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Lyn beams, her large front teeth making an adorable appearance. “Yes, but only blackberries. Mommy ate all the strawberries.”
“Oh, perfect. Blackberries are my favorite.”
“Really? Me too!” Her dark eyes light up like little stars as she runs past me. “I’ll get started right now!”
I chuckle after her, gripping the doorknob, but stop short when Sam puts his hand up against the door. “I’m confused as to who you are and how my daughter knows you.”
Understanding I am a man around his daughter, I give him the respect of answering him. “I’ve trained her how to swim since she was two.”
“And your relationship with Olivia?”
As if on cue, Olivia appears at the bottom of the stairs, her eyes glued to us as her daughter wraps around her middle, immediately begging to make waffles.
I shoot her a wink before turning back to her ex-husband. “It’s eight-oh-one, and I understand you have better places to be. Until next time, friend.”
Without waiting for a retort, I push against his weak hold and shut the door, turning to my girls. Olivia is biting into her lip, a smile hidden under her teeth, while Lyn is bouncing on her heels, waiting for me.
It only takes a second for me to know I could do this every day and not want to go a single one without them.
I take a step toward them, toward my future, and pull up the sleeves of my sweater. “Twenty bucks I can eat more waffles than Mommy.”
THREE YEARS LATER
“When are you going to take this fucking thing out?” Theo lightly yanks on the small strings, careful not to displace the device keeping me from getting pregnant.
I debate telling him the truth and confess I have an appointment next Monday, but I can’t help screwing with him just a bit. “Hmm, I’m thinking a year or two?”
Theo growls his disapproval as he leans forward, withdrawing his fingers and lining up the head of his cock with my entrance. The cold ball bearings of his piercing send a ripple of shivers up my spine and coax a needy whimper out of me. He doesn’t move, though, and instead studies me. After a beat he must see something and narrows his gaze, waiting for me to tell him the truth.
We’ve talked about kids since a month after we started dating, and the topic came up more frequently after we got married last summer. It took a little time, me standing up to Sam when he said I was being idiotic to think of marriage again, and a bit of therapy. But after all that I was able to let go of the negative connotations I had with a long-term commitment, and as he promised, Theo has been an unwavering constant.
Anytime I try to put up my wall, he becomes a calm voice of reason. He reassures me time and time again that everything he’d said to me that Mother’s Day was real, and he is as obsessed with me today as he was three years ago.
Then, there’s seeing him be a bonus father to Lyn. I’d already had tiny glimpses when he was training her in the water, but doing it full-time has been something else entirely.
They are the most visual representation I’ve ever seen of being two peas in a pod.
If I’m swamped with work, he immediately takes my place to help with her crafts. He always assists with her homework while they keep me company in the kitchen as I’m cooking. He’s the king of the popcorn-butter-salt ratio and picks out the best movies for our weekly movie night. And he never misses an event, no matter how many computers he’s got piled up at work to fix.
Twenty-eight years old and Theo couldn’t be further than the stereotype I once gave him.
He smiles softly, trying his best to hide the disappointment on his face. “If that’s what you want, you know I support—”
“In three days,” I finally admit, arching my hips.
He tsks, gliding his hands up and down my sides. “That was cruel.”
I bite into my cheek, resisting the urge to tell him how the real cruelty here is that he’s been edging me for almost twenty minutes. He says it’s foreplay, but I think he just enjoys hearing me beg. He likes making me delirious with need because I say outlandish things.
“Can you fuck me now?”
A glimmer passes over his eyes, and one side of his lips curls into a sly smirk. “Can you be quiet this time?”
“Yes,” I hiss, ignoring his jab. There have been at least a half dozen times Gennie’s asked me if we got an animal recently.
“Are you sure?”
“Theo.”
