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  “She’s hungry, tired, and angry, I’ll bet.” Eric glanced in the rearview. “Baby, you have to make sure you keep that napkin pressed over the hurt, okay? This will make it heal faster. You understand?”

  Maggie sniffed, tossing her free hand against her nose. Blinking those big pools at me, she whispered, “I’m Maggie. Nice to meet you,” in a way that made my heart patter.

  If Eric and I had been allowed to make more babies—had had the time, the space—would they have turned as sweet as this little girl?

  Well, that’s not a totally inappropriate thought, right now. Damn. Keep it together, girl.

  Max had had a gritty sweetness at that age, and at every age: his black hair continually tousled, his mouth twisted up with laughter. Always, from age seven onward, at least, I was called out to the school for one act of “disobedience” or another. The time he pranked the teacher with the frog in her coffee mug. The afternoon he decided to clamber up the hanging ladder to seek the roof, “because it was sunny.” He had a volatile energy to him, something I’d always sensed within Eric as well.

  I guided Eric to the house, and he turned the car into the driveway, huffing as he spun back toward Maggie. “All right, baby. We’re here. I’m going to carry you inside, and our friend here, Olivia, is going to find you a Band-Aid, okay?” He glanced toward me, eyes alight. “I’m frankly surprised you acted so quickly. Most of my friends back in New Orleans don’t know what to do with her when she freaks out. No kids of their own…”

  He trailed off as he lurched from the side of the car, popping into the back. On cue, Max appeared in the screen door. His hair curled on the left side of his head, petering over his ears. His babysitter, the neighbor girl, a sixteen-year-old—lifted a lazy eyebrow toward us as we approached.

  Eric held Maggie like a damsel, her head stretched back and her curls flowing. He spotted Max, and his steps staggered. There was a connection. A world brewing between them. Eric’s eyes flickered toward me, before he stepped onto the porch. The neighbor girl, Amanda, just shrugged, her eyes drawn to the blood trickling down Maggie’s shin.

  “That looks bad,” Amanda sighed, sounding exhausted—like a forty-year-old-woman who needed a drink.

  “’Scuse us,” Eric said to Max, who stared up at him with eagle eyes, assessing him. “Just want to run to the bathroom.”

  “I’m Max,” he said, flatly, with such honesty. This was the first moment my son met his father. The first moment two men of my life—Eric and Max, Max and Eric—faced off.

  Fear rushed through my veins. Would Max be okay? This wasn’t how I’d planned it.

  I’d been set on telling Eric tonight, then talking to him about how it had happened, how involved he wanted to be. No rush, just us deciding how best to tell Max. Then, and only then, when I’d been sure that Eric was prepared to take this responsibility, I would’ve spoken to Max about it all. Responsibly.

  This moment was a bald-faced fuck-up, and I’d let it happen. How could I not with a bleeding child and Eric so stressed about her… fuck!

  “Hi there,” Eric said, adjusting Maggie alongside him.

  “Max, why don’t you let Eric pass through?” I called from behind, my voice catching in my throat. “For the little girl. See, she’s hurt?”

  Max whipped to the side, easing the door all the way open. Eric entered the shadows of the house, cantering toward the far hallway. These North Carolina houses were all the same. He could likely sense the layout in his toes.

  I moved toward Max, brought my fingers through my son’s hair, gazing down at his dark, so Eric-like eyes.

  “Hi baby,” I whispered to him.

  “Is that him?” Max asked me, his voice low. “Is that my father?”

  The question caught me, lurching through my stomach like a knife. Max was eleven, almost twelve. And although I’d made up several statements regarding Max’s father—that he was living out on the west coast somewhere, living out an Ernest Hemingway-like existence of rollicking over the shore, living in little seaside bungalows… I knew his grandfather, my own father, had filled Max’s head with knowledge of what a “demon” Eric was. Never in front of me. He knew I wouldn’t allow it.

  “He looks like me, Mom,” Max whispered. His eyebrows drew low over his eyes, and he spoke with severity. It was clear he’d pegged me. His instincts were heightened. Perhaps I’d been acting strangely since I’d announced I had a friend passing through town. Kids picked up on these things.

  “Let’s talk about it after he leaves,” I told Max. “Baby, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I didn’t want you to meet him like this. There was an emergency.”

  “It’s okay, mom,” Max whispered. “I’m okay.”

  In the swing behind me, Amanda moved back and forth. “You need me to stay, Ms. T?” she called.

  “Maybe just for a little bit longer,” I said. “Let me just check on them. Stay out here with him. Okay?” I gave Max a stern look before moving through my living room—busting my toe against the crooked brown couch and muttering under my breath.

  Of course, I’ll cripple myself on top of everything else.

  Out front, Amanda attempted to engage my son. “So, you got any of those trading cards you had lying around last time?”

  I reached the bathroom and braced myself in the doorway, ignoring the throbbing in my toe. “Are you okay?” I asked, watching as Eric splayed a bandage over Maggie’s newly-cleaned cut. He patted his firm hands over it, before leaning forward, delivering a kiss over the bandage. Maggie whimpered slightly in response, showing appreciation, before turning her eyes toward me.

  “It’s all better,” she told me simply, her eyes still wet with tears. “Who is that boy?”

  Eric turned his head, making a line along his jaw with a finger. His eyes held mine for a long moment, as if he was turning me over.

  My cheeks burned, as if every little thing unsaid between us was aching to escape. This handsome man. The father of my son.

  I twisted my head toward the door. “Why don’t you go ask him who he is? He likes to play on the playset out back. Or at least, he used to. Amanda’s the older girl out there. She’ll make sure you’re safe. Okay?”

  Maggie turned toward her father, questions filling her face. Eric just nodded, slipping a small curl behind her ear. “Just be safe with your knee, Bean,” he told her. “Good thing it’s not as bad as it looks.”

  Maggie leaped from the bathroom counter and fumbled beyond me, toward the screen door. I heard her piping voice calling to Max. “What’s your name?” before disappearing onto the porch. Amanda grumbled out to me—probably something about needing extra pay for two kids.

  But I remained stalwart, stoic in the center of the doorway. Eric placed his hands on either side of his waist, watching me. There was such dominance in the way he stood. Such arrogance. He set his jaw, as if he was waiting for me to make the first mention. To spew the truth.

  “So. Are you going to tell me who that kid is out there, or will I have to drag it out of you?” Eric asked—animalistic, the way it had been when he’d been most angry at his father.

  “That’s why I asked you to the diner,” I said, raising my chin. “That’s the reason I wanted to see you again.”

  Eric stepped forward, bringing his hands to my arms. He gripped my arms, feeling the bones, before drawing his lips to my neck. He inhaled the scent of me—jasmine, lavender.

  His dick stiffened up in his pants. It throbbed as I drew my hand along it, gazing into his eyes. They flickered with anger.

  “So,” I whispered, bringing my finger to his belt buckle, dragging the belt from its latch. It was like this was meant to happen. The talking, the touching, at the same time. Like we were on an automatic mode to do this. “I couldn’t tell you in letters. I tried to get you to call. Tried everything to get it out, but you weren’t susceptible. I didn’t want to mess up what you had in New Orleans. Didn’t want to risk you turning away from him like…”

 
He brought his face even tighter against mine. His lips were just an inch away. I could feel the heat of his breath, coursing across my teeth and onto my tongue. I gasped, and his hand came toward my throat. His fingers were tender against my neck—these same fingers that had drawn a bandage across his daughter’s knee, only moments before. He blinked at me.

  “We only fucked once,” he said, his voice so firm.

  “I know,” I whispered back.

  “But that boy, that kid…”

  “He’s your son,” I said, my voice straining. “Max is yours.”

  Tension ripped between us. Eric thrust his body toward me, inhaling my lips.

  My eyes closed, and his tongue stripped my lips apart. His hands flirted around my neck, pushing against it so that I lost air for a moment. My eyes popped open, and his lips left mine. We gasped at one another.

  “He looks just fucking like me,” Eric said.

  “I didn’t know what had happened to you. I thought—I thought you had disappeared for good. Left me here. My father told me that you’d gotten arrested… Jesus, I didn’t know what to believe. And dammit, Eric, you left me! Okay? You left me here with this fucking scar on my cheek, bleeding out after you almost destroyed the town. And then the letters—how could I tell you when you wouldn’t even get on the phone with me, let alone… I couldn’t risk it for him, either. I won’t let Max get hurt.”

  “The scar wasn’t my fault.” It came out a growl.

  Something snapped inside me.

  I lurched toward him, fumbled with his belt, dropped his pants. His cock burst forward, long and thick, throbbing, with a droplet of pre-cum shining in the light of the bathroom. We both stared at it for a long moment, before I brought my thin fingers around it. Cradling it, tightening my grip.

  His large hands latched onto my dress and ripped it over my head. My tits bounced out between us—braless, the nipples hard and brown against his chest. He brought his hands around them, their milky white skin against his darker, sun-tanned fingers.

  He gripped them the way he had as a younger man—so sure that this was the most beautiful moment of his life. That these tits were angelic, in his hands. He thrust his head forward and brought his lips between my tits, kissing the dark spot in the center. And with small, soft kisses, he brought his mouth back toward my face. He paused at my lips, before dotting a kiss at my cheekbone, where the scar was.

  “That’s why… that’s why they put you in the ambulance? It was your face?”

  But I didn’t feel up to answering.

  The silence only egged him on. He lifted me from the ground, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, brought his cock against the wetness between my legs. I pressed against him, and he slipped inside me.

  His eyes closed, his eyelashes fluttering over his cheeks. His lips parted, and a raw grunt escaped.

  God, he filled me. It was better than memory. He thrust into me, up to the hilt, before drawing back. I tossed my head against the doorframe, huffing. Already, sweat was building up along my chest, along my forehead. My tongue drew out from between my lips, and I traced it over his, kissing him with zeal. He grunted in return, slapping the bathroom door closed, just in case.

  Our bodies had twelve years of anger, of secrets to make up for. I wanted him to swallow me whole.

  Chapter 5

  Eric

  Jesus Christ.

  I rammed Olivia against the wall, watching as her tits bounced. Between her legs, it was just a shine of wetness, my cock buried deep. Fuck it, balls deep in this woman, and already it wasn’t enough.

  I had to claim her as I’d done years ago. Show her that keeping secrets, especially our secrets, wasn’t acceptable.

  I was a beast, an animal. I pumped into her, even as she bit her lip, held back squeals of pleasure, her eyes rolling back in her head, hands slapping at my shoulders. Clawing, fucking desperate to come on me as she’d done years ago.

  We’d been each other’s firsts.

  Firsts.

  And that night had led up to this one.

  My brain burned with understanding. The entire time, ever since I’d been a bum eighteen-year-old—I’d had a kid. A kid back in Randall. A kid who’d learned to talk, laugh, cry, all without a father beside him.

  She’d kept her silence.

  Olivia strained against me, arched her back, the first pulses of that pussy, the oncoming orgasm, starting in her.

  I’d take her orgasm. I’d take it as mine.

  Anger and lust mixed inside me. I pounded into her, pressed her back by her left tit and pinched her nipple, forced her over the edge and into oblivion. Her pussy clamped down on me, milked me, though I wasn’t there yet. Couldn’t come without seeing her break first.

  How dare she keep this from me? How dare she not tell me what I had always deserved to know? She’d thought I’d been arrested after I’d left, but I’d never hurt a fucking soul.

  At that point, Max would have already been—what? Almost two years old? And still, no father. What would I have done? Come back? Found a way to be a good dad? Sure. It was what I’d done with Maggie.

  Bucked up. Been the best father I could be, based on the limited knowledge I’d gotten from my own fucking father.

  Jesus. I reeled back, eyeing her beauty. Olivia’s eyes were shut, her lips parted, hair across her forehead, damp with sweat.

  What had it been like when Max had been born—her screams echoing out across the hospital, while I’d been where?

  “When’s his birthday?” I asked.

  I pressed my chest against her tits. The nipples were so perky, dark. I knelt down and wrapped my tongue around her left one, drawing it over the tight nub. I had to inhale her. And punish her.

  “It’s—um—” She was completely at my mercy.

  She tightened the grip of her legs, clearly aching for me to go on, to fill her up with more than just my cock.

  Christ, that’s how we got into this position in the first place.

  My lips remained around her nipple, sucking at it. I sucked harder, waiting for her to respond. She would give in to me. She would tell all.

  “It’s January 17!” she said. “January 17. I was nineteen years old. And I cried for you. I cried for you to be there. I couldn’t take the fact that we were apart.” The desire leaked from her voice, dissipated.

  I stopped, now. Set her down, stepped back.

  “I was terrified of what was to come,” Olivia continued, evenly, her eyes dry and focused, though she was still blessedly fucking naked. “I felt like a girl, not a woman. But that’s changed, now. If you think that I did this to hurt you or anyone else, you’re wrong. I did what I had to do to protect my—”

  Out front, a car pulled into the driveway, its engine cutting out. Feet ground onto the pavement, a familiar pattern. It dredged up shitty memories.

  Olivia’s eyes widened. “Shit, that’s him. That’d Dad. I dipped out of dinner with him last night. He must be here to check on us.”

  “He do that often?” I asked, clenching my fists.

  “Doesn’t matter. Christ, get dressed. You know how he feels about you, Eric. We’re not going to make this harder than it is, for Max.” Olivia grabbed her dress and thrust it on, her cheeks pink.

  Freshly fucked.

  I couldn’t regret that—we’d been totally overwhelmed by the past and the present.

  I buried the thoughts and slipped into my jeans, buttoned, washed my hands.

  Olivia spritzed on perfume, then opened the bathroom door and slipped out into the hall.

  At the front of the house, Anthony Thames’s fist slammed into the wood of the front door. Back in our teenage years, when Olivia had told me, over and over again, that her father had forbidden her being friends with me, moments like these would’ve induced panic.

  Now, only cold anger.

  What was it with old men and power trips? I’ll teach him a fucking lesson. I’ll teach him not to—But I couldn’t do that. He was Olivia’s father, and fam
ily actually meant something to her.

  I exited the bathroom and headed for the front porch. It was empty. Where the hell had Olivia gone? Her father?

  I strode around the side of the house, to the yard where the kids played.

  Ahead of me, Max helped Maggie into the swing seat. The motion was so compassionate, so older-brother-like, that I halted in my tracks for a moment. Max pushed at her once, then another time. She giggled, tossing her head back against him, and Max snuck a finger or two beneath her armpit—her laugh growing even more raucous.

  “Wow,” Olivia breathed in front of me. Just this comment from her made me want to press her against the wall, to inhale her lips again. Instead, we both rushed forward—toward our children.

  Responsibilities hadn’t been a word I’d understood until I’d had Maggie. But Olivia had had this beating heart for Max all these years. Our son. A person we’d created, together.

  Olivia whirled toward me, her eyes glinting. “Hey, Eric? Play it cool. Okay?”

  I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant. How could I be?

  She stepped out into the yard, and her bright, gorgeous voice streamed out over the green.

  The three kids looked up. Anthony Thames did too, from his path toward the swing set, and his gaze caught mine.

  Oh, he sees you. He fucking sees you all right.

  I stepped forward, ready for war. How else could I proceed? No other fucking way.

  Chapter 6

  Olivia

  Eric walked at my side, so dominant and aggressive, his lips peeling back and his gaze focused on my father.

  Something horrible was about to happen. I pictured him punching Mayor Thames, right here in my backyard, and paying the price for it. No, I couldn’t allow that—not with Max and little Maggie here to witness it. Not ever, since my father was too well-connected in this town.

  Dad approached Max and Maggie on the play set.