by K. I. Lynn
“Shut up, Callahan. Why are you in here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be getting checked out yourself, asshole?”
“Already did. I’m good. You’re the one that went all lights out on me, man. Scared the fucking shit out of me,” I say, and I mean it.
I didn’t say anything to anyone, but the thought of Cam not making it really fucked with me. I don’t know what I would have done had something happened to him, and on top of that, he wasn’t speaking to me.
“I’m glad you’re okay, then,” he says and looks away. “I’d hate to have been the one to have to teach your kid how to play ball. I suck at sports.”
Hope blooms in my chest. He’s throwing out an olive branch, and I’d be a dumb son of a bitch not to take it right now.
“I hate that we’re not speaking,” I tell him, staring him straight in the eyes. “Your sister and I are having a baby, and I want my best friend there. I love her, man. I know you don’t think I’m good enough for her, but I’d like to prove you wrong.”
Cam looks away and then back. “What the fuck do you mean? I’m speaking to you now, dumbass.”
“You know what I’m saying, Cameron. Tonight was crazy. It’s part of the job. I know that, but for the first time I had someone that would have been hurt and lost had I not come home.” My brow furrows as my jaw clenches at even the thought of the agony it would cause her. “On top of that, she would have been devastated if she lost her brother while he was still angry with her. Fuck, man, I would have been, too.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment.
“Thank you,” he says.
I nod my head at him. “You don’t need to thank me. You would have done the same for me if the situation were reversed. I know that.”
“Yeah, I would have. I would have had your back just like you’ve always had mine.” I start to open my mouth to agree, but he’s not done. “That’s why finding out about you and Ev the way that I did . . . Well, it was fucked up, Niko. I heard what you said. That day at my parent’s house. I believed you. I just wasn’t ready to deal with the fact that you didn’t think our friendship was important enough to tell me to my face that you were fucking my sister.”
“Cam, it’s not like that. I’m not just—” He waves me off.
“I know it’s not like that now, but that’s what I thought at the time. She’s my kid sister, man, and you’ve been more of a brother to me than anyone else has in our crew. I’ve known you since we were kids. I just didn’t expect you to not come to me with something as important as my sister.”
I don’t say anything because he’s right. I owed it to him to go to him as his friend. No, as a man, and let him know how I felt about Ev, but I didn’t. I let the situation get to a point that our friendship was damaged, and for that, I honestly feel like shit.
“It’s going to take me a little time, but I’ll work it out on my own. I just need some time to adjust. That all right with you, man?” he asks, and my head comes up at his words.
“Of course. I understand,” I say and walk toward his hospital room door. “I’ll go let Ev know she can come in now. She was calling your parents to let them know you were awake.” I walk to the door and turn my head back to him. “I’m glad you’re okay, Cam.”
“Me too, brother. Me too.”
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT we’re going to do with all this stuff,” I say as I look around at box upon box filled with baby stuff. Two giant baby showers, and a Christmas where my mom went overboard, and we’re fully baby equipped.
“I thought the one your mom threw was huge,” Niko says, and I laugh. His cousin Siobhan wasn’t kidding when she said she wanted to throw us a huge shower for the baby. Nearly every cousin or their wife turned up, plus his aunts and a few uncles who were dragged to the event.
“Turns out your Irish side was just as big and generous.” There are going to be a lot of Thank you cards to write, and my hand is cramping at just the thought.
“As I said, some are trying to make up for their parents’ prejudice.”
“This might be my favorite gift,” I say as I pet the quilt that rests on the back of the rocking chair.
Niko nods.
It was a gift from Cameron. A specially made and designed quilt with a firefighting teddy bear on it. I love that not only did he come up with the idea for such a sweet gift on his own, foregoing pulling from our baby registry, but a gift that he commissioned after his and Niko’s fallout.
“He’s excited to be an uncle,” he says, happy that my brother has finally accepted that Niko and I are together and that we are going to be a family. It took a few weeks, but Cam has slowly warmed back up to Niko. Which is evident in the quilted design. He even had Callahan scripted on it.
In the past few months, Niko has pretty much moved into my place. He spends all his time here. Though I think this week I’ll buy a king-sized mattress and headboard. My queen is a little cramped with all the pillows and Niko. I look around at all of the gifts we got, and I’m amazed at just how much you need to care for a baby.
“I didn’t realize just how much of this stuff you actually have to put together,” I say as I look at the boxes containing the crib, changing table, and stroller.
“I want to grab a quick shower before I head to work, but I promise that I’ll start putting the crib together when I get back.”
“And after you sleep.”
He nods. “We can just do a few things as we go, but the crib should be first,” he says and kisses my forehead before walking over to his duffle bag packed with his clean clothes.
He starts pulling out a few things, looking for one of the shirts he wears to work when I reply, “Yeah. Although, I’m not sure when we’ll put him in it. I kind of want his bassinet in the room with us for a while when he first comes home.”
I look at Niko to see if he’s okay with that. I know he works crazy hours and sometimes double shifts. When he gets home, he sometimes just crashes first before anything else. Having a newborn baby in the room with us at first probably won’t appeal to him, but I want him with us for the first few weeks, maybe even the first few months.
He walks toward me, placing a kiss on my lips this time and smiles.
“I like the idea of him being close to us. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Besides, with you breastfeeding, it would probably be a lot more convenient if he was right next to you in his bassinet.”
“How do you know that it will be more convenient? Have you breastfed a baby before, Nikolas?” I ask and am met with his beautiful grey eyes and that one, cocky, yet sexy-ass raised eyebrow.
“Babe . . .” he says, and then nothing else. I cross my arms when he just stares at me, waiting for him to answer my question, but he doesn’t. He merely shrugs at me before going back to rummaging through his bag.
“You know I hate when you do that, right?”
“When I do what?” he asks.
“When you blow me off with a shrug rather than answer a question. That thing you do.” I pout.
Niko shakes his head and chuckles a little. “Oh, that I do know. You did it to me more than a few times, and I wanted to grab you and put you over my knee. It pissed me off every time you did it. Guess your bad habits rubbed off on me.”
My mouth pops open. “I have never done that to you. You are such a liar!”
“Don’t go there, baby. You will lose,” he says with a smirk before changing the subject. “You going to be okay without me for the night?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not like you haven’t gone to work and left me alone before. Of course, I’ll be okay.”
“I know that, but it’s been a long day. You look dead on your feet and to be honest. I was worried earlier.”
“Braxton hicks,” I assure him. “Perfectly normal at this time. You heard the doctor say that I could expect them.”
“I did, but . . .”
“You also heard him say that it was perfectly normal. If I get them again, I’ll watch the clock and time them.�
�� I run my hand across my very round stomach. “It’s not time for him to come out yet, Niko. As much as I’d love for him to vacate my big fat vessel, he’s still baking.”
“Hey, there is nothing wrong with how you look, Everly. You are the sexiest pregnant woman I’ve ever seen.”
I roll my eyes at him again. “Yeah, well, when it’s time to give this little guy an eviction notice, you better believe I’m going to be the happiest woman ever. As for you, you’re just saying that because you like screwing me doggie style, seeing as how I’ve gotten so big and that is the most comfortable position for me when we have sex.”
“While I won’t lie and say that I don’t love seeing you on all fours, baby, the truth is I’d fuck you upside down while standing on my head and you’d still be the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen.”
I crack up at the visual he just planted in my head. “I can’t see how that would even work, but okay.”
“Ev, you need to get that shit out of your pretty little head,” he says and walks over to where I’m now sitting on the bed. “I love you.” He kisses my right cheek. “Every.” Then he kisses my left cheek. “Single.” He kisses my nose. “Part.” And then he leans down and kisses my belly. “It wouldn’t matter if you weighed one thousand pounds. You’re not going to get rid of me. Accept it, Ev. You’re stuck with me for the rest of your life.” My heart is fluttering a mile a minute at his words. “Now behave so I can get ready for work. I’m jumping in the shower.”
We haven’t had a conversation about what’s going to happen after the baby gets here. I mean, we’re together. He hasn’t officially moved in, but he’s here every night that he’s not working. I get up and walk over to my dresser and open two drawers. With a handful of clothes, I begin emptying them, making space for his clothes. I don’t want to seem pushy, but he’s been living out of that damn green duffle bag for a couple of weeks now. He takes his dirty clothes home and comes back with clean ones once he’s done with his shift at the firehouse.
Maybe it’s time I let him know that I’m done pushing him away. I want him to stay.
I finish emptying a few more items from the drawers for him and decide that the closet is another place in my house that he can have. Not all of it, of course, but at least a part of it. When I’m done, I hear the water shut off in the bathroom and I wait.
As usual, when he’s naked I lose all rational thought. Niko naked and wet, though? I have no words. I just stare, and I’m pretty sure I drool.
“Stop looking at me like that when I can’t do anything about it,” he says and drops his dirty clothes in his bag.
“You know it would be easier if you just threw your dirty clothes in the laundry basket over there,” I say, pointing to the corner of the room.
“Yeah, but then I’d have to get them later, and they need to get washed,” he says, completely missing what I’m trying to say. Maybe I’m too subtle. “Besides, I need to grab new clothes when I go home, so I’m not always being ogled by you while I’m naked.”
“Yeah, right. You like being naked just as much as I like seeing you naked, so stop telling me things that aren’t true.”
Niko waggles his eyebrows up and down. I laugh at him and shake my head while watching him pull on his boxer briefs.
“I was thinking . . .”
Niko’s head snaps toward me, and he blows out a breath. “Oh shit. That’s never a good way to start a sentence with you. Do I need to sit down?”
I scrunch my brow and scowl at him. “Stop it. I’m serious.”
He holds his hands up. “Okay.”
“I was thinking that instead of going back and forth so much, and since you’re here most of the time, you might as well bring more clothes here,” I say, and Niko stops dressing to look at me, giving me his full attention. “It’s not a big deal or anything.”
I look toward the empty drawers I cleared out and left open for him. He follows my gaze and walks over to the dresser.
“You are giving me my own drawers, babe?” he asks. His voice is sounding a little huskier than it usually does.
I shrug when he looks back at me, my eyes darting to the ground. Why is it always so hard to accept that he wants to be in my life? That we’re together? He loves me, I know that, but sometimes I still feel like I’m twelve years old, blushing every time he looks at me.
“I cleared some closet space too. You don’t have to use it. I just thought I’d offer the space. It’s a good place to hang your work clothes.”
His eyes are smoldering when he looks back at me. “Fuck it.” He storms over to me and leans down, smashing his lips to mine.
I let out a squeak, my eyes wide, while his hands slip into my waistband and pull my pants down. Without a word, he spins me around and pushes down on my back, leaning me over the edge of the bed.
“What?” Is all I manage to get out before I feel the thick head of his cock press into me, stretching me.
“You’re gonna make me late,” he says as he slams into me, sending a flash of sparks to radiate through me. Each time he bottoms out, that shock sends tingles shooting through my body. “Always have to go and make me hard before work, so this’ll be a quickie.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” I manage to get out between moans he forces from me.
His fingers dig into my hips. “You practically fucking asked me to move in with that shy, innocent look after staring at me like you wanted to swallow my cock whole and looking sexy as fuck with my kid inside your belly.” He leans over, his breath hot against my ear. “If you haven’t figured out that you just standing there turns me on, apparently I need to be fucking you more to remind you.”
My fingers fist the comforter, unable to focus my eyes, just enjoying the pleasure.
“Fuck, yes,” I cry.
His hips pick up, slamming into me faster and faster, making my eyes roll back.
“You better come quick, baby.”
“Just a little more,” I beg, focusing on nothing but him until my eyes roll back
“Fuck, fuck, fuuuck!” he yells, thrusting against me one last time, his cock jumping. His groans send me over the edge and pleasure snaps through me, my body spasms.
Strength leaves us both, and Niko falls down on the bed to the side, taking me with him.
“Ask me,” he says between pants.
It takes me a minute to use my brain. “Do you want to move in with me?”
“Yes,” he says with a kiss onto the top of my head.
I shudder as he pulls out and turn to look back at him.
“Well, I was clean.”
A giggle slips from me. “Dirty boy.”
His lips twitch up into a smirk. “For you? Always.”
He heads back into the bathroom to clean up while I lay on my side. A smile plays on my lips as sleepiness starts to take me.
A swift kick to the ribs has that idea gone and me rolling onto my back and holding my side as I let out a hiss through clenched teeth.
I feel the bed dip beside me. “You okay?”
I give him a nod. “Just your son practicing his soccer skills. Help me up?”
After cleaning up, I put on some clothes, watching as Niko pulls his Newton Fire Department T-shirt over his head.
“Give me a call for anything,” Niko says as he leans down and presses his lips to mine.
“Anything?”
A groan slips from him. “When I get back . . .” he trails off.
“When you get back, what?”
His lip pulls up into that smirk, and he winks at me. “See you in the morning, baby. Sleep tight.”
“Goodnight.”
“I’ll set the alarm on my way out.”
I nod, but then my head snaps toward him. “No, wait.” He stops and looks back at me. “I’m going to go grab that bag of baby clothes from the trunk of the car first. I want to get them in the wash tonight, so I’ll set the alarm when I come back in.”
“Everly, I don’t want you lifting shit when I’m n
ot here. It can wait until tomorrow when I’m back. I want you to stay off your feet, baby. You’ve had a long day, and you should rest up. You already overdid it today.”
“Niko, it’s one bag that probably weighs less than five pounds, if that. I’m pregnant, not disabled,” I say, and he eyes me skeptically. “I promise that I’m only grabbing the bag of clothes. The rest are in here already. The heavy boxes are all yours. Now get going before you are later than you already are for work.”
He lets out a huff of air before walking back to me and crushing his lips to mine. Kisses like that from Niko always seem to cause my brain to misfire, and I’m breathless by the time he pulls away.
“Okay, but fucking hell, woman, you are stubborn. Thank fuck we’re having a boy because I don’t think I’d be able to handle two Everly’s under one roof.” I laugh at him as he walks away, shaking his head. “I’ll lock the door for now. Get some rest, baby,” he calls over his shoulder.
“Will do, Daddy!” I say, and I hear his faint groan before the front door closes and he’s gone.
Minutes after he leaves, I turn on the TV and crawl under the covers. It doesn’t take long before the day takes its toll and my eyes get heavy. Baby clothes are forgotten, I fall asleep and dream of my life going forward with Niko and the baby we have coming.
There’s a dip in the bed that stirs me, then the sound of the TV rushes in only to be silenced. I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep.
“Niko?” I ask, my eyes opening only to cringe against the light emanating from my bedside table.
My stomach drops as I look at my bed, at the man sitting on the end. It’s not the black-haired, grey-eyed man of my dreams. Instead, it’s the brown-haired, green-eyed demon of my nightmares.
As I stare at him, I wonder if I am in a walking nightmare. If in seconds I’ll wake up, startled, but safe with Niko beside me.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“You are mine, Everly,” he says as if that is explanation enough.