by L. D. Davis
Her face was almost as pink as her car. She looked angry and her mouth was puckered as if she had just eaten a lemon. It made her beautiful face ugly.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said unapologetically. “You don’t have to be so nasty.”
“Oh, honey,” I said, shaking my head. “You tried to steal my husband. I have every right to be nasty, but that…that wasn’t nasty. I often have a hard time connecting with my inner bitch, even when a trollop shamelessly throws herself on my husband. But any anger I had for you is gone. I feel sorry for you, Nia, and that is so much worse.”
She looked me up and down with disgust and loathing in her eyes. “You feel pity for me? You have got to be kidding me.”
“Oh, yes. I pity you, little girl, because there has to be something wrong with you if you can’t find an unattached man your age. Moreover, I pity you because you don’t understand real love and devotion when you see it. Had you recognized it, you would have immediately seen what kind of man my husband is. That man has been in love with me since I was fourteen years old, maybe before that. I wasn’t thin then, either, and he loved and wanted me anyway. When I was afraid of my own feelings, I ran away many times over and he always—in some way—came to find me. Without. Fail. Had you been able to recognize real love and devotion when you saw it, you would have seen the way he looks at me. He doesn’t look at me and see the out of shape, tired, and bedraggled woman I often feel like. Leo sees me. His soul mate, his kindred spirit, and his heart’s desire. I am his. I belong to him, and he belongs to me.”
I took a step closer to her, calmly so that I wouldn’t frighten her. I smiled again, but without the chill it carried before.
“I know my husband, and I know that there wasn’t even a millisecond where he was tempted by you. We were never threatened by you, and we never will be. But if you try it again, Nia,” I said, my voice as gentle as the warm Miami breeze, “I won’t hesitate to show you my inner bitch. No one messes with my family.”
I looked away from her pink face and her teary, angry eyes and smiled at the man approaching us.
“Hey,” I said with genuine happiness.
One eyebrow rose over the rim of his sunglasses as he reached us. He instantly took my side and wrapped an arm around my waist before kissing my neck.
“What’s going on here?” he asked, looking from Nia to me and back to Nia.
“We were just chatting,” I said sweetly. “Good luck on your 5K next month, Nia.”
She took a shuddering breath and turned so abruptly, that we almost missed the tiny sob that escaped her before she marched toward the building.
“What did you do?” Leo asked accusingly as he watched her.
“Something I regretted not doing to another blonde many, many years ago,” I said, feeling a little sorry for making the girl cry.
He looked at me as if I were an alien. “And what is that?”
“I set her straight about our love and claimed you as my own.”
Leo smiled as he began to guide me back to the front of the car. “You’re claiming me again? I thought you did that years ago.”
“And I’ll do it again and again for the rest of our lives.” I pulled on his shirt until his body touched mine.
“And I’ll let you claim me again and again for the rest of our lives. Ti amo. Ti amero, per sempre.”
I grinned against his mouth.
“I’ll love you forever, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Emmy
“I don’t want a minivan.”
“There are some very nice ones out there,” Luke said. “There are even some sporty ones that don’t look like minivans. Okay,” he conceded, holding his hands up, palms out when he saw the skepticism on my face. “They don’t look much like a minivan. Maybe they look a little like a minivan, but they mostly look sporty and cool.”
I held my hand out. “Give it to me.”
His brow furrowed. “Give you what?”
“Your man card. You’ve lost it by saying that a minivan looks sporty and cool. I’m just glad that it is only the two of us in here and that no one else heard you. I would be so humiliated and ashamed.”
He gave me an assuaging smile as he wrapped his hand around my outstretched one.
“Okay. I take it back, but you do realize that we may need to go there.”
“I would rather drive a school bus than to drive a minivan,” I said stubbornly. “I am not minivan material. If you’d like to invest in a very large SUV, I’m game, but if you ever bring home one of those ugly soccer mom vehicles, I will file for divorce, and I will hire Vivian as my lawyer.”
“You are a soccer mom,” Luke said slowly.
“No, no, no,” I protested, shaking my head. “I am a mother who has a child in soccer, but I am not one of those women.”
He smiled impishly as his eyes traveled up and down my body. He released my hand and slid his hands to my ass and pulled me against his body.
“No, you sure aren’t one of those women.”
He kissed me libidinously, making my senses tingle and my toes curl into the plush rug. I felt him hard against me and wondered if that thing ever went down.
A loud ringing interrupted our kiss. We pulled slightly apart and stared at each other, both of us hopeful, but for different reasons.
“Ready?” Luke asked me.
“No. Yes.” I nodded. “Mostly yes.”
“On the count of three, we’ll look together.”
“Okay.”
“One.” He kissed me. “Two.” He kissed me again. “Three.” He kissed me once more before we both turned our heads and looked down at the vanity.
I let out an explosive breath of relief, even as I felt Luke’s body sag.
“Thank goodness,” I breathed. “I’m not pregnant.”
“You don’t have to look so happy about it.”
“I’m ecstatic about it.”
I plucked the used pregnancy test off the vanity and threw it in the trash.
“We can try again,” Luke said, perking up. “We can try on purpose this time.”
On purpose? I wasn’t exactly trying to accidentally get pregnant, either. Even though I had an intrauterine device to prevent pregnancies, I was one of the unlucky few who got stuck with an unpredictable cycle. That partnered with what must have been a stomach bug made me paranoid. It wasn’t impossible to get pregnant—highly unlikely, yes, but not impossible.
“You can’t be serious,” I said to his reflection as I washed my hands.
“I’m pretty serious. Come on, you’re acting like you don’t want to have any more kids with me, Em.”
I avoided his eyes and remained quiet as I dried my hands. When I looked at him again, he could see the truth on my face because his handsome, good-humored face fell.
“We didn’t exactly talk about it,” I said carefully.
“So, let’s talk about it.”
I let out a small, uncomfortable laugh. “Now is a horrible time to talk about it. Our flight leaves in four hours and we’re not even finished packing.”
He let out a frustrated sigh. “Em.”
“You want to have this discussion now? In our bathroom?”
“I don’t care if we have it on the damn roof, Emmy. This is important.”
My blue-eyed husband would not back down, not even a little bit. Rarely did he ever let me walk away from a conversation that needed to happen, and this one did need to happen.
I leaned back against the vanity and crossed my arms.
“Do you want to have another baby?” Luke asked, straightforward and to the point.
It took me a few beats to respond. It wasn’t an easy question to answer.
“It’s more complicated than a yes or no response,” I said.
“Then tell me.”
“I do want to have another baby because I love the idea of creating a new life with you. I love the anticipation leading up to the birth, wondering what he or she will look
like and what kind of personality he or she will have. I love those first few weeks of life outside the womb and exploring every sound, every movement, and every expression on their tiny faces. I love those first couple years when they begin to explore the world and to learn who they are, what they like and don’t like. I love all that, Luke, but there’s so much more to it than that.”
I knew I could tell Luke anything; he was my best friend as well as my husband, but it was still hard for me to get the words out. He seemed to understand—at least in part—what I was trying to say, though.
“Are you afraid of getting postpartum depression again like you did with Grace?” he asked, his eyes gentle.
I had given my cousins a speech about not keeping secrets, but I had been a hypocrite. Tabitha and Mayson had no idea that I’d spent weeks in my bed after Grace was born, curled into a ball and sleeping and blocking out the world. I even blocked out my baby. It’s not that I didn’t love Grace, and I didn’t want to hurt her or anything like that, but I couldn’t find that new-baby excitement I told Luke about. It wasn’t just Grace I had been uninterested in. I wasn’t interested in any of my children, my husband, my friends, or my job.
After three weeks of being a shadow of my old self, Luke’s sister Lena literally yanked me out of bed by the collar of my robe.
“You have three children and a husband,” she had said assertively. “Your little mental and emotional vacation is over. If you don’t seek help immediately, you will irrevocably damage your children. I understand postpartum depression, Emmy, but if you’re unwilling to do anything about it, it becomes something else entirely.”
She threw around words like abuse and neglect and the dreaded words, “I’ll tell your mom to come.” I catapulted into action. Lena was able to get me a doctor’s appointment for that afternoon, and by that night, I was medicated.
It had taken a good week or so before I began to really feel any difference, but once I did, it was like waking up from a month long dream. I realized that I had slightly damaged my kids while I was gone. Lucas, who had always been an independent child, had become clingy, but angry. Kaitlyn had firmly attached herself to Donya, using her aunt as a surrogate mother. Grace had bonded with Luke, and it was as if she didn’t know me at all, even though I had spent some time with her when I was in my funk. We had spent nine months together before that, but she had nearly forgotten about me completely.
I was afraid of going through that again. Even more, I was afraid of putting my children and Luke through that again.
“I am afraid,” I admitted to him, my voice quiet and soft. “I still feel guilty about that. It took a long time for everything to smooth out.”
It had been over a year, but I still felt a twinge of jealousy whenever Kaitlyn showed any affection for Donya.
“But it did straighten out,” Luke insisted softly. “You got better.”
“It did, and I did,” I agreed. “But it doesn’t make me any less nervous about it happening again. And that’s not the only reason I don’t want to have another baby.”
Luke leaned against the dual vanity beside me. He crossed his arms and waited for my explanation.
“We’re not getting any younger,” I pointed out. “Especially you, old man.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m still a stud.”
I playfully bumped his arm with my shoulder. “You’re a total stud.”
He smiled, but it was brief.
“You’re not too old to have babies,” he said. “You have many years yet before that becomes an issue.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have the energy like I used to, Luke. At the end of the day, I am exhausted. Between working, cooking, cleaning, laundry, running errands, changing diapers, and finding time for you at night, I’m so tired. I would say I don’t know how my mom did it, but I do know how she did it. She let life drive her crazy…well…crazier.”
Luke held his hands up defensively.
“For the record, I am not making you work,” he said. “In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t work, but I am not going to stop you from doing it.”
“I like my job. My job isn’t the problem. The problem is, that with the culmination of all that I do in a day, that I am tired. If we have another baby, there will be more to do in a day and less time—not just with you at the end of the night, but with the other kids. There is so much that I want to do with our kids, places I want to take them. I don’t want to have to go through all the things we have to go through to take a baby along, and I’m so over having a kid attached to my nipples. You have no idea.”
Grudgingly, Luke shrugged a shoulder. “I am kind of happy that I have those to myself again.”
I gave him a little smile as I pushed away from the vanity and planted myself in front of him. I pushed my hands into the front pockets of his jeans and moved in closer.
“Do you want to know the biggest reason why I don’t want to have another baby?” I asked him in a whisper.
“Why?”
He tried to scowl at me, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. His eyes were softening second by second as he gazed down at me.
“Because as our kids get older and require a little less, I get to spend more time with you and do more with you.” I leaned in and left a soft kiss on his neck. “And there is a lot that I want to do with you,” I murmured against his skin.
His arms were still crossed defiantly, but I felt his breathing change with each touch of my lips.
“There is a lot we can do when we have more energy and fewer disruptions.”
Luke groaned lightly as his hands dropped down to my hips.
“Do you think that we can do any of those things now without any disruptions?” he asked, and ground his hips into mine.
“We can try.”
With a growl of approval, he cupped my jaw with one hand and kissed me savagely. Without taking his mouth from mine, he turned us around and lifted me onto the vanity. The long T-shirt I had worn to bed last night rode up, revealing my bare thighs and basic pink cotton panties. His hands caressed my legs as he continued to kiss me and steal away every breath.
I pushed his shirt up and ran my fingers over his stomach. Luke had gotten a little soft over the years, but his body was still hot, incredible, and in shape. There was still muscle definition there that I loved to touch, lick, and bite. I’ve gotten softer, too, especially after having another baby, but he seemed to enjoy my body as much as I enjoyed his.
We stopped kissing long enough to remove our shirts, but when our mouths met again, our bare chests pressed together. He was so warm and strong. After all the time we’d been together, I never got tired of being in his arms and kissing him.
He reached down between us and released that monster from his boxers. I never got tired of that, either.
He pulled my panties to the side. I mentally braced myself for the invasion but still felt that same old shock I always felt when he entered me. I groaned into his mouth as he pulled me to the edge of the vanity and buried himself inside me.
I threw my head back to let out a breathy moan of desire. Luke’s tongue stroked the skin of my neck.
“Have I told you how much I love your mom panties?” he asked in a husky voice as he thrust gently inside me.
I giggled and gasped and giggled again. Then I moaned as he swiveled his hips.
A sudden and insistent knock on the bathroom door startled us and made us freeze instantly. Even though the door was locked, we looked at it like deer caught headlights, as if we could be seen from the other side.
“Mom?” Lucas called, his small voice uncertain.
I cleared my throat. “Yes?”
“Where’s Dad?”
“What’s up, little man?” Luke called.
There was a moment of silence, and then, “Why are you guys in the bathroom together?”
I sighed and dropped my head against Luke’s chest.
“Lucas,” his father said, a little exasperated. “Wh
at do you want?”
He paused again before responding. “Gracie is awake. She pooped. A lot. It came out of her diaper and everything. It’s soooo gross.”
At that, I felt Luke softening inside me.
So, it does go down.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I called and sighed again.
Luke touched my cheek and tucked my hair behind my ear.
“I’ll go take care of Gracie. You do whatever you have to do to get us out of here on time.”
“And Kaitlyn spilled the whole gallon of milk,” Lucas added from the other side of the door. “Instead of cleaning it up, she’s being a butt cheek and just sitting in it and crying. She is crying over spilled milk!”
“Ughhhh,” I groaned.
Luke tried unsuccessfully not to smile.
“I’ll take care of Gracie, and you can take care of our little drama queen,” he said. “When I’m done, I’ll help you get packed.”
I was grateful for his super-dad calmness, and his ability to keep me calm as well. I kissed him softly. “Thank you.”
He pulled out of me and tucked himself back into his boxers. We put our shirts back on and he lifted me off the vanity and put me back on my feet.
When we exited the bathroom, Lucas was gone, but our bedroom door was wide open. We could hear Kaitlyn’s dramatic cries from the first floor and Grace’s tiny voice calling for her brother.
“Cuss!” she shouted.
“No, Grace! You stink!” Lucas called from his room.
“Hey,” I said to Luke, grabbing his arm before leaving the bedroom.
He looked down at me curiously. “What’s up, babe?”
“Are you…are you okay with everything I said?”
He put his hands on my waist and gazed down at me with an intensity that made my heart skip beat after beat as I waited for his response.