by Abby Brooks
“I’ve got nothing but time.” I smile warmly, pleased to be on vacation and not have deadlines hanging over my head.
“Perfect.” Tara heads back to her house and reappears just a few minutes later with Toby in tow. Gabe takes one look at the boogie board tucked under his arm and decides he must have his own before the end of the day. We walk to the beach, chatting lightly as the boys run on ahead. Conversation with Tara is easy enough and she seems to enjoy sitting in a lounge chair and watching the water roll up to the shore as much as I do.
“What’s it like?” I ask, as I watch Gabe take a running leap onto the boogie board and skim along the water for the first time without falling down. “Being married to a Marine?” Gabe hops off the thing and high-fives Toby. He turns to me to see if I saw and I give him a round of applause before he’s off and running again.
Tara leans back in her chair and turns to me. “Do you want the real answer or the one I save for company?”
“The real one, please. I’m a no bullshit kind of girl.”
“It’s hard,” Tara says, her voice heavy. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud as hell of my husband and what he does, but I’m scared for him a lot, too. Our men, they don’t just go out there and play army. First ones in, last ones out. That’s a real thing. The chances of them seeing combat is very, very real. We’ve lost friends.” She looks out towards the sky. “There are times when he’s overseas and I won’t hear from him for weeks and all I can do is sit and wait for a phone call that either restarts my world or ends it completely. Those are the worst parts about him being gone. The other parts aren’t that bad. It’s pretty close to being a single mother.” Tara shades her face to watch her son hop on the boogie board. “But even that has its challenges,” she continues. “Just when Toby and I get into a rhythm of being alone, Jack comes home and we have to get used to each other all over again.”
“Wow.” My mind is going a million miles an hour and I can’t think of anything to say but Tara doesn’t seem to mind.
“It can be hard, but it’s worth it, too. For one, we get to live here, although, we could end up in who knows where just as easily. But, honestly, I can’t imagine Jack ever doing anything else. He’s wired to be a hero. To push himself harder, faster, stronger right alongside a bunch of guys wired the exact same way. What does that look like anywhere else but here? What do I expect him to do? Retire and get an office job somewhere? He’d wither away. I married the man, knowing I was marrying a Marine. Our life is challenging, but it’s worth it. Besides, you know what they say about absence. It makes the heart grow fonder. I have time to miss him when he’s gone and by the time they’re ready to deploy him again, I’m pretty much ready to send him overseas myself.”
I smile and laugh, trying to imagine myself in her shoes. Would I feel the same? Right now, with Ty being gone for a handful of hours and me missing him as if he’d been gone for months, it’s hard to imagine me actively wishing he would leave, but is that what happens to relationships? Do they degrade until the person is more annoyance than anything? I wonder what Bailey and Michelle would say about Liam and David. Do they crave time alone, away from their husbands or are they still happiest when they’re together?
I let myself fast forward and imagine myself married to Ty. How would I handle the times he’s deployed? The single mom stuff I’ve got down. I’ve darn near perfected that life. But not hearing from him for weeks? Could I live through that? Worrying about whether he’s alive or dead, just waiting for him to call me and let me know he’s okay? What if something happens? Something real and dangerous and life-threatening?
“I don’t know how you do it,” I say to Tara.
She smiles and shrugs. “It’s like all things. You get used to it.”
TY
After a week of sharing my home with Lexi and Gabe, of waking up to them and coming home to them, of sharing my evenings with them and never finding much time to be alone, I’m surprised by how well things are going. I’ve gotten used to living by myself, and truth be told, I’ve never been all that good at sharing my space. Just ask any of my former roommates. This could have gone so badly, but I find myself craving Lexi while I’m at work, and outside of one bad night when Gabe was grumpy after a long day at the beach, he’s a pretty easy kid to be around. Now that the weekend has finally rolled around, I’m both thrilled to have some time off with them and sad to know that we’ve already burned through a week together.
I’ve got a busy Saturday planned for us. The Honolulu Zoo and Waikiki Aquarium are about half an hour from here. While I’d much rather take Lexi to one of the nature reserves on the island and do some hiking and exploring, I’m not sure how well Gabe would hold up. Today is kind of a test. The aquarium is small enough that we could get through it in about an hour and the zoo is a little bigger. I bet we could spend three or four hours there. If Gabe gets through both without getting tired and cranky, maybe we can try taking him to Manoa Falls Trail. It’s a tourist trap, but the hiking is easy and the scenery is worth it. If he survives that, then great. I know some amazing trails with stellar views to wow them with.
But first, the aquarium and the zoo.
The car ride passes quickly, with all of us talking or singing along to the radio. “Do you ever get tired of looking at this place?” Lexi asks after a lull in conversation. “I’m staring out at these mountains and everything is green and the clouds hang so low. It’s just beautiful everywhere I look. Do you still see the beauty or are you used to it now?”
I stare right at her, letting my eyes burn into hers. She chose a simple sundress that shows off her new tan. Her hair is down and her lips are red and I love the way she’s looking at me. “Oh, I see it,” I say. “And I can’t imagine ever getting used to it.” I’m not talking about the view right now, and judging by the blush flaring across her cheeks, she knows it.
We finish the drive and Gabe handles the aquarium like a champ. I expect him to stare at the fish, give a few ooh’s and ahh’s, and then hurry on to the next exhibit. And while some fish don’t hold his attention very well, he stops and asks questions about others, listening intently as I read all the information posted around the tank. The Hawaiian monk seal holds his interest for a particularly long time. While Gabe is staring at the animal, I step up behind Lexi and wrap my arms around her.
“You look fucking delectable in that dress,” I whisper, making sure my lips brush the skin just below her ear because I know it drives her crazy.
“Why do you think I wore it?” she asks.
I slide my hands up her arms and nibble on her ear lobe. This woman is everything. The right amount of beautiful mixed with the right kind of naughty, all wrapped up with a witty intelligence that keeps me on my toes. “I have a list of things I’d like to do to you,” I whisper, letting my breath brush past the skin on her neck.
“Good. I expect you’ll start working through this list tonight?”
“Feeling bossy, are we?”
“Just greedy.” She spins in my arms and reaches up on tiptoes to place a chaste kiss on my lips just in time for Gabe to give us his full attention.
“Ewww.” He grins at us as he tries to look disgusted.
I step away from Lexi and hold her hand, pulling her in for kisses every time the boy turns his back. We finish the aquarium in just over an hour and Gabe loves every minute of it. So did I, although I don’t think I could name one single fish there. All I saw was Lexi. We head from the aquarium to the zoo and Gabe doesn’t seem even remotely tired. He flits from exhibit to exhibit while I entertain myself by toying with Lexi. How many times can I kiss her? How many naughty things can I whisper in her ear?
While Gabe is entranced by the tiger exhibit, I lean in close and trail my fingers up the side of her thigh, stopping just below the hem of her skirt. Lexi turns to me, her eyes gleaming wickedly.
“I have to tell you something,” she says.
I place my hands on the railing on either side of her, caging her betw
een them, and then lean forward. “Tell me.”
She reaches up and puts her cheek to mine, so her lips are right against my ear. “I’m not wearing any underwear,” she whispers.
My dick jumps to life, giving its seal of approval. “What?” I ask, not quite sure I heard her right.
Lexi pulls back and holds my gaze. “You heard me.” The corners of her lips pull up in the tiniest of smiles.
“Since when?”
“All day.” She licks her lips. “And you’ve been driving me so crazy. I’ve been wet for you since we left the seal exhibit at the aquarium.”
I blink back my surprise and shift, my pants growing woefully uncomfortable. “You’re mean,” I say.
“Like you aren’t? You know as well as I do that every move you made today was designed to drive me out of my mind.”
“Okay. You got me. Guilty as charged.” I lean in even closer. “I want you so hot for me by the time we get home that you’ll come the minute I touch you.”
“Isn’t that just the way it works with us?”
“Yeah, but I want more.”
“Then take it. I’m all yours, big boy.”
She’s all mine. I love the sound of that. The words anchor themselves to my soul and I realize they’re true. I’ve laid claim to her. She belongs to me. “I hope you mean that,” I say, my gaze boring into hers.
“I do.” She licks her lips. “I really, really do.”
Gabe comes back and we finish our trip around the zoo quickly and easily. There’s no doubt in my mind the boy could handle something like the Manoa Falls Trail. If we get there early enough, we’ll avoid the majority of the crowds. I clap a hand on his shoulder as we walk back to the car, proud of the boy for handling the heat and excitement without buckling under the pressure. We make the drive back home without incident and the garage door has just finished closing behind us when the doorbell rings. I stride through the house and find Toby standing on the porch.
“We don’t want any,” I say, looking as gruff as I can.
Toby purses his eyebrows and takes a step back. “Don’t want any what?”
“We don’t want any of what you’ve got.”
He looks even more confused. “Is Gabe here?”
“Gabe? I don’t know anyone named Gabe.”
Toby takes another step back. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you? I never can tell.”
“Yes. I’m totally messing with you. And yes, Gabe is here. You want me to call him?”
“Well, actually, I wanted to know if he could spend the night. My mom said it was okay.” Having Gabe gone in the morning would make it difficult to get to the Falls in time to beat the crowds, but having him gone tonight would make it easy for me to start checking things off the list of Things I’d Like to Do to Lexi.
“Let me check with his mom. You want to come in and hang out while we talk?”
Toby’s face lights up. “Sure!”
I hold open the door and he zooms past me, half-collides with Gabe, and then races him upstairs. Lexi watches me from the couch, her primly crossed legs doing nothing to make me forget her lack of panties.
“What’s that about?” she asks.
“Toby invited Gabe for a sleepover.”
“What did you say?”
“That I’d ask you.”
“You are his dad, you know. You have every right to say yes or no as you see fit.”
I don’t know how to take that. The thought sends me reeling. I might be his dad, but she’s the one who raised him and up to this point, she’s been pretty clear that Gabe is hers. The fact that she’s acknowledging that I have any power over him at all seems like a pretty big deal and I won’t take it lightly.
“Okay,” I say as I sit beside her. “That might be true—”
“It is true.”
“Fine. That’s true, but I’ve only had any claim to him for the last two weeks. You’ve had claim to him for his whole life.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve had a claim to him for his whole life. You just didn’t know about it.” She rests a hand on my knee. “This has been bothering me for the last couple days. You’re a good man who wants to be a good dad and I was wrong not to work harder to find you when I found out I was pregnant. You should have had the option to choose for yourself how active you wanted to be in his life. I robbed you of something special and I’m sorry I kept him from you. Really, truly, sorry.”
Her words touch me, but I swallow back the emotion. There’s no point in looking backward. The only thing we can change is the future. “There’s no need to apologize, Lex. What matters is we’re together now and we have the chance to decide what that looks like. I can’t imagine making a decision that affects the three of us without talking it through with you first. Even something as simple as an overnight with a next door neighbor. That’s not my decision alone. That’s something for both of us.”
Lexi smiles and nods her head. “Tara and Jack seem like good people and the boys get along well. What are your thoughts?”
“I’d trust Jack with my life.” Hell, in fact, I have trusted Jack with my life on more than one mission. “And Tara is a good woman. I don’t see anything wrong with it at all.” I lean in close and slide my hand along her inner thigh. She parts her legs and I slide all the way home to finally discover for myself that she is one hundred percent sans panties.
“You thought I was kidding, didn’t you?” she asks.
“Not for one second.” I pull my hand away because now is not the time or the place. “So. Overnight. Yea or nay?”
“I’m good with it if you are.”
“Then that sounds like a plan. Looks like you and I finally have some time alone tonight,” I say with a grin.
“Which means I don’t have to worry about Gabe hearing anything.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I say. “The things I want to do to you? He’s only going to be next door. If I do my job right, there’s still a chance he’ll hear everything.”
LEXI
The moment Gabe is out of the house with his overnight bag slung over his shoulder, Ty closes the door and pins me to it. His mouth ravishes mine, the bit of stubble on his chin raking across my lips. He cups my breasts and tweaks my nipples with one hand while he reaches under my dress and plunges his fingers into me with the other. I clutch at his strong back and wrap a leg around his waist, allowing him more room to work his magic.
He picks me up and carries me upstairs, never once flinching under my weight. He stretches me out on the bed, laying me down as if I’m as fragile as I am irreplaceable. He removes my dress and tugs his shirt over his head before falling down on top of me, his mouth moving hungrily across my body. He sucks on a breast as I undo his pants and then trails kisses down my torso as he slides off the bed to step out of his pants.
“So.” I push up on my elbows and close my legs. “About this list…”
Ty climbs back on the bed, spreading my thighs with his knees. “What about it?”
“What exactly would you like to check off tonight?”
“All of it. One dirty little thought at a time.”
“Where would you like to start?”
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
“I do. Implicitly. I can’t think of one thing you could do to me that I wouldn’t like.”
Ty laughs. “We’ll see about that.”
I reach down and grab his cock, stroking along his shaft. “I really hope we will.”
Ty closes his eyes in pleasure and then positions himself at my entrance. He hooks my legs over his shoulders and then slides inside, pushing deeper than he’s ever been. Pain merges with pleasure and I moan. As he thrusts his hips, he flicks his finger along my clit and it doesn’t take long for an orgasm to build. He chases it down and I fall over the edge, calling out his name as he moves with more and more insistence.
He slows and then stops altogether, pulling out of me before he helps me flip over onto my hands and kn
ees. I expect him to enter me again, but he doesn’t. The bed shifts with his weight as he climbs off and crosses the room to his dresser. He digs through his top drawer and comes back with a bottle of lube.
He flips open the lid. “Do you know what this is?”
I nod, watching as he climbs back onto the bed.
“And do you know what I’m going to do with it?”
I nod again, color rising in my cheeks. “I’ve never done it before.”
Ty smiles and runs a hand along my ass. “Even better.” He squirts some lube in his hand and rubs it around one cheek before sliding a finger down my slit. It slips past my clit, still so sensitive after an orgasm. I jump at the sensation and then push my hips back into his hand, eager for more, please, more. He slides two fingers into my pussy, moves them slowly in and then out again, teasing me. Anticipation builds, pleasure mixed with excitement mixed with nerves. I don’t know what to expect, but I’m so eager to find out.
Ty spreads my ass cheeks and then presses a finger to a spot I’ve never been touched before. “Relax,” he says. I release a breath and Ty increases the pressure until his finger slips right in. I gasp at the unfamiliar sensation. He begins to move, using his other hand on my clit and I moan in pleasure.
“It’s so intense,” I manage. “I’ve never been so full.”
“Just wait, baby.” His voice is fire wrapped in sin. “I’m going to make you feel so good.”
He makes good on his promise, adding lube and fingers to places, sliding in and out slowly and carefully until I get used to the sensation. An orgasm builds, one so intense and powerful that my entire body starts shaking and quivering before I’ve found release. Ty shifts behind me, removing his hands and I feel so empty. I need him inside me, now. I need him moving, faster and faster, taking everything I have to give him because I want to give him everything. Everything I have is his.