Laurel's Bright Idea (Billionaire Baby Club Book 3)

by Jasinda Wilder

  “I mean, I feel like sex is already the most fun you can have in this life—if you can laugh while having sex, it stands to reason it’s even better.”

  “Being able to laugh with you while we're having sex is pretty much…” A pause, to find the right words. “It’s pretty much heaven on earth.”

  I tugged his hair free from the ponytail he had it in, and buried my finger in it. “It really is.”

  Faster, then, and harder. “God, Laurel.”

  “I know.” I palmed his ass and pulled, encouraging him to give me more. “I thought you were about to come.”

  “I was. But then I got inside you and I had to make it last longer, so I fought it back.”

  “Well…don’t. I got to come four times already. I want one of yours.”

  “Just one?”

  “No, as many as I can get, until you can’t get it up anymore.”

  “We might be here a while, then,” he rasped. “Last time I jerked off while imagining your mouth on my cock, I was hard again with seconds of coming. I had to jerk off three times in a row before I could function normally.”

  “You beast,” I whispered, gleefully. “Show me.”

  He touched his forehead to mine. “I just want to make love to you forever and never stop.”

  “Let me feel you come, and I’ll finish what I started with my mouth.”

  He groaned and quickened his pace yet more. “Laurel, Jesus. What did I do to deserve you?”

  “We deserve each other,” I answered, gasping as he slammed into me. “We’re made for each other.”

  I felt him tensing, felt his movements become staggered, the rhythm faltering.

  “Laurel…” he gasped.

  “Now, Titus,” I whispered. Reached between our bodies and circled finger and thumb around his base where we met and squeezed, tugged. “Now, now. Give it to me. Give it all to me, Titus. Come for me, baby.”

  “Oh fuck, Laurel. What are you doing to me?”

  I rocked against him. “Taking what’s mine.”

  He chased it, then, his movements rough and ragged and furious, slamming deep and sagging there for a moment before pulling slowly back, only to drive into me hard yet again. And then a hoarse cry burst out of him and I felt him cut loose, felt him give way, felt him come.

  I cried out with him, my own orgasm triggered by his. I wept with him, and we whispered each other’s names, cried out chanting for god, for each other. Rocked together, his climax bleeding into mine, blending with mine, and I was merged with him and united in him and I understood.

  I understood.

  Love and fucking are not the same at all.

  This, with my whole heart and my whole soul opened to his…

  This was a whole new universe.

  I welcomed the shattering, because I knew he could put me together again.

  He came and he came and he came.

  “I love you, Laurel,” he gasped, when it finally subsided. “I love you.”

  I clasped him to me and refused to let him go. “I love you back, Titus.”

  12

  My phone rang. Jeremy, it said.

  Titus was still beside me, my iPad on his belly, a documentary playing. It was late morning, the day after he’d moved in.

  I answered. “Hi, Jeremy. It’s Laurel. You need to talk to Titus?”

  “Yeah, it’s urgent.”

  I handed it to Titus, who flipped the lid of the iPad closed and took the phone, putting it on speaker rather than to his ear. “Jer, what’s up?”

  “I just got a call from the LAPD,” Jeremy said, rushed. “All they would say is that they need to speak to you urgently. Something happened and they wouldn’t say what, but somehow it involves you.” I caught an undercurrent of something unspoken. “I’m sorry, Laurel, but I had to give them your address.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “When did they say they’d be here?”

  DING…dong.

  “Now, I guess,” I answered my own question. “We have to let you go, it seems. They’re here.”

  I left the phone with Titus and grabbed a button-down I’d stolen from Titus’s closet, shrugged into it and buttoned it as I made for the door.

  When I opened it, two uniformed LAPD officers faced me, stern and serious. “Hi, how can I help you?”

  “Looking for Titus Bright,” one of them said. “His manager gave us this address.”

  Titus came up behind me, clad in a pair of gym shorts. “Hi, fellas. What’s up?”

  There was a cruiser in my driveway behind Titus’s big red Power Wagon, and an unmarked but official-looking sedan behind that, blocking the sidewalk. Something about that vehicle made my stomach flip.

  One of the officers glanced at me, then at Titus. “Can we come in?”

  I swallowed hard. Backed away, and Titus and I sat down on the love seat, leaving the couch to the two officers, who perched on the edge with obvious hesitation and discomfort.

  “Mr. Bright, this is a kind of visit we hate having to make,” one of the officers, his name tag reading L. Murray, began. “If you’d like this to be…private…now would be the time.”

  Titus hung his head. “What’s this about? Just get it over with.”

  “You are listed as the only next of kin for Isabela Maria Hernandez.”

  I blinked. Who?

  Titus groaned. “Yes.”

  “She’s your daughter?”

  My world went sideways. Blank. Tilting, whirling.

  Whispered, then, barely audible. Not looking at me or the officers or anyone, anything, but his feet. “Yes.” A pause. “Is she okay?”

  “Isabela is fine. Her mother, Maria Consuela Hernandez…she was killed in a car accident this morning.”

  “Fuck.” A choked breath. “Maria’s dead?”

  “She was on the way to work after dropping Isabela off at school. A delivery truck crossed the centerline and hit her head-on. Maria was killed instantly.”

  “My god.” A glance at me, then. “Laurel, I…I’m sorry. I should have told you. It’s…it’s complicated.”

  “You have a daughter?” I whispered, hoarse, barely coherent.

  “Yes. Her mother…Maria, we…it was a one-time thing. She…” A harsh groan. “I wanted to be there for Isabela. Please believe me. I tried. She wanted nothing to do with me—Maria, I mean. Refused to let me see Isabela. Kept me away. Won a lawsuit I filed in secret to get visitation. I fucking…I fucking tried, Laurel, I swear.” A ragged sob. “I fucking tried. She’ll take my money, but won’t let me see my kid.”

  I searched him. “How? Why?”

  He swallowed. “We were safe, the one time we slept together. After a show in Mendocino. Once, just once. I had a condom—I wore a condom. It didn’t break. Didn’t fall off. I think…I think she poked a hole in it, or something. I didn’t have one, she did, and so we used hers. I shoulda…shoulda known better. I fought her for fuckin’ years. Fought to be there—to be in Isabela’s life. To see her, once a month even. Fucking ever. Once she had my kid, Maria went feral on me. She’s…she’s fuckin’ nuts, man. Turned out she had been obsessed with me, or some shit. There was a whole investigation, and it showed all this shit. But the court still sided with her, since I’m just an itinerant rock star who does drugs and fucks around, which means clearly I’m no good. Not fit to be around my own kid. To even fucking lay eyes on her.” Bitter, so bitter. “She just wanted to get a kid out of me. And money. I was ordered to pay three grand a month. I send ten. I send cards, gifts, all that shit for every holiday, every birthday. It all gets returned. The money doesn’t. So it’s what I can do—I send money, a lot of it, every month. But I’ve never once laid eyes on my daughter.” A harsh laugh. “When we had sex that one time, she was like, talking afterward about us, about all these plans she had for us, and I’d made it clear before anything happened that it was just fun. She was like, uh-huh, I got it, I understand. Then, soon as it was over, she was talking about us, like she had this whole story made up i
n her head where I’d fallen for her, and she believed it, had herself convinced it was real, and when I was like, I’m sorry, there is no us and never will be, and I thought that clear, she…she went crazy. I had to get Tommy and the other guys to get her off the bus. I thought that was it. Then a year later, I got this thing in the mail about child support, and I was like, child support? What the fuck?”

  I was dizzy. “You have a daughter. And you never told me.”

  “I…” A hoarse clearing of his throat. “I didn’t know how. I’m not in her life, I never see her, never see Maria, it’s just a check in the mail once a month.” A hoarse, choked sound. “I have never once even seen her face. Not so much as a photograph. And I wanted to, but I wasn’t allowed.”

  The officer who’d spoken cleared his throat. “Isabela has no other kin. Maria’s family is in Mexico and can’t be reached. You are Isabela’s only family.”

  “Where…where is she?”

  The other officer spoke for the first time, jerking a thumb at the door, the driveway. “Out there. Waiting to know what you’re gonna do.”

  “What I’m…what I’m gonna do?”

  I stood up, and looked back down at Titus. “What you’re going to do about Isabela. You’re her father, and now Maria’s wishes that you never see or know your daughter are moot. She needs a home, a family. Care.”

  He met my eyes. “She needs a home.”

  I closed my eyes. Sucked in a breath. Let it out slowly, shuddering. Walked away.

  “Where are you going?”

  I gestured at the spare bedroom. “I have to move all our stuff. She’s going to need a bedroom, obviously.”

  “Laurel—”

  I stopped in the hallway outside my—our—bedroom door. “I need a minute, Titus. And you need to go meet your daughter.”

  “I just…we just…” He looked to the officers, to the door and the hint of the other car, back to me. “My daughter.”

  I nodded. “Your daughter.”

  “How is this happening?”

  I laughed, unsteady and shaken. “I really don’t know, Titus.” I walked back to him, took his face in my hands. “But it is. And we have to deal with it. So go meet your daughter.”

  “We?”

  I nodded. “I’m going to need some time to process this, but yes, Titus. We. You and me. I’m mad as hell that you kept this from me, but I understand. Shit, there’s something I haven’t told you, yet. But I’m not going to…panic. Or bolt, or dump you, or whatever you’re thinking. This fucking complicates things, but I told you I love you. I told you it was no matter what. And I meant that shit. Well, no matter what is here, it seems. So, here we go.”

  He stood up, followed me to the threshold of our room, took my hands. “You didn’t sign up for this.”

  “Neither did you.”

  “No, but it’s my mess to deal with.”

  I laughed. “What, you’re going to bring your daughter to live with you on a fucking tour bus? Or rig, or whatever you want to call that thing you were living on? Or you’re going to send her into the system because you can’t deal? No, Titus. We live together, you and me. For all of, what, twelve hours? But here we are, right? And we have the room. So yeah, she’s living here, I guess.”

  He let out a breath. Addressed the officers. “Bring her in, then.”

  I arched an eyebrow at Titus. “Maybe we should get dressed, first?”

  Titus glanced down at himself, loose gym shorts hanging low, revealing as obvious the fact that he wasn’t wearing anything beneath them; then to me, with my baggy men’s button-down draped around my bare thighs, the sleeves rolled half a dozen times and hanging at my elbows. “Yeah, good point.”

  I shot a glance at the officers. “Just give us a minute to get dressed properly, okay? Two minutes.”

  They nodded and stood to exit. “We’ll talk to Isabela and the social worker.”

  Alone in our room—god, it was so odd to say that, think that, that my room was now our room: I’d never shared a bed, a room, any space, with anyone, ever; even overseas at the academy, my parents had made sure I had my own room rather than having to share—I stood in my closet and gathered myself. Or, tried to.

  I felt him behind me. “I’m so sorry, Laurel. I know—I know I should have told you. But…how? When? I just…it was never a good conversation, a good moment to be like, so hey, I have a daughter I never see. And no matter what I say, people will always assume I’m a deadbeat dad, right? It’s the stereotype, and for good reason. But if she’d have let me, I’d have been there. I travel a lot, but with my pop-up system I’m usually only gone for a few weeks at a time at most. I run out to wherever I’m gonna play, do a few shows in that area, and then come home again. I’d…I’d have been there for Isabela. I wanted to be.”

  I turned and faced him. “Titus, I know.” I could see the torture on his face. “I believe you.”

  He blinked, swallowed, seemed close to tears of relief. “You do?”

  I touched his face with my fingertips. “You can’t fake the emotions I see in you right now, Titus. And the way you talked about your own childhood, yeah, I believe that if you were given a choice, you’d have been there to whatever degree you were allowed to be.” I sighed, shook my head with a toss of my hair. “I wish you’d told me—at any point. But I understand, really I do. I’m more shocked than angry.”

  “You don’t have to tell me now, because shit, there’s enough happening right now, but…you said you had something haven’t told me.”

  I closed my eyes. Ducked my head, let my shoulders roll forward. Swallowed hard. “I had an abortion. After the rape.” I shuddered. “I’ve only ever told Dr. Hines, and now you. I did it in secret. Kept it secret for the last twenty years.”

  “Jesus, Laur.”

  “I couldn’t—you know? Like, how could I go on with my life? How could I…I didn’t want to—end it, get rid of it. I didn’t want to. It felt wrong. But…fuck, it was forced on me. I…”

  He pulled me to his chest. “I know, baby. I know.”

  I shuddered and shook against him. “I talked about it with Dr. Hines a lot. I’m not, like, okay with it. It’s not, like, fine. But…I’m as okay and fine with it as I’ll ever be. And I’m glad I told you.”

  “Does that make this harder? With Isabela, I mean.”

  I laughed. “Wow, I don’t think that’s crossed my mind yet. I mean, no? I don’t know. Would you have told her to do that, if she’d asked you?”

  A harsh sigh. “I don’t know.” Another sigh, more of a groan. “No, I don’t think so. If she’d insisted I’d have supported her and helped her any way I could, but no, I wouldn’t have wanted that, in that situation. In yours, it’s different. But it would have been her choice, either way, so I would have supported her no matter what.”

  “It’s a complicated, tricky, difficult, painful topic.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  I turned away from him and lifted my chin and swallowed hard, shook my hands as if to wake them up. “Enough. We don’t have time for that whole conversation, and it’s not even really relevant. The point is, there’s no more secrets, right?” Back to him, gazing up at him. “That was my last secret. If you have any more, now’s the fucking time, Titus. Because when we go out there, that little girl is going to be messed-up. Confused. In pain. This is going to be fucking hard, for everyone. And we have to be on our A-game, because that little girl is going to need love and patience and understanding.”

  He nodded. “I got nothing. That was it. I told you about being suicidal, you know I’ve struggled with drugs and alcohol, and you know I’m sober—from drugs, I mean. Alcohol was just the thing you did as a rock star. I was always able to put the booze down when I needed to. The coke was a different story, but after Tommy, I have no interest in going down that road ever again.”

  I nodded. “Good. So we’re clear.” I took his hands, lifted up on my tiptoes and kissed him. “Let’s do this.”

  He shook hi
s head, breathing shakily. “I can’t believe this is happening.” He swallowed thickly. “I don’t know how to be a dad.”

  “I think first, we just start with getting to know each other. That’ll be enough, I think.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” His eyes met mine, and he blinked wetness away. “I don’t think I could have done this without you, Laurel.”

  “Well, you don’t have to.” I grinned up at him. “I do have one little secret—I’m good with kids. One of those unexpected things most people wouldn’t ever guess about me.”

  He just laughed. “At this point, nothing about you surprises me. I’m learning to expect the unexpected, where you’re concerned.”

  I peeled the button-down off, folded it, and set it on my shelf of pajamas, and I noticed his eyes on me. “Down, boy.”

  He just laughed, shucking his shorts. “Can’t blame me for looking.”

  We dressed quickly, then, and I dragged a brush through my hair and put it in a quick braid.

  Before we left our room, Titus stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “I have one question, real quick. Just to think about it, if not answer right now.”

  I knew what he was about to ask. “Would I ever consider having a baby of my own?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  I sighed, swallowed hard. “Until this moment, Titus, I would have said no. I never wanted the responsibility. I never wanted…never had anyone in my life I could have conceived of having that life with, and I never wanted to be a single mom. My next-door neighbor is a single mom, and she’s a fucking hero in my book, but I wouldn’t want that simply because it’s so hard for her. So until you, no. I never wanted to be a mother. But now, with you in my life, with us living together, I guess…” I huffed something like a laugh, or a sigh, or mixture of both. “I guess now, I can see it happening. Someday.”

  He just nodded. “I see.”

  I put my hand on the knob. “Out with it.”

  “I just…I guess in the back of my mind, I deeply regret and resent being kept out of Isabela’s life, that I didn’t get to see any of it, of her life, and I…”