Sweet Sunshine

by Jessica Prince

  He smiled again. God, he had a really great smile. “I appreciate it. I’m sure it’s as good as everyone says. But I actually came in here for another reason. Coffee was just a bonus.”

  “Really?” Harlow and I both propped our elbows on the bar, leaning in closer, me because I was curious, her because she was a nosey pain in the ass.

  “Um, yeah.” His cheeks turned just a touch pink as he reached up and scratched his jawline. “I was wondering if maybe you’d like to have dinner with me one evening.”

  I stood straight, caught off guard by his unexpected offer.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Like on a date?” nosey-ass Harlow asked.

  “Well,” Fletch chuckled, “if she’s interested. If not, we’ll just call it a meal between friends. But for the sake of full disclosure, I’m kind of hoping dinner has more of a first-date vibe to it.”

  My mouth dropped open, but before I had a chance to respond, a low, menacing voice spoke up.

  “She’s not interested.”

  All three pairs of eyes shot to where Derrick was standing, just a few feet away from us. I hadn’t even heard the damn bell of the door!

  “Ooooh.” Harlow practically clapped with glee. Damned woman really needed to get a life.

  “For the love of God!” I snapped, throwing my hands wide. “Does no one work in this freaking town?!”

  Derrick ignored my dramatics and stated, “I need to talk to you.”

  “Well I’m busy, so unless you came in to buy coffee or pastries, I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  “Um… are you two together or something?” Fletch asked.

  “No!” I answered at the same time Derrick shot, “Yes.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” I shouted at him. “We are not together!”

  Derrick’s eyes stayed firmly rooted on Fletcher as he confided. “We’re just having a little fight, you understand.”

  Fletcher actually nodded in understanding.

  “For Christ’s sake! We are not together!” I cried, drawing the rapt attention of every single person in the bakery.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “No. We. Are. Not!”

  “This is better than Maury,” Harlow breathed, grabbing a cookie from the display case and munching down happily.

  I pointed at her. “You’re paying for that!”

  “You know,” Fletcher started as he stood to his feet, “I should really get going. Thanks for the coffee, Chloe. I’ll see you around.” He turned to Derrick and held out his hands. “Sorry for the misunderstanding, man.”

  “It’s okay.” They shook hands amicably, then Fletch headed for the door, waving over his shoulder as I yelled, again, “We aren’t together!”

  Derrick rounded the bar, heading straight for me. “What are you doing? You can’t be back here!” I yelped as he closed the distance.

  “I said we needed to talk.”

  “Well I don’t want to talk to you!” I argued.

  “I made a mistake last night,” he continued, still on the move. “I let you leave thinking I didn’t want something more with you. That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

  I couldn’t do this. Not again. The man had already shattered me twice before, there was no way I’d survive a third time. “Too late.”

  “It’s not too late,” he declared, desperation flashing in his hazel eyes as he stopped only an inch away.

  “Guys?” Harlow spoke, but I was too consumed with the man before me to pay attention.

  I shook my head, fighting back the tears that threatened to fall. “I can’t be like all your other women,” I whispered. “I can’t.”

  “I don’t want that,” he insisted, reaching up and cupping my cheeks.

  “Uh… guys?” God, she was an annoying pregnant woman.

  “Well what do you want, Derrick? Because I can’t do this with you anymore!”

  “Everything.” That one word was spoken with such reverence that my lungs froze, my heart stuttered in my chest. “Watching you walk away last night was fucking unbearable. I won’t do that again, sunshine. I can’t. I want to give you everything you want.”

  Neither of us spoke or moved for what seemed like an eternity as we stared at each other, me in shock and him in determination.

  That was, until Harlow shouted, “Guys!”

  “What?!” we both snapped at her.

  “No biggie or anything, but either my bladder just exploded or my water broke. And seeing as I just peed five minutes ago, I’m thinking it’s the latter.”

  Chloe

  I COULDN’T REMEMBER ever being so exhausted in my life.

  The moment Harlow announced her water broke, full chaos ensued. She’d insisted Derrick drive her to the hospital right then, refusing to wait for Noah because, in her words, “He’ll lose his shit the moment you call, and the last thing I need is to deliver this baby in a ditch because he’s driven us off the road!”

  She wasn’t too far off the mark. He had lost his shit, running around the hospital like Harlow was the first woman on the face of the planet to have ever given birth. It was the longest thirteen hours of my life. That was for damned sure. I handled making all the necessary calls to let people know Baby Murphy was on the way, ran to get ice chips, and took Noah’s place at her bedside to hold her hand when she kicked him out for, and I quote, “doing this to her.” And she did that a lot.

  Around hour seven, her friends from New York, Navie and Rowan, had shown up and Rowan helped Derrick keep Noah from completely spiraling out while Navie and I tended to a sometimes murderous Harlow. Poor Ethan looked like he was going to pass out when the doctor came in to check her dilation.

  In all the hours spent at the hospital, Derrick and I hadn’t had a chance to say more than two words to each other about what had gone down at the bakery earlier that day, and even with everything going on around me, I still hadn’t been able to get what he’d said out of my mind. I yo-yoed back and forth between excitement that he’d meant it to dread that he actually hadn’t. That, coupled with the birth of baby Lucy was enough to cause me to crash the moment Derrick loaded me in his truck to drive me home.

  It wasn’t until I felt him lifting me from his truck that I woke up.

  I blinked my eyes open, taking in the dark sky and trees surrounding me. “Where are we?” I asked on a yawn.

  “My house.”

  That woke me up all the way. “What?” I yelped, my spine going stiff as I wriggled in his hold. “Why didn’t you take me home?”

  His arms tightened around me. “Because we need to finish our conversation, and now that Noah’s a little occupied, there’s no chance of you running away again.”

  “Put me down,” I demanded hopelessly. “I’m more than capable of walking all on my own, Derrick.”

  “I would, but you see,” he started with a tone far too casual for my liking, “you have this nasty habit of taking off before I can fix the situation.”

  As we reached the front walk, he hefted my weight like it was nothing, freeing one hand to unlock the front door.

  “Yeah, well, you have a terrible habit of making me cry. Sorry for not wanting to stick around for that.”

  He kicked the door shut behind us, still refusing to release me as he moved through the house, down the hall, and into his bedroom. The moment my feet touched the ground his hands were on my face, palms to my cheeks, fingers tangled in my hair.

  “I hate that I made you cry.” There was so much guilt in his voice that any snarky response I could have made died on my tongue. “I’m sorry that I’ve ever hurt you, Chloe. It’s the last thing I’d ever want to do, because I do care about you. And I respect you more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “Th-thank you,” I whispered.

  He wasn’t finished. “I knew I made a mistake last night the moment I walked out of this room.” My heart leapt. Stupid betraying bastard. “I was coming back in here to fix it when Noah showed up. You never even gave me a chanc
e to apologize for what happened.”

  God, I really didn’t want to hear his apology or how he regretted everything that took place in his bed before it went so so bad. I tried to pull away from him only to have his fingers tighten in my hair, making my scalp sting.

  “Look, you don’t have to apologize, okay? We got carried away. It was a mistake. I forgive you, all right. I just…” I clenched my eyes closed and finished softly, “I just don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “You think I’m apologizing for kissing you?”

  My eyes popped open to find him looking down at me in confusion. “Well… yeah.”

  “Christ, Chloe!” He barked, his hands falling from me like I’d burned him. “Did you not hear a goddamned word I said this morning?”

  My mouth hung agape like a fish in desperate need of water as I watched him begin to pace. “But… but.”

  “Layla made my life a living hell for years, Chloe. Fucking years.” He seemed to be on a tear so I stood silent and let him vent, hoping that whatever he was getting to on the other side of the story about his bitch of an ex-wife was something good. I was really sick and tired of crying.

  “When I finally managed to get myself out of her twisted bullshit, she decided to use my daughter in order to keep manipulating me. When she couldn’t control me through money or sex, she started using Eliza.”

  I reached out to touch him, whispering, “Derrick,” but he was lost in his own head.

  “Ten years, Chloe. Ten years I’ve been stuck with this bullshit, having it weigh on me so heavy it’s hard to breathe sometimes. The only thing that made that misery worth it was Eliza. So when the divorce came through, I told myself never again. No way in hell was I ever putting myself or my daughter in the position to be manipulated by some calculating bitch again.”

  He raked his hands through his hair before laughing humorlessly. “She doesn’t even want her. Did you know that? Her own fucking daughter. All Eliza is to her is a pawn in her fucked-up game. She’s destroying my little girl, and I can’t do a goddamned thing about it!”

  At the anguish on his face, I moved. I couldn’t just stand there while he hurt over his daughter. “I’m sorry,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist and burrowing my face against his chest. “I’m so sorry that you have to deal with such an awful person. And I’m sorry Eliza doesn’t have a better mother. But you’re wrong about her being destroyed. She’s still got you. And as long as you’re there to lead her down the right path, she’s going to be okay. I promise.”

  I closed my eyes when I felt his arms wrap around my body, holding me tightly against him. “Thank you,” he said softly, his lips against the crown of my head.

  I pulled back just enough to look in his eyes. “And I get it, I swear. I understand why you hate the idea of another relationship. It makes sense, knowing what you’ve had to deal with for so long. I can’t fault you for not trusting—”

  “I trust you,” he said, putting a finger over my lips to silence me. “I trust you, sunshine. And you’re the first woman to make me realize it could be worth it.”

  My head jerked back. “What could be worth it?”

  His thumb caressed my bottom lip. “Commitment. I haven’t met a single woman in ten years that’s given me faith in settling down again. Not until you. I’ve felt it since the first moment I saw you with Eliza. How you give my girl something she’s needed for so long, how sweet and caring you are, how she looks at you like you hung the moon, that all means more to me than you’ll ever know. I’m just sorry it took me so long to pull my head out of my ass.”

  My throat felt thick. “W-why do you say that?”

  “Because. If I’d have been a smarter man, I could have had this a year-and-a-half ago.”

  His lips came down on mine in a kiss much softer than the night before, but full of so much more meaning. As his tongue swept forward, seeking entry, I stood on my tiptoes and wound my arms around his neck, meeting the kiss head on. He tasted like coffee, the addictive flavor making me moan and press against him, spurring him into a sudden frenzy.

  His fingers returned to my hair, holding tight as he moved my head to the side for better access to my mouth. The kiss grew heated, hungry. Tongues wound together, teeth nipped at lips, ragged groans. It was the best kiss I’d ever had, and when he pulled away, I cried at the loss. That was, until his mouth came down on my neck, licking and biting just like he had the night before.

  God, the man was talented with his mouth, and as I panted for air, everything in my body tingled with arousal.

  “When we wake up in the morning,” he licked my neck, “everything’s going to be different.” He bit down near my collar bone. “Better.” His tongue traced a wicked path along my ear. “I’m going to fuck you again, then I’m going to make you breakfast.”

  “Oh God.” I don’t know what had me hotter, the thought of him inside me or of him cooking for me.

  He pulled back, the hands in my hair forcing my glassy eyes to meet his. “This is real, sunshine,” he spoke reverently.

  “Okay,” I nodded breathlessly.

  “I’m going to take you on dates. We’re going to make plans with my daughter. I’m not saying it’s always going to be perfect, I know I’ll fuck up down the road, but I want to try with you. I want to give you what you want. I want you to be a part of mine and Eliza’s lives.”

  “I want that too,” I managed to choke out.

  “And if this stays good, I’ll give you that white picket fence, baby.”

  I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t cry. Damn it! I could feel my eyes welling up. He couldn’t possibly know how much saying that meant to me. But I was happy enough just being with him. I didn’t need promises for the future like that.

  “Why don’t we just start with taking this a day at a time for now?”

  “I’m cool with that.” He grinned down at me. “As long as I’m inside you in the next ten seconds, I’m cool with anything.”

  A teasing smile spread across my lips as I took a step back, my hands at the hem of my shirt as I repeated his words, “I’m cool with that.”

  The second the shirt cleared my head, he was on me. I never knew clothes could be removed so quickly! In the blink of an eye, we were both naked and my back hit the mattress. What started off soft and sweet had taken a quick turn to frantic. We couldn’t kiss enough, couldn’t touch enough.

  “Need you,” I moaned as he sucked one of my nipples into his mouth, flicking the tight peak in a way that had my back arching up, desperate to get closer.

  My thighs opened and he settled in, the thick head of his cock skating through my wetness. “I’ve been dying for this,” he ground out, pushing forward just an inch.

  “Wait! Wait!”

  His head dropped down on what sounded like a whimper. “Not again, baby. Please don’t do this to me. Not now. Not when I can fucking feel you.”

  “Condom,” I exhaled, trying not to smile at the agony in his voice. I did that to him. I was the one driving him that crazy. “I’m not stopping you, we just need a condom.”

  His head came up, hazel eyes meeting mine. “I’m clean, Chloe, I promise. I’d never put you in that position.”

  What was he saying? Was he actually suggesting…? “I’m clean, too, but—”

  “Are you on the pill?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you trust me?”

  I reached up and caressed his face. “I do. But do you trust me? Derrick, I don’t want you doing anything you’re not completely comfortable with.”

  In response, he pushed his hard length the rest of the way into me, making me moan long and loud. “I trust you with everything,” he grunted. “Everything, sunshine.” His hips picked up pace, thrusting so deep I felt him fill every single inch of me. My head shot back, eyes screwed closed as I fisted his hair. I’d never felt so full in my life. “Nothing between us.”

  “Oh, God, Derrick.” My hips lifted to meet his as he pumped into me. “Don’t
stop. Just like that.”

  His mouth came down and I met his lips, our tongues mimicking our hips as he drove his cock into me harder and harder.

  “This is real,” I panted against his mouth, needing reassurance before falling over the edge into a release so strong it scared me.

  “It’s real, baby.” He bit my bottom lip before licking the sting away. “So fucking real.”

  With that, I went over, my nails digging into his skin as I clenched around him, crying out his name. I came for what felt like hours, until spots started dancing in front of my eyes. Just as I started coming down, I felt his hand slide between our sweat soaked body, his thumb pressing against my clit as he rubbed tight circles.

  “One more, Chloe. Give me one more.”

  My head thrashed back and forth. “I can’t. Too much, Derrick. Oh God, it’s too much!”

  “Just one more, baby.” He pressed down hard just as the head of his cock hit that spot inside me, setting me off like a firework. I screamed as he pounded into me once, twice, three times before burying himself deep and growling out his release, filling me up.

  The last thing I remembered after coming down from the best sex of my life was him placing a soft kiss on my temple and whispering, “Best I’ve ever had.”

  Then I was out.

  Chloe

  TRUE TO HIS word, after our first night together, he’d woken me up with his mouth—the very best alarm clock in the world — and then made me breakfast after giving me two glorious orgasms. It had been three blissful days and, other than work, we’d been inseparable, and even then he’d find whatever chance he could to stop by the bakery for a few minutes a couple times a day.

  As I squeezed my eyes closed and tipped my head back, I let the water rinse the shampoo from my hair, unable to keep the happy smile off my face. It’d been firmly in place since I’d woken up in Derrick’s bed earlier that week. Even the ungodly hour wasn’t enough to dampen my mood.