I inhale a deep breath and on the first word her head comes to rest on my shoulder, her arm wraps around my center and a leg drapes across mine. My body tenses for a second under her touch, but soon my arm wraps around her shoulder, holding her firmly against me, pulling her closer, fusing us together and I kiss her forehead.
I can feel her body smile in the dark, the quicken beat of her heart, her tightened grasp around my waist, the linking of her leg with mine. I sing the rest of the song whispered against her skin and kiss her head once more when I finish, soothingly stroking her hair until she becomes heavy in my arms and I’m confident that she’s deep asleep.
“Hey Gram...if you’re listening...try to keep me out of trouble this time. I could really use a win right now. I don’t know if you remember what Robert was like when he was pissed, but...” my lips brush against Cora’s skin once more, softly releasing in plucking sound. “...you get the picture.”
I close my eyes and settle against her. “I love you Cora Ann—Ryan.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Presley and I sit on the porch swing while watching Jax walk down to the Cora’s dance studio.
“He’s a good kid, and he’s doing the best he can under the circumstances, Robert.”
Bringing my glass of whiskey to my lips I mumble out an, “I know,” before taking a sip. “Trust me, I know.” Returning my glass down to the armrest and pulling my beautiful wife next to my side, kissing her crown as she rests her head on my shoulder. “Do you remember what we were doing at seventeen?”
She raises her head and looks at me quizzically. “I was being a very focused student while you were off chasing girls, apparently.”
“Hey now! You were hot. What can I say.”
She shakes her head while scooting away from me. “We didn’t meet again till senior year. You’re about a year too early. You must have me confused with Heather.” She crosses her arms and eyes me up and down.
Wow, how the hell did I mess this up that bad.
I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her closer to me again, despite the little fight she tries to put up, and cup her face. “Trust me Pres, I could never confuse you with her.”
Her emerald eyes turn love drunk under my affection as she leans into my touch and I brush my lips against hers, nipping her bottom lip as her hand slides between my thighs. Plucking and sipping her lips, eliciting needy whimpers until we’re interrupted by the opening of the back door, Liv’s voice and Trey’s clearing of his throat.
“Where’s Jax?”
I point down to the studio. “I told him to fix this.”
“Oh, really, and what happened to not getting involved?” Liv smirks as she sits in a reclined Adirondack chair on the other side of the smoldering fire pit.
“I didn’t tell him what to say.” Presley giggles and Liv just gives me an ‘mm-hmm’ look.
“And what about you Liv...” Good wife coming to her husband’s rescue... “You were the one that had him take her to school on the first day back.”
“Yeah, because he was being a jerk to her. He’s my son but pulling that distance crap was stupid. She didn’t deserve that. And besides...I only did that after you told me you talked to her and told her that Jax had always loved her.”
Presley chokes on her drink and looks at me, eyes wide. “What! I did no such thing!”
God, she’s freaking cute when she’s in trouble. She may have come to my rescue, but I know better than to get in the middle of her and Liv.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Presley Elizabeth.”
“Okay. Fine. So maybe I might have said something to her, but she was having a hard time understanding things.”
I catch Trey’s chuckle as he shakes his head before taking a sip of his matching McCallan 25.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothin. Just that we said no meddling, and it looks like I’m the only one that didn’t meddle.”
Now it’s my turn to stare eye wide, “Excuse me...I think it was you that built that dance studio down there. She was just fine going into town for lessons. Now we hardly see her.”
“Alright, fine, so we all suck at staying out of it.”
“No, I wouldn’t say that.” Presley, always the voice of reason, “He’s seventeen. She’s almost fourteen. I think we’ve pretty much let them figure things out on their own. We haven’t pushed anything...except for maybe Liv and Robert here.” She laughs and Trey leans forward in his chair to cheers Presley.
“Hey now! I don’t call you out on your mess ups Pres. That’s not fair!”
I take a sip of my drink while Liv calms her feathers. “Only six more years of this.”
“Think they’ll make it?” Trey asks.
“Guess we’ll see how they handle tonight.” Liv says while wrapping a blanket over her shoulders and moving to sit on Trey’s lap, his hand rubbing her back as she steals his drink from him.
The four of us continue to talk well into the evening, as log after log gets thrown in the firepit in attempts to keep the girls warm.
We talk about anything and everything. The kids. What schools Jax is looking into. Presley’s company. Coach and Marcus. And Trey offers me the head coaching position for the Rangers, which I immediately accept.
The last couple of years working as a pitching consultant was fine, but I wanted more. I missed the game, and this meant more time at home.
Somewhere around midnight Liv points down to the studio and we notice the lights are off for the first time in months.
“Now just act natural when they walk up you guys. No questions.” Liv eyes me intensely.
“What?”
She rolls her eyes, “Don’t what me. You damn well know what.” Again another eye roll and picks up her bottle of wine before offering to fill Presley’s glass, which she all too eagerly agrees to. Looks like I’ll have a drunk wife on my hands tonight.
We wait.
Idle chitchat bounces here and there, but as five minutes go by, then ten, then fifteen, it becomes evident that our children are not about to walk up the hill.
“Come on, Trey.” I reach out and slap his knee.
“You sure you want to do that? Remember the last time we found them together?”
Presley’s delicate fingers wrap around my forearm as she tries to offer some comfort and reassurance. “She’s okay. We didn’t hear any major screaming or glass breaking. Just let them be. I think they both need this tonight.” She smiles and kisses my shoulder. “Now come on, there are six little boys in there that can't wait to play with their daddy in the morning because this momma is sleeping in.”
She giggles and pulls me to my feet, leading me in the direction of our house.
Presley’s last pregnancy resulted in triplets; Cody, Wyatt, and Emerson.
She jokes that she could feel something different inside of her the minute she mentioned me getting snipped.
Gram told Gramps that if she had anything to do with it, Presley and I would have a whole baseball team; she was right.
Pres of course was anything but thrilled when I made the connection, but after our struggles to get pregnant and stay pregnant, we finally had the family we always wanted, seven strong and healthy children; however, I’m sure Cora would have been happy with at least one sister.
We say good night to Liv and Trey and begin our walk across the field back to our house.
“Do you know how much I love you?” I say as I bring out laced fingers up to my lips, kissing each of her knuckles.
“I have a pretty good idea. Now come inside.”
I stop just shy of the door and give her a look. “Pres, you know I have to go check on her.”
“Robert, did anyone come to check on us our first night together?”
“No. But Pres, this is different.”
“How?”
“She’s—”
“Don’t you dare say fourteen.”
I choke back on my words, “I was gonna say, she’s our baby gi
rl.”
“Robert, she’s not a baby anymore. She’s a young woman, and Jax is trying his hardest to respect our boundaries and wishes. Just give them tonight. Tomorrow you can go back to be the ultra-protective scary father. The lights are out for the first time in months, which means Jax finally got her to sleep. You’re not going to wake them up. Now come on.”
She pulls me through the back door and as we make our way through the kitchen she stops and pulls out a box of pancake mix. “Make blueberry pancakes in the morning. They’re Cora’s favorite and she’s going to be hungry.”
My daughter is sleeping with a man tonight and now her mother tells me she’ll be hungry in the morning, not anything a father wants to hear. “I swear to God Pres, if he—”
“Will you relax grizzly bear. Jeez, for someone that says he trusts Jax, you sure don’t have a lot of faith in him. She’s going to be hungry because she’s barely eaten anything in months. If Jax can get her to sleep, he can get her to eat. Just make the pancakes, please.”
Presley could read me like a book. She was right, like always when it came to me. I had no reason to doubt Jax, but here I was doing it. No one ever doubted me when it came to Presley, until I gave them a reason to, but even then I didn’t have to prove myself over and over.
I needed to start trusting Jax.
I kiss Presley as we stand there in the kitchen, resting my forehead against hers. “I would be lost without you.”
“I know.” She giggles and leads me into our bedroom, commanding me to lock the door as I step through. Seven kids, seven little cock blockers.
Chapter Thirty
My body is sore from head to toe. Everything hurts. I can explain the pain in my feet, but even my eyelashes hurt.
I guess I never rested long enough for my muscles to relax. I just kept pushing and pushing myself to forget.
I shift in my sleep and feel a firm and muscular body next to me, eliciting a smile and a slight moan as I squeeze him tighter. Jax. My Jax. And there was no questioning if he had kissed me this time. He had, and I wanted to kiss him back. I almost had and then chickened out. When I asked him if he loved me, he just said it was complicated, but that he cared about me. Maybe he cared about me the way a child cares for a pet. Maybe I was his pet and his kisses were nothing more than little drops of affection.
“Good evening,” his voice laced with a sweet chuckle and a smile as his hand brushes through my hair.
I rest my chin on his chest and look up at him through hooded eyes. He’s wide awake. Coolly resting his head on his hand, his arm bent behind him with his elbow angled above him.
Damn Sophie for showing me picture after picture of hot guys this summer, ensuring I would never look at Jax the same way. Instead, I was now wondering what he looked like with his shirt off. I knew he wasn’t all muscles like those other guys I’d seen pictures of, but he wasn’t exactly a string bean either and had I really called him a sexy hot boy out loud? Oh god, I should be mortified, but something kept me from caring about it .
He had this cool confidence about him, and as his eyes gazed into mine, I felt as if I were the most important person in his world. I lose myself in our own little world for just a second, my eyes darting from his to his lips and back until I notice the shades of orange and purple and the setting sun out of the studio window. Quickly I grab Jax’s wrist and look at the time, half-past six.
“Fuck. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Ohh, I’m gonna be dead!”
I scramble to sit up and get my bearings straight, but my sudden movements seem to drain the blood from my head and Jax pulls me back down to him.
I struggle against the safety he provides and the fact that my carcass may very well be hanging on the studio walls very soon.
“Cora, what’s wrong?”
“Oh fuck. Ms. Trousseau. I can’t believe I slept this long.” I smack Jax hard across the chest and growl at him. “Why didn’t you wake me up!”
“Cora, who are you talking about?”
“My coach, Jax! She’s going to kill me.”
“Oh. You mean the gray-haired lady?”
“Yes! Jackson. Gray hair, French, a scowl permanently engrained on her face, and walks like she’s got a stick up her ass.”
“Yea, she came and left. Did you know you snore?”
This time I hit Jax hard with my pillow, his hands blocking his perfect face preventing me from doing any real harm. He chuckles and grins a cocky grin, wrapping his arms around my waist trying to pull me back down again, this time I fight against him and get up from our makeshift bed, bracing myself against the wall and throwing a shoe at him which he swats away.
“Why didn’t you wake me up! She’s going to be furious at me.” I throw my other shoe this time hitting him hard on the shoulder. “And I do not snore.”
“Oww. Stop throwing stuff. I didn’t wake you up because she told me not to. I didn’t know you had lessons today.”
“I have lessons every day Jax! Every. Day. I don’t take breaks. I don’t rest. Don’t you know that about me! This is my life, Jax!” I slide against the wall and fall to the ground in tears.
“Cora.”
“Don’t Jackson. You don’t understand.”
“Cora she’s not going to be mad. She smiled at me, said something in French, and then told me to let you sleep as long as you could before she literally danced out of here.”
I look up at him. “You’re lying.”
He shakes his head and squats down next to me, resting a hand on my bent-up knees, wiping my tears with the pad of his thumbs.
“I’m not. She told me she instructed you to get some rest and to eat. She’s worried about you. And I am too. So are your parents and mine. You can't keep doing this to yourself.”
“You did this to me! You think this is how I want my life to be? I danced to forget about you, Jackson, but I couldn’t.”
His eyes turns somber at my confession. Truth. He drops his head, “I know,” he says quietly before raising his head and staring into my eyes. “And I want to fix this. Let me help you, Cora.”
The intense sincerity in his eyes makes it hard to focus on him. I glance out the window again. How long had I been asleep for? How long had Jackson been awake under me?
“Jax?”
“Buttercup.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“I don’t know, since ten or so.”
“Why are you still here?”
“Because I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“So you’ve been here all day, just lying there watching me sleep?” I laugh and he shakes his head, chuckling with me.
“Yea, I guess you could say that.”
“Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.”
He throws his head back in laughter and a smile spreads wide across my face as he pushes off my knees, standing to his full height. From this angle he looks like one of those sexy male models Soph and I spent time ogling over, and I feel myself blush.
He stretches out his hand, just waiting for me to take it.
Jax was probably one of those high school guys that could date anyone he wanted, but yet here he was with me and he didn’t seem to be in any type of a hurry to go anywhere.
“Now come on, I’m starving, and you need to eat.”
I grip his hand and he pulls me up in one fluid motion, but once again I get light-headed and stumble into him, his playfulness washed away by worry.
“Cora, when was the last time you ate anything?”
“I had a Snickers bar last night.”
“That’s not what I mean. When was the last time you ate real food. I’ve seen you eat. Usually you can out eat both our dads.”
“Oh, umm, I don’t know.” And that was the truth. I had no idea how long it had been since I had truly eaten. I had lived on bites here and there and copious amounts of water, but that was it.
He turned his back to me and taped his shoulders. “Get on.”
I purse my lips and roll my eyes...such a N
eanderthal move. “I can walk just fine Jax.”
“Cora, you can barely stand without losing your balance. Now, you can either do as I say or you can try to be stubborn, but either way, I know I’m gonna be the one carrying you up the hill and through the door so just get on my back already.”
He squats a little and bounces, waiting to catch my weight. This was the Jax I was used to. The one that looked out for me. Who played with me. Whose way of talking to me made me feel loved and special. It was flirty. He was flirty.
But he had hurt me, and I wasn’t sure if I could completely trust him again, or even forgive him yet. That doesn’t just fix itself in a night.
“Any day now, Buttercup.”
I look at his waiting back once more and then dart past it. “Race ya home!”
I laugh as I pushed open the door and sprinted towards the house, finally feeling alive again. Jackson had done that. He had saved me. He brought me back to life.
Chapter Thirty-One
The back door opens to fits of laughter from Cora and Jackson as they shove their way through the door frame.
“I was wondering when you two would finally show up.”
“Hi Daddy.”
Her eyes light up and the dark circles under her eyes seem to have lightened. She wraps her arms around me in a tight embrace and my eyes dart to Jax as he gives an understanding nod. He managed to do what no one else could and I return her hug, kissing the crown of her head.
“Hey button. You hungry?”
“Starving. Where’s Mom?”
“Her and Liv went out. You need something?”
She releases me and twirls to the other side of the island counter, Jax chuckles under his breath, never taking his eyes off of her.
“Nope. I’m gonna go take a bath.”
“Sounds good button, I’ll have blueberry pancakes ready when you come down.”
“Thanks Daddy.”
I watch as she not so subtly trails a fingertip down Jax’s arm, and he just stands there almost drinking in her happiness. “You’re staying, right?”
Her coy smile cuts me as she looks at him through eyelashes just the way her mother does when she wants something.
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