The Parent Pact (Book Three of The Return to Redemption Series)

by Laurie Kellogg

  “There, that should do it.” He smiled, and held her foot prisoner, soaping each toe individually while the swirling water continued to pulse in a steady sensual rhythm between her legs.

  Her heart rat-tatted as irregularly as an engine with a clogged fuel injector. Did he have any idea what the throbbing water was doing to her? “Tyler,” she choked out, “I need to put my leg down.”

  “Why?” He grinned, his eyes lit with anticipation.

  Oh, no. The big jerk knew very well the kind of sexual torture he was subjecting her to. She tried to wiggle away from the turbulent bubbles tickling her girl parts, but his firm hold on her leg wouldn’t let her move very far.

  Instead, the squirming of her hips aroused her even more until she felt as if she would explode. Intense heat flooded her cheeks as a delicious shiver rippled through her body. “Tyler, pleease.”

  He chuckled softly. “Please what? Touch you?” He continued to hold her calf captive with one hand while he tweaked her nipples with the other. She arched up to his talented fingers and grabbed his wrist to guide his hand down to the maelstrom swirling between her legs.

  When he parted her feminine crease, she stared up at him in awe as the pulsating water and his stroking fingers sent a shock wave of intense pleasure streaking through her. “Oh—oh-my-gosh!”

  ~*~

  Tyler shifted uncomfortably and gritted his teeth while he watched Annie’s body shudder through her orgasm. Her big chocolate eyes widened with surprise? Actually, it looked more like shock. She’d become sexually active at only sixteen. In all those years, hadn’t she ever had....Hadn’t any guy ever made her....

  “Annie?” He peered into her amazed face, supremely satisfied with himself. Never before had arousing a woman brought him so much personal pleasure. When her body went limp and she began to slip beneath the water, he released her leg and gathered her against his chest, drenching himself.

  “Oh, baby,” he murmured into her lips as he hauled her out of the water. He kissed her so deeply his toes curled in his shoes as her tongue danced with his. Wrapping her legs around him, he lifted her higher and captured her swollen nipple in his mouth.

  The folder he’d come back for caught his eye. The hell with the work he’d planned to do before his lunch meeting. He’d do it that night. It’d been too damn long. He needed to make love to Annie a lot more than he needed sleep—or even food. Hell, he needed her more than he needed to ....breathe.

  He pressed her back against the glass shower stall next to the tub while he sucked and licked her rosy nipples, groaning. “Oh, sweetheart, you taste even better than I dreamed.”

  Her thighs tightened around him, and she whimpered as he carried her to the bedroom, laving her nipples on the way. Her back arched over his arm while he continued suckling her, lowering her to the mattress. He yanked off his silk tie, and when he ripped open his stained shirt, buttons flew everywhere.

  The hell with the cost. He couldn’t think about that right now. He couldn’t think about anything but this warm exciting woman spread out for him naked and welcoming.

  Slow down and take a deep breath, fool, or it’ll be all over before you’re even inside her.

  ~*~

  Annie inched her way up the mattress, trembling from Tyler’s urgency as she watched him tear at his clothes. What had just happened between them had been a huge mistake. The worst thing she could do was compound the damage. If she let him really make love to her, she’d be lost.

  He’d have every right to be angry if she stopped him now. But she just couldn’t go to bed with him, knowing full well there was only lust between them. She wanted more. She couldn’t keep her heart separate from the incredible way he made her feel.

  He jerked open his trousers, but his fingers stilled on his waistband, his dimples fading as the corners of his sexy smile drooped. “Annie? What’s wrong? You look upset.”

  She curled her naked form and lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry. This is a mistake.”

  He sank onto the bed’s edge, his mouth and fly both hanging open. “Mistake? We’re both ready to spontaneously combust.” Squeezing his eyes shut, he clenched his jaw a second as if he were in pain. “Sweetheart, how could it be a mistake when we’re so good together?”

  “Because we both know a relationship between us can never go anywhere. You pointed it out yourself on Thursday night that we have absolutely nothing in common.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say nothing.” He gestured toward the bed. “We definitely have this.”

  Exactly. She swallowed hard. This was all they had. “Sex alone isn’t enough. It’s why I insisted on keeping things platonic.”

  His gaze snapped to her face. “If you’re suggesting I touched you without your permission—”

  “No-o.” She shook her head. “I want you, and you caught me in a weak moment. But I know I’ll only get hurt if we take this any further.”

  He silently rose and yanked his robe off the hook inside his closet door. After handing it to her, he winced, and turned away struggling to close his zipper over the bulge in his shorts. The tension in his jaw said he wasn’t pleased.

  She pulled on the robe, scrambled off the bed, and grabbed his arm. “Are you angry at me?”

  “No,” he muttered through his gritted teeth. “You have every right to change your mind. It’s just not easy for a guy to slam on the brakes once a woman revs his engine up and gives him a green light.”

  She certainly knew that. She had a son to prove some men didn’t care what color the light was. “I didn’t mean to let this happen.”

  “It’s okay. It’s just been a long time since my last race, if you know what I mean.”

  His analogy suggested she’d led him on. She knew that wasn’t his intention, but it still stung. She couldn’t ever let anything like this happen again. “Tyler, I’m really sorry.”

  He dragged a clean dress shirt off a hanger in the closet and yanked it on. “Don’t sweat it. I’ve been rejected before and lived.” He glanced at his watch. “I have a lunch meeting I have to be at in ninety minutes, anyway.” Scanning the buttons scattered over the carpet, he picked up his damp, stained shirt and handed it to her. “If you’re feeling badly, you could find all of my buttons and sew them back on before I send it to the cleaners.

  She glanced down at the Armani label and felt even guiltier—and a tiny bit flattered. Not only had she left him sexually frustrated, but he’d ruined a designer shirt in his impatience for her. After he’d given her the most incredible experience of her life.

  Talk about feeling like a tease.

  Chapter 6

  At five-o’clock, Mitch’s barking pulled Annie into the foyer. She opened the door and found a white delivery van parked in the circular driveway. The driver held out a clipboard for her to sign as he climbed the front steps. “I have a delivery for Noah Barnes.”

  Hearing his name, her son raced across the marble floor with Mandy right on his heels.

  “Is that you?” The man smiled at Noah’s expectant face.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, then you might as well come outside with me.” The man took the clipboard back after Annie scribbled her name.

  She left the dog in the house and studied the sales receipt, following the kids to the van.

  Tyler had ordered her son a bicycle? And not just any bike. By the time the store added in the cost of a helmet and tacked on tax and delivery charges, it had cost a small fortune. Or at least it was a fortune to her.

  “Wooow!” Noah’s eyes bugged out as the man lifted a black and chrome steel frame from the back of the van and adjusted the seat’s height and the training wheels for Noah.

  Mandy tugged on Annie’s shirt. “Can I ride my bike, too?”

  “Sure.” Once Annie opened the garage for Mandy, she folded the sales slip while she watched her son strap on the helmet Tyler had included and ride down the driveway, grinning ear to ear.

  Only moments after the van rolled out
of the driveway, Tyler’s Jaguar pulled in. He climbed out of the car, carrying a dozen pink, long-stemmed roses.

  She stomped across the driveway. “I don’t believe you! What’s everyone going to say when they find out you’ve bought my son an expensive bicycle?”

  He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Why would anyone know unless you tell them?”

  “And the roses? I thought you promised to keep our relationship business-like. It’s as if you’re trying to make me indebted to you.”

  “I’m doing nothing of the sort. Noah needed a bike, so I bought him one. I can’t fill in as his dad, if I’m not free to treat him like my son. And the flowers are a simple apology.”

  “For what?” If anyone needed forgiveness it was her.

  “For acting like a horny teenager jilted on prom night. The only excuse for my adolescent snit was lack of blood to the brain.”

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself. It wasn’t as if I didn’t lead you on.”

  “And you have nothing to feel guilty about, either. It was a lousy sexual encounter—not the end of civilization.”

  “Lousy?” She laughed. “Weren’t you the one trying to convince me how great we were together?”

  Tyler swung his arm around her neck and put her in a headlock while he pressed his face into her hair and murmured, “Woman, one of these days, you’re going to sass me once too often.”

  “The roses are beautiful.”

  “They’re also a thank you for the incredible job you’re doing. Dinner last night was one of the best meals I’ve had in....well, a very long time.

  She buried her nose in the blooms, breathing in their heady fragrance. “Thank you. But I simply did what I’m paid to do. And I hope you don’t expect anything like that tonight. I was out shopping for Mandy’s new clothes, so I didn’t have time to cook anything elaborate.”

  “I’m sure whatever you made is fine.”

  Noah rolled up, squealing, “Thanks for the bike.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” Tyler rubbed her son’s back. “Once I change my clothes, I’ll go for a ride with you and Mandy while your mom finishes fixing dinner.”

  Mandy pulled in behind Noah looking dejected. Annie couldn’t blame her for being upset that her father was paying so much attention to another kid.

  “Hey, Kitten.” Tyler planted a kiss on her forehead. “Why do you look so unhappy?”

  “I think maybe Mandy is wondering why Noah got a present and she didn’t,” Annie interjected.

  “Who says?” He reached into the back seat of his car and pulled out Caitlin who was wearing a frilly new dress and a replacement arm.

  “You fixed her!” Mandy screeched and threw her arms around her father’s legs, hugging them. “Thank you, Daddy!”

  Annie studied the doll and shook her head in amazement. “How did you get such a perfect match on her arm?”

  “Don’t ask. You really don’t want to know what that entailed.”

  She pulled him away from the kids. “No, really, how’d you do it?”

  “I had my paralegal spend the day hunting down a doll collector. She used a similar model from the same manufacturer as a limb donor.”

  Annie couldn’t even begin to guess what that had cost. Not only had he paid a collector’s price for the spare doll, he’d also had to cover all of the non-billable hours for his paralegal’s time.

  “So you’re saying, after all of that, now the other doll is floating around with no arm?”

  “Right. But what Mandy doesn’t know won’t hurt her. I also want to thank you for helping me realize Caitlin isn’t a simple toy to my daughter. She’s her baby. And I like to believe I’m a man who takes care of his family.”

  Annie glanced at Noah busy polishing his new bike with the hem of his T-shirt. Apparently, Tyler’s so-called family now included her son as well as Caitlin.

  His nonchalance over his extravagant gestures spoke volumes about the vast chasm between their worlds. She couldn’t fault him for spending money he evidently had—especially when he did it with so much love.

  What she had an issue with was Tyler’s total blindness to the awkward position it placed her in.

  ~*~

  Forty minutes later, Tyler cringed as he slid into his seat at the dinner table, and Annie spooned a huge helping of tuna casserole onto his plate. When he’d left home for college, he’d sworn he’d never eat another plate of that glop for as long as he lived.

  He had one of two choices. He could either choke down the meal she’d worked so hard to make or tell her how much he detested it and fix himself a peanut butter sandwich. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t set much of an example for the kids.

  In the end, Tyler silently shoveled in half of what Annie had served him and then pushed his plate aside. As soon as the kids were finished eating, they asked to be excused and hurried outside to play.

  “You didn’t like your dinner, did you?” Annie scraped the remainder of his meal into Mitch’s bowl.

  “Truthfully, no.” He smiled, hoping to take the sting out of his response. “But I despise tuna casserole, so please don’t take it personally. Yours was probably the best I’ve ever eaten.”

  “I thought we should have some fish. It’s not healthy to eat meat every night.”

  “Then buy some fresh flounder or salmon to broil.”

  “Have you seen the prices at the fish market?”

  “Yes, I have. I don’t work as hard as I do so our kids can eat as if we’re on food stamps.”

  His use of the phrase, our kids caused her head to jerk up.

  He gritted his teeth. What was wrong with him? He was talking as if they were married.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her wounded voice warbling. “The one time I asked what you’d like me to make, you said, ‘surprise me.’ I got the impression you weren’t especially fussy about your meals.”

  “I’m really not that particular.” As he stood and put his arm around her shoulder to comfort her, her silky curls brushed his face. Man, she smelled good. “I’m sorry I criticized your choice, Annie, but I want you to stop worrying about the cost.”

  “I don’t feel right spending more of your money than I have to. I don’t want you to think I’m wasting it.”

  If Erica were still alive, her sides would ache from laughing. He never dreamed he’d have to force a woman to spend his money. “I’ll let you know if I think the grocery bill is too high, okay?”

  He finished loading the plates into the dishwasher while Annie wiped off the table. Afterward, he settled on the sofa in the family room. “So what did you buy Mandy today?”

  “I got her a few things. But I’d really like to take her with me for the rest so she can help pick them out.”

  “Let’s see what you got.”

  She handed him a couple of bags, and as he rooted through them, studying the discount store tags, his stomach fell. The whole reason he’d pulled all-nighters in law school was so his children wouldn’t have to wear budget clothing that shrunk and faded after a couple of washings.

  Apparently Annie and he had to come to an understanding about his standard of living.

  She sat next to him on the couch. “Isn’t that dress adorable?”

  “It’s very cute.” He sucked in a long breath, attempting to find a way to be tactful. “Listen, this is probably going to sound snobbish, but I don’t mean it that way. I can afford a lot better than what you’ve bought. When you get the rest of Mandy’s clothes, I want you to take her to the department stores at the mall and buy her brand-name clothes.”

  Annie’s back stiffened. “In other words, someplace expensive.”

  “I’m not talking about cost. I’m referring to quality. If you want to pinch my pennies and shop at factory outlets for premium grade clothes, great. I appreciate getting top value for my money as much as anyone. I simply don’t want to come home to a meal I could get in a soup kitchen and see my daughter dressed like a beggar girl in outfits that fade and
shrink after you launder them a few times.”

  She glanced outside at the kids playing on the gym set in the yard. “So you’re saying my son looks like a beggar?”

  “No. I didn’t mean that.”

  Or did he? He studied Noah’s limp, washed out T-shirt and vinyl sneakers. The child looked a lot like Tyler had at six. His matchstick arms and legs hung out of a pair of shorts and a T-shirt that looked as if the child’s outfit had been shot with the reducing machine from Honey I Shrunk the Kids. He doubted it was because Noah had grown all that fast. His discount clothing had inevitably shriveled like the skin on a raisin, just as Tyler’s had when he’d been a child.

  Not that his father had ever cared. Phil Fitzpatrick had been more worried about investing what little money they’d had into some horserace or a poker game. Paying the bills had always depended on the length of some gelding’s nose or the turn of a card.

  “Noah doesn’t look like a beggar, Annie. But he also doesn’t look like a little boy whose dad gives a crap about him.”

  Her eyes squeezed shut. “Well, obviously that’s because his father doesn’t.”

  Tyler turned and brushed her soft curls away from her eyes so he could see them better. “What happened with Noah’s dad? Isn’t he helping to support your son?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it. He’s not part of our lives and never will be.”

  “Don’t you have any family that could help you? Or friends?”

  She slowly shook her head. “My dad’s brother lives in Wisconsin, but I haven’t seen him since I was a little kid. And my mom’s sister died from a drug overdose as a teenager. Having a baby at sixteen put me out of step with everyone else my age, so my friends drifted away, one by one.”

  “Legally, Noah’s father is as responsible for his well-being as you are. If you want me to help you go after him for financial support, I will.”

  “No. Now drop it.” She gathered up the clothes she’d bought and stuffed them back in the bags. “Since you’re not happy with these, I’ll return them tomorrow. I think you’d better pick out Mandy’s clothes yourself. I have no idea what a fair price is at the kind of stores you want me to shop at.”