On his eighteenth birthday, he had packed himself and Cole up, gone to the bank and bought the house he now shared with Lily, and he had never looked back.
Sloan stumbled out of the memory with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The photograph was still clutched in his hand, but it was dotted by little droplets of water. Tears. He’d been silently crying without ever realizing it.
He wiped at his face and turned away from the trash can. His feet moved him quickly and with purpose to the office, where he propped the photo against one of the potted plants on the filing cabinet before taking claim of the seat. He snatched up the phone and punched in the numbers.
Sheriff Hank Henley picked up on the second ring.
“Sheriff’s office.”
Sloan never hesitated. “I want to report a break in, and assault.”
Sloan was chatting with the sheriff over lukewarm mugs of coffee when Lily padded into the kitchen. She had showered. The blood was gone from her hair and her skin was flushed from the hot water. Her brown eyes widened as they darted from Sloan to the portly man sitting across from him at the table. The sheriff was in his casual wear, jeans and a flannel button up, but his badge winked in the pale, winter light spilling through the kitchen window. He hastily removed his sheriff’s cap off his unruly brown curls when Lily walked in.
“Sloan?”
Sloan gestured to the man across him. “This is Sheriff Henley,” he said.
Lily nodded. “I know. Is something wrong?”
She crossed the kitchen slowly.
“Sloan called me about the incidents of the previous night,” Henley replied. “He told me you were hurt. Are you all right?”
Lily’s hand went to the side of her head where Sloan knew the gash was. “I think so.” Her gaze dropped to Sloan’s. “You called the sheriff?”
“He should have called us last night,” Henley chimed in. “Jacob McClain broke the law. He’ll be going away for a while.”
Concern colored Lily’s eyes a soft velvety brown. “Can I talk to you?”
Asking the sheriff to give them a second, Sloan rose and followed Lily from the room. She took him to the office and shut the door before turning to him.
“What are you doing?”
Sloan folded his arms, a defensive gesture he hated, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “He needs to be held accountable for what he did to you, Lily.”
“He’s your father!” she cried.
“He’s a monster!” he snapped back. “And I can forget everything he’s ever done to me, but I won’t let him touch you, or the baby.”
Lily’s face softened. She reached for him. “Are you sure about this, Sloan? Once you go through with it, you can’t take it back.”
The tension melted from his shoulder blades and his arms dropped to his side. He raised one hand and cupped the back of her head, careful not to hurt her as he drew her to him.
“The only thing I will ever regret is not having killed him last night.”
With Lily by his side, they recounted the events of the previous night. The sheriff took note of everything, even the cut on Lily’s head for his report. Then he left, after promising to keep them informed.
The rest of the afternoon was spent curled up on the sofa, watching the lights dance in the branches of the tree. Lily made use of her new camera. Sloan loved watching her get lost in the world behind the lens. Every so often she would include him, showing him on the little screen the images she’d captured. The unlit fireplace. The winking lights on the tree. Her feet. His mouth. The ring on her finger. The latter was his favorite. He was still having a hard time believing she had said yes. While he’d hoped, he hadn’t expected it.
“You know what I want to do?” Lily said after a long stretch of silence where she had been dutifully flipping through the images on her camera.
“What’s that?”
She turned the camera off, set it on the coffee table, and twisted her body towards his. Her eyes glittered brighter than the Christmas lights. And he knew, even before she curled her hands into the hem of her t-shirt what she was about to say.
“I want you inside me.”
Chapter Eleven ~ Lily
“Please don’t make me go!” Lily whined.
Sloan smirked as he fastened the buttons on his jacket. “You promised, love.”
Lily grumbled grudgingly as she flicked free her hair from the collar of her coat. “Can’t we blame it on pregnancy hormones and bad choices?” She turned to him in the confines of the foyer and closed her fists into the lapel of his jacket. He was so much taller than her and that somehow always stirred the heat coiling in the pit of her stomach. “We could stay home and I could do that thing you like so much with my mouth…”
The offer wasn’t just because she had no desire to face Georgia May and the leading ladies of Willow Creek, but because she genuinely wanted him … again. It seemed she wanted him a lot lately. Every chance she got. Sloan’s ability to keep up astounded her most days, but he was just as ready every time she was.
“That is a bad idea,” he said slowly, but his voice had grown husky and the dark glimmer in his heavily lidded eyes said something else entirely.
“It won’t take long,” she whispered, the rapid crack of her heart making her breathless.
If possible, he seemed to expand at her words, taking up all the space and air. The coils of heat coming off him seared through her clothes, caressed her tingling flesh. Her nipples hardened and rubbed painfully against the soft material of her bra with every shallow breath. Her panties dampened, chafing uncomfortably against her swollen mound.
“Are you really that close, Lily?” he asked in the same quiet murmur he used to whisper dirty things in her ears while torturing her body to the point of beautiful pain.
Desire splintered through her and she bit her lip to keep from whimpering.
“Yes.”
Without taking his eyes off her, Sloan undid the buttons on his coat with slow precision. His movement was methodical and taunting.
“Take off your panties,” he ordered her.
Trembling with the sheer force of her arousal, Lily reached under her skirt and shoved the ruined fabric down her legs to her ankles.
“Off,” he instructed.
They caught on her shoes, but she tore them off.
Sloan took them from her. His lashes slipped over his eyes as he examined the simple, white material still warm from her body. He flipped it over with a deft flick of his wrist and the dark, wet patch came into view. Lily gasped, mortified by the size of the stain. Sloan seemed unaffected. He slid his thumb over the stretch of cotton, over her juices, and Lily gasped for a whole other reason.
“Turn,” he said without looking at her.
She did, already knowing the drill. Her hands instinctively went to the wall, palms flattening against the cool surface. Her legs parted wide. A cool rush of air smacked her bottom when her skirt was lifted over her ass cheeks. A low moan escaped her.
“You’re such a bad girl,” he murmured, coming up behind her and holding her hips steady with both hands. “We’re late and you soaked through your panties.” He kicked her feet apart even further. “Now you’re going to go there, dripping with my come and no panties to stop it from running down your legs.”
Lily’s nails left deep gashes in the paint as that image nearly sent her clean over. Her body gave a violent shudder.
“I knew you would like that idea,” he taunted, grazing the fat head of his cock over the crack of her ass and inward to prod at her slick center.
Lily hissed. Her pussy muscles clenched as though they could somehow suck him inside her.
“What are you going to tell them?” he wondered as he continued to circle her opening. Every so often, he’d add the slightest pressure, just enough to make her sob when he drew back. “Are you going to tell them that you needed to be fucked one last time before you left the house, even though your pussy was already crammed full of my c
ome from the last three times I had you spread open since this morning?”
“God, Sloan! Please … please don’t make me come without you inside me again. I hate that.”
She felt him grin against the side of her face. “That was your fault.”
His hands slid around her. Her zipper was drawn down and shoved aside so he could begin the process of prying open the tiny buttons holding her dress closed. She watched as the material was parted to expose her white bra. Her breasts looked enormous being cradled in their lacy cups. Maybe it was because of the pregnancy, or because they were swollen with the need to have him toy with them.
The head of his shaft broke passed the wet ring of her vagina and Lily cried out. Her breasts were drawn free and her nipples were pinched between his fingers. The cruel torture brought tears of frustration to her eyes as her body threatened to combust if he didn’t ease the pressure.
“Mm,” he purred tauntingly into her ear. “Your pussy is as greedy as your mouth when you suck my cock. You just can’t wait to take me in deep inside that perfect body of yours.”
“Stop teasing!” she wailed. “I’m already so close.”
“I know.”
Without a shred of warning, he drove upward. Lily screamed as the force of his thrust, combined by the sensitivity of her walls, ripped a hole into her very consciousness. She would have blacked out from the sheer pressure had the world not torn apart and sent her spiraling into an orgasm that exploded between her ears in a deafening roar. Her eyes streamed and her entire body seized as the fire thundered through her. She was only vaguely aware of Sloan spilling inside her and her body hungrily lapping every last drop from him. He stayed firmly wedged inside her even as she drifted back to reality and the man holding her up. There was a delicious ripple of numbness spreading through her legs and her channel pulsed with the lingering beats of her release long after he had expelled from her.
“And you wonder why I’m always horny,” she breathed into the coolness of the wall. “God, you’re amazing, Sloan.”
His hold on her tightened. “And all yours.”
A smile tugged on Lily’s mouth. “I like that.”
With a kiss to the side of her head, Sloan drew back and began helping her fasten her clothes together. But he kept her panties.
Lily didn’t ask for them back.
He drove to Georgia May’s beautiful two story colonial with its green shutters and shimmering lights. All the windows were lit with pale gold lights that spilled in square patches across untouched snow. There was gray smoke billowing from the chimney that filled the early afternoon air with the scent of cinnamon. There were three other cars in the driveway that Lily recognized and a few more lining the street on both sides, and her stomach twisted.
“I don’t want to go in there,” she moaned.
“I’ll be there with you,” Sloan promised. “I won’t leave your side unless you want me to.”
Lily frowned. “That’s another thing, if this is a baby shower, why are men invited?”
Sloan shrugged. “It’s Georgia May. Does she ever really need a reason to celebrate?”
Lips pursed in agitation and dejection, Lily didn’t respond. She continued to sit there and eye the place with the look a criminal on death row would give an electric chair, fear and mistrust.
Sloan finally made the first move. He heaved himself out of the car and circled around to her side.
Georgia May answered the door wearing a breathtaking gown of black velvet and green silk. Her mane of chestnut brown hair was twisted into a pile of curls up top of her head. She smiled winningly at them.
“You came!”
Didn’t think it was an option, Lily thought miserably.
“Thank you for having us,” she said instead as she slipped past the other woman into the brightly lit foyer and the sweet serenade of flutes and violins.
“Oh, of course!” Georgia May cooed as she shut the door behind Sloan. “It just wouldn’t be the same without the expecting parents here to enjoy it.” She took a step back to observe them, and Lily immediately felt underdressed.
“The invitation said casual,” she said quickly.
Georgia May gave a nod. “It is. Please, let me take your coats and you can mingle.”
Sloan got out of his first and passed it to Georgia May. Lily’s zipper got stuck midway before she tore it free and shrugged out of it. Georgia May eyed the simple, flowy dress Lily wore with a very careful look on her face.
Lily owned a few dresses that she mainly wore throughout the summer. The dress she wore that night was one she bought because none of her other dresses fit over the bulking swell of her seven month belly. It was a maternity dress made for pregnant women and it fit her nicely, or at least Lily thought so.
“You are just a picture of glowing health!” Georgia May exclaimed finally. “Just about ready to drop, aren’t you?”
Lily flushed and lightly patted her midsection. “Dr. Phillips says early April.”
Georgia May clicked her tongue. “I bet it will be sooner than that. You’re enormous.”
Not sure how to take that, Lily forced a smile. “Thank you.”
The other woman continued to smile while examining Lily’s belly. “Well,” she said at last. “Let’s get you two away from the door and out meeting some people. But before I do, perhaps you should straighten up those buttons.”
Bemused, Lily dropped her gaze to the front of her dress and felt herself go hot; four of the top buttons had been done up wrong, leaving a gap between the third and fourth button.
“Oh!”
Lily turned her back on the room and hurriedly redid the buttons, smoothed a hand down her wrinkled skirt where Sloan’s bruising hands had bunched the fabric beyond repair and turned to the woman.
“Thank you.”
Casting knowing glances between her and Sloan, Georgia May smiled her cat-like smile. “Don’t mention it. Shall we?”
Lily didn’t exhale until the woman had turned her back on them. Sloan placed a gentle hand on the small of her back, but neither said anything as they followed Georgia May into the sitting area and the other guests.
The music was louder here, yet it was oddly drowned out by the chatter of voices and the ring of laughter. People turned when they stepped into the doorway and the babbling quieted.
“Look who arrived!” Georgia May announced, waving her arms in Lily and Sloan’s direction.
Exclamations of delight rose through the air. People moved forward to greet them and Lily instinctively tried to take a step back, only to be stopped by Sloan. He propelled her forward through the throng.
Without really knowing what to say, Lily repeated the same five words over and over to everyone she passed.
“Hi, nice to see you.”
It wasn’t until she saw the familiar faces of her parents that she finally relaxed and her tight smile blossomed in delight. She hurried to them without Sloan’s insistence and threw her arms around her father. Then her mother.
“I am so happy to see you here!” she groaned.
Her mother laughed and patted her on the back. “Hello, sweetie.”
Lily drew back. “Do you know half these people?”
Her mother looked over the room. “Some.” Her mother’s brown eyes met hers, still dancing with amusement. “You should sit down. I have a feeling this is going to be a very long night.”
Lily hadn’t seen her parents since they returned from their visit to see her aunt Irene during Christmas. She and Sloan had gone to welcome them back when they first got home, but then the holiday lull had ended and the rush of everyday life had gotten in the way. It made her whole night to see them there.
“How are you?” her mom asked after Sloan had dragged a chair over for Lily to sit next to her mother.
“Exhausted,” Lily mumbled. “I can’t sleep for more than a handful of hours before this one decides he wants to play kickboxing with my bladder. I swear I should just move my bed into the bathr
oom.”
Her mother laughed. “Wait until the three am feedings.”
Lily grimaced, but said nothing.
“So are you guys ready?” her dad asked, looking to Sloan.
“We ordered a crib, but it won’t arrive until next week,” Sloan answered. “We have a few other things already bought and left in Cole’s old room.”
“I wish we could have kept Lily’s old crib,” her mother sighed. “My father had made it for her.”
“Yeah, but the thing was a disaster waiting to happen,” her father muttered. “Plus I had to take an ax to the thing to get it out of the house.” He turned to Sloan. “He had stripped all the screws building it.”
Sloan laughed.
“Do you know what you’re having yet?” her mother asked expectantly.
Lily shook her head. “We want to be surprised.”
“You want to be surprised,” Sloan corrected with a mock glower at her. “She won’t even let me find out.”
“Because you might accidently tell me,” Lily protested.
“I never understood why women do that,” her father grumbled. “Karen was the same way. How the hell is a man supposed to prepare if he doesn’t know?”
Sloan waved a hand towards her father as though to emphasize the very valid point the other man was making.
Lily laughed and rolled her eyes. “You two are incorrigible.”
Forever His Baby Page 19