My chest moved in a silent chuckle. “I’m not that easy to scare off.” I cruised to the end of the exit ramp, braked for a second, then turned right. “Is that what happened with her ex? He got scared and took off?”
“If you’re referring to Evan’s dad, I have no idea who he is. Never even met the guy. All I know is she got pregnant her freshman year in college and dropped out after she had Evan.”
“Did she ever want to go back to finish college?”
“I’m sure she wanted to, but there was never any time. She put herself on the back burner to take care of us. Then later she got the job at the ad agency and she’s never mentioned college since.”
“Was that her major in college?” I asked, without taking my eyes off the road. “Advertising?”
“I’m pretty sure it was Accounting, or something like that.”
“Accounting?” I said with some surprise. “I thought surely it was English Lit or Latin, or something to do with the Classics.”
“I know, right?” Andrea agreed. “I thought she’d major in Humanities or something like that. Mythologies, you know, that’s always been her thing.”
I swung my car into the Home Depot parking lot. “It’s still her thing, isn’t it?”
Andrea rolled her eyes. “It is! She’s even got Evan hooked on those mythologies.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
“Good Gravy!” Andrea expelled an annoyed groan. “I do! You need to tell that poor boy a real bedtime story some time. He needs to know that life is not some depressing Greek tragedy, you know what I mean?”
“I know.” I pulled into an open spot and threw the car in park. “But you want to know the greatest tragedy of all?”
“What?”
I cut the engine. “We’re here to buy paint so we can paint your cabinets a yellowish green.”
“Chartreuse!” Andrea corrected, her voice trailing off on a laugh. “Chartreuse!”
Chapter Twenty-One
It was a group effort. Everyone pitched in—Mom, Julian, even Evan. Not only did we paint the cabinets yellow—chartreuse yellow—we painted the walls, too.
In a shade of paint called Woodrow Wilson Putty.
“Huh?” I asked Julian. “What’s up with the paint name? Woodrow Wilson Putty? Seriously?”
He just shrugged. “Half the fun with picking out paint is the WTF names.”
“Mom.” Evan tugged at my sleeve. “What does WTF stand for?”
Without missing a beat, Julian answered, “Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.”
Evan blinked at him. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”
I smiled, feeling immensely proud of my son. I took pride in raising him to be a healthy skeptic.
“Well, WTF can mean many things.” Julian’s tone turned serious. “It can mean Welcome To Finland or Where’s The Food or What’s The Forecast. It can also mean Waste Treatment Facility or Wild Turkey Festival.”
“Boo.” I gave him a thumbs-down. “Way To Fail.”
“Well,” Julian countered. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
I rose to the challenge. “Why The Face?” Bending down, I pinched Evan’s chubby little cheeks. “Wasn’t That Funny?”
Evan shook his head slowly. “Holy bat poo! That was… Worse Than Failure.”
“Oh, snap.” Mom cackled with laughter. “That boy is throwing some shade at you! Major shade! Enough to block tans from happening in weeks.”
Meanwhile Julian and Evan were busy exchanging fist bumps. “Mister E,” Julian said sagely. “That’s by far the best acronym ever, my man! I wouldn’t be surprised if you became POTUS one day.”
Evan stared at Julian as if he were speaking Urdu.
When Julian saw the puzzled look on my son’s face, he explained, “POTUS. It stands for President of the United States.”
“Hmm.” I gave a careless shrug. “Didn’t know about that one.”
“And,” Julian added, pinning me with a hot stare. “Your mom is my FLOTUS.”
“FLOTUS, huh?” I barely concealed my laughter.
First Lady of the United States. I thought about it briefly and came to a decision that I like it.
“Yeah.” He tantalized me with his heated stare. “You’re my first lady.”
Our gazes locked, neither of us smiling as the sexual tension heightened to a painful state. And then Mom had to go ahead and ruin the moment. “Oh! I have a good one,” she cried. “PMS. Purchase More Shoes, Punish Men Severely, and Prepare to Meet Satan.”
Evan looked deeply confounded, and I wasn’t about to explain PMS to my six-year-old. “All right, guys.” I snapped my fingers. “As your first lady, I say Chop! Chop! Let’s get to work. These cabinets aren’t gonna paint themselves.”
“But I have one more, Mom,” Evan declared, quite firmly.
“Go for it,” I said, reaching for a paintbrush.
“WTF… Work, Time, Fun,” Evan said, pink with pride. “Because work time with you guys is fun.”
A fresh wave of hilarity swept through the room and Julian gave Evan a one-armed hug. “Another good one, E. Just don’t go around saying WTF at school. Okay, bud?”
“Okay,” Evan said easily.
In the end, it was as Evan said—work, time, and fun, especially after Julian started a paint fight and we ended up getting more paint on us than on the walls and cabinets.
But I wasn’t complaining. I soaked up the moments of laughter he brought into our home.
His dry, sarcastic wit appealed to my mom’s sensibilities, and he could elicit laughs from Evan when he turned on his charm.
I found that incredibly attractive about him.
“Hey, Julian,” Mom hollered.
“Yes, ma’am?” he said ultra-politely, laying on the charm like a good Army boy.
“When are you gonna go for that Starbucks run you promised?”
“Soon,” he assured her. “Very soon.”
“Get me a pumpkin spice latte,” she ordered.
“Will do,” Julian said.
I shook my head. “I don’t see what the big deal is about pumpkin spice lattes. It’s overrated if you ask me.”
“My.” Mom placed a hand over her chest and clucked her tongue. “Aren’t you just a special snowflake?”
I merely raised my eyes heavenward.
“Hey, Andrea,” Julian said moments later.
“Yes, darlin’?” she drawled.
His gaze flicked to hers as he extended the roller toward the paint tray. “Do you sometimes feel like if more than fifty people genuinely like something, it’s suddenly the most uncool thing ever? I enjoy pumpkin spice lattes, so shoot me!”
“Girl, preach!” Mom shrieked merrily, waving her arms in the air, causing paint to fly in every which direction. “That’s exactly how I feel! I’m so happy someone gets me right now! And you know what? I need to play that Happy song by Will Ferrell.”
“Grammy.” Evan’s eyes practically rolled off his head. “Will Ferrell doesn’t sing that song! It’s Pharrell Williams.”
“Are you sure?” Mom asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Absotively posilutely,” Evan shot back.
“Pssst.” I elbowed Julian in the ribs while Mom was busy scrolling through her iPod. “Do you really like pumpkin spice lattes?”
“Nope,” he said, popping the P sound. “But I know your mom does.”
“Pssh! You’re such an ass kisser.”
Without warning, he lashed out with his paintbrush, slapping it smartly across my nose. “Now you’re a brownnoser.”
“Oh, hell no.” I got him back, then he got me back, and then a full on paint fight broke out.
“This is war!” Julian declared. “The blood will splatter far and wide before this is over.”
It was a paint fight that ended all paint fights—our hair, our faces, our clothes were all covered in hues of Woodrow Wilson Putty and Chartreuse.
Later that night, as I lay in my unmade bed
with my door slightly ajar, I could hear Julian reading Evan a bedtime story.
He was using silly, overly dramatic voices to make the characters in his story come to life. At one point he even got Evan involved in making up the plot and naming the characters as they went along.
As I listened to the sounds of their playful laughter and goofy voices, it dawned on me that I hadn’t heard Evan laugh this hard in a while. Not in a long, long while.
It hit my heart with all the force of an arrow loosed from a bow.
It pierced through me and touched a place inside me so deep and forgotten I thought it had long been dead.
Julian may not be his dad, I thought. But the more people my son has on his team, the better.
Chapter Twenty-Two
By the time I slipped into her room, Sadie was already in bed, looking sleep tousled and sexy in a thin cotton T-shirt. The soft material emphasized the swell of her breasts and the hem ended mid-thigh, exposing her endless legs. From where I stood, I could tell she was completely nude under the shirt. No bra. No panties.
It caused a spiral of heat to surge straight to my groin.
She stirred slightly as I joined her in bed. Spooning her body tight against mine, I nuzzled my lips against her neck.
“Miss me?” I rasped against her ear.
A soft sigh escaped her, and she tipped her head back to give my mouth better access. “I miss your warmth.”
I kissed the soft, smooth column of her neck. “I miss your everything.”
Another sigh fell from her lips as I smoothed a hand over her hips and cupped her ass.
“You were checking out my butt this morning, weren’t you?” Her voice was husky from sleep.
“I’m always checking out your ass. And your tits.” My other hand stroked her breasts, thumbing her nipples, pinching the buds gently.
Grinding her ass against my erection, she murmured, “I’m not that tired anymore.”
“Mm.” I slipped a finger between her legs and groaned when I found her hot and wet. “Be right back.” Pushing myself to a sitting position, I stripped out of my clothes, tossed them aside, and grabbed a condom off the nightstand.
While I sheathed myself, Sadie gripped the hem of her T-shirt and dragged it over her chest, causing her breasts to bounce erotically.
Then she moved to the edge of the bed and got down on all fours.
I paused to take my fill of her. There was something so goddamn sexy about seeing her on her hands and knees, gloriously naked with her ass in air, those soft, swaying tits elongated by gravity as she looked over her shoulder and gave me a slow, seductive smile.
With her knees spread far apart, I had a perfect view of her extruded clit and her smooth pussy, pink and dewy, coated with tiny beads of moisture.
“I have a surprise for you,” I told her. “Something I picked out at the paint store.”
It was a soft, bristled paintbrush the size of pencil. An artist paintbrush.
I knew Sadie liked her toys, and I couldn’t wait to make her body my canvas.
With deliberate slowness, I trailed the tip of the brush down the length of her spine, watching goose bumps unfurl across her lustrous skin as I made the slow journey to her spectacular ass.
Then, kneeling on the floor, I dipped the paintbrush into her gathering juices, lightly swirling the soft bristles across her folds, then back.
Continuing upward, I playfully traced a heart across her rounded ass, then added the initials J on her left cheek and S on her right.
In response, she giggled and wiggled her butt, and I lost all control.
Without taking my eyes off that sumptuous ass, I tossed the paintbrush over my shoulder, lowered my mouth, and bit down on her succulent flesh. Gently, softly nibbling her cheeks before lapping away the initials until there was nothing left.
Then, settling myself more comfortably between that ass, I continued downward, palming her cheeks, pulling them apart slightly as I cleaved my tongue through the moist folds of her labia.
Fuck. She was so wet, her syrupy juices dripping off my chin as I burrowed my face deeper, pulling those lips apart with my fingers, groaning as I laved the inside of her walls.
She moaned deep in her throat, moving her hips, using her fingers to stroke her clit as I sucked her folds greedily between my lips, making wet sounds of suction as my tongue swirled inside her fluttering slit.
“Oh, God,” she whispered tightly. “Don’t stop.”
Gripping her hips, I controlled her movements as I lazily mouthed her labia, molding her lips with my lips, teasing her slit with deep, unrelenting sweeps of my tongue.
As her juices wept from her pussy, I let my groans of appreciation vibrate against her quivering flesh.
“Julian.” Her breath came in shallow gasps, the thin pleading sound in her voice urging me on as I hummed against her hot, swollen sex.
Palming the rounded cheeks of her ass, I kneaded the soft flesh as I tongued her pussy, eating her out with a hungry, heated demand until she was close. So close.
“Please,” she whimpered, shuddering, fighting to breathe. “Don’t stop.”
I did.
And she moaned and stretched at the loss, her thighs glistening with her juices, her ass hanging off the edge of the bed as her body strained toward me.
My dark gaze locked onto that perfect ass. Smoothing my hands over the generous curves, I slid my cock into her slow and deep, letting her feel every hard ridge of my erection.
With each inward stroke, her pussy clenched and rippled around my shaft while her long breasts swayed back and forth.
I reached under her to hold her swaying tits, fondling them as I buried myself deeper, using my entire body to stroke inside her, pumping her, fucking her, building her up to a high that could never be duplicated, drawing out the agonizing pleasure until the explosions tore through both our senses.
The next morning, I awoke to find my cock covered in a sugar-covered doughnut, and Sadie collapsing into a fit of giggles at the absurdity of it all.
Later, after she’d devoured the doughnut and my cock, I framed her face with my hands and stared into her eyes. “You’re amazing, you know that, right?”
“I know,” she said, her slumberous gaze filled with warmth and humor that made me long for this kind of intimacy on a daily basis.
“So.” I reclined against the pillows. “What are your plans today?”
“Mm.” Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, reminding me of how sensuous her mouth looked when it was wrapped around my cock, sucking me straight to ecstasy. “The usual Sunday chores. Grocery shopping, cleaning.”
“How about we skip all that today?” I ran a knuckle along her cheek. “And I’ll get all that done tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“I’d like you to meet my family.”
“Your sister?”
“Uh-huh. And my niece.”
Her gaze drifted to my hand, her fingers idly playing with the Rainbow Loom bracelets on my wrist. “So…” She bit down on her lower lip. “I’ll get to meet the little girl who made you this?”
“Yeah, you’ll meet Shelby. Evan will get to meet her, too.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Okay. The kids can have a play date.”
“Yes,” I said, reaching for her. “A play date.”
She lifted her gaze to mine, her brows drawn together in an imitation of concern. “You think that’s a good idea?”
“Of course.” I dipped my head toward the valley between her breasts and traced my tongue down her deep cleavage.
“You think they’ll get along?” A deep sigh escaped her as I took her nipple into my mouth and gently sipped the tender crest. “What—” Her last word was interrupted by a low moan as I felt her nipple stretch and distend inside my mouth. “What if they don’t?”
Slowly, reluctantly, I lifted my mouth from her breast. “Don’t worry,” I whispered roughly before dipping my head to her other breast, fully intent
on having a play date of my own. “It’ll be great.” My voice was muffled against her tits. “Trust me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The play date didn’t go too well. Not at first, at least.
“Mom.” A whine crept into Shelby’s voice. “I’m bored.”
“Remember what mommy told you?” Vivian said patiently. “Only boring people get bored.”
Shelby blew a wisp of hair from her face. “Can I play with your iPhone?”
“No, honey.” The reproof in her voice was mild, but it was there. “Evan is here. Why don’t you go play with him out back?”
“But I want to play with your phone.” Shelby pouted. “Why can’t I play with your phone?”
“The battery is dead,” Vivian said in all seriousness, and I stifled an urge to laugh. I used the very same tactics with Evan. Lies. Harmless lies.
But little Shelby wasn’t easily deterred. “Can you take us to McDonald’s?”
“Sorry, honey,” Vivian said somberly, and I could sense another lie coming. “It’s closed.”
“Mom.” Shelby’s voice pitched higher. “You never let me do anything.”
Vivian gave me a half-scrambled eye roll. “Sorry, she’s not usually like this. I let her stay up late last night ’cause she really wanted to see her dad. And he didn’t get home from work ’til almost midnight.”
“You don’t have to explain,” I assured her. “Evan’s the same when he doesn’t get enough sleep.”
Abruptly, I heard the back door slam shut and in the next moment, Julian appeared in the living room. “C’mon, Shells.” He took her hand and winked at her conspiratorially. “I’ll take you and Evan to McDonald’s.”
“But Mom says it’s closed.”
“McDonald’s will open in an hour,” Julian said, ignoring Vivian’s daggers. “Let’s go have some fun with Evan in the backyard. We can’t leave him there all by himself, can we? And later, I’ll take you guys to Mickey D’s. I promise.”
“But what if Mommy won’t let me go?” Shelby asked, her brown eyes wide and unsure.
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