Bombshell, page 4
As if he doesn’t know I have a two-bedroom house. “Why are you moving in?”
“I told you that I wasn’t ever leaving you again.”
“But...”
“Can I hold Anna?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond but plucks Anna from my arms and expertly cradles her. He tilts his head toward the briefcase he dropped by the front door. “There’s some documents inside. If you want to grab those, I can explain them to you.”
Like a robot, I walk over to the briefcase and pull out a folder. Inside, I find a paper that declares it is a trust in Anna’s name.
“I set up an educational and support fund for Anna. It provides for a monthly stipend as well as a lump sum that should be used toward her education. You’re the trustee, which means you control this.”
I read it over. The amounts are staggering. Anna is allotted enough money to buy a car every month. “Don’t you think this is a little overboard?”
He doesn’t bother looking up. He’s too busy wiggling Anna’s arms and staring adoringly at his daughter. “What you don’t use can be saved and applied to her later in life. There’s another document in there.”
The next one has my name on it. The sum is embarrassingly high. I slap it down. “I don’t want this. This is gross. I feel like you’re trying to buy me.”
He tosses Anna about two feet in the air. She squeals in delight. “If you note, the trust says that you will only get the amount if you retain primary physical custody. I’m not trying to take the baby from you. I’m trying to make sure that you have the freedom to make decisions in your life. I also brought lunch. I wasn’t sure what you were feeling, so I ordered an assortment.”
The doorbell rings again. Jack reaches the door first and lets in a woman weighed down with a number of bags.
“Hi, I’m Jasmine,” the older lady says. I watch in bewilderment as the woman goes right into my kitchen and starts unpacking food and placing it in the refrigerator.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
“No. I had a sandwich.” I point to the plate on the counter. The one that has the extra sandwich I made.
Jack’s eyes light up. “Is the other one for me? Great. Jasmine, I’m going to have this sandwich that Kate made me. I’ll heat the other stuff later.”
Jasmine nods. “Then I’ll get to cleaning.”
I arch an eyebrow.
He shrugs. “I told my mom I’d found you and she said I should bring food and a cleaner.”
“You told your mom? You went back to your home?” I drop into a nearby chair, feeling overwhelmed. I think I need another nap.
“Yeah. I went to find Davis—he’s my brother’s assistant—but apparently he’s gone on a business trip and won’t be back until tomorrow. I stopped at home to let my mom know that I was going to be telecommuting for the foreseeable future. When she asked why, I told her.” He blows a kiss into Anna’s belly. “I don’t think she’ll be able to stay away for more than a few days. Anna is her first grandchild and she’s already threatening to disinherit me for missing out on her birth. Where should I put my things?”
“I’m not sleeping with you,” I say immediately.
His mouth twists into a frown, but he doesn’t fight me. “So, the living room?”
My head is spinning. I hold out a hand as if that’s going to steady me. “Jack, what is going on? You disappear for ten months and then reappear with two suitcases, a home nurse, and an entire family? I’m not ready for this.”
“I know.” He drops to his knees by my chair and places Anna in my lap. “Like you said before, it’s a lot, but, baby, I’ve missed out on ten months of loving both of you, and while the physical stuff can wait, I’m not going to miss out on the emotional stuff. Besides”—he shoots me a wink and a flash of that deadly dimple—“as I’ve already told you, my heart doesn’t work right when I’m more than a few feet away from you.”
After a thorough clean of the house, Jasmine leaves. The place smells like lemons and cinnamon and is shinier than a Christmas ornament. Jack watches intently as I bathe Anna, feed her again, and then put her to sleep.
Once she’s down, I tell him that I have work to do and go to hide in the bedroom. When I reappear an hour later, I find Jack rummaging in the garage.
“What are you doing?”
“Looks like I was going to fix the porch before I left.” He holds up a plank of wood. “Thought I might get to it.”
“It’s thirty degrees out.” I wrap my robe tighter around me.
“I didn’t notice.” Jack is wearing a short-sleeve T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and sweat appears to be dotting his forehead. As I look around, I realize that the place is spotless. All the wood and tools and boxes are neatly organized and stacked.
“Anna’s asleep,” I remind him.
Jack’s face falls. “Right.” He stretches, arching his back. The shirt pulls up to reveal a sliver of bare skin, a thin line of dark hair disappearing into the waistband of his jeans. My gaze lowers and sticks. There’s a definite bulge in his jeans. A big one.
My mouth grows dry. I remember having that large shaft in my hands and in my mouth. I remember the musky scent of him. I remember his strong hands lifting my hair away from my face, cupping my cheek and holding my throat. I remember his voice, hoarse and gravelly, telling me that I look like sin formed into flesh with my lips stretched wide to accommodate his girth.
A sound—a pained, hungry sound—breaks the silence. My eyes fly to his. Rich, thick desire paints every surface of his face. His eyes smolder. His skin is tight across his cheekbones. His jaw is flexed. He shoves his tongue against the inside of his cheek—as if trying to prevent himself from saying something that I might not like.
“You should go inside.”
“Why?” I ask stupidly. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to stand here and be ravished by his gaze.
“Because you told me that we weren’t sleeping together tonight, and if you keep looking at me like that, I’ll be fucking you on your garage stairs, in your kitchen, on the hallway floor outside of Anna’s room, and then, maybe, when we reach your bedroom will we sleep.” With that threat—or promise—he turns on his heel and stomps out the back door into the cold, blustery night.
I don’t sleep well. How could I with Jack’s words lingering in my head? I kept replaying them all night long. I wake up restless, as if my skin’s too tight and hot around my frame. I try to find something other than sleep pants, but I’m still carrying weight from my pregnancy, so all I have are the jeans I wore the other day or sweats.
Unhappily, I pull on the faded gray sweatpants. I find a semi-decent blue sweater at the bottom of my drawer and tug that over my head. When I look in the mirror, a frumpy mom stares back at me.
I curse and pull off the sweater. My T-shirts are lighter but more form fitting, and even though they show my belly a bit more than I’d like, they don’t make me look like a potato sack. I stuff my legs into the jeans that I wore to the grocery store and top that off with a pale pink T-shirt.
The look Jack gives me when I walk into the kitchen makes my little efforts worthwhile.
“What are your plans for today?” he asks.
I check the wall calendar. “Anna has a swim class today.”
Jack rises from his chair. “That sounds interesting. I’ll get my trunks.”
“No!” God, I don’t want him to see me nude. My body is all messed up right now.
“Why not?”
“It’s a women-only swim class. You’ll make everyone uncomfortable.” And by everyone, I mean me. All the moms there will stare at him and I’ll get jealous and probably do something stupid, like hump his leg in front of them to mark my territory.
“I’ll stay in the car.”
“I thought you were going to stay in the car,” I say as I run after him.
“You said that this was a women-only swim class.” He points to the three dads that are carrying their babies into the gym.
“I may have fudged a little.”
“Well, you aren’t going to hang around with a bunch of dad bods by yourself.”
“I’m not interested in any of those guys.”
“Better not be.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else you won’t be able to come back because I’ll have beat up all the other men in an effort to prove to you I’m a suitable mate.”
“That’s not how it’s done anymore.”
“Then you better come inside and keep me in check.” He flashes those stupid dimples at me and waves me forward.
He doesn’t even let me take Anna into the locker room with me, insisting that if he doesn’t have the baby the other dads will ostracize him. I could’ve made a scene but felt that I didn’t need that kind of attention.
Instead, I change into my pre-pregnancy two piece. As I look in the mirror, I realize for the first time the breastfeeding has made my boobs way too big for the top. I’m spilling out scandalously.
I try to tug the fabric over, but it does no good.
“Don’t worry,” says a mother two sinks over. “We’re all a little top heavy these days. At least we won’t drown.” She pats her own substantial chest with more confidence than I feel.
I wish I had remembered the state of my bathing attire before I told Jack about this trip to the pool. There’s nothing I can do about it. I wrap a towel around my body and leave the locker room.
Jack’s already in the water, holding Anna against his chest. As I suspected would be the case, every mother in here has her eyes glued to his body. I want to take my towel off and throw it over his head. Why did he have to be so hot?
He rotates in a slow circle as Anna screams with happiness. What a flirt. The women at my side sigh with pleasure. This is annoying. I drop the towel, slide in and wade over—my big knockers preceding me by what feels like a foot.
“Hey there.” He greets me with a smile. “Anna really loves…” He trails off and frowns. “Where’s your swimsuit?”
“I’m wearing it,” I say, reaching for my daughter.
“You’ve got a couple of pink Band-Aids on your chest, but I don’t think that they are considered a swimsuit in any of the fifty states.” He looks over my head. “Fuck. It looks like I’m going to have to go fight five guys and maybe”—he squints—“a couple women, too.”
“For what?”
“For looking at you like they want to peel your Band-Aids off with their teeth. That’s my job.”
“What about you!” I retort. “The women on the side of the pool are eating you up with their eyes. You could have worn a T-shirt, you know. Did you have to flaunt your pecs?”
“I’m flaunting?” He jabs a thumb toward his chest. “You’re the one with—you know, I think we should both leave.” He grabs my arm and starts toward the pool stairs.
“Why are we leaving?” I hiss. The other parents are starting to point in our direction.
“If we don’t leave, I’m going to get a boner in the pool from staring at your juicy body. And then, because I’m horny as fuck and can’t think because all the blood will be in my dick, I’ll start fighting because I can’t hammer my dick inside your tight pussy.”
My mouth is open but no sounds are coming out. We reach the side of the pool before I come to my senses.
“No. This is for Anna, not for us.”
Jack throws me an unhappy look. “That’s dirty.”
“It’s parenting.” I wade back to the class.
He follows, but he isn’t happy. Five minutes in and I realize I made a huge mistake. Even though Anna’s between us, giggling and cooing, and there are twenty other parents in the water, I barely have anything on and neither does Jack.
The water laps between my legs. My already sensitive nipples harden as the cold air blows across them. Jack notices. How can he not? I’m practically flashing him. His brown eyes darken until they’re almost black.
“We’re going to do some horizontal moves today,” announces the instructor. “If you have a partner, hold him or her up while the baby floats on your tummy. Single moms and dads, grab a pool noodle.”
When I don’t immediately get in position, Jack lays a large hand around my waist.
“Go ’head,” Jack says. “I’ll hold you.”
Good Lord, that’s what I’m afraid of. But I don’t have any alternative. I lie back in his capable hands. He dips and brings me out of the water, his biceps flexing. My entire body tenses as it remembers how it felt to hang on to those biceps while Jack was using every ounce of strength to drive into me.
“Relax, Kate. I’m not going to let you go. Remember?”
I can’t relax. I’m getting so turned on that I can barely hold on to Anna. I stare at my daughter and try to concentrate on her, but she needs very little assistance as Jack holds us both with his easy strength.
“Your nipples are hard,” he murmurs quietly, shifting me away from the other parents. “Your cheeks are flushed and you’re breathing heavily.”
“This is a tough workout,” I lie.
“I wonder what other parts of your body are hard,” he continues as if I never said anything. “Is your little clit erect? If I slid my hand inside your tiny swim shorts, would you be as wet inside as you are outside?”
“Jack, our daughter is right here.” I tip my head toward the baby girl, who is staring at me with wide eyes.
He chucks Anna under the chin, his knuckles brushing the side of my breast. I suck in a breath but tell myself it was an accident. Jack doesn’t seem to notice, but it happens again and again throughout the entirety of the class. His fingertips trail across the back of my neck as he helps me dip Anna in and out of the water. His palm covers my belly when I have to practice floating again. He even finds a way to clasp my ankle to help me straighten from the prone position.
All the glancing touches here and there turn me into a puddle of lust and want. I barely notice that class has ended. Jack takes Anna from me and steers me toward the exit.
“Go on and get dressed. I’ll take care of our baby girl,” he says quietly.
In a fugue state, I stumble into the locker room. I try to use the shower to sober up from the lust-induced drunkenness, but as soon as I step outside and see Jack standing so tall and gorgeous by the door waiting for me with Anna in his arms, all my control vanishes.
We get home, but I don’t remember the ride. I watch as he puts the sleeping Anna in her crib.
He takes me by the hand and leads me to the bedroom. I sink to the edge of the bed and watch as he kneels in front of me.
“These past ten months, the world’s been monochrome. I’ve been missing this particular shade of brown with streaks of red and gold.” He rubs a few locks between his fingers. “I haven’t seen this particular green in any of the trees or plants.” His thumbs a path from my temple to the corner of my trembling lips. “This shade of red doesn’t exist outside of your mouth.”
I taste the salt of his finger as he pulls down my lower lip. My sex clenches in anticipation. I’ve wanted this for so long. I’m so hungry.
I wrap a hand around his wrist and suck his thumb into my mouth. He sucks in a harsh breath.
“I missed you,” I whimper. “So much.”
“Baby. Baby.” He cups my face, wiping away tears that have fallen. “I’m here now and I swear on my life that I will never leave you again. Never.”
He drags his nose along my cheek, sucking in my scent. “I remember your smell. I remember this soft skin. I remember.” He dips low to lightly bite the junction of my neck and shoulder. “I remember how just the sight of you would make me feral. Touch me, baby. I’m aching for your touch.”
With trembling hands, I reach out and lay a hand against his chest. His heart thumps wildly. I slide my hand lower until it covers the bulge in his jeans that I stared at last night.
“You’re so big,” I say with wonder.
“For you. Only for you.” He leans forward and captures my mouth, his tongue sweeping in to explore every inch as if he wanted to remap the entire surface to etch in his permanent memory.
He might be remembering, but I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be held like this, to be desired like this. I’d forgotten and now, like him, I’m remembering in glorious, technicolor detail.
I kiss him back with all the fervor I can muster. Suddenly, I want his clothes off. I want mine gone, too. I don’t want anything between us, not even the tiniest piece of cloth.
I begin to tear his clothes off, breaking the contact between our lips only long enough to get his shirt over his head. His jeans disappear and my underwear does, too. Soon it’s just his skin against mine.
He releases my lips to kiss his way down to my breasts. Once there, he pays lavish attention to each one. His hands squeeze and mold my breasts as he sucks one nipple and then the other. The long, hard pulls have a direct connection with my sex, which throbs in time with his sucks.
“Yes, please, Jack,” I plead against his mouth. I wriggle to hasten his access. My pussy clenches with need and anticipation. I’ve wanted this for so long.
He moves lower until his mouth is at my pussy. He licks me long and leisurely, deep and hard, drawing me to the edge and pulling me back. It’s a slow, sweet death. I try to endure it. I try to hold back, but the orgasm grips me anyway. I shudder and shake under his firm grip and his marauding tongue that doesn’t let up even as I crest the wave of desire. The orgasm leaves me breathless, but I still want.
“A needy puss, aren’t you?” he says with immense satisfaction. “Good thing I’m here for you.”
He stretches over me until his cock lies heavy against my clit. “Is this what you want, Kate? Do you want a good fucking?”
I squirm helplessly under him, trying to get him to penetrate me, but he uses his strength to keep me from gaining access to his hard cock. He rubs the length against me, using my own arousal as lubrication.
