by Quinn, Taryn
Our parents would be so proud of them, especially our mother.
I dashed away the wetness and finished folding the baby clothes in peace and quiet. I’d have to figure out what we were going to eat now that a picnic was not part of the game plan. Maybe the three of us could go get a pizza in town. I was a little sick of my own cooking at the moment.
I tucked the basket of clothes under my arm and headed upstairs. A soft, pleasant male voice came in clearer the closer I got to the top of the stairs. It was a country singer, but I couldn’t name which one. I was more of a rock and pop kind of girl.
Asher’s office door was open. Lily’s was closed. I quietly went to check on her. She was sleeping with her arms splayed over her head. Totally out for the count. That was her exhausted sleep stance. Considering she’d been fighting her morning naps lately, I wasn’t unhappy to see it. That meant she’d be out for a little bit.
Maybe we could call Bess over for a date night. No picnic, but perhaps we could salvage the day.
I set the basket of clothes on her changing table and back out of the room, then followed the music. I found Asher setting grapes and brie on a plate. Sort of. The grapes kept rolling away, but I had to give him an A for effort. Especially since he had a bottle of sparkling grape juice in an ice bucket set up on a huge gingham blanket spread in the middle of his office floor.
He’d pushed his desk back and stacked the boxes of equipment that kept showing up every few days. Two pitchers were overflowing with spring flowers. Crayola-colored gerberas and daisies, even a handful of soft yellow and pink tulips. There was an honest to God picnic basket sitting at the edge of the blanket. White linen napkins and silverware were set next to the plates.
I even saw an apple juice box peeking out of the cooler he’d tucked behind the basket. He’d thought of everything.
“There you are.” Asher stood with an easy smile. No pinched lips or frown lines now. Thank God. “How was your talk with your sisters?”
“Good.”
I tried to reel in my reaction to all of his hard work. I didn’t want to make him feel self-conscious about it, but at the same time, I was so afraid to make it too big of a deal. Instead, I went with my instincts and smiled back at him.
Pleasure unfurled in my belly, along with a warmth that I hadn’t felt this deeply since that very first night.
That night had included the floor and a fireplace as well.
Instead of a suit, Asher wore a pair of jeans with a button-down white shirt. Not the kind he wore to the office every day, but one that looked like it had been with him for a long time if the frayed tails were anything to go by. The sleeves were rolled back on his forearms and he was barefoot. Such a domestic look, at least for his temperament.
Right then, I felt a little frumpy in my old college hoodie and yoga pants. I’d meant to change for our picnic, but with the rain—well, it just didn’t seem important.
Now? I really wished I’d taken the extra steps.
He crossed to me and curled his arm around my waist. “Had a bit of a rain delay, but I thought we could maybe do a carpet picnic. Seemed stupid to waste all the food.”
“As I was just thinking downstairs that we should go out for pizza.”
His smile slipped a little.
I went up on my toes and kissed him. “This is so much better.”
His hold tightened and the kiss lengthened, his ink and leather scent seeping into my bones with each sweep of his tongue. The muscles that flexed and rolled under my fingers urged me closer. Each little touch the last few weeks had been leaving me starving for more.
Maybe that had been his plan all along. Right now, I didn’t care.
His fingers slid away from me, coming up to cup my face. The kiss was sweeter now. The undertow of emotion and raw passion that rose up between us was more like frothy lace. The kind that tickled and teased.
I felt his smile in the kiss before I opened my eyes.
“What?”
“I’ve missed touching you like this.” His voice was thick and gentle. “Feeling like I should touch you like this.”
“Things are complicated.”
“They don’t have to be.”
I leaned my cheek into his touch. “Easy for you to say. You’re not technically my employer and baby daddy.”
He winced. “When you put it like that…”
“Yeah.”
“But that’s not what it is about for me.” I tried to pull back, but he held me tighter. “It’s more that I don’t deserve you.”
“Asher—” I twisted my fingers into his shirttails.
“No, it’s true. You came into my life when I couldn’t see my way clear to find any kind of happiness. I didn’t even think I should be happy. Not after what had happened with Billy. He died, and here I was, living the life he hoped to have with his baby girl.”
“You’ve done right by her. So right.”
“Now I want to do right by you.” His Adam’s apple rose and fell. “I still can’t believe you’re here. That someone as strong and amazing as you would stick around and give me a second chance. Or hell, fifth chance by now.” He lowered a hand to my middle. “And that there’s a piece of us growing right here no matter how many times I fuck things up.”
I opened my mouth to answer him, but he kissed me again.
All I could do was hold on. He was like a wild storm. He blew into my life with snow, and now with rain, he was asking for so much more. One season and we were speeding toward something bigger than both of us.
It wasn’t just me I had to worry about.
Finally, I tore my mouth away from him. “Just be careful with me, Asher.” I hated the weakness in my voice. Hated that I needed to voice it.
“Let me in. Give me a chance.”
I looked down at his chest. The wide expanse of it urged me to lean in. To let him shoulder some of the weight. But what if I leaned? Wouldn’t it be even harder to stand on my own if he got tired of the novelty of us?
He kissed my forehead. “You’re thinking so hard. I know I have work to do, but I’m not afraid of us. Not anymore.”
I lifted my gaze to his. I didn’t have the words. But I could show him. I lifted onto my toes and slipped my fingers through his hair. He lowered his mouth to mine. We were a pressure cooker that finally let the release valve free.
I breathed him in as my shoulders relaxed. I could feel his heart beating against my chest, knew it was echoing in the wild beat in my ears. His warm fingers slipped under my hoodie to find my belly. He trailed his fingertips over my stomach and up to my bra.
He watched me as I attacked his buttons with shaking fingers.
I felt more reassured when his hand trembled lightly against my breast. This was just as big for him as it was for me. This man had been the only one to touch me like this. Part of me knew he’d be the last one to touch me too.
Even if we didn’t work, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to let anyone learn my body and get to know me as Asher had.
I pushed off his shirt and trailed the pads of my fingers over the swirling ink of his many tattoos. So traditional in so many ways, and wild in others.
I knew that firsthand. I was carrying the proof of it right now.
Even when we’d tried to be safe. When we’d tried to take a slice of a lonely night between us, we’d created a tether that would never be broken. As if the universe had ideas we couldn’t fathom.
He lifted my sweatshirt off and then crouched in front of me to remove my yoga pants and simple cotton underwear. “You are so beautiful.”
I looked down at him, sifting my fingers through his untamable hair. Here too, he couldn’t quite stay in the aristocrat box he believed he belonged in. There was so much more to Asher Wainwright.
More than even I knew.
“Let me take you to bed, Hannah.”
“No. Show me here on the blanket you set up for us for our springtime picnic.” I smiled faintly. “Rain be damned.”
He drew me down with him, stretching me out on the soft blanket. “You deserve more than this cotton quilt.”
“Pretend it’s just us and the sunshine. That we have that afternoon free to be just us. That we’re two people who can take the day off just to have fun and get naked.”
“Every time I’ve touched you, it’s been more than just sex.” He drew his fingers between my breasts up to my neck.
I stretched into his touch, my eyes fluttering shut as he lightly scored over the column of my neck and back down. “Yes.”
His lips followed the same trail as he deftly curled me closer so he could unsnap my bra. He slid the lace down and drew a lazy trail over the tops of my breasts before finally taking a nipple into his mouth. He groaned around the tight tip and I arched to give him more access. I rolled him, so I could get my leg over his hip.
“Why are you still wearing your jeans?”
“Because if I take them off, I’ll be more worried about getting into your sweet heat than what you need.”
“What if that’s exactly what I need?”
He rolled me onto my back, taking my nipple into his mouth again as he cupped and rubbed my other breast. “Let me worship you first.”
“What if a certain little girl wakes up?”
He moved lower. “Guess I’ll just have to make my way downtown a little faster.” He inched farther down the blanket and hooked my knee over his shoulder. “I miss this, Hannah. I miss tasting you on my lips.”
I hissed out a moan and arched as he nibbled his way over my belly to my inner thigh. “It feels like you haven’t been there in so long.”
“I haven’t. And I’m going to rectify that mistreatment.”
I laughed. I didn’t realize I had laughter in me right now, but there it was. I tightened my knee against his head as he licked every inch of me then found some specialized map to all the places that made me wild.
I was a shuddering mess and he was just calmly working his way around me with a tongue that should be bronzed.
“Let go,” he said against my thigh. He nipped me, then laved his tongue over the little hurt. “Don’t fight this.”
“I’m not.”
He looked up from between my legs. “You are.”
I twisted my fingers into his hair. This disheveled and purposeful version of Asher made me want him even more. “Maybe I want it to be us, not you giving all the time.”
He crawled back up to meet me, his mouth harder and surer this time. The Asher I dreamed about and wished for when I couldn’t push away the longing.
I scraped my foot down his jean-clad leg. “Off,” I said against his mouth. “Inside me. Make me come again. Just us.”
He groaned against my neck. “I was trying.”
“And succeeding. But I just want you. If you want to spend the rest of the evening going for gold medals and lightning rounds, I’m good with that. But right now, lose the damn jeans. I need you.”
The rasp of his zipper made me sigh in relief. I reached between us and fumbled with the boxer briefs keeping him from me.
“Hannah,” he said in a strangled voice.
I didn’t want to wait anymore. The hot length of him fit my hand perfectly. Then with his slow push into me, there was the fullness I could never seem to get enough of. I curled my legs around his hips and held him deep inside me. “There. God, yes there.”
“Jesus.” He raced kisses up my neck and found my mouth. He fisted my hair with one hand and braced himself over me with the other.
I didn’t even care that his jeans were chafing against my thighs. I raked my nails down his back and into the back of his jeans to grip his ass. The flex of his muscles pushed me closer to the bliss I was chasing. The one I only seemed to find with him.
I wrapped myself around him and embraced the storm we were together. Even as I let it take me under, I trusted that he’d have me. That breaking under him wouldn’t splinter me apart. That he’d put me back together when it passed.
He chanted my name against my mouth, my neck, even my shoulder as his teeth scraped over my flesh. I didn’t think he could get any deeper inside of me, but I was so wrong. That he lost control with me and trusted I’d catch him too was so humbling.
And as powerful as anything I’d ever known.
I cried out his name, and his intense eyes snapped to mine as he slowed. There was nothing but him and me. The rough, almost frenetic pace slipped into the dreamy in-between. Where I didn’t know where he ended and I began. The kisses slowed and the friction between our bodies started a slow burn.
I wasn’t even aware the end was coming. I wanted to bask in the closeness we’d been too afraid to ask the other for. But he knew my body too well.
God, he fit me as if he was the missing puzzle piece the universe had created just for me.
“Hannah,” he said against my neck.
I couldn’t control the sob. The almost unbearable twisting release that was pleasure and pain and the sort of drowning that stole breath and sense. When I surfaced again, it was his hazel eyes searching mine.
His wet eyes mirroring every emotion I’d dared to wish for.
I cupped his face. I didn’t have words for what we were yet, but I was so glad I wasn’t alone anymore.
Twenty-Three
“You wanted to see me?” Vincent appeared in my doorway, appearing more disheveled than I’d ever seen him.
I leaned back in my chair and closed out of the spreadsheet I’d had open detailing the rest of the year’s marketing plans. I had a feeling a lot of them would be changing at the very least, if not being cancelled altogether.
That bothered me less than I ever would’ve guessed.
“I did, but unfortunately, I have an appointment I can’t miss.”
That was an understatement. In a little while, I’d be picking up Hannah for our first real baby doctor’s appointment. Well, other than the one where she’d originally gotten the news. She was three and a half months along now, and from my reading—I shifted to make sure my leg was firmly covering the pregnancy book I’d been perusing on breaks—she was behind on her required visits.
Not that I would tell her this, of course. I had no desire to be disinvited from my own child’s doctor’s visit.
We’d been doing well lately, but a smart man knew when not to push his luck. I was also enjoying the perk of regular sex. It had only been a week or so since our carpet picnic, so early days yet on that score, but I wasn’t about to count how long it had been since I’d had even that much regularity in my life.
“Sorry. I know I was supposed to meet up with you earlier, but Connie had an issue with one of the photos in the weekly and all hell broke loose. One of the new guys thought it would be funny to sub a picture of the mayor for a dude dressed up as a hot dog and the caption called him head wiener.” Vincent raked a hand through his unusually shaggy dark hair. He was usually clean-shaven with perfectly coiffed hair, but then again, I used to be that way too.
I rubbed the scruff I hadn’t had time to deal with this morning, due to lingering over coffee with Hannah and Lily. And before that, lingering with Hannah in bed until the baby’s cries had drawn us down the hall.
We had a lot more of that in our future. We were getting the hang of it—well, starting to anyway.
So much new. So many fresh starts.
And I wasn’t responding to Vincent, although to be honest, I found the hot dog thing pretty fucking funny.
I cleared my throat. “That’s unfortunate.”
“It’s ridiculous is what it is, and Connie is going to fire that idiot.” Vincent tucked his hands under his arms. “I figured that’s why you want to meet with me too. So, if you want to fire me, just tell me straight. I don’t need you to soften the blow. What I did was subordination, plain and simple.”
“You didn’t intend for Daly to run to me and squeal like a little piggy.” At Vincent’s shifty expression, I checked my watch. I had a feeling we would be cutting it close for the appoi
ntment. “Or did you?”
“Deep down, yeah, I probably hoped he would. If I thought you would listen to my ideas, I would have approached you. Hell, I should have anyway. It’s none of Daly’s business, and we’re friends.”
“Are we?”
“I thought so.”
“So did I until Daly’s call. While I understand your motivations, I really wish you’d chosen another route.”
“In retrospect, so do I.” He exhaled. “If you intend to let me go, let’s do it and get it over with.”
“Why, so you can run to the Rochester Daily and share your ideas with them instead?” I shook my head. “Sorry, can’t let that happen. I want Wainwright to be a force into the next generation, and you’re the man to take us there.”
Vincent’s brow furrowed. “I am?”
“You are. I want to discuss in depth exactly what that means, and how your role will be changing—and mine, for that matter—but the appointment I can’t miss is my baby’s first doctor’s visit. Well, in utero.”
“In—what?” Vincent looked over his shoulder as if he expected said baby to appear behind him. “Where did you get another baby?”
“It sure wasn’t off eBay.” I stood and grabbed my suit jacket off the back of my chair.
“Wait, now you’re cracking jokes?” He rubbed the side of his face. “Was it really you singing ‘The Gambler’ in the john yesterday? I thought it was you, but then I decided it couldn’t be. You don’t sing.”
“I do now.” My voice was remarkably cheerful considering I was pretty sure my ears were fire-engine red. “I sing not particularly well, I make not funny jokes, and I step back in a company when someone else has all the drive and ambition that I no longer possess. But I have some interesting leads on new things to occupy myself with.” I pulled on my jacket. “What do you know about podcasts?”
“A little bit. You’re actually going to step back? You live and breathe this business, Asher.” Before I could respond, he scraped a hand through his hair. “Look, what I said probably came from a little bitterness. Not your fault, and you’ve never done anything to deserve it. You’ve been the best fucking boss a guy could ask for.” He cleared his throat. “Pardon my French.”