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That their sleep was undisturbed by the horrors of the world.
"Goodnight, Axe," Calla murmured, kissing the top of his head sweetly.
"Goodnight, Little Man," I said, running a hand over his head and pushing his hair back from his face. One day soon, we’d cut it, but I had to proceed carefully and not step on his toes where his father was concerned. Axe would come to see me as his father soon enough, if he didn't already.
"Wanna be just like you when I grow up," he whispered, his eyes drifting closed as he spoke the words.
"I'm glad," I said. Warmth filled me, the confession hitting me straight in the feels as his father. Axel being like me, a man who took no shit and protected his family, would be nothing to be ashamed of. I'd teach him everything he needed to know to protect himself and the ones he loved as soon as he was old enough. I felt Calla go solid at my side, and I knew she probably had different thoughts on the subject. But discussing them in front of Axel was not an option, so she kept her mouth shut as we crept from the room.
I grinned at her, loving it when she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. I knew she expected me to go to our bedroom so she could reprimand me, but I wasn't having that. When she'd come into the garage a few nights before, I’d had the Chevelle jacked up, so as much as I’d wanted to finally fuck her on the hood, it hadn't been possible at the moment. But given the fact that I knew we had a conversation coming, I knew exactly where I wanted to be when I fucked the Hellcat right out of my Sunshine.
Near that goddamn Chevelle. That was where.
"Ryker!" she whispered, stalking after me as I turned and strode down the hallway in the opposite direction than she wanted me to go. She wouldn't risk waking up the kids, she valued their sleep even more than they did, but she stormed after me. I hurried down the steps, glancing back at her with a grin on my face that only made her scowl deepen. "Would you stop?"
I didn't, not until I made it to the garage. By the time she made it down there, she was fuming, and all I could think was that it was adding more fuel for when I fucked her. That she could work herself into a tizzy all she wanted. I hit the switch on the wall for the audio monitors to play and then turned to cross my arms over my chest with a smirk. "Did you need something, Sunshine?"
"What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you make me chase you just to talk to you?" Her chest heaved with her frustration, and I wanted nothing more than to strip her shirt off so I could watch it happen with nothing to obstruct my view. I could picture the way her chest flushed, the way her nipples would pebble in the cool air.
"I have work to do," I shrugged, a smile teasing at my lips as she stared at me incredulously. I could see the gears turning in her pretty head, trying to figure out what kind of game I was playing with her. I didn't walk away from her. Ever. There was only one exception to that, the night she'd asked about my nightmare, and I didn't intend to repeat it. But I was already on edge after the meeting with Tiernan, and from knowing that I needed to tell Calla about the conflict so she could understand just how important it was that she and the kids stick to their personal security. I also knew that would terrify my woman, and I didn't relish the thought.
So I needed to fuck her, needed to reassure myself that she was there, and she was stronger than most gave her credit for. She'd survived her shithead husband, she would thrive with me, and nothing Tiernan Murphy could do would ever touch her.
But I also knew she wasn't quite at the point where I could take what I wanted just yet. "You need to set a good example for him. You're his step-father," she reminded me.
"Father," I corrected her, but she ignored it like she normally did. There would come a day when I pressed Calla to be more understanding of what I was to those kids, too. It just wasn't that day.
"The last thing he needs is to grow up looking up to you and having you teach him bad things," she pressed on.
"Name one time I haven't been a good influence on him," I said, leaning my ass against the desk as I looked at her. She blanked, her head jerking back as she tried to think of something. But I knew what she quickly realized.
While I might have been a bad influence in a lot of ways, I never exposed the kids to those things. I'd taken her. They didn't know that. They didn't know I'd given Calla no choice but to marry me, or forced her to get a tattoo for me. They didn't know about any of the qualities that would have made me a less than satisfactory role model, so while Calla might protest my parenting on principle, I was actually a pretty fucking spectacular role model, if I said so myself. I watched her flounder for a response, getting more and more frustrated when she realized there wasn't one that would prove her point.
“Listen up, Meatball,” she growled. “Just because they don’t know you’re a poor influence doesn’t make you a good one. I know, and if you ever think to expose my kids to that part of your life, I’ll beat you over the head with a ball-peen hammer the next time you look in that engine bay.”
Grinning at her, I couldn’t help but love when she threatened me and went all violent mama bear on my meatball ass, but that she was angry that I presented myself to our kids well annoyed me. She still wanted to be the primary parent, and while I could appreciate that, it seemed ridiculous that she didn't want to share more of that burden with me. I was her husband, after all. Instead of feeding the beast that wanted to be let out of its cage, I picked up a paperweight from the desk and tossed it in the air and caught it as I shifted the conversation. "That’s sweet, Hellcat. How was your day?" I asked her when she rolled her neck again.
"You already asked," she pointed out, glaring at me from a few steps away. Like the distance would protect her from me if I got grand ideas. Which I'd had long before I lured her into the garage.
"And I'm asking again. We both know you're less likely to go into details when the kids are there."
She smiled at me, rolling her eyes for a moment. "I had a couple new students sign up while I was gone, so it was nice to meet them. This one girl, she was so awkward. I felt sorry for her, because she was sweet and genuinely funny if she could just own her personality. I think it was that she was so young though. I know I was a lot less sure of who I was when I was her age. But she signed up with a friend apparently, so hopefully he can help her get more confident. He looked older," she said.
"Men do yoga?" I asked, feeling my body go solid at the declaration. I hadn't spent a ton of time watching her at the studio, since seeing her bent in all positions when I couldn't touch her had been torturous at best. I'd also never imagined there would be men in her classes. Fuck.
"Some do," she shrugged. "It takes
all kinds, Ryker," she scolded me. "And no, as far as I know they aren't all gay, before you go there with your stereotypical macho man shit, Meatball." I smirked at her, but even her attempt at humor couldn't quell the rising beast. A man had watched my woman fold herself up like a pretzel in tight spandex clothes.
That didn't make me feel warm and fuzzy.
"Maybe you should quit," I said, and she laughed in a hysterical giggle that took my breath away. It was rare she was so open to showing how thoroughly I entertained her.
I just wished it had come when I was actually trying to be funny. Not when I was making a suggestion in all seriousness. The blank stare on my face must have alerted her to the fact that I meant business. "That's not going to happen. You only just let me go back to work."
"You stayed home when you were married to Chad. Why wouldn't you want to be a stay-at-home mom now?" I asked her, rising to stand on my feet fully. She shook her head at me, as if warning me to keep my distance, but the time rapidly approached where we were past that.
I was nearly done talking.
