by Quinn, Cari
Sensing a rat—in the shape of her very sexy husband—she picked up his cell and clicked on his photos. The first one that came up was of her curled up on their bed, her legs slightly parted. She was obviously asleep and still wearing her bikini from swimming earlier that day. “This was from last week.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Aside from her breasts defying gravity in their triangle cups and her belly looking pretty round over her bikini bottoms, she didn’t see anything lewd on that one. Nor did she see anything inappropriate on the next one, which was of her on her back, knees akimbo. Still unconscious.
“Weirdo creeper,” she said, thumping him in the belly. “Taking pictures of me when I’m asleep. And they’re not even hot ones, for fuck’s sake.”
“I beg to differ. Those are extremely hot shots. Your tits are huge and straining against your bikini top. Those strings are barely holding them in.”
She bit her lip. “Yeah, okay.” She didn’t get the whole breast fascination thing unless it involved a crispy outside layer and came in a bucket, but whatever. She couldn’t say she minded him perving on her chest.
“Your belly is swollen with my baby and your navel is poking out just the slightest bit. So damn sexy.”
“Hmm.”
“And the dirtiest part of all? Between your legs I can see the faintest outline of your clit piercing.”
“You can not.”
“Yes, you can. Look closer.”
She squinted. “I see nothing. And if this is what I traded my notebook for, you better plan on living between my thighs tonight because I demand recompense.”
“What part of me between your thighs?”
“All of them,” she grumbled. “On a steady rotation.”
He chuckled. “I can do that.”
“Con artist. Making me give up my secrets for a picture of—of—”
“My absolutely beautiful wife and mother of my child taking a nap practically naked? Yes. I’m such a con artist.” He reached over to pat her leg. “I gotta say, you shouldn’t have ever believed I’d take a naked picture of you without your permission. Who does that?” He ignored her growl. “Though I must admit that now you’ve put the idea in my head…”
She reached over and smacked him. Hard. “Six hours straight. No refreshments. Just my pussy.”
His smirk made her nipples stand at attention. “Sounds like a win-win to me.” He lifted the notebook. “I’m thinking maybe I should pull over and read this right now.”
She tuned out his laughter and plotted revenge.
Serious freaking revenge.
Three
He was the luckiest man alive.
Sure, there had been a few rocky moments when Jazz had threatened him with such horrible tasks as marathon hours of pussy eating, and she’d done her fair share of growling, but now she was singing along to the radio and the breeze was blowing through her long dark hair. And fuck him, but he’d never been happier or more grateful than in this moment.
Or any of the others that had come after she’d said “I do.”
Her cheerful bubble popped the instant he took the freeway exit that would lead them to Vista View, their old stomping grounds. His old stomping grounds, more accurately. They’d first met each other when she’d been placed as a foster child in his house as a teenager, and he was pretty sure most of her earlier memories of living with his family were good. At least he hoped so.
What had occurred between Jazz and his older brother Brent when she was sixteen had shattered that, and he’d been trying to make up for it ever since.
He didn’t know if his surprises today would all be good or if they’d stir up some uncomfortable memories. His goal was to change that—to erase the past as best as he could and make new memories that she’d never want to forget.
His goal might be shit, but he was trying anyway.
“Where are we going?” Jazz tugged her bare feet off the dashboard—her usual position when she rode shotgun, because even with her growing belly she was still tiny and stupidly flexible—and sat up straighter. “Why are we here?”
“Surprise, remember?” He cupped her knee and rubbed his thumb over the G-clef she’d drawn in marker on the side of her leg. Even though she was now married and pregnant, she still used markers to draw on herself, as she had since the first day he’d met her.
She didn’t have tattoos. She had Crayola.
“I remember, but why here? There’s nothing here for us but bad—”
“That’s so not true.”
She fell silent.
“Okay, I’ll give you a hint where we’re headed first. Think game machines and Cosmo articles on blowjobs.”
Her lips wiggled as she fought a smile. “That’s not a bad memory.”
“Duh. See, I told you.”
She shifted toward him on the seat, the sunshine slashing across her earnest expression. “So, where else?”
“Wait and see.” He pushed his hand against her forehead, making her laugh. The best sound in the whole world.
“Fine.” She slid him a look under her lashes. “I trust you.”
“I should hope so, since you pledged all eternity to me, you jerk.”
She laughed again and resumed singing. That didn’t stop her from giving him suspicious sidelong glances every few moments.
By the time he turned into the lot of the Grab ‘n Go convenience store near his old house, she was back to bopping her feet and doing air drums. He grinned and pocketed his sunglasses. That was one of the things he loved most about her. She never stayed worried for long. His Jazz was irrepressible.
“So…since the last time we were here, you bought condoms we never used—and since we obviously are a day late and a dollar short there,” she patted her belly while he laughed, “what else do we need we couldn’t have gotten back home? Our home, with the rest of the band.”
“That’s not our home.”
At her frown, he reached over to take her hand. He kissed her knuckles, meeting her gaze. “I mean, yes, it’s our home for now, but it’s temporary. We’re getting our own place soon, and that’ll be our real home. The place where we’ll build our future.” He waggled his brows. “And you know, the place we’ll have to renovate endlessly to make sure we have enough bedrooms for the brood.”
“Harper said we were like Brangelina today.”
“Told her the five or six children plan, plus a couple adopted ones, huh?”
“Yes.” She grinned. “She’ll probably be sending you a ‘thinking of you’ card soon, because I’m pretty certain she thinks we’re lunatics.”
“Well, yeah, we are, but so what?” He lowered her hand to her lap and went in for a kiss that was the real deal. His lips on hers, his hands in her hair. Her heartbeat thumping beat for beat with his.
That was the only reality he cared about.
“I love you. You know that?”
“Hmm. Seems familiar. You can say it another ten thousand times, just to drive the point home,” he murmured, pulling her as close at the confines of the front seat would allow.
“Oh, I intend to. First you’re going to tell me why we’re here.”
“I’ve always been a show kind of guy.” He eased back and grabbed the keys, shoving them in his jeans pocket. Then he opened the door and called back, “C’mon, slowpoke,” before he shut the door and took off at a jog across the parking lot.
“Who you calling slow?” she asked breathlessly, meeting him outside the door to the store a couple moments later. She rubbed a stitch in her side. “Ow.”
“Ow? What ow? Are you okay? Shit, is running bad for you? I thought it would be okay, because it was only a few feet—” He broke off at her grin. “Faker.”
“Don’t swear in front of the baby.” She batted her eyelashes and sailed into the store ahead of him. As she’d clearly planned all along.
He tipped his head back and laughed.
When he joined her inside, he found her filling a creaky cart with everything she laid eyes on
. Or so it seemed. “Hey, we came here for a specific…” He trailed off and sighed as she added a container of cherries to the cart. “Does this mean you won’t be sending me out later to satisfy your ice cream cravings?”
“No, it means you’re going to get to see me tie a cherry stem with my tongue.”
“You do have hidden talents.” He cupped her ass in her snug jean shorts and got a giggle in return.
A few aisles later, the cart was mostly full, and they still hadn’t retrieved what he’d intended for them to get yet. Well, actually there were two things.
“Close your eyes.” He guided her to a stop. “Now reach up and grab the first thing you feel.” To help her, he drew her hand to the location he intended. She snagged the package he indicated and examined the item with only her fingertips. “Any guesses?” he asked.
“Not a one.”
“Okay then, open your eyes.”
She inched open an eyelid and viewed the box she held with extreme trepidation. “What the hell is this?”
“Little ears,” he reminded her, setting his chin on her shoulder. “Those are watercolor paints. Non-toxic and completely safe for naked bodies.”
“Safe for…why, you freak!”
The pleasure in her voice made him grin. “At times, yes. So I want to draw on your perfect belly. You have a problem with that, Mrs. Duffy?”
“Not a one,” she echoed.
“Good. Just one more stop after we pay for all this.” He gestured toward the cart.
“One stop before we go home?” Her relief was palpable.
“No, two more stops before we go home, one more stop within in the store itself. Now wheel the cart, woman.”
Rolling her eyes, she obeyed.
Twenty minutes later, they’d checked out and were facing down the same row of game vending machines that had been there since they were teenagers. “What could you possibly have stashed in this machine now?” she asked, gripping the guitar pick necklace she wore. He’d won it for her way back when, and she’d replaced the flimsy chain with something more substantial.
He’d also hidden her engagement ring in one of the machines, with the help of the management. Good thing the owners were the romantic sort.
“You ask too many questions, you know that? You’re supposed to put your money in and take your chances.”
“Uh huh.” But she dug a dollar out of her wallet and fed it into the machine, limbering up her fingers before grabbing the joystick for the giant claw. “You know I suck at this game.”
Which was why he’d had his particular item put at the very top of the stack. There was no way she could miss it.
Until she missed it.
“Seriously, honey?” Shaking his head, he elbowed her out of the way. “Let the master show you how it’s done.”
A moment later, the prize he’d intended for her tumbled down into the tray and he snatched it victoriously. “See?”
“Showoff.” She tugged the plastic container out of his hand and popped open the lid. And gasped. Inside sat a tiny charm necklace with a guitar and a set of drums. “Is this…oh my God, is this for…” She fell silent and blinked rapidly.
“Yes and yes.” He lifted the chain—a much better quality than the one on the original guitar pick necklace, that was for sure—and motioned for her to lift up her hair and turn around. She obliged and he slipped the necklace around her neck. “Until he’s born, it’s yours to wear. After, if he sees fit to wear it, it’s his. He can also choose which instrument he prefers, as long as he picks the right one.”
Grinning, he spun her back to face him and kissed her softly. Already her lips were tinged with the faint tracks of her tears. Even knowing they were happy ones, the sight of them twisted a blade in his gut. “You’re not supposed to cry. Today is a day for laughter and sex. Only laughter and sex.”
She sniffled and clutched both of her necklaces. “I cry during sex too sometimes.”
“Shh, you’re not supposed to speak aloud about my secret shame.”
She let out a watery laugh and shook her head. “You’re completely nuts.”
“And you love me. Go on, finish the statement.”
“And I love you,” she agreed, rising up on her tiptoes to press her mouth to his. As always happened lately, her growing belly helped them meet in the middle that much faster. At least their torsos anyway. “Thank you for both of my presents. They’re beyond sweet and I adore them.”
“The necklace is sweet, definitely. The paints?” He cocked a brow. “No sweet there. As you shall see.” He grabbed the cart and pushed it ahead of them out of the store.
They loaded the groceries into the trunk in companionable silence, and she immediately resumed her singing once the car was on the road again. She continued to hum along to the radio even when he pulled into the back lot of Shadyside High, though he didn’t miss how her feet had gone still.
Jazz at rest was never a good sign, since the girl was in constant motion.
“This one I definitely don’t get,” she whispered, gazing out the window at the brick façade buildings and giant leafy trees that rimmed the campus.
“Part of what today is all about is making awesome memories to replace the bad,” he said quietly, waiting until she shifted to look at him before he went on. “We had some great times in this town, but there were some hard ones too. I want to go back into your past and fix them. Unfortunately, I can’t. So we’ll create new moments to diminish the memories of the bad.”
Her attention returned to the view outside the window. “I appreciate you wanting to do that, but it doesn’t work that way.”
“I know it normally doesn’t, but we’re going to try.”
“Gray…”
“Don’t ‘Gray’ me. Try with me. Please.”
“You know that’s not fair, because I’d do anything you ask of me.” He waited, brows lifted, until she sighed. “Okay, yes. I’ll try.”
“Good. Now let’s go.” He got out of the car and rounded the hood, pausing to give her a chance to join him.
“Go where?”
He held out his hand and she clasped it, curling her fingers into his with such trust that he needed a moment to speak over the lump in his throat. “Do you remember your very first lunch in this courtyard?” He tugged her with him as they circled around the back of the building to the grassy area bordered by concrete walkways where the high school students tended to congregate. He came to a stop and thumped the trunk of a pine with his free hand. “How I found you sitting under this very tree?”
She knelt in the grass without losing her link with his fingers. “The day I was ostracized the first time? Sure, how could I forget?”
The sadness in her voice made him kneel at her side. “They were idiots. Completely. They just didn’t know what to make of you because you’re different and special.” When she didn’t respond, he started humming the melody to a song he knew she’d listened to a million times.
Her lips quivered into a smile. “You’re singing Taylor Swift to me?”
“She got it right. People do throw rocks at things that shine. And you do, baby. You always shined brighter than all the rest.” He skimmed a hand down her hair and nodded to the tree. “Look closer.”
“At what?”
“Just look.”
On hands and knees, she crept up to the tree, eyeing it up and down. Then she gasped and traced her fingers over the bark. “You carved our names into it. When?”
“Long, long time ago.”
He wished he’d thought to bring his acoustic. Not only did he feel naked without it, this moment seemed to be crying out for more music than his rusty humming skills could provide. They’d sat under this tree and played guitar together so many times, riffing on cover songs or on new ones they’d created individually. Eventually they’d started working on joint songs.
She stroked her thumb over the crude heart with their initials dug into the bark and glanced at him over her shoulder. “How did I m
iss it? I sat right here every day.”
“You weren’t ready to see it. And I probably wasn’t ready for you to either.” He smiled. “Unrequited love is practically a high school staple. You can’t mess with tradition.”
“Says you. I say it wasn’t unrequited, and you should’ve spelled it out to me back then. I’ve never been good with subtext.”
“Yeah, I’ve kinda come to realize that. So now I tend to make bolder moves when it comes to you.” He sat against the tree, tipping his head back to study the canopy of leaves above them. Narrow shafts of sunlight trickled through, but they were mostly sheltered in this shady section of the campus, especially now that school had let out for the summer and summer classes hadn’t yet begun.
He spread his legs and patted the ground between them. “C’mere.”
She tilted her head. “Mr. Duffy, is that your sex voice I hear?”
“I don’t have a sex voice.” Did he? Well, maybe. He wasn’t going to worry about it now. “Come on over here already. I have an ache I need to deal with.”
One of her wispy dark brows rose. “That’s a new kind of persuasion. I haven’t heard that line since I was sixteen and lying in the backseat of Harvey Farrell’s Chevy.” She coughed at his pointed look. “Um, coming, sweetheart.”
“Oh, you will be.” Once she’d settled into his arms, he cupped her breasts. They were always a wonder of the world, but now that she was pregnant, they were positively magnificent. She made a sexy startled noise and her nipples hardened under his hands. “How do you feel about getting off right here?” he murmured into her ear.
“I’m okay with it.”
He had to laugh. “Me too.” He slid a hand down to the button and zipper of her jean shorts, opening them up to find her bare underneath. It was his turn to make a noise, something on the verge of a growl. “Christ, woman, if I’d known you were naked under here, I’d’ve had my mouth on you in the car.”
“Sorry. Next time I’ll do a panties status check,” she said breathlessly, reaching back to stroke his cock trapped in unforgiving denim. “I’d love to have my mouth on you too, but this kind of isn’t the place.” She peered up at the myriad window panes of glass reflecting the sun. “Anyone could be out here taking pictures of us for the Daily Gawker or worse.”