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God, I was tired.
“Here,” he said gently, taking the pump from me.
He placed it on the floor, then dropped to one knee. I allowed him to sit me down on his thigh. He moved my body like a doll’s, positioning me the way he wanted. With a stern hand on my back, he pressed me forward, doubling me over. My nakedness was forgotten as he took my breast in his large, callused hand.
He massaged it firmly, starting at the root and working his fingers down toward the nipple. The sensation was as hypnotizing as it was painful. I gasped and whined my way through it until, finally, the duct cleared with a thin spurt of milk across the wet tile.
“Do you hate me, Cheeks?” he whispered as I sniffed, wiping away what could have been sweat, could have been tears.
“Of course I don’t hate you.” I covered my sore breast with a hand. I loathed to admit it, but it did feel better. “Why would you ask me that?”
“Maybe because you flinch every time I try to touch you. When I walk into a room, you glance at me, then look away. Even now, you nearly hurt yourself trying to get away from me.” He rested his head against my shoulder, and I willed myself not to move. I didn’t want to prove his point. “Maybe you hate me because this is my all fault.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” he insisted. But with a sigh, he seemed to drop the argument. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I said, realizing he meant my breast, not something else. “It felt… almost good, actually. It’s the first time anything’s felt good since…”
My heart twinged just for admitting it. Nothing felt good anymore. How ridiculous was it that something as unsexy as Xander unclogging my blocked milk duct was the first almost-positive sensation I’d experienced since the twins were kidnapped?
“Then, I’m glad it was from me,” he said softly. The silence spread its choking tendrils between us for a long moment before he spoke again, driving them away. “I can’t believe it’s only been three days.”
“Neither can I,” I admitted. “I keep thinking I’m going to hear them crying from the next room, then I remember…” that they were gone, that they might never come back. We might never find them. I might never hear my babies cry again.
“I know. I feel it too.” Xander helped me to my feet, then rose. He wrapped his arms around my soaked body, holding me close.
Despite the urge to fight against him, to push him away, I let him.
The truth was, I needed to be held.
Maybe Xander needed something to hold, too.
He pulled back to stare down at me. There was something new and fierce in the greens of his eyes. “I’ve given up on the cops helping us, Cheeks. I’m done waiting for a call that’ll never come. I’ve made you a lot of promises. I’ve broken most of them. So this is the last one I make you until I can prove to you that I’m capable of keeping them.”
He moved in, as if for a kiss. I must have flinched again without even meaning to, because he changed trajectory at the last minute, brushing his lips against my cheek instead.
“I’m going to fix this, I swear it,” he rasped, moving his lips to my ear. My body shivered at the quiet power in his voice. “I’m going to find them. I’m going to bring them back to you.”
Chapter5
Xander
In my dreams, we were a family again. Happy. Safe. Whole.
When I slept, I could even hear the boys crying.
I never thought the sound of crying babies would bring me so much joy.
I woke with a start to a dark room and the cold reality: there were no cribs next to the bed, no fussing infants to lift and cradle in my arms.
Next to me, Felicity lay beneath the sheets, her back to me. Even in the pitch dark, I could make out the cascade of her auburn hair flowing across the pillow like an ocean of silk. But when I reached for her, she only mumbled something incoherent and shifted away.
I didn’t think she was awake.
Stupid, I thought to myself as I dragged myself from the bed and to the shower. Holding her the night before was the most right I’d felt all week, and all too quickly, it had evaporated.
No matter how much she claimed she didn’t blame me, I didn’t buy it. Not in the least.
