn’t skip out on that responsibility, but, alone in my kitchen without anyone around to judge me for it, I did allow myself a moment of frustration and self-pity. I got to start over just as I was reaching the end of this whole parenting thing. I’d envied Isaac his years as a carefree adult and had been looking forward to some semblance of that once Ryan moved out.

  Ah, well. I’d made this bed. I’d lie in it.

  Again.

  I was pretty sure this situation landed me firmly into the category of “slow learners”.

  The front door opened again, and I thought Ryan might have forgotten something, but the click of dress shoes on hardwood made me smile.

  A second later, Isaac appeared in the doorway. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said. “How was your day?”

  “Oh, you know.” He shrugged. “Same old, same old.” A hint of pink flushed across his cheeks.

  I cocked my head. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He cleared his throat and gestured over his shoulder. “I just saw Ryan taking off. Where’s he headed?”

  “Out with that creature he calls a girlfriend,” I muttered.

  “On a school night?”

  “I told him he could go as long as he was back by ten thirty.”

  “I thought you didn’t like them out on school nights.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t like him out with her at all.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “But he asked last night, and they got in on time last time they went out on a school night. Figured it wouldn’t be the end of the world to let them do it again.”

  Isaac raised an eyebrow. “Decided not to play the hardass with him for once?”

  “Have to keep him on his toes.” I laughed halfheartedly. Then I sighed. “I hate it when he’s out with her. I’m always afraid they’re doing something they shouldn’t.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said quietly. “You thought about talking to him about it?”

  “What do I say?” I said. “I’ve already explained the risks and precautions relating to sex, why he shouldn’t drink or do any of the other crap kids are doing these days.”

  “True. But maybe if he understood why you’re especially concerned about her.”

  I shook my head. “It’ll only make her more tempting. I don’t want to send him right into the same situation his mother and I got into.”

  Isaac shrugged. “Well, maybe you should tell him that.”

  I said nothing. Ryan and I had had those conversations a few times, and they’d usually ended with him insisting he knew, he knew, he knew, but I knew certain things when I was his age too. And, well, he existed, so obviously I didn’t apply it as well as I should have.

  Then Isaac cleared his throat again. Something flickered across his expression, some sort of apprehension that creased his forehead and deepened a pair of crevices between his eyebrows, but it quickly disappeared. “Carmen, um, came by the office.”

  “Oh.” I swallowed. After what she’d told him the last time she came by his office, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Any particular reason?”

  “She, um, wanted a little advice about telling her folks,” he said. “So I suggested she call you. See if you’d be willing to go with her when she talks to them.”

  “Sure, that’s fine. I’d be more than happy to.” Still, something hid in his expression, so I added, “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I—” His eyes flicked up and met mine, and he quickly dropped his gaze. Isaac pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know why I feel guilty about this. I guess, I…”

  Cold liquid flowed through my veins. “What? What’s going on?”

  “Well, she and I…” He waved a hand. “We got a little carried away, and…”

  “You fucked her in your office?”

  The red in his cheeks deepened. Avoiding my eyes, he nodded.

  I laughed softly. “Did you think I’d be upset?”

  “Well, no. Not necessarily. I…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I felt a little weird about it. Since…you weren’t there, and you didn’t know up front, and—”

  “Isaac.” When he met my eyes, I smiled. “It’s okay. We agreed any of us could sleep together, even if we weren’t all there.” I forced some sternness into my expression and voice. “But if you christened that couch with her, after all those times you wouldn’t let me…”

  Isaac laughed. “No, not the couch.”

  “Well, then there’s no reason to worry about it, is there?” I grinned and put my hands on his waist. “But if you ever decide to christen that couch with someone, it had better be me.”

  “Hmm.” He furrowed his brow. “What about both of you?”

  “As long as I get you first.”

  Isaac chuckled and kissed me gently. Then he said, “Oh, by the way, she had an ultrasound this morning. Want to see the picture?”

  My heart skipped. I nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. From it, he produced a small picture, and handed it to me.

  I held it in both hands like I thought it might crumble to pieces if I wasn’t extra careful. The baby was still strangely proportioned as they always were at this point, but it was definitely a baby. The earliest stages of the next generation to be charged with keeping me awake, draining my wallet and graying my hair.

  Jesus Christ, just looking at this fuzzy picture, I was already wrapped around this kid’s finger.

  And my father doesn’t think we can possibly love a baby like a “proper” set of parents?

  I set the ultrasound image on the counter and slid it back toward him. While he tucked the picture into his wallet again, I leaned against the kitchen counter and stared up at the ceiling. Not ten minutes ago, my son had been here in this room with me, and now I’d just seen his baby sibling or stepsibling. Guilt knotted my stomach. Sooner or later, Ryan was going to find out about this situation.

  Isaac ran a hand up and down my back. “Something wrong?”

  “I need to tell him.”

  “What?”

  “About the baby. Carmen.” I looked at Isaac. “I need to tell Ryan. Sooner than later.”

  “You sure you want to tell him now?”

  I nodded. “If we were doing a paternity test before the baby came, I’d say we could wait until the results came back. But since we’re not, I need to tell him.” I looked at Isaac. “How the hell do I tell him this?”

  “You could tell him the truth.”

  “Yeah, but how much?” I sighed. “I mean, what teenager wants to even think about his parents having sex,
let alone having a threesome?”

  “Just tell him it was…unexpected.”

  “He’ll figure out what that means.”

  Isaac shrugged. “He doesn’t need the details. Any kid’s going to know what it means when they find out a parent is expecting a baby.”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t had a relationship with a woman since he was in grade school,” I said. “He’s used to seeing his mom dating men, so when she was pregnant the last two times, it wasn’t exactly something he had to try to work out, you know?” I ran a hand through my hair and exhaled. “And with all the times we’ve had Carmen over to hang out, I don’t want to give him a reason to speculate on why she’s been hanging out.”

  “Don.” He put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “I don’t think he’s going to give it that much thought. You’re his dad. I’m his stepdad. He doesn’t want to know.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I just don’t want to scar him for life, you know?”

  Isaac nodded. “I understand. But you don’t have to go into detail, and I highly doubt he’ll let his mind wander anywhere near that direction before he deliberately starts thinking about cars and baseball.”

  I laughed. “Good point.”

  “Do you want me to stay when you talk to him?” Isaac asked.

  “You don’t mind?”

  He shook his head. “Of course not.”

  “Thank you.”

  As he leaned in to kiss me, he said, “Any time.”

  The following evening, Ryan had to work for a couple of hours, then came home and disappeared downstairs to—if he thought he had a shot at taking the car this weekend—work on homework. Isaac and I left him alone for a little while so he could get some work done.