by Julia Black
And he did take me. He thrust into me hard and deep, taking me to heights I didn’t think existed. And I could do was ask for more, more, more, as I felt my climax closing in again.
“Fuck, you feel so good.” Josh gave me more. Holding to my waist, he pulled me faster, harder, deeper.
“Oh …” Pleasure exploded inside me and I cried out, my body quivering in pure desire.
Josh groaned and, after another thrust, he came. His torso folded over mine and I embraced his as he rode down his ecstasy, his body trembling even more than mine did.
“I hope that was good,” I teased.
He pulled back, staring at my eyes as if I was crazy. “It was fantastic, and you know it.”
I chuckled. “Then hurry up and recover,” I half-joked. “I want round two.”
Groaning, Josh buried his face on my neck. “Five minutes, then your wish is my desire.”
***
Kiera
A ringing sound penetrated my brain and I fought to open my eyes.
“Kiera,” Josh mumbled, his head close to my neck. “Your phone.” Then he tensed, his arms tights around me. “Kiera, your phone.”
As if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over my head, I opened my eyes and moved. I grabbed my phone and didn’t even look at the caller ID or the time. I just knew my bedroom was pitch black.
“Hello?” A muffled sob reached my ears and my heart clenched. “Luana?”
“Mommy,” she whispered, her voice very, very low.
My throat closed but I forced my voice out. “What happened, baby?” Beside me, Josh sat up too. He pulled me to him, his arms tight around me.
“She’s mean, mommy.”
“Who? Claire?”
“Yes.” Another sob came through, and I didn’t even think. I stood from the bed and started looking for my clothes. “When daddy wasn’t looking, she yelled at me. She was meant to me. Then, when daddy was watching the news, she hit me and locked me in a closet.”
My knees gave out and I fell to the floor.
“Keira.” Josh was by my side in one second. “What happened?”
My head spun, my heart hurt too much, but I pushed through. I had to. “Where are you now, baby?”
“In my bedroom, under the covers.” She sniffed. “I waited until she was sleeping and got to the phone.” She paused. “Mommy, I’m afraid. I don’t want to stay here.”
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m gonna come pick you up right now.” I wiped the tears that had fallen from my eyes, and let Josh help me to my feet. “Stay in your room. Lock the door if you have to. I’ll be there soon, okay?”
Another sob. Oh my God, pieces of my heart ripped some more. “Okay.”
“I love you, baby. I’ll be right there.”
I turned the call off otherwise I would be talking to her non-stop, assuring her she would be okay, and I would be wasting time. Letting rage overcome my fear for my little girl, I entered my closet and turned on the light.
“Kiera, you’re scaring me. Talk to me.”
I blinked a couple of times, getting used to the brightness, then got a pair of jeans and shoved them on. “That bitch hit my daughter and locked her inside a closet.” I turned to Josh. He was standing by the door, still naked. “And apparently Adam didn’t see anything.”
Josh’s face paled. “No.”
I grabbed the first blouse my hand found and put it on. “I’m gonna go there right now and pick her up.”
“I’m going with you.” Josh turned around and picked up his discarded clothes
“You don’t need to,” I said, putting on some shoes.
Josh finished putting on his pants, then he placed his hands on my shoulders. I hadn’t noticed I was shaking, hard, until he held me like that. His green eyes bored into mine and something in my chest loosened. A sob ripped through my chest. “I want to go with you.” His warm lips pressed against my forehead in a gentle kiss.
Then, like two crazies high on energy drinks, we rushed through the motions—we finished getting dressed, got his wallet, my purse, and we left the building. I didn’t even argue when Josh turned to his jeep—I didn’t have time to waste on details that didn’t really matter.
I gave him the address, he entered it on the GPS in his phone, and two seconds later, we left Liberty Cove and crossed the city to go pick up my daughter.
My mind raced as much as my heart, and I had to talk myself out of my plan to lunge at Adam’s throat the moment he opened the door. It wouldn’t be pretty if he decided to file for full custody. Oh my God. I would never let him come near Luana again, not while he had that bitch for a wife. Who in their right mind hit kids? Why? Yes, they could be very annoying sometimes, but they were kids. It was on their instruction label.
Josh reached over and entwined his fingers with mine. “Everything is going to be okay. Luana is going to be okay.” I squeezed his hand, wishing his words carried out and the universe heard them. Josh lifted our joined hands to his lips and kissed the back of my palm. “I promise you she’ll be okay.”
New tears filled my eyes.
Soon after, Josh pulled over into Adam’s driveway and my jaw fell open. I had never come here myself. I had no idea he lived into such a big, pretty house. A two-story, light blue colonial house with big porches, many outside lamp-like-lanterns, and a perfect manicured lawn and colorful garden. Holy crap, I had never imagined Adam being this kind of man.
Swallowing the worries a custody battle would bring, I opened the jeep’s door.
“Wait.” Josh turned on the camera app of his phone, and placed it on the dashboard. He aimed it to the front door, making sure it was centered on the screen.
“What are you doing?”
He fixed his eyes on me. “When I was younger and lived through hell in my foster homes, we didn’t have this kind of technology available. You know, easily accessible cell phone with great cameras. I didn’t get a cell phone until I was eighteen and could buy one with my own money, and I never had a camera before. Often I think that if I could have recorded what went on in those foster homes, social services would be more careful when placing kids with certain people.” He shrugged. “Anyway. I think it’s not a bad thing if we record this.”
I narrowed my eyes. Hopefully, I would knock on the door, Adam would hand me Luana, I would tell him to go to hell, and we would leave. But things were never as simple as we imagined them.
I nodded once, then finally slipped out of the car and walked to the door.
My hand shook as I rang the doorbell.
Josh stood two steps behind me.
A minute passed and I rang the bell again.
I was about to press the button a third time when the door flew open.
“Kiera?” A sleepy Adam asked. He had simple pajamas on and his hair was disheveled. He had definitely been sleeping. “It’s four in the morning. Why are you here? What’s going on?”
I glanced over his shoulder, to the slender woman standing on the second to last step of the stairs. I clenched my hands into tight fists and it was all I could do not to jump at her throat. “Why don’t you ask her?”
Adam looked at her over his shoulder. “Claire? I don’t understand.” Then he saw Josh. “And who is he?”
“Adam,” I hissed. “My daughter called me a few minutes ago. She said your wife hit her and locked her inside a closet.”
He stared at me with big eyes, as if I had gone crazy. “That’s absurd.”
“Mommy!” Luana’s voice rang from inside the house. I looked up just as she ran down the stairs, but Claire’s arm shot out and closed around my daughter’s wrist. She yanked Luana back, making my little girl miss a step and fall back, hitting her hips on the steps. All the while, Claire hissed at Luana, her tone hushed, but hard, probably threatening her if she said anything.
Rage consumed me, and I pushed Adam back and stormed in the house. “You bitch. Let go of my daughter this instant!”
“Claire!” Adam gasped. “What are y
ou doing?”
Claire let go of Luana’s arm. I opened my arms and Luana quickly stood and ran to me. I bent down and picked her up in my arms, holding her tight against me. “It’s okay, baby. She can’t hurt you anymore.”
I walked out of the house and Josh stood by my side, his hand caressing Luana’s back.
“Kiera, wait,” Adam said, following me out. “I don’t understand. Claire wouldn’t—”
I halted and shot him a glare. “Don’t you dare defend that bitch. You just saw how she held on to Luana and made her fall. And the way she was talking to Luana just now?”
Claire was at the door, looking down on us. “Good riddance,” she said, her eyes narrowed as if we were bugs and she couldn't’ wait to step on us. “That little brat isn’t welcomed here anymore.”
“What?” Adam asked. The poor man looked lost. “Of course she is. We talked about this.”
“No, Adam,” Claire said. “You talked about your past mistakes and wanted to do right now. To me it all sounded like blah blah blah.”
Adam turned to me. “Kiera, I had no idea.”
“I don’t care, Adam,” I said, taking a step back, toward Josh’s jeep. “Not right now.”
Adam took a large step toward us. “You can’t just take her like that.”
Josh stepped in between Adam and me and Luana. “She said not now.” His tone was hard. His hands were clenched by his side and from the tension on his shoulders and neck, I could see he was fighting not to punch Adam.
“But she’s my daughter!”
“That didn’t seem to matter when you got Kiera pregnant. Or the first two years of Luana’s life. Was she your daughter then? Where were you then?”
Adam pressed his lips tight as red filled his cheeks. “I was young, I was naive. You can’t hold that against me. What matters is that I’m here now.”
Josh shook his head. “As long as that one is here, Luana won’t ever come back.” Josh pointed his chin to Claire, who actually looked satisfied about that.
Adam looked at me. “Kiera, you can’t do that.”
“Oh, she can.” Josh pointed to his jeep. “My cell phone is recording all of this. Try threatening to take Luana from Kiera again, and we’ll use that video against you.”
Adam’s face paled again. “You can’t …”
Josh showed him a feral grin. “Try us.”
Then Josh put an arm around my shoulders and helped us into the backseat of his jeep. He slid into the driver seat, turned off the recording, then turned around, his eyes on Luana. “Are you okay?”
Still in my arms. She nodded. “I am now.”
Josh looked at me for two seconds before wrapping his hands around the wheel and taking us out of there.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Josh
I woke up with a fucking pain in my neck. That was what I got from sleeping on the couch. Rubbing my neck, I sat up and glanced at the half-closed door to Kiera’s bedroom.
Last night, after we got back from Adam’s house, Kiera didn’t let go of Luana, not even when I insisted on examining her. Besides a bruise on her lip where Claire had hit her, and another red bump on her hip from when she fell on the stairs, Luana seemed okay.
But my rage at seeing those two injures spiked, and I ended up breaking a glass in the kitchen to let it out. Holy fuck, if I hadn’t worked so hard to be a little bit decent, I would have punched Claire’s face. I almost punched Adam, and he had been clueless. I held back because we were recording everything. If I punched the guy just because I was drowning in rage, it wouldn’t look good, not if Kiera actually ended up using the video.
Then, I stood back while Kiera crawled in her bed with Kiera. The thought of going back to my own apartment crossed my mind, but I dismissed it just as quickly. I couldn’t leave them right now.
I couldn’t leave them.
I couldn’t even stop staring at them as they held on tightly to each other and tried to sleep. I stood at her bedroom door, taking in the most precious sight I had seen in … forever.
Eventually, I settled on the couch, but I didn’t think I would sleep, not when my mind couldn’t stop replaying everything, from the moment the phone rang, to the moment I watched over Kiera and Luana sleeping peacefully. When Kiera answered the call, and I realized something was wrong … The despair in Kiera’s face … The tears … It broke me. For a moment there, I was completely broken and raw and ripped apart, remembering everything I had lived and felt when I was younger. The fear, the hate, the disgust. Then I pushed it all down and focused on one thing: get Kiera and Luana safe. That was all that mattered.
“Hi.”
I glanced at Luana as she dragged her feet to the living room. “Hey.”
She slowly closed the door to Kiera’s bedroom. “Mommy is still sleeping.”
“Are you feeling better now?”
She nodded. “I’m hungry.”
“I’ll make you breakfast.” I stood. “Want to help me?”
She nodded and, as she followed me into the kitchen, I noticed she was her usual bubbly and happy self. An ache enveloped my chest and I took a long breath, trying hard to breathe normally before this pain consumed me.
I reached for her and set her on a tall stool on the other side of the counter. “Tell you what. You’re the boss. Tell me what you want, and I’ll make it for you.”
One corner of her lips tugged up and I exhaled, relieved that she could still smile. “I want pancakes and waffles and eggs and bacon and—”
“Hey, hey, how many Luana are there in this house?”
She let out a soft giggled and I relaxed some more. “Just one, silly.”
I narrowed my eyes and pretended to examine her, looking her up and down and behind her, as if she was hiding something from me. She giggled again. “Hm, I’m not so sure. We’ll see how much you eat and then we’ll know.”
She smiled while she ate the pancakes and the waffles and the scrambled eggs and the bacon—of course she didn’t eat it all, but she sure damn tried.
It was almost ten in the morning when we finished setting aside some pancakes and waffles for Kiera, and organized the kitchen.
“Tell you what? Why don’t you go get dressed and we go to the park, while your mother sleeps some more?”
She smiled at me, a true, wide smile that made me sure she would be okay. “Yeah! Can I bring my ball?”
I smiled at the little girl that had stolen my heart. “Sure.”
***
Kiera
Panic shot through me once I realized Luana wasn’t with me in bed.
“Luana?” I called, standing up on wobbly legs. “Luana?”
I looked first into my bathroom—nothing. Then I stepped into the living room. There was no one here. “Luana?” The panic increased. My heart squeezed, and I had to take a long breath so not to choke on my despair.
Then I saw the big plate of pancakes and waffles over the kitchen’s tall counter and a note beside it. I rushed to it and read the note.
Kiera,
I thought you could use some sleep.
Luana and I are at the park.
Sorry the pancakes and waffles are now cold, but she insisted we made some for you too.
If you don’t find us before noon, we’ll come back and wake you up for lunch.
See you soon.
Josh
The pain in my heart eased a little bit. I trusted Josh, but after the scare from last night, I was wary of anything and anyone. If I couldn’t even trust Luana’s own father and his wife, who could I trust then?
I glanced down at the note.
Josh.
I could trust Josh.
Another pang cut through my heart.
Josh had been there for me last night. He had been a strong pillar, my only support, the person who stood by me and helped me. And now, if Adam came after me threatening to take Luana, I had a video proving he wasn’t such a great father, all thanks to Josh’s quick thinking.
A wave of
rage rushed through me just remembering the scene last night. Gosh, how I wanted to slap that woman and break her nose. Who the hell did that bitch think she was, hitting my kid and pushing her that way? But in the end, it was a good thing I didn’t. The video showed I was calm and controlled—good traits for a parent—even if on the inside I had been seething.
I pushed those feelings aside. It was all right now. Luana was safe, I had the video, and somehow we would be okay. We had to be.
Trying to keep my mind blank and my emotions under control, I munched on the pancakes, got dressed, and went to the park to meet up with Luana and Josh.
I was across the street when I spotted them on the lawn, playing soccer. Josh was the goalie in between two trees and he let Luana easily make a goal. Then he caught her in his arms and twirled her around, cheering the goal very loudly. I could hear her giggles from here.
A hand got hold of my heart and squeezed. Hard.
Oh my God …
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Josh wasn’t supposed to be this involved in our lives. He wasn’t supposed to care. But I had heard him last night. He had said “we” and “us” a lot, referring that we were together, that the three of us were together.
And we weren’t. Neither he nor I wanted a serious relationship. Then why did this feel so real, so serious?
It was wrong.
I had come up with my rules for a reason—Luana’s own father had let us down. Until Luana was older and had her own life, I couldn’t bring another man into our lives. I couldn’t risk her getting attached just to have that man up and leave at any moment.
Like she was now attached to Josh, and apparently how Josh was attached to her.
A silent sob ripped through my throat.
Luana scored another goal and this time Josh put her over his shoulder and pretended she was an airplane. Her giggles echoed through the park.
Oh my God … I was falling in love with the way he cared about my child, I was falling in love with the way he took care of us, I was falling in love with having him over almost every night, with sharing meals and moments with him, with his support and understanding. I was falling in love with the way he looked at me, with the way he held me to him and made love to me.
