While They Watch

by Sosie Frost

  “I decided something tonight,” I whispered.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Better than okay.” I stared into his eyes—bright and excited. “For so long, I’ve been waiting—praying—that someone from my past would find me.”

  “And now?”

  “Shepard…I don’t want to be found anymore. Not now that I’ve found you.”

  Shepard pulled me close, but he didn’t speak. His lips lowered to mine, and he let the soft, delicate kiss whisper every promise for him.

  Words he wouldn’t speak, vows he wouldn’t share.

  I fell into him, clutching at his strength. A simmering and dangerous heat flared within me, and the sudden intensity stole my words with a mewed gasp and hushed breath.

  Shepard stilled. He must have felt it too.

  The connection. The truth.

  The relief.

  This was where we belonged. Together. No hesitations. No past to bind us, no future to distract us.

  “I need you,” I whispered. Honesty caressed me as gently as his touch. “I feel like I’ve always needed you.”

  Shepard didn’t answer. He swept me into his arms, carrying me first into the living room to check on the sleeping baby. Clue rested comfortably, eyes closed with a dreamy smile. Like she had slept at his house a million times before and felt just as safe here as she was in her own little room.

  If I had no other reason to trust Shepard—even if he had never joined me for dinners, helped me with my past, or taken me with such intensity and passion—then his love for my baby was more than enough to surrender to this wild and unknowing desire.

  His bedroom was untidy. Clothes on the floor, a kicked shoe halfway between the private bathroom and bed. We didn’t care. He carried me to the blankets, still warm from where he had slept. I wrapped my arms over his neck and sighed as he kissed me, my throat, my collarbone.

  His scent rushed over me, leather and spice.

  I’d had it before, and that was a moment of déjà vu I wished I could have experienced again and again. Memories of nights in his arms. Fantasies of a life and passion together. They came true once more.

  We kissed. Not a frenzied ravishment of our bodies, but quiet worship and solemn promises. The way it was meant to be—without guilt, hesitance, or doubt.

  Our clothes stripped away, and every uncovered inch of heated flesh was warmed with kisses and touches. Shepard laid over me, his chest bare and rippling with strength. I arched to meet him, pressing our bodies together.

  Nothing had ever felt as perfect as that heat, that softness, that muscle against me. And I didn’t need memories for comparison. Shepard was everything that I needed to be complete. I’d never again desire another man like him. I couldn’t imagine another man beyond him.

  And now, I didn’t need to fear anyone else coming between us.

  “I’m yours…” I whispered as his kisses trailed low, delighting me with teasing licks to a place not-so-secret to us anymore. “Shepard, I promise you.”

  “I’ve wanted to hear you say that…” Shepard’s words murmured over my softness, teased with the silken petals and slickened folds. “Evie, all I’m asking is a chance to prove myself to you.”

  “You have nothing to prove.” I groaned through the shivers. “Though I like it when you try.”

  His fingers replaced his lips, and I whimpered as he gently stroked everywhere and anywhere my body demanded. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking. I can’t get inside that head of yours.”

  “Neither can I.” I begged him with hushed breaths and whispered words. “Forget that part of me.”

  “I can’t, Evie. And neither can you.”

  “I’m great at forgetting things.”

  “I’m not.”

  I met his gaze, my honesty just as profound as my desire. “I don’t care about a past I can’t remember. The only thing I want is a future with you.”

  Shepard shuddered as I stroked him, tightening around his hardness with a deliberate hand. He groaned and flexed closer to me.

  Touches weren’t enough. We needed more. I wrapped my legs around his waist and arched, welcoming that heat and hardness within my core.

  I groaned, but he silenced my cry with a quick kiss and a single thrust within me.

  Locked together.

  Made for each other.

  Lost in a flood of desire and a crash of desperation.

  I clung to him, holding myself against his strength, meeting his every movement with an arch of my own. Our breathing tangled into a hiss of pleasure, and my fluttering heart beat a rhythm in my chest matched only by the desperate rush of his hips.

  “Shepard…” My voice wavered as that perfect crest threatened to steal every word, thought, and promise from my lips. “You have to know how I feel.”

  “I do.”

  “No.” I gripped him, tangling us in ravenous heat. “You don’t know. I didn’t even know. Not until today. Not until…”

  “Shh.” He moved faster, silencing my words. “Not now.”

  “Yes. Now.” What better time? What better place? I was in his arms, in his bed, welcoming him within my core. Now was the only time. “Shepard, I lo—”

  He stopped his movements, his hand over my lips. “No. Not yet.”

  I shook my head. He didn’t release me.

  “Not until your memory returns,” he insisted.

  It didn’t make a difference now. Honesty was honesty, my feelings were my own.

  “Those memories would complicate everything…” He kissed me, softly. “Wait. For my sake.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you took it back…if you couldn’t keep that promise…” His eyes darkened, the blue stormy and lost. “I can’t handle it again.”

  “Again?”

  “Surrendering my heart.”

  “I won’t break it.” I whimpered as he thrust once more. “Shepard, you don’t understand.”

  “You remembered a man before.”

  “And those memories? They’re lost now.” I touched his cheek. “Whoever existed in my past, whoever that man was, he’s gone. He’s not coming back. What we had is over.”

  “It’s still your past. You owe it to yourself.”

  “When I think of him…of any time in his bed, in his arms…” My words broke, caught between pleasure and tears. “Shepard, yours is the only face that I see. You are the only man I wished I had. The only one I want. I regret not meeting you first. It’s killing me that you aren’t…”

  He leaned over me, his motions turning harder, fiercer.

  “Say it,” he said. “Let me hear it.”

  “I wish it had been you,” I whispered. “My fiancé. My baby’s father. Everything, Shepard. I’m giving up that past. I want you. Forever.”

  “God help me.” Shepard crashed over me, his kisses hard and fierce. “I’ll give you the life you want. The one you deserve. Everything you’ve ever wanted. I swear it—you’ll come first. You and the baby will be the most important things to me.”

  Such promises didn’t need vows. No words could ever swear as strongly as a kiss, bind as passionate as a touch, or surrender as deeply as two bodies made as one.

  My pleasure rooted in his, connecting our bodies as every stroke, every emotion, every tightness enveloped us in a perfect cocoon of pleasure and safety and perfection.

  I came as he did. Together.

  And that moment was the beginning of something perfect. A life I’d always wanted. A family for me and my baby. A chance for happiness and stability in a world that had taken both from me.

  This was the start of what I deserved.

  The promise of my naivety.

  The end of my innocence.

  If only it had lasted.

  17

  Routines.

  Were.

  Awesome.

&n
bsp; Who knew six months old was such a magical time.

  Yes, I was relegated to a schedule.

  And yes, if I deviated from said schedule there was hell to pay and leaks to spring, but a good nursing bra and a full night’s sleep was the key to mastering this crazy game called motherhood.

  Shepard wasn’t in my bed when I woke, but I heard him in the kitchen. I grabbed a robe and snuck through the hall, watching as he shared his breakfast with Clue, delighting the baby with smiles and tickles.

  With him, it just came…naturally.

  Clue loved him, and she screeched her demands for good morning cuddles, kisses, and the inevitable diaper change. She pounded on the high chair and opened her mouth wide, wide, wide for a scoop of whatever baby food he had picked for her this morning.

  “Applesauce, yum!” Shepard offered her a spoonful.

  She took it, tasted it, retched, then battled at the spoon.

  Shepard glanced at the label. “What’s wrong, Clue? It’s apples. Apples are yummy.”

  The spoon didn’t even get close. Clue sucker punched the air and cast away the food. Shepard frowned.

  “I know, but your momma’s still sleeping. I’ll get you something from the tap after breakfast. For now, just take a bite for me…see?” He scooped a helping and took a bite himself. His face pinched, and he reflexively gagged. “Jesus. This is what you’re supposed to eat?”

  Clue giggled, blowing a victorious spit-bubble as Shepard reluctantly swallowed. She reached for her binkie but offered it to him instead. He took it, pretending to gobble it up, and then presented it back to her with a grin. Clue squealed in delight.

  “Ba ba ieeee!”

  “That’s right.” Shepard retrieved another jar of baby food from the cabinet and tried it before offering her a spoonful. “See if you like this more.”

  She squealed as she saw me in the doorway, but Shepard hadn’t noticed, too focused on the task at hand. Clue scrunched her nose as the spoon pressed to her mouth, but she mimicked Shepard’s smile, and the bite slipped in.

  She smacked her lips, but the food stayed down. Quite the accomplishment.

  “See. I wouldn’t mislead you,” he said. “You trust me, right?”

  “Abababa.”

  “Not baba.” Shepard gave her a kiss. “How about…Dada?”

  My heart fluttered, and the rush of shock and delight buzzed through me.

  I bit my lip, and Shepard nodded as Clue took another offered bite.

  “That’s right. Can you say Dada?”

  Clue snorted. “Lahhh.”

  “Dada!”

  “Lahh!”

  “Once more. I’m Dada. Say Dada!”

  “Lahh ahh ahh!”

  I laughed. “She said…not without her lawyer present.”

  Shepard leapt from the chair with a muffled profanity. The jar of pureed mangos went flying, crashing against the floor and mooshing the fruit even more under his boot.

  “Jesus, Evie.” Shepard scratched his beard. “Scared the hell out of me.”

  “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Clue buzzed her lips and bounced halfway out of her high chair to get to me. I leaned down and gave her a sloppy path of kisses across her cheeks. Then I turned to Shepard.

  His smile was sheepish, just the kind I wanted to have for myself.

  I murmured over his lips. “Dada, huh?”

  “I just thought…I mean…I didn’t want to overstep my bounds.”

  “I like it. The last thing I want to do is force you into anything, but…” I winked at the baby. “Clue and I are a package deal.”

  “Two for one?” Shepard stole another kiss. “I’m a man with an eye for a bargain.”

  “Double the trouble.”

  “I prefer…twice as nice.”

  “Aren’t you sweet?”

  “You haven’t seen sweet yet.” Shepard’s lips teased over my chin, my neck, my shoulder peeking from the robe. “Just wait.”

  “I’m not a patient person.”

  “You’ll wait for this.” He pulled away as Clue fussed, her arms raised toward me. He reached her first, giving her a goodbye hug. “Better get to work.”

  “Already?”

  “Big day.” He shook his head. “Bigger case. I might be a little late.”

  Oh, that was familiar. One week with Shepard, and it felt like we’d been together for years. I expected many a late night from Detective Novak.

  “I’ll be home before she goes to bed. I promise you that, Evie. I’ll always be there to tuck her in.”

  I liked that. “That sounds nice, though I’m hoping you’ll be there to tuck me in.”

  He wagged a finger. “Bad girl. Naughty, naughty girl.”

  “Nothing like taking your work home with you.”

  “I knew I’d find a use for those handcuffs.”

  I smirked. “I like their intended use already.”

  Shepard adjusted his slacks. “I’m outta here before you make me late for work.”

  “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Damn right.”

  The door closed behind him. Clue screeched. I turned and sighed.

  “Don’t tell me you liked those mangos?” I retrieved the jar and cleaned up the mess, sniffing with a cautious nose over the food. It wasn’t bad. “I’m much more of a pineapple girl myself. I don’t think I had many mangos growing up.”

  Clue eagerly awaited her next spoonful. I dished it to her and shrugged. “Not sure what I liked, actually. Not even sure what I had growing up.”

  Or once I was a teenager.

  Or adult.

  For as much as I wanted to keep forgetting that part of my life, the days that passed since Darnell’s untimely visit only made the encounter all that clearer.

  Though I kept the chain on the door and informed the doorman to refuse Darnell entry, I didn’t feel unsafe. Hell, I no longer thought Darnell even wanted money.

  It was almost like…

  He was angry with me.

  Like he wanted to humiliate me.

  Shepard had insisted that I forget everything Darnell said, but his words picked at me, jabbing my thoughts, rattling around in a mind empty of a past that might have muffled those words.

  Something wasn’t right about what had happened.

  Darnell wasn’t Clue’s father. And no bartender could make a fuzzy navel strong enough to convince me to sleep with him.

  But he’d known things. Granna. The neighborhood.

  My name?

  Clue thoughtfully deliberated on her last bite of the mango. The verdict was in, and the mangos were out. She spat the breakfast Exorcist style, and I rubbed her mouth and chin with her bib.

  “Why would he have called me Evie?” I asked her. Clue slapped the high chair table. “If he wanted to lie to me, why not give me a fake name? Even he wasn’t dumb enough to repeat the Evie he heard on the news.”

  Clue agreed with a mumble.

  “And the nurses only called me Evie because they found me on Evie Street.”

  The baby nodded. “Abababa.”

  She opened her mouth for another spoonful. This one didn’t make it. I stared at the jar. “But I’ve been to Evie Street. Nothing’s there. It’s a commercial area. Just…banks and a Jimmy Johns sandwiches. Couple printing shops. I think there was an antique dealer. Call me crazy, Clue, but that’s not where I would have lived.”

  “Eeeee um um um.”

  “And if I was nine months pregnant...how far would I really have waddled for an ice cream sandwich?”

  These were questions Clue refused to answer.

  Damn it. I didn’t want to know the past anymore. Nothing waited for me there. Only bad neighborhoods and worse situations.

  There was no happiness, no family, and certainly no one like Shepard there telling my baby to call him Dada.

  So why did it matter so much to me?

  The answer was obvious. Something was wrong with the story.

  Something important.
/>
  Something that we all had missed.

  I fed and dressed Clue, quickly packing a small diaper bag for her. Inside, I tucked a one-hundred-dollar bill, a notebook, and my phone, centered on a map of the city—specifically Evie Street.

  Clue liked walks, which was good, but Evie street was just as confusing now as it had been the first two times I’d investigated it.

  No residential buildings on the street, no homes, no places that felt familiar at all.

  So I crossed to the next block. Frankie Street. Then Gretta. Then Henry.

  More commercial areas—in fact, the buildings looked bigger, prettier, newer.

  If I didn’t have a fiancé far along into the pregnancy, I doubted I could have afforded a home in the nicer areas of the city, even if I had escaped my childhood digs.

  So where did that leave me?

  Hungry. Confused. And with blisters on my feet.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have to search for the answer.

  It drove to me.

  The tinny, whiney music was familiar. I had been dreaming of it almost every night since the accident.

  Turkey in the Straw.

  An ice cream truck patrolled the streets, crawling along the boulevard and scanning for any greedy kids with a dollar to spare. The white truck plastered brightly colored confections on the side, and a grinning driver in a pin-stripe suit and paper hat waved to those who stopped and begged for a treat.

  He was exactly who I needed to talk to.

  I crossed the street, waiting in the back of the line while the sugar rushed the kids out of my path. The man leaned out of the window, gave me a wink, and grinned at Clue.

  “She looks a little young for an ice cream…but I bet Momma could use a treat!”

  “Actually…” I pulled the stroller closer. “I could use a little information.”

  The ice cream man stiffened, his smile faltering. “Don’t have any of that. Do have plenty of Fudgesicles.”

  “Questions first. Treats later.”

  “Lady, I got a busy route to run here—”

  “Do you remember hearing about an accident involving a truck and a pregnant woman six months ago?”

  Strange to see an ice cream man sweat, but his brow instantly beaded. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. You want some ice cream or not?”