Adam

by Irish Winters

  “What are you doing?”

  “Shh, don’t wake Jimmy. I’m putting you kids to bed. That’s all.”

  She didn’t protest much more, so he snuggled her into the pillows. Without asking, he eased her out of her skirt, removed her silk stockings, and pulled the blanket up. Two sleepy faces smiled dreamily at him.

  “Don’t go,” she murmured.

  “I’m not.” To prove it, he eased his slightly damp body, towel and all, alongside hers. “Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  “Adam?” Her eyes were closed again. This girl was fading fast. “I love you,” she muttered. “I really love you.”

  “I know.” He kissed her cheek, fighting the depth of his feelings for her. “Believe me, Shannon baby. I know.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Want milk, Mama!”

  Shannon lay still with her sleeping babe at her side, listening to the sounds of a happy home emanating up from the ground level. Judy’s soft response was harder to make out, but the other little boy who lived in the house came in loud and clear. “Me, too. Me, too!”

  Adam lay behind her, his chest to her back and a heavy palm on her hip. Slow, steady breaths told her he was sound asleep. She snuggled into the shelter of his strong, hard body. Where had he just been? South America? The man had to be tired, but he was also honorable. A thick bath towel definitely lay between their semi-naked bodies.

  Why wasn’t he like everyone else, intimidated by her father’s wealth and power, and content to back off when she’d screamed at him? Why had he dared to intercept her at the gas station? Of all the unlikely cohorts, her nightmare had ended because of the unexpected charity of a company of snipers. How bizarre was that? Snipers who cared? It seemed an unreal situation, and yet, out of the blue, Adam and his team had ridden in on their white horses and saved her.

  She closed her eyes, breathing deeply of the comfort of a brave man. On top of being fearless and to-die-for handsome, Adam smelled good. Really good. She inhaled deeply, detecting some masculine body-wash mixed with the heady scent of his damp hair, minty toothpaste, and deodorant.

  Still snoring softly, he dipped his nose into her neck, filling that sensitive hollow with the moist heat of a relaxed male in slumber. Delicious delight sparked deep in her core. She shivered, stretching against him to take in more of the sensation she craved. The brush of his freshly shaved chin against her ticklish neck. The feel of his lips barely brushing her skin. Ah, this handsome, wonderful man was difficult to resist, especially sound asleep and vulnerable like he was. How much better if he were awake?

  Her fingers curled, wanting very much to manhandle him. Heat, flamed up the insides of her thighs. Uniquely feminine muscles that hadn’t clenched in over three months, to be exact, contracted, relaxed, then tightened again as if they knew precisely what she needed. Did they? Oh, yes. She wanted that handsome body awake and responsive, the sooner the better.

  Her bedroom door cracked open, interrupting her deliciously wicked plan. A little boy’s face peeked around two grubby hands that gripped the knob. She couldn’t tell which twin this was because, well, she hadn’t really looked at Harley’s boys until now. This little guy looked exactly like his brother except for his unruly, sandy colored hair. He pushed the door open a little wider, curiosity peaking his brows. “Kin I come in?”

  “Sure. Do you want to see the baby?” Of course he did. Didn’t everyone?

  “Uh-huh!” No sooner said than done. But just as the twin scurried to the end of the bed, Adam stiffened and stretched, nudging her backside with his hips. The hand that had been on her hip snaked beneath the covers, then under her blouse to rest on her ribcage, and Harley’s little boy had better make this visit sweet and short. Real short.

  Adam muttered thickly in her ear, those nice warm fingers encouraging her love-starved body as they smoothed upward. “Sleep well?”

  “Yes.” She arched her neck to look at him. A hitch caught in her throat. They’d been sleeping together. Kind of. For once, she wanted more than just close encounters.

  “Let me take care of this nosy little guy first.” He kissed her forehead as he disengaged his wandering hand. “Then I’ll take care of you.”

  She focused on breathing. Yes, please.

  “Hey, Sponge Bob,” Adam said quietly. “If you want to see the baby, take your shoes off.”

  “Which one’s Sponge Bob?” she asked.

  “Georgie.”

  Noted. Now if she could just remember.

  The twin climbed onboard and plunked down at the end of the bed and proceeded to grunt and groan one of his miniature logger-style boots off. At least, he tried. For all of three seconds. “Unca Ad?” He stuck the boot at Adam. “Kin you help?”

  “You bet. Come here, little buddy.” Adam leaned onto one elbow.

  Sponge Bob wiggled his butt along the comforter, three-legged crab-walking and sticking his foot forward. When he was finally close enough, Adam grabbed his ankle and pulled him up and over Shannon’s legs. The little guy squealed, “Again! Do it again!”

  “Shhh, Jimmy’s still sleeping.” Adam whispered as he released the twin, both boots finally off.

  “No, he isn’t.” Shannon eased herself and Jimmy higher on the pillows so Georgie could see the baby.

  “Aww, baby’s so cute,” he whispered. That in itself tugged at Shannon’s heart. This little Harley look-alike had finally caught on how to be quiet. Too late maybe, but he seemed to be so earnestly trying, his hands clasped under his chin and his hazel eyes bright.

  “Guess where he was born?” Adam asked.

  “In the barn?”

  “No.” Adam chuckled as he reached over Shannon and grabbed the boy. “Jimmy isn’t a puppy. He was born on a desert island way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”

  “Whoa,” Sponge Bob breathed in amazement as if he knew where or what the Pacific was. “I got borned in Mama’s tummy.”

  “You did, huh?” Adam ruffled his fingers through the boy’s hair. “Now, run along. Tell your mama Jimmy’s awake. We’ll be down in a bit.”

  “Okay!” Georgie bounced off the bed and ran for the door. “Bye, bye!”

  “Don’t forget your boots.” Adam tossed one boot off the bed.

  “Okay!” Sponge Bob raced back, grabbed his boot, and started for the door again.

  “Don’t forget your other boot.” Adam tossed the other boot.

  “Oh. Yeah.” Sponge Bob raced back with a big smile, snagged his lost sock, and headed out again.

  Shannon giggled when the door finally closed behind him. “He left one of his boots.”

  Adam sighed. “That kid. I was always finding their stuff in my room, in the bed, in the bathroom. You name it. Tonka trucks, baseballs, shoes, sometimes socks, sometimes other things, too. Found a sippy cup full of potato bugs one time.”

  She traced a finger along the edge of his jaw. How on earth did I get so lucky? He’s handsome, brave, and strong. He loves kids and dogs—and me. “You like it here, don’t you?” she asked.

  Adam snagged her roving finger between his teeth. “Yeah, I do. It’s quiet. Away from the world…” he mumbled. “I like the space between neighbors and the fact that there are no streetlights. It gets so dark out here you can see the stars. Even the gravel roads are cool. Guess they remind me of home. But enough about them.” He released her finger as his lips caressed hers, brushing fire over them. Tasting. Asking.

  Her lungs demanded air, and along with that deep breath came the masculine scent of the aroused male at her side. Her worries melted with that bow to carnal temptation. Unfortunately, Jimmy chose that moment to remind them he was still there.

  Adam leaned back, breaking the sizzling arc between their mouths. His gaze dropped from her chin to her exposed chest, her blouse having come open, and the tops of her breasts on display. He clearly coveted her, his eyes hooded, his breathing heavy.

  Shannon groaned with the physical needs of her sex-famished bod
y. Oh, please, not now, baby of mine. Go back to sleep.

  But Jimmy persisted with a high-pitched demand for attention.

  Shannon drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Jimmy came first. The tumble under the sheets had to wait. Before she could answer her son’s call, Adam snagged him up from the covers and lifted him overhead. The baby blinked big, dark eyes, his heavy head drooping down while he grinned. Shannon had to give Linda that one tiny credit. She had kept Jimmy healthy and happy.

  “You, Squeaks, need to be changed,” Adam declared, wrinkling his nose. “You stink.”

  Shannon rolled to her side intending to change Jimmy’s diaper. She’d caught the rank odor the moment Adam lifted the blankets. “I’ll do that.”

  “No, I can handle this little guy.” Adam pushed off the bed, the towel still wrapped around his waist, and the baby in his hands. “Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back.”

  Shannon dug her heels into the mattress to push herself up to the headboard. It gave her a bird’s eye view of the room, which really was the perfect guest room. But she had better things to look at.

  Goose bumps prickled her bare arms and shoulders at the sight of her man with her son. She remembered that scrumptious, all-male physique now. Slabs of muscle called pecs hung below broad, rippling shoulders. Who was the Greek god who had shouldered the world in ancient mythology? Hercules? Shannon couldn’t rightly recall, not with her brainpower befuddled and her body, umm, hungry. Only it wasn’t her stomach growling. Uh-uh.

  Instinctively, she ran one hand beneath the blanket to her breasts, now full and aching for that man’s attention. His touch. His mouth. Just the thought of his hand palming her breast and maybe pinching it arched her back, and she, Shannon Reagan, flamed into wanton need. Her most secret places flooded with slick anticipation. It had been a really long time since she’d been romanced, much less felt this needy. How odd that the sight of this man’s careful handling of her little boy-child was hands down the most romantic thing she’d ever seen. How strange that it stirred her soul to believe. That it created an overwhelming desire to give him every last piece of herself.

  The round scar left from the South Dakota bullet punctuated his left collarbone. Another scar that she didn’t yet know the story behind, glanced his left ribs with a small, circular hook. Maybe a knife? Yet there he stood, a half-naked, dangerous man who knew the darker sides of life, taking care of a baby as small and innocent as Jimmy. It warmed every last speck of her heart.

  He tugged on what had to be a messy diaper. “What have we got here?” There it was again, that gentle beast side of him, playful and tender.

  Shannon wrapped her arms around her knees to control her burgeoning sexual need and settled in to enjoy the view. Adam had shaved. He looked cleaner. Less dangerous. Incredibly hot.

  When he lifted Jimmy’s skinny legs up, a diaper wipe in the other hand, Adam’s nose crinkled all the way up his forehead. He turned his face to the side, one eye open, one closed, and muttered, “On second thought, this one’s for you, Mama. Get your butt over here and take care of your son.”

  “Oh, now he’s my son?” The easy banter between them surprised her. Everything seemed familiar and carefree with Adam.

  Lifting the flannel comforter, a cool breeze wafted over her bare skin. Except for her blouse, she was mostly undressed. She shrugged both shoulders, teasing back. “Sorry. You’ll have to figure it out. I’m naked.”

  He shot her a crooked smile, wiggling his brows. “Don’t give me that line. You’d have to lose all your clothes to be naked. Now move it.”

  She shivered despite the heat blossoming up her neck and over her face. Watching him try his darnedest to avoid changing a messy diaper was so much the routine a husband and father would employ. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the most romantic sight, but her heart thought it was. It kept doing crazy flip-flops.

  “Judy bought the robe at the foot of the bed for you,” he tried another ruse. “I’d sure like to see you in it.”

  “You’d sure like to watch me reach for it, too, huh?” She knew better. This man wanted an eye full, and she didn’t know if she was brave enough. “Can you reach it for me?” Dumb question. Of course he couldn’t. He had his hands full of baby.

  Adam shook his head, the biggest, salacious grin on his face. He intended to look, and when he did, he’d whistle and wink those sexy brows and make certain he saw. Everything.

  It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen most of her already. Shannon dropped the flannel and headed for the plush. Only when she was once more concealed, did she meet his eyes. He hadn’t whistled, but he stood there with the sappiest look on his rugged face.

  “What?” she asked, her cheeks flaming and the robe pulled tight.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

  “No, I’m not.” She turned aside. It had been a long time since anyone had complimented her. Of course, then he spoiled it. “Now come get this stinky little boy of yours.”

  Shannon took over the diaper-changing duty while Adam wrapped his arms around her, making it a little difficult to get the job done. “I like this,” he muttered into her hair, his hands running up and down her arms, her padded back to his bare-naked chest.

  She wiggled against him.

  “Be careful, or Jimmy’s going to get a lesson in biology,” Adam whispered huskily. “Especially after that strip show you just put on.”

  “It wasn’t a strip show. It was a mad dash for cover.” Playing and flirting with this man felt good.

  “I liked it,” he growled as he traced his tongue along the edge of her ear. When tiny nibbles pinched her neck, she tilted her head to the side, craving Adam’s touch down to her soul. He’d become not only her savior, but her resurrection, too. She was born again. Tenderness had reawakened, and along with it, came a new awareness. A sensitivity. She couldn’t speak. Just feel. Just crave. Each of her five senses were heightened and in bright, sharp focus. She knew precisely what she wanted. And who.

  Shannon wrapped the soiled diaper into a tight bundle and tossed it into the covered waste receptacle beside the changing table.

  “Is he hungry?” Adam asked hoarsely, his nose in her hair, his hands roaming to the curve of her hips.

  “No, but I am,” she breathed.

  He tilted her face up, and she closed her eyes, her hands still fastening Jimmy securely to the table. Very gently, Adam kissed her. The tip of his tongue slid over the seam of her lips. When she opened for him, he growled into her mouth, “I want you.”

  Need blazed, a wildfire that instantly consumed every nerve and muscle, arcing over her scalp in a sizzling current that burned all the way to her toes. When she pushed into Adam, he molded his magnificent body around hers, his steel aligned perfectly with the cleft in her backside. His fingers splayed across her stomach, pressing her into him.

  But Jimmy…

  “I have to put him to bed,” she murmured.

  “Then do it,” Adam growled. He scraped his fingertips over her prickled nipples, playing with fire.

  “Baby of mine,” she whispered fervently, planting a kiss to the top of Jimmy’s head as she lifted his charming self into her arms. “You’re going to play in bed for a little while. There’s a big teddy bear already in there with your name on it. He’ll keep you company.”

  She laid her smiling son on his back at one end of the baby bed, while Adam nestled the stuffed bear at the other end. “It will give him something to look at,” he said, positioning the bear’s smiling face toward Jimmy. “How’s that, little man? Me and your mama aren’t going too far. Holler if you need us, okay?”

  Shannon beamed. Adam talked to her son like Jimmy might answer. The normalcy of the moment hit her hard. Not once had her father spent any time with this cute little guy. By the time Adam turned to her, she’d clouded up again. He smiled, his palm to her jaw while he thumbed her tender sentiments away. “What am I going to do with you?”

  She couldn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
With one slight bend of his knees, she was on her way back to bed. The comfy bathrobe didn’t last long. Neither did his extra-large towel or her underwear. She lay there on the edge of the king-sized mattress, breathless, on her back, and her battered self completely exposed to his pleasure. Adam knelt over her ankles, his eyes black and dangerous as he descended with the sheets billowed over his broad shoulders.

  Her breath caught. As often as they’d lain together on the island, he’d never stalked her like he did now. Adam cocooned them in privacy. “You never know...” he said as he leaned into her neck with a heated breath.

  No more talking. Shannon reached behind Adam’s head and pulled him into her face, sealing his mouth to hers in a desperate need to satisfy. She let her fingers do the talking, pushing one hand between them and down his abdomen to parts below. He groaned deliciously in her ears when her fingers made first contact. This was what she’d wanted on that speck of sand and beach in the Pacific. This man. This velvet shaft of steel. She worked him with long, smooth strokes, relishing every last inch of him.

  “I want you,” she murmured, sure she had him right where she wanted him—on the edge of that same precipice with her, that place in time where life had stranded them with one disaster after another. She wanted at last to fall, to take that final step into happily-ever-after, and she wanted him to come with her.

  “Not this way,” he muttered thickly, untangling his legs and other body parts from her reach. He tumbled her up and over as he leaned backward until she straddled him, her knees tucked against his hips and the rest of her right where she wanted to be. He throbbed hot and dangerous beneath her as he rearranged the blankets to shield her from the possibility of her three-month-old son’s view.

  “I want to look at you while we do this,” he murmured, his hands warm and sure on her breasts, fondling and strumming the hard nubs her nipples had blossomed into. Too soon, his palms moved to her hips. Then her butt. With a gentle squeeze of her ass, a quiet grunt and a lift, he impaled her. Painfully. Wonderfully. Slowly.