Long Road Home

by Stacey Lynn

  “Thanks again,” I told her. “You and Andrew and the boys doing anything today?”

  “Nope. Yardwork. Cleaning. All the fun stuff no one tells you sucks so bad before you become an adult.”

  “No joke.” Toby opened the door to his side of the car and slid in. I watched him go, frowning.

  “He okay?” Brooke asked.

  “Yeah. Probably just a lot on his mind.” I grinned at her, held my hand over my eyes to block the hot afternoon sun. “Thanks again for today. I don’t know what we’ll do yet, so if you wouldn’t mind not saying anything…”

  It was a lot to ask. She was obviously better friends with Jordan than I was with her.

  “Hey, as long as you and Jordan are working to move on from everything, I’m for however that comes about. But don’t make me keep it too long. I suck at secrets.”

  “School starts back home in two weeks. We have to figure it out soon.”

  “Are you ready for that? Dropping everything there, your whole life, and taking a chance here again?”

  Until she’d asked that very question, I had been. There was something about hearing it out loud, wondering if I was doing the right thing, and for the first time, I didn’t have Tillie to go to for advice. “It’s a lot to consider,” I finally said. “It’s a big risk.”

  “Could have big rewards. Just don’t hurt him again? I’ll keep what you’re thinking a secret, but I also think before you get too far down the path you’re headed, you and Jordan need to talk about it. Last time you shut him out—”

  “Last time I was a scared kid.” I’d turned defensive. Felt that bubbling anger awakening in my blood.

  “But you didn’t talk to him.”

  She’d scored a direct point. I took it and nodded. “Point made. I will, but I want to get a few ducks lined up first.”

  “Good. Have a great day then. We’ll see you soon?”

  “Yeah. Most likely.”

  I climbed into my car, waited until she pulled forward and once we were on the road, I switched off the radio music. “So? What’d you think?”

  “It’s a school, Mom. I don’t care.” It wasn’t the positive answer I was hoping for. Still, he had a point. I’d taken him to a school. Which meant, I had more research to do for him.

  “All right. I’ve got brats or taco fixins for lunch. Either of those sound good?”

  “Tacos, Mom. Always tacos.”

  I shouldn’t have even asked.

  * * *

  “Jordan,” I whispered into his throat, trying so hard to stay quiet. It was nearly impossible.

  As soon as we’d known Toby was asleep, Jordan had tugged me up the stairs from where we’d been watching a Royals game. He threw me on his bed, stripped off his clothes. Then mine, tugging down my shorts with a wild frenzy like he hadn’t had me last night.

  Then, he’d settled his mouth right there taking everything he wanted from me for dessert, instead of the second breakfast he’d said he wanted earlier.

  After, he rolled us, slid on a condom with expert precision, me watching every movement of his body, toned and so perfect, that line of black hair from his belly button to his hard, waiting cock for me, before he laid back, gripping my hips, and demanded, “Ride me.”

  I was working him furiously, unable to slow my pace. His fingers dug into my thighs, and I had my hands braced by his shoulders, the friction against my clit so heavenly delicious another orgasm was quickly building.

  “Fuck.” His teeth were at my shoulder. His own manic pace no match for me. His desperate need to have me and the way he could withhold in order to give me time to go again amazed me.

  He was incredible. In bed and out of bed. All the time.

  And then he leaned back, gripped my breast and sucked on my nipple. The harshness stung, made me cry out, but it was the last thing I needed. The pain of my nipple shot a spark straight to my core and that fire that had been building, simmering, slowly growing, exploded.

  My body spasmed. My sex clenched around him. I shoved my face into his shoulder again, panting and mewling as my entire body shivered and let loose from the orgasm.

  “Fuck you feel good.” His hips thrust harder. I tried to claw at his shoulder, ride him through his own climax, but I was limp, useless.

  “I can’t move,” I whimpered, my breathing as fast as a marathon runner near the end of the pace. His hands went to my hips and he rolled, keeping us connected and then I was beneath him, his chest against mine, his mouth on mine. He kissed me while he slammed into me, over and over again, gripping my thighs, lifting and spreading them until I knew I’d feel that ache of well-use the next day.

  And he did something magical, moved me in a way that had every nerve of mine misfiring like a rocket. Before I could stop it, another climax hit, harsh and fast and on the edge of painful but so damn beautiful, I had no choice but to bite my tongue to keep from crying out his name.

  “Shit shit shit,” I panted, feeling him move quickly, jerkily before he pounded into me again, dropped his face to the side of mine and cursed while he pulsed and expelled his own climax inside of me.

  “I love you,” I whispered, unable to hold the thought back I’d been thinking since the moment I walked into his house earlier that night.

  His body froze. The muscles flexed on his lower back and even while he was still settling from his own orgasm, his arms pushed up, his face inches of mine.

  A thunderstorm raged in his eyes, in the fierceness of his expression. “What’d you say?”

  It’d been a mistake. Too soon. I shook my head. “Nothing—”

  “Love me. That’s not nothing, Des.”

  My name on his lips. The quirk of his. “You love me.”

  The urge to flee, to run and escape to a safe space clawed at me. I shoved at his chest, wiggled beneath him, but he had me pinned. He must have seen the panic in my eyes setting in because his jaw went tight.

  “Destiny—”

  “I shouldn’t have said it. Not yet. Not then.”

  “No better time to say it than when you’re so overwhelmed with it you can’t hold it in anymore.”

  Oh God. A heavy breath fell from my lips. And it hit me. His expression wasn’t jaded and filled with fury I’d done something wrong. It was filled with the same burning need I had to speak it, only he’d had the control to hold it back.

  And again, another realization.

  There was no reason to run from him and flee when he was the person, the only person outside Toby and Tillie I’d ever want to run to. My backbone unfurled and strengthened one vertebra at a time.

  I licked my lips and looked him square in the eye. “I love you, Jordan Marx.”

  Twenty-Five

  Jordan

  * * *

  She loved me.

  I didn’t know until she said it how much I’d been holding back, not knowing I’d needed her to say it first.

  With my cock still inside of her after making her come a third time, my heart thumped so harshly if it exploded from my chest I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  “You love me,” I repeated. It was more to myself than her. I needed to hear it.

  I desperately needed to hear Destiny tell me she loved me because I’d been in love with her since I was sixteen years old and until she returned, I didn’t realize that feeling for her had never faded. Not once. Even with the anger I still felt at what she’d done, but hell I understood it so much better now.

  “You don’t have to feel it,” she said, her eyes still held that panicked look but fuck, she was majorly misunderstanding me.

  I still couldn’t gather my thoughts enough to say it back even though I felt it. Knew it to the depths of my bone marrow this woman beneath me was the only woman I wanted beneath me for the rest of my life.

  “Jesus,” I whispered, laughing lightly. “Give me a minute to catch up.”

  I bent down and kissed her. I kissed her like we had all the time in the world and ten years to make up for and when I
pulled back, we were both out of breath.

  I slowly pulled out of her and curled her toward me into my side.

  She’d kissed me back, took everything I give, but her body had shaken like she’d been fighting back tears at the same time. “Destiny.” My hand went to her hair, pushed it back and down the length until my hand was at the curve of her waist. She was so slender. So perfectly beautiful she stole my breath every time she walked into the room.

  “It’s okay,” she said, her face coming to some answer. It was the wrong damn one. She spoke before I could tell her. “It’s okay not to love me. It’s okay. It’ll take time, I know.” Her hand pressed to my cheek. “I’m willing to wait, Jordan. For however long it takes. I get it.”

  “You don’t get shit,” I said. This woman. Always so sure shit was going to go bad for her. It was frustrating as hell but put me up to the challenge of being the man who could ensure her how wrong she was at the same time. “I’m not going to lie and say it doesn’t bother me that Toby calls me Jordan and not dad. I can’t say I don’t still watch him, that ache in my chest when he does something, and I wonder if he’s always done it, is it a mannerism, and the fact that if it is…it didn’t come from me. That shit still burns, but it hasn’t been that long.”

  I had him now. And like Destiny and I had the rest of time to get past what she did, Toby and I had the rest of time to create our own bond and relationship.

  It stung, but it was hard to hold it against her when my son was so damn awesome.

  “Sweetheart, you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. And blink away all your fear and worry. I do love you. I’ll love you for the rest of my life. I needed to hear you say it first. I needed you to give that to me, and I’m shocked it came so soon.”

  “It is soon.”

  “We’ve also known each other for a long time. We’ve changed, we’ve grown, but deep inside we’re the same people. It’s soon, but it’s not, either.”

  Her chin wobbled. “You love me.”

  “Yes. And if I hadn’t just made love to you in a way that’s going to give me some time to recover, I’d do it again to show you how much.”

  She laughed, buried her face in my shoulder and clung to me like she still didn’t believe me. I loved when she tucked herself into me like that. Burrowed against me like I was the only person she could imagine keeping her safe. “I don’t think I could have sex again tonight anyway.”

  “Yeah? Worn out?”

  “Shut up.” She slapped my chest playfully. “You know how good you are.”

  I knew how to get a woman off easily. That didn’t make me good necessarily. It meant I paid attention. Still, I was glad she thought so.

  “I gotta take care of this condom.” I slid out of the bed, bending over her side as I walked around the bed to get to the bathroom and kissed her forehead. “Love you, Destiny.”

  She grinned up at me, the fear gone, the chin no longer wobbling. “Love you too.”

  I cleaned up, brushed my teeth again, and climbed back into bed, pulling Destiny’s back to my chest. Then, for the first time in a decade, I fell asleep holding the woman I loved. The mother of my son.

  The woman I’d stop at nothing with to ensure what we had this time grew into something perfectly beautiful.

  * * *

  A knock rapped on my door and slowly opened.

  Alicia poked her head in. “Jordan, Liam Allistor is on the phone for you.”

  “Thanks, Alicia. I’ll get it in a minute.”

  Liam, a good friend and awesome musician, was on a European Tour. It didn’t matter he had homes in Los Angeles, New York, and the Caribbean, gossip from Carlton was liquid gold for him. His sister, Sophie, along with her husband had been at Rebecca’s on Saturday.

  The jerk would have a handful of thoughts on Rebecca’s return and he could handle waiting a few minutes before I took his call.

  I was one of the few men in his life who kept him humble.

  “Hey Alicia,” I called out. She’d turned to leave and the expression on her face had me biting back a laugh. It didn’t matter how many times she talked to Liam, she still went starstruck.

  “Yes? Is there something you need?”

  “Yeah. Can you connect with Destiny sometime this week? Maybe see if your girls and Toby can get together?”

  “Like a playdate? Kids are a bit too old for that you know.”

  I didn’t. I knew if he wasn’t bored out of his mind most days, Toby would soon start itching to get home. “More like trying to find more reasons for her to stay. I’ll give you Thursday afternoon off if you can swing it.”

  “Without using PTO? I’ll do anything you want.”

  I chuckled as she closed the door and went back to her desk. She might tease me, but she was good people.

  So was the asshole still waiting on the phone for me.

  I picked up the receiver and hit the button for Line Two, answering it with the only warning he’d get.

  “Piss me off and I’ll hang up. I love her.”

  Liam’s throaty laugh hit my ears. “So the gossip is true then, huh? Sophie couldn’t wait to call me the other night, she woke me up at four in the morning.”

  “Depends on what she said.”

  “That Destiny is back, your kid with her, and you still love the woman so much you’re blinded to everyone else with a pussy.”

  He could have been more polite, but that wasn’t us. I tapped my pencil on the desk. “That about sums it up.”

  “Damn. A kid, huh? How are you handling that, really?”

  “Toby’s awesome. Seriously, man, I’ve never met such a cool kid. That makes it easier but yeah, I’m still pissed.”

  “And in love?”

  “It’s a hard line to walk, but I’m working on trying to get past it. It’s only been a couple weeks.”

  Liam and I knew shit about each other no one else did. I’d stuck with him through piles of really dark, hard shit he had to sort through, and in return, he’d always been there for me. He might sing on a stage to thousands a night, millions a year, but he was the same damn good friend he’d been since third grade.

  “You going to be able to get past it?”

  My gaze drifted out my window to the golf course. Hot sun beat down on golfers carrying their bags to the practice green where they’d hang before their tee time. I barely noticed them. I thought of Destiny at the party. At my house. Last night telling me she loved me.

  “Yeah. Might make me a fool but I still love her.”

  “How’s she feel?”

  I love you, Jordan Marx. “The same.”

  “You’ll go the distance this time?”

  “Trying to figure out how to get her to stay in town instead of back to Houston where they live, but yeah. That’s what I want.”

  He must have sensed the tension in my voice, because in his next breath, he said, “Tell me how this shit all came about.”

  I spilled everything. From the few nights before Tillie passed away, telling me to forgive her someday. To the funeral. Finding out Toby was mine. Damn. It’d been weeks and it felt like I’d aged years.

  I told him more about Toby. His love of basketball. His ability to kick my ass in every video game we’d played. The fact he got all A’s in school. Had tons of friends he talked about frequently.

  Liam listened to everything, and by the time I was done, all he said was, “I hope it works for you, man. No one deserves a good woman at his side more than you.”

  Since I’d say the same about him, it was the highest compliment.

  “Thanks, man.”

  “I actually called for another reason, too. Business-related.”

  That was new. My senses went on high alert. “What’s up?”

  “You know the domestic abuse shelters Claudia and I donate to?”

  They’d started donating millions every year after they were married. “Yeah, what about them? You hitting me up for another donation?”

  “No, a golf course.�
�

  “What?”

  “Yeah, Claudia and I were talking. Tour comes to an end in a few months and I’m thinking I need some time off. Away from the noise. We want to live quiet for a while. Settle down without distraction.”

  “You’re coming here? Home?”

  “Looking for places with land now, actually. But really, I was thinking more about your course. I thought while I’m there, we could host a celebrity tournament. All proceeds given to some of the national organizations we support.”

  “No shit?” Liam knew celebrities from various television, movie, and music industries. And with Cooper in town. My sports connections. “I could get some ball guys. And Cooper…”

  My mind was already running with possibilities.

  “Think you have the space? Know it’s a lot to ask.”

  “No, man. This is cool. An awesome idea actually. When are you thinking?”

  “Next Spring. Summer. Whenever fits your schedule and we can make it work.”

  I’d cancel a wedding for this. Excitement flooded my veins.

  “We’ll figure it out. Give me a week or two to check schedules, see what we have going on. This would be what, a long weekend thing? A day? We could make it as huge as we wanted. And there are overflow hotels up in Lawrence that could hold everyone who didn’t want to stay.”

  “Damn. Sounds good, J. I didn’t expect you to jump on this, but the more I think about it, the more exciting it could become.”

  “It’s going to make me a rich man. Of course I’m excited.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Always. Now tell me how Claudia’s doing.”

  We chatted and caught up until I couldn’t ignore my work for any longer and he had to get ready to head to the arena in Belgium with a promise to talk soon.

  After our phone call, I spent an hour looking into our schedule, making a list of guys I knew on teams from different sports, seeing first who’d be interested and who I could call personally. Then I pushed away the excitement of Liam’s idea and dug into current work…sort of.

  Mostly I spent time thinking when I could get Destiny naked and beneath me again.