“My parents haven’t even met you,” she grumbled, running out of excuses and losing the fight.
“They're back from their cruise tomorrow, invite them over.”
“My dad—”
“Wants you and his grandchildren happy. They’ll come over, he’ll see that they are, see you happy and safe, which in turn will mean he’s happy.”
“You don’t know my dad. He’s over-the-top protective.”
“Perfect, then we’ll get along just fine.”
“I put them through hell. He begged me not to marry Doug. He threatened to lock me in the basement until I saw reason. And when I didn’t listen to him, my parents spent years watching me, living it right alongside me, all the shit Doug put me through.”
“He shoulda made good on his threat, baby, and locked your ass away. But I suspect he’s happy he didn’t follow through, because then he’d be missing out on Rory and Caleb.”
“It’s scary when you do that,” Macy blurted out.
“Do what?”
“When you say things like that and I get all mushy inside. You make me believe I’ve found the mythical dream man that every woman from the time she’s a little girl makes up in her imagination. The one that’s perfect, made just for her. When I met Doug back in high school, I knew he wasn’t made for me, I knew I was settling. I knew I was doing it because I didn’t believe the man I’d conjured up existed. I thought I’d aimed too high, dreamed too big.” Macy stopped and something so achingly beautiful flashed in her eyes Alec couldn’t take a full breath. Goddamn, she was stunning. “If I’d known you were real, I would’ve waited.”
Fire seared through him, heated his blood, flooded into his bones, saturated the muscle.
“Fucking hell,” he roared and Macy jumped.
“Alec?”
“Waited a long fucking time for you. Didn’t think you were out there, Macy, so I gave up. Never thought I’d be the type of man who had it all so I stopped thinking about finding it. No way in fuck am I letting you pack those kids up and walk out the door. You’re mine. Those kids are mine. And that means Joss and I are yours.”
“Okay.”
Alec sensed there was more. So he waited with his chest burning, his heart pounding, the need to claim her—physically show her what she meant to him—was so damn overwhelming he shook with it. But he stayed where he was at, body tight, fists clenched and barely breathing.
“I…um…I think we need…”
Macy was shifting and looking uncomfortable and Alec was done with the distance so he closed in on her, pulled her to his chest, and wrapped his arms around her.
“Whatever you think we need, baby, all you gotta do is ask, yeah?”
“There need to be rules, Alec.”
He tried to keep himself relaxed but he didn’t like the new direction the conversation was headed.
“What kind of rules?”
“We need to go slow. Or as slow as we can with all of us living together.”
Yep, he didn’t like the turn at all.
“Let's go upstairs to bed, we’ll talk there.”
Macy went solid and Alec seriously didn’t like the change.
“That’s one of the things we need to talk about,” she whispered.
“All right, but we’ll do it upstairs, in our bed.”
“Alec—”
“Didn’t say we were gonna do anything but talk, Macy. But I want you comfortable and us standing in the laundry room isn’t comfortable.”
“But I have fond memories of this room.”
Alec didn’t need to be looking at her to know she was smiling, and another tinge of heat rushed over him thinking about what they’d done in there.
“Yeah, Macy, so do I. And that memory is so vivid I can still feel your pussy wrapped around my cock. I can still smell you, taste you, hear you. Combine all of that with you standing in my arms and I’m having a difficult time keeping my dick in my pants when all I can remember is how fucking good it was to finally feel something right, and good, and mine in my arms and taking my cock. Warning, baby, we need to leave this room while I still have some control.”
“Hmm,” Macy hummed. “So you’re saying if we go up to your room you won’t lose control?”
“Our room,” Alec corrected, and Macy shivered. “And that’s a fuck no, but when my control slips, at least I’ll have room to get creative.”
Macy giggled, her body shaking with it, and Alec stood in his laundry room holding her close wondering which he liked better—the sound of Macy’s laugh or the sweet moan she made when he slid inside her warmth. Unable to come to a conclusion, he decided it didn’t matter which one he liked best because he liked both a fuck of a lot.
31
“Tell me about the rules,” Alec prompted.
We were in his bed, or as he called it our bed, and I was nervous. We’d both changed into our pajamas. His a loose pair of sweats, no shirt, and the sight of his bare chest made my mouth water. How I was supposed to have an intelligent conversation with him lying next to me shirtless, I didn’t know.
“I don’t want the kids to see us sleeping in the same bed for a while,” I started. “I know they both seem fine with us living here, they like you, they love Jocelyn, but they’ve never seen me with a man. Not even a date. I want to introduce them to us slowly.”
“Babe, they’ve seen you in my arms, they’ve seen me kiss you, I think both of them understand that we’re together.”
“Yes, well, that’s the next thing. We need to stop doing that in front of them.”
Alec started to chuckle and I wasn’t finding anything funny about what I was saying, therefore some of my earlier irritation crept back.
“I’m being serious,” I snapped. “This is new, for all of us. I agreed to move us in, but I’m telling you, in front of the kids we’re taking it slow.”
“One month,” he countered.
“One month?”
“Yeah, babe. We’ll go slow in front of them. But, they also need to understand we are not roommates—you’re my woman, they need to see that from the start. This isn’t temporary, this is their home, your home. They need to get that now, not in a month from now. You don’t want them seeing you walk out of our room in the mornings, I get it. But you’re in here with me all night. I’ll slip out before they wake up.”
I liked that he was compromising, giving me what I needed to feel comfortable, but having a mind to having the kids settle in. I also liked the idea of sleeping next to him. But Rory was six, he might’ve been a father but his daughter was only a year old. While Jocelyn had slept through the night last night, and I reckoned she did most nights she was confined to a crib, so even if she woke in the middle of the night she couldn’t wander into Alec’s room. Rory or Caleb could.
“Sometimes Rory gets up in the middle of the night. If she does she’ll—”
“I’ll hear her if she gets up, wake you and you can go to the door.”
“But she’ll know I was in your room and you might not wake up.”
“Yeah, they’ll both know that you sleep in our room, but that doesn’t mean they’ll see me sleeping in it with you. If either of them wakes, I’ll hear it. And if that happens they won’t see me in here with you. I get up earlier than any of you. By the time the kids are awake, I’ll be dressed and downstairs.
“As far as PDA in front of them, in case you missed it, baby, I’ve never taken it further than a light kiss, and I never will, not even after the month is up. But they also need to see me being affectionate to their mother. Rory needs to see the way a man respectfully loves a woman. And Caleb needs to see, if for different reasons. He needs to understand what a healthy relationship looks like. He needs to know what love looks like and what it doesn’t. But mostly he needs to see me with you. Caleb will not be comfortable and let down that shield he’s built around you and Aurora until he trusts me. And he will not trust me beyond what he does now until he knows I will treat his mother the way she deserv
es.
“I’m telling it to you as straight as I can, Macy, I want those kids. I want Caleb to let go and trust me so he can be twelve. I want Rory to know deep down when I make a promise, I’ll keep it. This is important to me and I only have one try to get it right. So I’m asking you to trust me to do what I need to do to make it right.”
My belly was full of butterflies again and as I laid on my side staring at Alec, I realized there were two different kinds of flutters he caused.
One kind was all for me, the way he made me feel desired, beautiful, like I was a woman. That kind of flutter I felt between my legs and made me want to kiss the hell out of him before I jumped him and showed him how badly I wanted him.
The other kind didn’t have anything to do with desire and everything to do with how thoughtful he was when it came to Caleb and Aurora. The times he saw to their wellbeing, acting as a father would care for his own children—those flutters were different. They were part elation, part pain, reminding me that Alec cared more about my children than their own father did. It was Alec who had their best interest in mind, he was the one who wanted Aurora to see how a man should treat a woman. It was Alec who made a promise and had kept it. And it was Alec who was trying to gain a twelve-year-old’s trust and build from there because he knew that was what Caleb needed. My son needed to learn how to be a man, and he needed a good example of that, so Alec was setting out to show him.
Yes, I’d found my mythical dream man. I had not aimed too high. I had not dreamed too big. I just hadn’t been patient enough. But as Alec pointed out, if I had waited I wouldn’t have Rory and Caleb.
“I trust you,” I whispered.
“Good.”
Alec brushed a hank of hair behind my ear, his fingertips grazing the side of my face in a barely-there touch, but I felt it down to my soul.
Reverent. Tender. Affectionate. Longing.
“Alec?”
“Yeah, baby?” His mouth curved up and his eyes crinkled.
Damn, he was seriously sexy.
“I want you to know I see you.” He lost his smile, but the new look he gave me was so much better. Sparks of fire were crackling in his green eyes and I knew what came next so it was no surprise when my core spasmed, and my panties dampened. “I see what you mean to me. I see what we mean to you. I see the father you are. I see the friend. But mostly I see the man you are and honey, I want you to know I love what I see.”
“Macy—”
“I need you to know that. You asked me once to look at you and I was too scared to do it because I knew what I’d find and I was terrified to let myself see it. But I want you to know, I’m still scared but I’m not too afraid. I. See. You. All of you, every part of you, and now I know you are not Perfect Alec—perfect father, with the perfect job, house, and clothes. You are so much more than the untouchable dream I made you out to be. I want all of you. I promise to help you see the man I know you to be and not the reflection you see—”
Then I lost Alec’s eyes that had been getting stormier with each word I’d spoken, because his mouth slammed into mine. There was no slow build-up—his kiss was fierce, demanding, wild, and so fucking scorching hot my pussy convulsed. Two minutes later, our clothes were scattered on the bedroom floor, and a millisecond after that, Alec drove into me, taking my breath. But I wasn’t complaining—especially when Alec got down to showing me just how creative he could be. And it was spectacular.
“You’re taking Joss with you and I got the kids.”
I was leaning against the kitchen counter, my coffee mug aloft, watching Jocelyn pop Cheerios in her mouth, while keeping an eye on Aurora and Caleb who were at the table eating oatmeal.
It was fifteen minutes before I had to leave to take the kids to school and get myself to work when Alec made his declaration.
His statement gave me pause, but before I could put my two cents in, Caleb looked up from his bowl and glanced at Alec.
“Are you coming to my football practice today?”
“Yep. I’ll meet you at the park,” Alec returned.
“Are you picking me up after?” Rory asked.
Alec’s gaze left the kids at the table and swung to me.
“Would that save you time?”
He knew it would but he was still asking, giving me the opportunity to make the decision whether or not he was picking up Rory from the community center.
Alec said he was giving it a month to ease the kids into our new normal and that’s what he was doing. This morning he was up out of bed long before the kids woke. He was also showered, dressed, and downstairs drinking coffee. The kids didn’t ask where either of us slept but they hadn’t seen us leave the bedroom together.
“It would. Thank you.”
Alec gave me a wink and turned back to the kids. “Sounds like we have a plan.”
I took a sip of my coffee wondering how it was possible my life had gone from shit to marvelous in less than a week. Then I decided I didn’t care how it happened, I was just grateful it had.
“Hey, Dad!”
“You got something to tell me, Macy Lou?”
At the tone of my father’s voice, my back shot straight and I looked to make sure my office door was closed.
Today when I came into work with Jocelyn, I was met with a few startled looks but no one had asked why I had Joss with me. I checked her in, took her into the playroom, left her with Veronica and went about my morning. I knew there would be questions but I needed to have a conversation with Monica about my relationship with a father of one of our students.
But right then, priority one was calming my dad down. I wasn’t sure what “something” he was referring to because there were a lot of things I hadn’t told him about. I felt like I was one of those bomb squad techs faced with the choice of cutting the red wire or the blue wire and since I didn’t know which thing he’d heard about, cutting either wire could detonate my dad.
“Well…”
“Don’t be cute. I’m not in the mood. I turned on my phone when we got to BWI and the damn thing starts pinging with messages and voicemails. Your mother’s, too. Chip Houge left a messaging asking if you and the kids were okay. He’d heard about Josh Malone attacking you. Then Dave Carlson left a message asking if we needed any help getting your house sorted after there was a goddamned drive by fucking shooting.”
Oh boy, Dad was using the F word. Dad cursed, but never around the kids, rarely around my mother and me, and only when he was madder than a hornet and ready to blow. Him saying the F word was reserved for being madder than that. So I knew he was going to detonate. It didn’t matter which wire I cut, it seemed he already knew pretty much everything.
“Had about fifteen messages, your mother the same. Wanna know who didn’t leave a message? You!”
“Dad—”
“You did not call!” he shouted. “My daughter gets attacked, I expect a phone call. A drive-by shooting? Macy, I don’t even know what that entails or the details of that but I expect a fucking phone call.”
“Will you let me talk?”
“Obviously you’re talking to me so you’re alive. So I wanna know how the kids are.”
“They’re fine. No one was hurt in the…um… the shooting.”
“Josh Malone?”
“Arrested. I can explain—”
“Need to calm down first. Your mother and I will come by tonight. You can explain then.”
“I’m not staying at my house. Rory said she never wants to go back there and I agree, I’m not taking my kids back there.”
“Mom and I will come by Becky and Rob’s then. You could’ve just stayed at the house but now that we’re home, we’ll go to the Keene’s and help you bring your stuff home.”
Oh, shit. Dad going thermonuclear was imminent.
“I’m not staying with Becky. I’m staying with a different friend.” God, could I sound any more like a child? A friend? Well it wasn’t a lie, exactly. Alec was my friend—but still it was totally a lie. “Listen
, Dad. There’s a lot I need to talk to you and mom about. I’m staying with Alec Hall. He works with Nixon Swagger, you may’ve heard about him and Gemini Group. I’ve known him a while, he brings his daughter to Little Lights. He was there when the shooting happened. Well…there’s just a lot, okay? I’ll text you his address. You and Mom come over for dinner tonight. You can meet Alec and we’ll all talk.”
The silence stretched so long I thought my dad had lost service.
“Dad?”
“You’re staying with a man? A man named Alec Hall?”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“This the same Alec that told you to stop taking shit from Doug?”
“Huh?”
“The Alec who told you you’re teaching Rory that it’s okay for a man to shit all over her and you’re teaching your son to be the sort of man that would harm a good woman, that’s the Alec you’re staying with?”
I couldn’t believe my dad remembered that. Hell, I hadn’t even remembered telling my dad about Alec.
“Yes, that’s him.”
“Text me his address. Your mother and I will be there at six.”
“Okay. But Alec and the kids might not be home yet. Alec’s going to football practice to watch Caleb, then swinging by to get Rory. But Joss and I will be there. And maybe it’s good you coming before they get home so we can talk.”
“He’s watching my grandson’s football practice?”
My dad’s voice had gone funny and I knew what he was thinking—Doug had never bothered. Not a practice, not a game, not a damn thing.
“Yeah, Dad. I got a lot to catch you up on. I know it’s a lot to ask but please come with an open mind.”
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