“But we haven’t had phone sex yet.” She gave me the cutest playful pout, the mischievousness shining in her eyes.
“Trust me.” I grinned. “You’re not missing much, seeing as you’re about to get the real thing before the night is up.” Then an idea hit me. “But if you’re adamant in living that fantasy of yours, we could always combine it with that other one of yours.”
Sure, my overtness had her blushing, but the glazing over of those green eyes of hers told me that her curiosity was piqued.
“Tell me, baby,” I rasped. “How wet are you for me right now?”
“Kip…”
“I fucking love the breathless way you say that.” I nipped her lower lip. “Now tell me. If I were to strip you bare right now, would I have to go slow, or would I be able to pound into—”
Devolin snapped.
Fingernails dug into my scalp as she pulled me by the hair, covering my mouth with hers in the most aggressive kiss she’d given me yet. I swear, I was ten seconds from combusting.
“For the love of Christ!”
Devolin ripped her mouth from mine as soon as Skylar announced her presence.
Fuck!
Dropping my head to my woman’s shoulder, my body started shaking with laughter. “Hey, sis,” rumbled out of me. “You mind giving us another minute?”
On a huff, I heard her feet shuffle. “Fine. Dad just texted. He’s five minutes out, and I’m pretty sure Dev doesn’t want to meet him looking like a puffer fish.”
Devolin released a horrified gasp. “Put me down, Dalton,” she whispered her panic.
I pulled back enough to take a good look at her, but I didn’t let her go.
She’d put some work into her appearance. Her hair was down, a slight wave in it, making the reds in her auburn locks more pronounced. She was wearing a sexy little sundress. Her makeup was heavier, yet very subtle, only because she rarely wore anything more than mascara, or so I’d discovered since meeting her. Those pink lips of hers were closer to a dark rose color now, and swollen.
“You look beautiful,” I told her.
“I need to fix myself up,” she rebutted.
“Babe?”
“Put me down, Kip,” she stated exasperatedly, fussing against me.
“Babe,” I groaned, then pressed my still swollen cock against her. “You’re not helping me with that wiggling of yours.”
“Then put me down, Dalton,” she growled. “I don’t need to meet your dad for the first time with you flying at full mast, looking like you are about to fuck my brains out.”
Recognizing how important this first meeting was to her, I loosened my grip on her ass and slid her body down mine until her feet met the floor.
Sighing, she leaned her forehead against my chest. “Thank you.”
“I love you,” I said against her hair.
Tilting her head back to look up at me, I was gifted with that beautiful smile of hers. “I love you, too,” she said just as the doorbell rang. “Shit! Fuck! Damn!” she blurted, pushing me back and making a beeline for the bathroom.
As for me, I headed for the front door, laughing as I opened it, coming face-to-face with someone who shouldn’t be standing there.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Chapter 44
Devolin
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
That wasn’t Dalton’s father.
“I’ll ask again, Suzie, what the fuck are you doing here?” Dalton ordered.
Suzie?
“Fuck, what is she doing here?” Skylar whispered from behind me, making me jump.
“Shit, Sky! Don’t creep up on me like that!” I scolded her. “Who’s Suzie?”
“You remember Suzanna from the other night?” She was referring to the night we’d gone out to McAskill’s with Tamara.
“Uh…how can I forget?” Now that I thought of it, the woman’s voice sounded familiar.
Suzanna had been what had driven me to drink so much that night.
Bumping into her, on our way to pick up our takeout, the woman had gone off about Dalton, right before she zeroed in on me. I’d never met her before, yet she claimed she knew all about me, and then proceeded to tell me that she was shocked that the man would choose to be with someone like me: the poor sickly recluse. It stung, and I tried to let the insult slide, but Skylar jumped to my defence.
I had no idea what I’d done to deserve that stranger’s wrath.
Regardless, she’d been a stranger who Dalton had wanted to marry.
His ex-fiancée to be more precise.
After that run-in with the wacko, I’d asked Skylar for details. She’d cheated on him repeatedly, getting herself knocked up in the process. For a man I knew wanted a family, I felt for him. Thing is, no matter which angle I chose to look at things, I couldn’t picture that high-maintenance nut job with the man I’d come to know. As much as Dalton was structured in his work life, he was pretty down to earth on a personal level. Sure, he was intense no matter what, but he knew what he wanted and went for it balls to the wall. No one could fault him for that. If anything, it was one of the traits I admired most about him. That and his integrity. The man didn’t do anything if it would mess with his belief system. He was very black and white to my grey in views, which seemed to balance us out perfectly.
“What’s going on here?” A man bellowed from the front door. “You shouldn’t be here, Suzanna.”
“Dad,” Skylar whispered at my back.
“I was only here to warn you, but I can see it’s pointless.” Her eyes were trained past Dalton’s shoulders on me. I hadn’t realized I’d moved away from my hiding spot. “If you think I hurt you, you have no idea what you’re in for with her.”
After a brief stare down with me, a maleficent glint in her eyes, the woman turned on her heel and left.
As soon as the front door latched shut, Dalton’s father turned his attention to me, sporting that familiar grin, a singular dimple appearing on the left of his face. “Who do we have here?”
“Daddy!” Skylar started for our visitor.
Dalton backed away from father and daughter, coming to snag me around the waist and pulling me into his side.
“You okay?” he whispered.
Nodding, I mumbled, “We need to talk,” below my breath.
He didn’t say anything. Only nodded.
When Skylar parted from her father, the man immediately zeroed in on Dalton’s arm around my waist.
Shaking his father’s hand, Dalton took care of introductions. “Dad, I’d like you to meet Devolin. My girlfriend.”
The older man’s brows rose as he gave a questioning glance at his daughter. “Your friend Devolin?” Skylar nodded. “Well, hell!”
He sauntered the rest of the way, grabbed my hand. and pulled me toward him as Dalton and Skylar uttered, “Dad!” in warning.
He froze before he could get his arms around me, sympathy spreading across his face the moment he read my stiffened posture, and what most likely could have been taken as panic in my eyes.
Knowing that the man standing before me was who’d raised the one at my side, it was easy enough to get past my standoffish behavior. I moved toward him, hesitantly offering him an awkward hug.
“Sweetheart,” he said gruffly, his arms coming around, holding me loosely. “You don’t—”
“You’re a hugging family,” I said by way of explaining, the side of my face pressed against his chest, my eyes trained on Dalton, who was smiling sweetly at me with what looked like approval in his gaze. “It’s not your fault I have…issues I need to work on.” The man released me, his hands grabbing my hands to hold them between us. “I suppose it’s the curse of being used as a pincushion for most of my life.” I shrugged.
The man harrumphed. “How are you feeling? Skylar’s told me a lot about you.” He grinned.
“I’m much better.” I returned his smile. “Can
I get you a drink?”
Chapter 45
Dalton
The women had put so much work into dinner, that I’d sent them out onto the back patio, promising coffee, tea, and dessert as soon as Dad and I had tidied up the dishes and kitchen.
“I like her,” my father said, as he stacked the last of the dishes into the dishwasher, and I finished with the last of the pots, draining the sink.
We’d succeeded in ignoring the elephant in the room the entire evening for long enough. I felt like a heel having to put an end to something we hadn’t had in several years. Ever since Cora, Skylar’s mom, had sent all three of our lives into a tailspin, things hadn’t been the same. Thanks to Devolin, the evening had felt like the good old days.
“We need to talk,” I told him.
“Yes, we do.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Dalton.”
Drying my hands on the dish towel, setting it on the counter by the sink, I turned to meet his gaze head on. Skylar was right. Upon my own quick inspection, something weighed heavily on him. It was in the way his shoulders slouched in defeat. It was in the glimmer of failure in his eyes.
“Dad…”
He lifted a hand to halt my words, shaking his head to enforce that I remain silent.
“You haven’t had it easy, son. When we lost your mother—”
“Dad, I know it wasn’t easy on you either,” I said.
“You needed a mother,” he said. “I couldn’t believe my luck when I met Cora. When she told me she was pregnant, I’ll admit, I didn’t love her, but she gifted me with another child to love, so I did the honorable thing.”
“You don’t need to explain,” I told him. I would have done the same.
“I do, son. I do.” Taking a deep breath, he continued. “I didn’t love Cora the way a man should love a woman, but I did grow to love her in some way. It simply wasn’t enough. After years of trying, I couldn’t do it anymore.” I remember those days as if they were just yesterday. “She was sucking the life out of me, Dalt. I didn’t handle it well when you told me you saw her with another man.” He hadn’t. “I was pissed at her. Pissed at myself, and I was pissed at you for having to be the one to point her bullshit out to me, even though I could feel that something was going on.”
“The day she signed the divorce papers that would bleed me dry, I couldn’t have been happier,” he confessed. “I didn’t give a shit about my inheritance. So long as she didn’t touch yours and your sister’s, I would have given her every fucking cent.”
The apple doesn’t far from the tree. It’s why my father and I butted heads so often.
“I know you would have.” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “It’s the fact that she’s still around after it all. I get that Skylar needed her mom. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with that. And she was a good one for a while afterward. It’s that—”
“It’s done, son.”
“Dad—”
“It’s done,” he said with finality.
I pinned him with my gaze. “Then why was she there last weekend? Even though I wasn’t, she should have stayed away. Did you think Skylar and I wouldn’t talk about Cora showing? I see my sister at least once a week, Dad, of course she’d tell me that woman had been around.”
“She was trying to warn me. I haven’t seen her since I was in the hospital, son.” It had been two months since his heart attack.
“Warn you?” My laugh came out with all the sarcasm I intended for it to hold. “What could she have to warn you about?”
“She ran into Suzanna, who told her that she was back in town. Permanently. In fact, she’s been back for quite some time.”
Oh.
“I knew about it, since I had to learn from Shane, when I visited the precinct, that you were thinking about taking a restraining order out on her,” he explained.
I nodded. “She’s been calling nonstop, so I knew it was the next logical thing to do. Before you ask, I have no idea what she wants from me.”
“Have you looked into her?”
“No.” It was stupid, and I knew it, but things have been so neurotically chaotic for me lately. “I’ll get one of the guys on it.”
Dad gave me his nod of approval. “Good. I’m done with this bullshit. I want my fucking family back, because if what I see brewing between you and that pretty little thing out there is as strong as it looks, I want to be able to enjoy it.” He grinned. “I’m too fucking old for my own drama, but I’m never too old to watch that woman,” he pointed toward the patio door, “make you run in circles around her.”
It fucking felt great to laugh with the man in front of me. “Who says she won’t be the one doing the dancing?”
His laugh came out loud and boisterous, then calmed, but the humor still dominated his features. “Because…if she wasn’t, you wouldn’t look at her the way you do. I was like that with your mother.” His smile was forced, the sadness taking over. “I would have done anything for that woman and she knew it.”
“I told her about Mom,” I confessed. “I haven’t told her everything else, but I want to.”
He seemed as surprised as I had been when I’d made the decision to give Devolin some of my darkness, starting with my mother. “You did?”
“I love her,” escaped me in a whispered reason.
Wrapping a hand behind my neck, he squeezed and said, “Then dance, boy.” He pulled me in for a hug and a slap on the back. “Love you, son.”
“Love you too, old man.” I smacked him back.
Skylar and Dad had left less than an hour ago, and Devolin had retired to my bedroom to get into something more ‘comfortable.’
“Babe?” I called out toward the bathroom where I heard water stop running.
“Yeah?”
Stripping my shirt and chucking it into the hamper next to the closet, I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”
“Uh-huh.”
She walked out of the bathroom wearing one of my t-shirts. I struggled to keep my mind on track. I wanted this conversation to be done and over with. Hell, I’d been happy if I didn’t have to have it at all, but Suzanna needed to be dealt with, and Devolin needed to be in the know on how I planned to do that, as well as what to expect.
“Talked to Skylar earlier, when she came in looking for dessert,” I told her.
“Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you met Suzanna?” I stuck out my hand for her to take. Now I knew why she’d called me a heartbreaker.
She grabbed hold, and I pulled her until she stood between my legs, settling my hands on her hips.
She snorted. “Meeting would imply an introduction. One I never got directly. And it wasn’t exactly a conversation I wanted to rehash until I was ready.”
“You weren’t just pissed at my demanding you explain about Hewitt that night you went out with the girls, were you?”
“No.” She made to touch my cheek, her thumb rubbing against my day worth stubble. “That basically put me over the edge though. The shit she knew about me. I don’t know how she did, but I don’t get why she’d even rub it in my face.” Biting her bottom lip, I could see she was fighting something in her head.
“What is it, sweetheart?” I asked. “Just ask and I’ll tell you.”
“Skylar told me that she cheated on you and got pregnant with the other man’s kid, but what exactly happened with her?”
By the time I finished explaining my history with Suzanna, Devolin was pacing my bedroom, anger pouring off her in droves.
“Do you think she’ll stir trouble?” she asked me.
“I hope not, but now that she’s back in town, who knows.”
“I…I.” She was so flustered, she couldn’t even speak. “I want to rip her throat out, right now, for what she did to you. Cheating was bad enough, but no…she had to do it with a friend? And she aborted the baby without him knowing?” She huffed, “This is a real life soap opera, y
ou can’t make this shit up, Dalton!”
Her defense of my character had me going to her.
Too busy with her rant, she never saw me coming. Putting a shoulder into her stomach, I picked her up, then flipped her onto her back on my bed, making sure not to crush her as I landed over her, smiling.
“I don’t see anything worth smiling about,” she snapped.
She braced her hands on my chest as I played with a strand of her hair by her temple. “You’re hot when you’re spitting mad.”
Her brows furrowed. “I am?”
“Downright sexy.” I nuzzled her nose, my eyes studying hers. “But as much as I appreciate you defending my honor, I rather move on to a more enjoyable part of our evening.”
Not waiting for a response, my mouth crashed to hers.
Chapter 46
Devolin
The instant Dalton’s mouth hit mine, I lost myself in him.
That’s what he did to me.
He transformed me into a glutton for all things him. The more he gave me, the more I wanted. My obsession was my salvation when it came to him.
His lips moved to my neck, his hands migrating to my hips, sneaking underneath the soft cotton of the shirt I was wearing.
“Have I told you how much I love you in my shirts?” he rumbled against my carotid, his tongue licking up the column of my neck to my jaw, where he nipped its edge.
My breath caught momentarily before kicking in at a pant. “I love having something of yours wrapped around me,” I confessed. “I think I might highjack a tee or two to take home with me.”
This netted me a growly laugh, even though his mouth continued to play with the skin of my neck, his hands questing, finding my already pert nipples. “Or you could just stay here and have unlimited access to all the tees you want,” he mumbled against my ear, scraping his teeth on the tender skin just below it.
I arched up into him. “I…I—”
“Lift your arms, sweetheart.”
Doing as he asked, my shirt was shimmied up and was over my head, onto the floor, somewhere behind Dalton in the next second.
Night Break Page 17