by Claire Kent
He picked up another cracker and dropped it into the container. "Pick up time."
With a loud sniff, Mackenzie plopped her bottom onto the floor and fisted a cracker with one of her hands. Then dropped the crumbling cracker into the container, just like Seth had.
“That’s right,” Seth said, nodding at her encouragingly. “Pick up time.”
She picked up another cracker. This one stuck to her hand so she had to wriggle her fingers to get it to fall into the container. One by one, she kept picking them up, a look of trembling concentration on her face. Seth kept picking them up too, so soon all the crackers were back in the container.
Seth snapped the lid onto the container and pulled himself up to his feet. “Very good,” he announced, a warmer edge in his voice. “We picked them all up. Thank you.”
Mackenzie wobbled to her feet and stared up at him. “Kers.”
Seth nodded, smiling a little, although the expression on his face was oddly shaky now. “Yes. We picked up the crackers. Thank you. Good job.”
Mackenzie suddenly crumbled. She burst into tears. Clung to Seth’s leg in a desperate, urgent hug.
Seth knelt down again and pulled Mackenzie into his arms, holding her tightly, urgently, and then picking her up as he stood. “Good job,” he kept murmuring. “Good job.”
Mackenzie sobbed and clutched at his shirt, until the brief storm had faded into little gurgles and gasps. Erin could hear her choking out, “Dada” and “ots.”
Erin managed to pull herself together by the time Seth finally released their daughter, telling her “good job” and “thank you” one more time.
Seth’s expression was so tense now that Erin knew he needed a minute alone, so she wiped Mackenzie’s cheeks and asked, “Are you ready for your nap now?”
Mackenzie bobbed her head several times.
Erin avoided Seth’s eyes, knowing he didn’t want her to pry right now, but she squeezed his shoulder gently before she left to take Mackenzie into the nursery.
There, instead of putting Mackenzie into the crib immediately, she pulled her into her arms and cradled her in her lap in the rocker—just as she’d wanted to do earlier. Stroking the messy red hair, Erin kissed and cuddled her, murmuring out a lot of nonsense that she prayed no one else would ever hear.
Mackenzie babbled incoherently for a while, too tired to make a lot of sense. Until she looked up at Erin’s face and pronounced distinctly, “Kers.”
Erin nodded. “Yes. Crackers. You got mad and threw the crackers. So you had to pick them up.” She had absolutely no idea how much her daughter understood. Sometimes, it felt like she didn’t understand very much. But sometimes, like now, she seemed to understand everything.
Nodding subduedly, Mackenzie repeated, “Kers.”
Then she snuggled back against Erin’s chest. “Momma,” she mumbled.
“Mommy loves you. Lots and lots.” She squeezed her and kissed one of her cheeks.
“Ots,” Mackenzie repeated happily, trying to squeeze Erin too.
“Yes. Lots and lots. Mommy and daddy love you lots and lots.”
Erin was about to take her to the crib when Mackenzie said, “Ots. Dada.” Her eyes looked huge and perfectly round.
Erin managed to answer what she took to be a question, “Yes. Daddy loves you. Lots and lots and lots.”
Mackenzie mumbled something incoherent and contented. She was about to fall asleep, so Erin ended the extended hug and lowered her into the crib.
She really hoped Seth was all right.
She’d seen his expression when he was holding Mackenzie and telling her she’d done a good job. Erin had seen his eyes, had known how to read them.
And she wondered—not for the first time—if anyone had ever told him the same thing.
She hoped it was soon enough to find him now, and so she went back through the apartment, glancing around until she found him still in the sunroom.
He was slouched on the sofa, his head leaning back against the sofa and his eyes closed.
“Hey,” she murmured, approaching him and doing her best not to pull him into a hug and cradle him the way she’d done with Mackenzie. “Okay?”
“I'm not in danger of having a breakdown, if that's what you mean,” Seth replied, opening his eyes and giving her his half-smile.
Erin was so glad to see that smile. The clench in her stomach relaxed.
“Although I wish I hadn’t...” he began, frowning and looking exhausted again. “She’s so tiny. And maybe she’s too young to really understand. I shouldn’t have...” His voice trailed off and he closed his eyes again, something like guilt on his face.
Deciding she was allowed now to put her arms around him, Erin did so, kissing him softly on the side of the jaw. “You were great. Perfect. Of course, she’s tiny, but kids mature at different rates. She's pretty smart. I think she understood.”
Seth looked over at her, giving her the opportunity to press a kiss on the side of his mouth. “Do you think so? I thought she knew what she was doing. I can recognize conscious defiance when I see it. But then she started to cry so much, and I thought maybe I’d just scared her and she didn’t understand why.”
“I think she did,” Erin assured him, pressing up against him. “She was just crying because she was tired and she’d gone through too much emotion. It’s hard to tell exactly how much, but she at least understood some of it. She was telling me about it in the nursery.”
A warm glint awoke in his eyes. “Was she? What was she saying?”
Erin grinned and massaged the back of his neck with one of her hands. “She was telling me about the crackers. And then she was making sure that you still loved her.”
At this, Seth’s brows drew together. “She was what? You mean she doesn’t know?”
“I’m sure she knows,” Erin said hurriedly, realizing she’d inadvertently evoked a haunting fear in Seth. “She just likes to hear it. Ots. She was saying it to you when you were hugging her.” Erin smiled wistfully at the memory. “That’s what ‘ots’ means.”
Seth stood up abruptly and strode out of the room.
Erin stared at the empty doorway, rather dumbfounded and feeling kind of rejected. Until she realized what Seth had gone to do.
He was going to wake Mackenzie up from her nap to tell her that he loved her. To make sure he said it.
To make sure she knew.
***
When he returned to join her, he collapsed back on the couch, looking like he’d been through a war.
She gazed at him for a long moment, trying to process the depth of her feelings for this intense, conflicted, brilliant, articulate, incredibly loving man.
With a hoarse sound, she hugged him against her again. “God, I’m so in love with you, Seth.”
His arms tightened around her urgently. So tightly it felt like he might bruise her ribs. She didn’t care. She needed it. Needed to feel as much of him as she could.
After a minute, Seth murmured, “Did you need to talk about anything?”
She knew that too was a sacrifice, since he’d been already stretched too far today for a man as reserved as him.
“No. The talking part of the afternoon is now over.” She kissed him, an ache of arousal starting to deepen between her legs as he kissed her back, hard and eager.
She slid one hand down to cup his groin. He wasn’t hard yet, but she could feel his flesh tighten as she massaged him with skilled familiarity. As she did so, she stretched her body up so she could mouth his jaw, sliding her lips along the rough skin and fluttering her tongue when she reached his ear.
Seth groaned beneath her, and she felt him harden even more under her hand. He stretched out his legs and pressed his fingers into the flesh of her ass through the denim of her jeans.
The feel of his body tensing up beneath her was nearly as arousing as the touch of his hands. Erin was breathing faster now, and she could feel a pulsing intensify between her legs.
She trailed a line of kisse
s down until she met his lips. His mouth opened for hers immediately, and she sucked his tongue into her mouth. As they kissed, she kept squeezing the hardening bulge at the front of his pants, until Seth began to grunt softly into her mouth and slid his hands up to tug at her shirt.
Deciding he had the right idea, Erin managed to tear her lips away from his so he could pull her shirt off over her head. Then he unhooked her bra and pulled the fabric away from her breasts, baring them to his intent gaze.
Her breasts were definitely not what they’d been before she’d been pregnant and nursed their daughter, but Seth didn’t seem to mind the difference. His eyes raked over her naked upper body—wild and possessive.
“Seth,” she breathed, dropping her head backwards and sliding her hands up to cup her breasts.
Seth made a sound in his throat that vaguely resembled a growl, and he pulled on her body until she’d raised herself up enough for him to take one nipple in his mouth.
Erin shifted her hands to the back of the couch. Clutched at the cushions and moaned low in her throat as Seth’s skillful mouth and tongue suckled, teased, and stimulated her.
When she began to squirm her hips, trying to get some friction against her arousal, Erin decided foreplay had gone on long enough.
She pulled her body away from him, causing Seth to make a throaty sound of disappointment. Then she stumbled off him completely, so she could take off her jeans and panties.
Considering something for the first time, she gave Seth a dry smile as she struggled to pull off her jeans. “Why don’t you spread one of those throws out underneath you?”
Seth was slouching low on the couch, looking rumpled and flushed and irresistible. He blinked at her, still staring at her now naked body in a hot daze. “Why?”
She shrugged sheepishly. “The couch is new.”
It only took a moment for him to understand her point. With a soft laugh, he agreeably heaved himself up and spread out a fleece throw beneath him before he sat down again. “How much of a mess are you expecting us to make?”
“Well,” Erin replied defensively, straddling him again. “You never know. I seem to recall an occasion or two where I became unusually...wet.”
Seth smiled dangerously at the memory. “I seem to recall that as well.” One of his hands slipped between her legs to stroke her pussy. “Any sign of excessive wetness today?”
She huffed at him. Or tried to huff. It came out more as a breathless gasp as his fingers found what they were looking for. “Oh, yeah,” she breathed, arching back as he stroked her. “A little bit.”
After a moment, she realized that Seth still had all his clothes on. While she saw no reason for them to waste the time in getting him entirely naked, she didn’t want him totally covered either. So she started to bunch up his shirt until he had to free his hand from between her legs in order to let her pull the shirt off over his head.
When his chest was bare, she caressed the hard, smooth lines of his shoulders and ribs. Then reached down to the button of his jeans. With a little fumbling and adjusting from both of them, his hard cock was free and accessible.
She rolled her thumb over the tip, making him grunt and buck up into her hand. “Erin.”
She gazed down at his tense face and sprawled body. Felt a surge of love, power, and possessiveness overwhelm her.
She brushed her hand down the hard length of his shaft.
Seth groaned faintly and fisted his hand in the sofa beside him.
She would have loved to draw this out even more—she loved every breathless sound—but her own arousal was pushing her into urgency.
Seth had scooted down enough now to make the positioning easier, so she raised herself up on her knees over his lap. He moved a hand to his cock to lift it into position, and, when she could feel the tip of it nudging her entrance, she lowered herself over him, taking him fully inside.
They both groaned as she sheathed his cock with her body. His hips pumped up a few times against her weight, in three initial, involuntary thrusts.
Erin hissed out a pleased sound at the tight fullness and wrapped her arms tightly around him, holding him as close as she could.
Seth’s arms were around her too, and they stayed in a deep, intimate embrace for a minute, breathing deeply and holding each other.
Erin loved it. Loved the quiet urgency of it. Loved how absolutely close she felt to him. How much of him she could feel.
Couldn’t believe she was capable of loving and being loved like this.
But Seth finally started shifting beneath her. His voice was breathless and right in her ear. “I’m sorry, baby. You’ve got to move.”
She felt another silly wave of giddiness. She loved that he needed her like this. Needed her in so many ways.
Erin began to rock over him, causing the substance of his cock to shift inside her with subtle, luscious friction.
Seth took a quick breath, his expression tight and focused. He moved his arms until his fingers dug into the flesh of her ass, unconsciously guiding her motion.
All of the gathered urgency at her center pushed her to ride him for real, to claim the aching orgasm that was waiting for her. But she kept her motion slow, minimal, increasing their need and extending their pleasure.
“Erin,” Seth choked, one of his arms reaching out to fumble for purchase on the cushion beside him, as he visibly struggled to suppress his drive to thrust, to claim her, to fuck her. His face twisted, and his pelvis almost squirmed beneath her rocking. “Fuck, Erin.”
“Yeah,” Erin breathed, searching out his lips in a hungry, clumsy kiss. Her tongue dipped into his mouth, stroking into it in a rhythmic, instinctive pattern.
Seth grunted, as he buried the fingers of one hand in her hair.
She felt another overwhelming surge of feeling. Of intoxicated giddiness. Of tenderness. Of familiarity. Of need. Of visceral heat. Of love.
Of love.
Of love.
All of it at once.
She had to hold him tighter, had to squeeze him with her arms, with her legs, with her inner muscles.
His whole body twitched in response to her tightening around him. His hips jerked up and he tore his mouth away from hers. “Erin, baby,” he panted, his head lolling back onto the couch behind him. “Please.”
She released a long, lingering moan and then released the hold she’d had on her weakening control. Started to move over him more rapidly, more urgently—riding him with a fast, satisfying rhythm.
“Yes,” Seth hissed, holding onto her ass and pulling her back onto him more deeply on every down stroke. “Yes.”
Erin was already panting, her entire body flushed. Her motion was slightly limited in her position, straddling him on the couch, but her thighs worked frantically, trying to give them both the friction they needed. “Yeah,” she huffed out, her voice choppy as she bounced over him. “God, Seth.”
Seth’s neck jerked, and he swallowed a loud exclamation of either effort or restraint. His skin was covered in a sheen of sweat, and he was visibly trying to hold himself back.
Erin knew this afternoon had been emotionally taxing for him. Knew he didn’t have the control he normally had.
She didn’t want him to have to hold back anymore. She could feel her own orgasm swelling up, so she tried to angle her hips to get a little more friction on her clit.
Her whole body jiggled with her motion, and it sent jolts of stimulation shooting back to the ache at her core. She was grunting now as much as Seth was.
“Fuck,” Seth gasped, his back arching against the sofa. Then he started bucking his hips up into her bouncing, unable to hold himself back anymore.
His clumsy thrusting intensified the sensations. She could feel the moisture seeping out from where they were joined. Could hear the wet sound of suction beneath the slapping of their skin together.
His cock was hitting inside her now, and her clit was getting exquisite, indirect stimulation.
Erin could feel her climax
starting to peak. Felt like her entire body was going to burst into flame.
With a desperate sound, she found Seth’s mouth again. Needed to feel him. Love him. Be as close as she could possibly make him.
She was kissing him hungrily, frantically, when her orgasm finally broke. She didn’t pull away from his mouth as her body started to convulse.
She heard Seth make a helpless, choking sound into her mouth as Erin whimpered with the waves of pleasure. But she kept her arms around him. Kept kissing him.
And was still kissing him when she felt him come too.
His hips pushed up into her clenching muscles, and his arms tightened around her so suddenly she grunted in surprise.
Then she felt the tension in his body release itself. Heard him moan—long, low, and guttural. Felt the pulsing of his cock against the tight clasp of her body. Felt him come in short spasms inside her.
Their mouths finally parted as their bodies began to relax. Both of them panted desperately. Hot, damp, clinging to each other, their skin sticking resiliently.
“Seth,” Erin gasped, her head falling forward until it was buried in the space between his head and shoulders. “I love you so much.”
“I know,” Seth replied hoarsely. His body was softening beneath her, and his hands were no longer urgent. Instead, they were stroking her back and hips tenderly. “I love you too.”
They sat like that for a long time, completely absorbed in their silent, lingering embrace.
Until Erin became aware of a few uncomfortable details. Her back was getting a little chilly. And there was a lot of moisture leaking out from where Seth’s sated cock was still inside her.
But she still didn’t want to move. Said randomly, “Did you ever imagine we would end up here?”
“On the couch? I figured we’d have sex here eventually.”
Erin snorted. “You know what I mean.” She lifted her face so she could look down on him.
There was a long pause while Seth watched her deeply, silently.
“Yeah,” he admitted at last. “I know what you mean.”
She stupidly got a little choked up. Managed to catch herself before she started to cry. “When did you fall in love with me?” she asked, wondering why she was saying the words, even as they were leaving her mouth.