He was babbling. Kelly looked at him quizzically.
“Roman,” Matty began. His tone was kid-serious.
It was all he could do not to overreact. “Yeah?”
“I was talking to Liam.”
Roman’s eyes met Kelly’s. She gave a half smile but no more.
“Okay.”
“When he marries Rhiann she’ll be my sister.”
“Um, well yeah. That’s the way things work.”
“And when you marry Kiki, he’ll be your brother too.”
He did a quick fact check in his mind and nodded along. “Cool, huh?”
“So me and my brother think that makes you and Kiki like, my parents. Or something,” he added hesitantly at the last.
Oh.
Wait.
Hold on.
What?
Kelly was staring a hole through his head. What was the boy saying? Or asking? Was this a fishing expedition or a true moment of definition? Didn’t matter. He had an answer. How he responded would determine so many things and he sure as shit didn’t want to fuck up.
“Matthew,” he began soberly. “I love Kelly with all my heart. The same way she loves you. When two people love each other—their hearts overlap. Do you know what that means?”
“I think so,” he replied.
“Dude,” he chortled. “If you were dead set against me? I wouldn’t be sitting here. To Kiki, you’re more important than how she feels.”
Matty’s head dipped backward so he could see Kelly’s face. “Really?”
Kelly kissed his head. “You’re my little man, Matty. It’s always been you and me.”
“But you love Roman, right?”
She graced them with a beaming smile. “I love you both. Big time.”
“Okay,” he continued. “So when we get married, like Liam and Rhiann, then you guys are gonna be my mom and dad. Right? Liam says there are gonna be papers and stuff like that.”
Roman had a new appreciation for what being a deer in the headlights felt like. How much grown-up detail did Matty already have? Or need? Or understand? And funniest of all? None of his schooling or fancy degrees were of any use in the face of a four-year-old’s natural curiosity.
He held Kelly’s gaze for a long moment and then addressed Matty directly. “The papers are for us to adopt you. Formally. Me and Kiki, so yeah, once we’re married? We’ll be your mom and dad.” The words lodged in his throat due to the sudden overwhelming surge of emotion that flooded his soul.
Dead silence met this pronouncement. Nervous sweat gathered at the collar of his shirt. Stammering like an idiot, he tacked on another statement. “If that’s okay with you. An adoption involves all of us. If you’re not sure, then…”
“So can I call you Dad?”
He felt his eyes blink several times as he gawked at the precocious kid. Matty’s understanding of the world truly astonished him at times. Details? Pfft. He just wanted a status check. And titles. Yeah, titles were cool.
Extending his hand as if a life-changing deal had just been struck, he nodded gravely at the boy. “I’d be honored to be your dad.”
Matty’s little hand came out, and then he crawled away from Kelly’s embrace and leaped into Roman’s arms. They hugged it out like guys do. He kissed the side of his face and held on tight.
And then—and then that was it. He was learning that sometimes kids were simple and uncomplicated. His questions answered, Matty was effectively done with both of them.
“Okay. Cool. I’m gonna sleep now.”
Kelly scooted off his bed and made an attempt to tuck him in, but Matty wasn’t having it. “Can my daddy tuck me in?”
Her startled reaction was full of unspoken emotion.
“That’s okay, right, um… Mom?”
He watched her struggle and knew when she found her composure. “Absolutely big guy,” she assured him. “I think boys’ time is a good thing.” She ruffled his hair, tapped his nose and smiled. “Hey,” she said with a laugh. “Maybe tomorrow night your um, dad, will listen to your gratitude prayers.”
The sensation of loose threads blowing in the wind that suddenly wove together had Roman by the balls. He had a woman worth more than all the riches in the galaxy and, finally, a son. He had a shit ton to be thankful for. Sharing Matty’s nightly recitation of all the things he had to be grateful for sounded exactly like something his father would have done.
Kelly’s half question half statement didn’t require a response. He bent over and kissed his boy goodnight. At the last second, he whispered, “I got you, dude. You and Kelly mean more to me than my own life.”
Matty nodded, yawned, said, “Cool,” and then drifted off.
He and Kelly wrapped their arms around each other and stood there staring at him. It was a meaningful interlude that warmed his heart.
And then she giggled. He looked down at her.
First, she put a hand on the small of her back and groaned. Then rubbed her stomach. What the hell was she doing?
“I didn’t know having a kid was so hard.”
He searched her face trying to understand. She was grinning like a clown.
“Isn’t a push present in order Mr. Bishop? That’s the custom, right? Even for an adoption? Gain a kid and get a reward?”
Her eyes shone brightly and the faint mockery she so often showered him with hung off every word and movement. No doubt about it, he thought with no small measure of cocky arrogance. This woman was going to upend his life, and he’d never been happier or more excited about anything.
He shuffled her away from the sleeping child, adjusted the night time lighting in Matty’s bedroom, and shut the door. Then he whirled around and pinned Kelly to the wall with his body. She giggled and squirmed.
“Had a tough birth, did we?”
She laughed some more. “Oh my god,” she said with a groan. “A four-year labor? I’m thinking a new car. Or a vacation.”
Well, goddamn. Not only had he gained a son in the last half hour, but she’d also just handed him the perfect out.
“Greedy bitch,” he chuckled. “Convince me you’re worth it. With your tongue.”
“Make me.”
“You’re playing with fire, young lady.”
“I fucking hope so.”
Taking her wrists, he held both arms above her head and pressed them against the wall at her back. She rose on her toes to accommodate his powerful grip. The second she was restrained his cock surged, and he abandoned all plans to sit her down for a serious talk.
All of that had to wait until he’d tamed his sexy fiancée. First things first.
Kelly trembled in Roman’s warm embrace. It was sometimes like this after an intense session with her demanding man. She was so wiped out from meeting his powerful and insatiable demands that all she had left was enough strength to remain conscious.
Their raunchy antics this night had a decidedly emotional feel. She wasn’t sure if the wicked ways they expressed their sexuality qualified as loving, but she was sure the word described what they’d experienced. The parts that found her standing spread eagle and tied to the four-poster bed or when he put her on her knees and moved her body across the carpet with his powerful thrusts felt intensely loving.
There was also an undercurrent of something else that she couldn’t put her finger on. Worry, maybe. Or confusion. She wasn’t sure.
He was reclining on a mound of pillows against the headboard with her half across his chest. When she shivered—from the aftermath of their loving, not because she was cold—he pulled a blanket over them and cuddled her tight.
His big hands stroking her back felt like heaven. She curled into him and sighed. Though she was reluctant to leave the passion-filled bubble where they lingered, questions were pushing back in her mind. Questions that needed airing.
Rising off his muscular torso, she crossed her arms on his chest, rested her chin and asked softly, “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
To his cre
dit, he didn’t wobble and responded right away. “Eventually.”
Satisfied for the moment, she closed her eyes and breathed him in. Eau de Sexy Man filled her senses. When her eyes opened, she found him gazing at her with a solemn expression.
“You aren’t obligated to share, Roman. It’s okay. Really. It’s enough that you know I’m here if you need me.”
“I love you,” he replied.
“I love you, too.”
Secure in his arms, she drifted off for who knows how long.
He touched her face and swept a stray lock of hair on her cheek to the side. He wanted to say things about keeping her safe and always taking care of her and Matty, except that the painful realities in his past made a lie of the words.
Sure, that’s what he intended, and if it were up to him, neither of them would ever have a care about anything. But a dead wife who was carrying their unborn child and the moment when he understood how powerless he really was kept him silent. All he could do was his best. Everything after that was in the hands of fate.
A good while later she let out a labored sigh and sat up. “Come on.” Grabbing his pinky finger as she slithered off the bed, she pulled him to follow.
He let her take control, but had to admit he’d never felt as open or quite as vulnerable emotionally. For the first time in his life, he wanted her loving aftercare as much as she needed his.
Her bossy, matter-of-fact ways were exactly what he needed as she herded him rather unceremoniously into the shower and pushed him under the spray. His mood softened when she proceeded to bathe him like a dog that ran into a skunk, and it was pretty funny, too. Even funnier when he considered that in Kelly’s straightforward, bullshit-free way, she was actually being quite romantic and caring.
Vigorously scrubbing his legs, he watched her through a cascade of water and grinned. “I think you missed a spot,” he drawled.
Her answering snicker bounced around the enclosed stall. When she was finished and stood up, the shower poof got tossed into a corner, and she pushed him beneath the spray to rinse off.
“We might have to negotiate on the geisha duties,” she burst out with snarky shade. “You’re a lot of real estate.”
He gave her a wet-faced cocky grin. “If anyone can handle it, you can.”
The naughty witch showed him what she thought of his comment by an audacious, deliciously wet and soapy handling of his cock. “There,” she simpered. “Got the spot I missed.”
It occurred to him that she was ramping him up for another round. At this rate, he’d get around to telling her what was up exactly never.
“Kelly,” he drawled. “We need to talk.”
She swatted his chest with a wet thwap. “Lighten up, big guy. I gave you a chance to talk earlier, and you didn’t. So now you have to make it up to me, and then we’ll see if I feel like listening.”
“When you say make it up to you—does that involve a follow-up fuck or are you bent on revenge with an empty tease?”
“Oh no,” she chuckled. “I don’t have time for that shit. You’re far too hot, and I like it way too much when you do that alpha dom stuff.”
He made a face that told her what he thought of the title. “Alpha Dom? You have my attention, Carina. Please tell me more.”
She turned off the water, turned him around and gave his ass a swat. “Move it, buster. And grab a towel.”
He liked her bossy act a little too much.
A minute of crazy vigorous rubbing with a towel on her hair left curls tumbling everywhere. She looked like someone getting off a spinning roller coaster after whipping around at a hundred miles an hour.
“Okay, now you,” she said with a crooked finger. “Turn around.”
He followed her commands as she quite literally dabbed at every single water droplet on his skin and probably a few imaginary ones as well. It would be faster and easier to simply swipe the towel along his skin, but not Kelly. She was having a grand old time with every inch of his body from waist to toes.
Standing up, she smirked at his erection and pointed in case his bobbing dick wasn’t obvious enough. “I’m going to ignore that for now.”
The look he answered her taunt with suggested he was deciding whether to make her pay for that statement with her mouth or her pussy.
She, of course, replied with a sexy Elvis sneer that always got his attention.
“Dressing room,” she barked with a finger point.
“Aren’t you going to dry the rest of me?”
Kelly looked at him like he was the dumbest motherfucker ever to breathe. “Well yeah.” Turning a dry look at the tile floor and then staring him down she said, “but can we do it someplace with carpet at least?”
The message in her words when he got them made Roman reach for her hand, turn around and stalk quickly into the dressing room with her stumbling along behind him as she wheezed with amused giggles.
Seriously. What the hell happened to his dignity?
“Sit.”
Her stern command earned a double take. She was gesturing to the upholstered bench in the middle of the room.
Using a fluffy towel, she stroked his back and chest. When she lifted his arm and had him rest his wrist on top of his head, Roman discovered a new erogenous zone on his body when she ran the towel down the underside of his arm, into the armpit, finishing with a long side swipe. He shuddered involuntarily.
When she repeated the actions on the other side, his cock throbbed like crazy.
She finished with his neck, face, and head, and then dropped a swift, almost business-like kiss on his lips.
“Scoot to the edge,” she said with a shove from her knee on his torso.
He wiggled and shifted, and she got on her knees.
Licking her lips with a twinkle of delight in her eyes she gave him the four-one-one.
“Now, I’m going to suck you so good your eyes will roll back in your head. If you want to talk while I swallow your thick cock—I’m okay with that.”
His mind went blank with tongue-tied shock.
“But I’m not recommending it,” she drawled when her hands encircled his dick. “I’ll have other things on my mind. And in my mouth.”
Hey, whatever. He was fine saying nothing and just letting her have at it. Leaning slightly, he put both hands on the bench behind his ass and spread his thighs. Total access—just the way she liked it.
She put her hands on his thighs and commenced with a soft, sexy purr that drove him wild. Later, after driving him into an erotic frenzy with her questing fingers and naughty, demanding tongue, she gagged beautifully when his hips shifted, and his cock demanded entry to her throat. Purrs and gagging sounds. Absolute music to his ears.
He dropped her to the carpet after coming in her mouth and devoured her pussy so thoroughly that she gushed like a fountain when she climaxed. Afterward, he scooped her naked body off the carpet and carried her back to their bed. With her sweet body pressed to his side, he held her tight and explained what was happening with Justice.
She didn’t utter a word but her hand also never stopped stroking his skin. He didn’t need to see her face to be aware of her intense focus as she listened quietly to what he knew had to sound like a movie plot.
Laying it all out, he talked for more than an hour telling her everything he could about his Justice comrades and what led to the crisis. He went into detail, probably too much detail for the faint-hearted about what they planned, but she never flinched.
When he got to the part about her and Matty going to Arizona her stroking slowed but didn’t stop.
My god. Pride at her composure filled him up. She was a magnificent creature—perfect for him and this sometimes fucked-up life he led.
Would she complain? Argue? Maybe try to alter the plans?
He wasn’t sure.
After an interminably long time, she sighed and shifted until her head was at an angle upon his shoulder where they could have eye contact. Her fingers caressed the side of his fa
ce.
“I’ll do whatever you need me to as long as you make a promise.”
“Anything. You know that, right Kelly? I’m on my knees, honey. I need to think about this stuff, but all I care about is you.”
He kissed her nose.
“I want a promise from you, Roman Bishop. A promise that you’ll come back. In one piece. If you want to stash our son and me on some crazy sounding dude ranch in the middle of the desert, I’m fine with that—but you have to promise or no deal.”
Hearing her refer to Matty as their son almost reduced him to a blubbering mess. There wasn’t anything else he could do except kiss her. Long, slow and wet.
When he drew away, she smiled dreamily as he declared his undying love and commitment to the family they made.
“I love Matty and adore you, Carina. Nothing is going to stand in the way of our future. Nothing. I’ll come back, honey. Hopefully in one piece and then you just wait because we have plans you and me. Big plans.”
He kissed her again.
“So maybe while we’re apart you should start planning a wedding. Right after Liam and Rhiann’s. Whatever your heart wants, Kelly.”
“Whatever I want,” she replied. “Well, that’s easy because I want you. Just you. The rest is window dressing.”
He grinned. “Then at least pick a dress. I want you in a white dress with red flowers.”
She laughed and snuggled into him. “My god but you’re bossy for someone who keeps turning my life upside down.”
He whooped with laughter. “Did you just admit I’m the boss?”
Kelly gasped, and her head shot up ready to cut his dumb male ass down to size. His open laughter got a smile.
She patted his chest in a very mocking way and sniggered. “If that’s what you need to believe to preserve your delicate male sensibilities, well…”
He threw back his head and laughed.
“Like I said from the beginning, I am so fucked.”
She joined his laughter, and for those few moments, all was right in the world.
The End.
For now.
Want to find out what happens next for Roman and Kelly?
Their story continues in
Checkmate: A Bishop's Pawn Novella Page 9