Dare Me, Part Two Dare Duet Sawyer and Billie: Unchained Attraction Series

by Shandwick, K. L.

  Now Logan was alone, but he had his parents, and I figured Colby and he were spending Christmas Day with them. Meanwhile, until the whole event was set, the stress for Billie would continue unless I did something about it.

  “Do you want Logan to come here?” I asked. Even though I knew when I asked, if she said yes it would be so damned awkward, but I figured I’d cope fine, if this was what was necessary to calm my wife’s anxieties.

  “I couldn’t put you through that, besides he’d never agree to come,” she mumbled and sniffed.

  Since Logan’s drinking days, career loss and his mid-life crisis with Poppy, he had mostly learned to man up for his son, and he’d walked the line with Billie and Colby to Billie’s satisfaction. This was why I’d figured the least I could do was keep everyone happy by giving my hormonal wife her son for Christmas, even if it had meant spending it with her ex.

  “What’s the worst that can happen? Colby gets to spend Christmas with us, and if Logan really wants his son to be happy and has a shred of decency for your feelings, he’ll accept our invitation.”

  “I expect he’ll be spending Christmas with his parents,” she said with a pout of doubt.

  “Then they’ll have to come too, or they can invite us to their place. Either way I’m going to ask.”

  “I feel exhausted. Would you mind if I caught a nap?” she asked, clearly drained from crying, her eyelids puffy. She looked worn out.

  “Absolutely, you need all the rest you can get,” I insisted, turning her away from me and pulling her body back against my front. Sliding my hand over her abdomen, I found the hem of her maternity top and slid my hand underneath. Her belly felt tight as a drum and I smoothed my palm gently over her bump. “You too, little ones. No messing with your mom’s snuggle nap,” I muttered, kissed her shoulder, and rested my chin on the same spot.

  Ten minutes later, Billie was dead to the world. I gingerly eased myself away from her and rose to my feet. Picking up my jacket from the floor, I tiptoed out of our bedroom and closed the bedroom door.

  Taking out my cell I made my way to the loggia and closed off the patio doors. Finding Logan’s number, I hit the call button and waited for him to answer. He didn’t work Mondays, which made me wary of him, as Billie had Mondays off too. Not that I didn’t trust Billie, I just figured if he grew some balls and meddled in my shit again, this was most likely the day of the week he’d do it.

  “Yes,” he answered in a clipped tone, obviously knowing it was me. He didn’t like me, I didn’t care, but I tried to keep things amicable for my family’s sake.

  “Christmas Day,” I started.

  “My turn. Colby’s with me, she had him last year,” he barked.

  “Not how my memory serves,” I stated. “From my recollection you imposed yourself on Billie.”

  “My son was still with her.”

  “As were you, and I figured if that was the way things rolled last year, then this year should be the same.”

  “You want your pregnant wife, my ex wife, to come and spend Christmas with me and our son?”

  I chuckled. “In your dreams, dude. You can come here.”

  “With you there and we can all play happy families? Are you out of your fucking mind? What are you smoking these days?”

  My chest tightened in frustration, so I drew in a deep breath and rolled my head either side on my neck to try and release some tension, then I let out a sigh.

  “Billie’s not good, she’s distressed about Colby not being with her this year. Being pregnant she’s worried Colby may begin to feel pushed out. To be frank, I feel the same.”

  “Then she shouldn’t be having more children if she feels this way. Pity Colby’s welfare has been an afterthought.”

  His remark made me see red and I lost it. “Are you really going to do this?” I scoffed. “You’re one hypocritical bastard. You walked away from your only child, your small son, for a piece of pussy, you asshole. You got drunk and left him to fend for himself in a strange hotel. Then there was the incident when you didn’t turn up for his visitation. Billie has been more than generous in the way she’s considered you, and you know why? Because you’re the father of her son.”

  “Thanks for the biology lesson, I know this, I was there when we made him,” he shot back.

  My fist curled and I knew he was getting a rise out of me. I took a deep breath, but it did me no good. “Well, what a big man you are, having a baby. You think that made you a man? Being a man is doing what’s right for others when you want to be selfish. Being a father means you make tough decisions even when it doesn’t suit you. Your son is going to have brothers or sisters or both, and if you continue to ignore his needs, he’s going to walk away. How can you still not see this?”

  “Oh, and you’d know all this because…”

  “Because I watched my brother struggle when I was small. He hated me because I was born and he hated my father because he didn’t try to understand how he felt. Now the way I see it, one of two things may happen when our babies are born, Colby’s siblings, by the way. Colby will either not want to come to your place at all, or he’ll expect a hell of a lot more from you than I figure you’re equipped to give him right now. Are you willing to gamble with your son’s security, Logan?”

  When he fell silent I knew I’d struck a chord.

  “Next year is going to be a big year. Billie will be six months pregnant when I go on tour. It’s a short one, but I’m already obligated. After this, Colby is going to need more of your time, picking him up, taking him to baseball, and generally doing stuff fathers do with their kids. How long do you think you can sustain the relationship between you, if all you do is take him to the beach every time you have him or watch TV in the winter months?”

  “He loves the beach.”

  “That’s your take, he tells me he’s bored, but that’s a conversation for later. I need you to come to the apartment for Christmas, and if you love your son the way you say you do, you’ll be here. Incidentally you may want to ask Colby what he wants to do. It may make your decision clearer for you.”

  My heart was racing and without waiting for him to reply, I cut the call, deciding to let him stew on my words for a day or two. He was due to have Colby for that weekend and with only ten days until Christmas, I knew I was cutting it close. However, I was quietly confident when he’d had time to think, or if he spoke about this with Colby, he’d come.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Call me soft for wanting to bring peace to our lives while Billie was carrying our babies, but I’d been there when she’d told Logan she was expecting and the look of sheer devastation on his face had haunted me for days. From the desolate look of resignation on his face, I knew until then he had held some faint hope in his heart about winning her back.

  It had felt as if he’d never really taken what Billie and I had seriously, and he’d been waiting for her to come to her senses and give him a second chance, until we’d gotten married. Even then he’d continued to use their son to find excuses to talk to her when he dropped Colby off, but a man knows when another man has designs on what’s his.

  Most men would have relished watching their wives’ ex-husbands suffer, but I’d never been one to gloat, and I supposed that was because what I knew Billie and I had was, for me at least, a once in a lifetime deal. Besides, people made mistakes in life, and even though Logan had fucked-up royally I’d have had to be blind not to notice how much he still loved her.

  Unfortunately for him, it had taken his experience with another woman before he’d realized this and sometimes I wondered if I hadn’t been in the mix whether Billie would have taken him back. I’d have liked to have thought not. But I had come along and Logan’s catastrophic error in judgment had given me the beautiful woman I loved and a life I’d never imagined.

  All’s fair in love and war they say, but although Billie wasn’t in love with him anymore, she still cared for him because of who he was to her son. Nothing much I could do about
that, but support her and let her know that despite their past, I understood. I didn’t particularly like it, but I understood.

  Life isn’t perfect, no matter how much people would try to have you believe it about their lives. It’s messy and inexact and frustrating as fuck sometimes, but if you love someone enough you accept the good the bad and ugly side of their shit, because in the end, all of it has made them the person they were when you met them.

  Billie and Logan’s tangled relationship could influence how Colby related to his siblings and others in the future, and it was for this reason, plus my brother’s jealous feelings about me, that helped me decide how to deal with Logan. If they could at least be in harmony for one short day I knew I’d be willing to grant them this small concession to keep my family happy.

  Having left the ball firmly in Logan’s court, I never called him back and when he came to pick up Colby on Friday there was no way I was allowing him anywhere near Billie with his answer.

  “Can you send Logan an email with instructions for Colby’s weekend?”

  “Send him an email? Why?”

  “You are not going down to the front desk when he comes.” Billie twisted her lips in a worried expression and when she looked up at me I could see she was fighting back tears.

  “Don’t you dare cry. He doesn’t deserve it. I called him the other day and asked him to consider Christmas, now we’re leaving him to think on it. He’s not getting near you. I won’t let him twist this into something other than what it is. He comes for Christmas Day or Colby goes there and he’s coming back at bedtime, instead of the following day. The day after Christmas is ours, right? I know he stayed with you last year, but that extra day was hashed out because of Florida, right?”

  Billie nodded. “You really think he’ll come?”

  “I do. He just needs to have some silent treatment to know how serious we are.”

  “I hope he doesn’t give Colby a hard time about this … make him choose.”

  “Colby’s not as fickle as you think. He wants to be here. I’ve heard him complaining week in week out about Logan not involving himself on their weekends. Trust me, he’ll come. Do you know if he’s arranged anything with his parents?”

  “No. Doreen and Keith are going to Florida to spend time with their friends this year, she sent me a note in the Christmas card we received from them.”

  “Sweet, that’s even better, because I’m guessing he’s got no choice or he’ll have to take Colby out to eat. Hammer said he eats takeout all the time. Did he never cook for you while you were married?”

  Billie shook her head and I wondered again what the fuck she had seen in the man she’d lived with for over ten years. “It’s not all his fault. His mom is a great cook and well … she loved looking after Logan. He never had to lift a finger when he lived at home.”

  “Don’t do that. Stop making excuses for him. Christ, you know the privileged life my siblings and I had at my parents’ house. We had staff, but growing up my mom still made us take turns at making breakfast or supper each night. It’s a parent’s duty to enable their kids to become independent. I suppose he thought he’d married a maid when you came along, if you did the same for him as his mother had.”

  “So, we’re going to fight about how inadequate I was in my marriage? That what I did for him somehow enabled him to cheat on me?” she replied full of piss and vinegar. Her eyes flashed with anger and I immediately pulled her against me, her body stiff in offense and I cradled her head.

  “Where the fuck is this coming from? No, never. I’m annoyed at him and how he treated you in general, not toward you for your giving nature.”

  * * *

  When Logan came to pick Colby up it was me who handed him over.

  “Where’s your mom?” he asked Colby.

  Glancing at me their son shrugged. “Resting,” he stated, which was true, but I saw the question in Colby’s eyes as he wondered why it was me who had taken him down to meet his father.

  Logan gave me a dark look of frustration and I smiled, then turned to Colby. If he wanted to be an ass I wasn’t going to help him with that.

  “Everything you need is in here, right?” I asked, lifting his weekend bag and handing it over to Logan.

  “Yip,” he chirped and stepped in for a hug. Gripping me tight, he looked up at me and gave me a warm smile which tugged at my heartstrings again.

  “Be good for your dad,” I instructed and ruffled his hair. “See you on Sunday, bud.” Logan steered Colby by his shoulders toward the front entrance doors and never looked back. I stood and watched him go, biting back a smirk because I figured he’d probably had some argument up his sleeve to use on Billie about Christmas if he’d gotten her alone. My mixing it up by being there instead of her had probably left him feeling deflated.

  Being a buffer between Billie and her ex had become part of my daily life as her husband, and although sometimes I could see the guy far enough away from us, I was happy to cushion my wife from any drama he may have wanted to bring to our door.

  “Well?” my wife asked before I’d even taken my hand off the knob after closing our apartment door.

  “Well?” I mimicked, as I wandered into the room and saw her sitting reclined with her feet up in my La-Z-Boy chair. “Don’t get too comfortable there, that chair is mine, remember?” I joked.

  She squirmed on the leather chair like she was making herself at home, but looked concerned. “Was he … difficult?”

  “Who? Oh, him?” I asked, pretending I had no idea who she was referring to. “I think we’ve spent entirely too long on the subject of Logan Drummond this week, so the L word is banned and our miniature built-in cockblocker has a new assignment with his father for the weekend. Meanwhile you, my pretty, have all this gorgeousness to feast on for a while,” I said, making light of her anxious question, by whipping off my T-shirt, running my hands up and down my torso, and wiggling my hips suggestively.

  Flexing my muscles, I flashed my ripped abs and tweaked my pecs making them jiggle and struck a pose any bodybuilder would have been proud of right there in the sitting room. Initially she bit back a smile, but it cracked through her lips until her teeth showed a little and spread on her face with a chuckle.

  “You’re nuts,” she said, shaking her head.

  “What about them?” I asked, twisting her words with a mock frown. I spread my knees, balancing on the outer edges of my feet as I pretended to check between my legs. When I looked back toward her, the sadness had gone from her eyes and they danced playfully. “Are any of those hormones in there, horny ones?” I teased pointing at her chest.

  Raking her eyes over me she rolled them to the back of her head. “Lord, what did I do to deserve this man? He’s too much,” she mumbled into the air, and shook her head before she looked me straight in the eye.

  “Never too much for you, my fine woman. And … all this can be yours for a dollar,” I told her theatrically. “Plus, sales tax of course,” I added for good measure. “Also, to show you how desperate I am for you to have me, I’d even take dime payments on that.”

  My heart swelled in my chest when Billie laughed because it had been the first really hearty laugh I’d heard in a while. A warm feeling radiated through me at the sound, because with all the emotional turmoil she’d been in, there hadn’t been much to laugh about since we’d gotten back from my parents.

  Patting the arm of the couch next to her chair, she made her desires known. I took her cue and dropped down on it. Leaning over I picked up her hand and laced her small delicate fingers in mine. “I love you so fucking hard, Mrs. Wild,” I told her, and lifted our hands to my mouth. I pressed a kiss to her knuckles and let my mouth linger there. She rewarded me with a serious look full of intent and the familiar spark of chemistry burst between us.

  “Hard?” she repeated and shot me an impish grin.

  “What, you don’t believe me?” I asked, lowering her hand to my groin. Sliding my fingers from hers, I laid her palm flat
over my cock and her eyes opened wide in surprise.

  “Already?” she asked.

  “Always,” I replied. “It does this fairly often … of its own free will, sometimes I only have to look at you,” I admitted.

  “Damn, you’ve got it bad,” she muttered with a raised eyebrow then her face fell serious as her eyes searched my face. “I know I look like a whale right now, but in my defense and erring on the positive side, this is the best I’m going to look for a while,” she told me as she glanced down at her abdomen swollen with our growing babies.

  “Nonsense, you’ve never looked more beautiful, and if you don’t mind a little afternoon delight, I’d be more than happy to take you to our bed and have fun practicing all those illustrated sexual positions in that helpful pregnancy book of yours.”

  “You know, I think I’d like that, Mr. Wild, I mean in a few weeks, you may not get anywhere near me.”

  I chuckled. “Now you underestimate me. First, you’ve seen the size of me, right? I’m a biiiig boy,” I joked, and she laughed again.

  “What are you laughing at?” I asked, playfully. “Do you know how many guys’ dicks I’ve seen in restroom stalls?”

  “Eww, are you a peeping Tom?” she laughed, her eyebrow raised. Rising to my feet, I gently pulled her footstool away and helped her as she stood beside me.

  “Every boy does it at some time or another, high school was the worst.”

  “Thank God, I’m not a guy,” she muttered, “I’d hate other women checking me out like that.” She shuddered and I laughed, as I tugged her toward our bedroom.

  “Right now, looking at you, I’m thanking him that I am.”

  “You’re so cheesy sometimes,” she said, seriously.

  “Who cares? And if I can’t be sappy with you, then, when can I ever?” I asked, as I slid my hands around her back and I began to take her clothes off.

  “Oh,” she moaned a little breathily, as I dropped her top to the floor and my hands glided up her body. I turned her around and laid her gently on the bed. We both knew it was going to be a slow and tender connection because we had plenty of time to worship each other with no interruptions.