“Don’t let loss stop you from moving on. Don’t hide from it. We understand if you don’t want the rest of the family to know, but if you open up, I think you’ll find a lot of people that will love your baby as much as you do. And I think that will help you. And if nothing else, I think Lily should know.”
Love my baby.
“He’s right, Laney. We’ll both always feel it, the loss of our first child, but together we’ll get through it. One day, we’ll have our own Rainbow Baby, and he or she will never replace our first—nothing ever will. But that child will be a beautiful testament to our love and your strength. I don’t want to keep this a secret. It’s gonna hurt, but our child shouldn’t be forgotten.”
“What?” His comment slammed into my chest. “I don’t want to forget.”
“I know you don’t, that’s why I think all of the people who would’ve loved and protected him should know he existed.”
“Could’ve been a she, Carter.”
“Maybe. But thinking on it, I think God would’ve given us a boy first. Not just so he’d grow up to protect his little sisters but a boy to love his momma the way only a son can. Then you’d give me girls and they’d look at me the way you look at your dad. One day we’re gonna have that, Laney. I promise you.”
There he was making me more promises. Only this time I didn’t protest and fight against the trail of happiness as the vow washed through me.
I embraced it.
I believed it.
One day we’d have it all.
I looked up at Carter, his arm still around me and his eyes mirrored mine. He believed it, too. I wish in that moment, I would’ve known what life really had in store for us. I would’ve spent more time memorizing his face. I would’ve told him then and there how much I loved him. I wouldn’t have waited.
But life’s a funny thing, even when you think you’ve learned the fragility of life, you still don’t listen.
19
Carter
Last night was tough.
Leaving Delaney this morning to go to work, tougher.
She was still emotionally raw. After her parents’ tearful goodbye, I cleaned up, and got us into bed. It had taken her a long time to finally find sleep, which meant we were up half the night talking. Just like old times, chatting about nothing important, but last night there was a new closeness.
Again, it was the best of both worlds. Familiarity and newness.
I’d done my searches on Natalie’s license plate and came up with a whole lotta nothing. The car was registered to a man, Patrick Duffy, the address on the title was in Pensacola, Florida. But he had once lived in Chicago when he attended art school there. Not knowing Natalie’s last name made it impossible for me to look into her, but I knew she wasn’t married to Patrick. Maybe he was a friend or boyfriend and she was borrowing his car.
So she was a dead end. There was also the possibility I was overreacting and the woman was who she said she was. A harmless woman who was new to the area and desperate to make friends. But something was still nagging.
The area we lived in wasn’t so small you ran into the same people daily, but it also wasn’t a thriving metropolis where you never saw the same person twice.
I had a hard time believing in coincidences but Delaney was right, I saw danger everywhere. That’s what I’d been trained to do. It’s what had kept me alive. I also knew how to control my reactions to it but Delaney didn’t. And scaring her so badly it kept her from the things she wanted to do wasn’t right. So I decided to keep my thoughts about Natalie to myself and watch. Perhaps the woman wouldn’t call at all and I was worried for nothing.
By the time four o’clock rolled around I was ready to leave. Laney had called earlier in the day and told me she’d packed a bag. That way when she picked me up from work we’d be ready to drive up to Virginia. I didn’t need anything, I still had some clothes and miscellaneous shit in my old apartment, part of the reason I needed to go back up there.
Jasper had given me a few meaningful glances throughout the day, but otherwise hadn’t brought up last night’s conversation. Which I was grateful for, Laney wasn’t the only one raw from our conversation. The weight of telling her parents sat like a rock in my gut and knowing that mine were next turned the rock into a boulder. My mom was going to be upset, and like I told Laney last night, there was a certain way a son loved his mother. That love ran deep and true and I’d always gone to great lengths to shield her from hurt. As had my brother. Watching her grieve the loss of her grandchild was going to torture me.
I’d made my feelings known about telling the rest of the family, but Delaney had confirmed she’d felt the same way. As much as I wanted to, the decision would be hers and I’d respect it even if I disagreed. The baby was ours, but she bore the brunt of the loss. I hadn’t been the one carrying our child, I’d never understand the pain she carries. My only job was to love her through her pain.
Now we were six hours into our eight-hour drive and Delaney had woken up from the nap she’d thankfully taken. Her snooze meant I’d regained control over the radio, however now that she was awake, she was back to channel surfing.
“Pick a station,” I grumbled.
“There’s nothing good on.”
“Woman, there are about five hundred channels on satellite radio and about that on the regular stations. If that’s not enough for you, take my phone and pull up a playlist and Bluetooth it.”
Apparently the thousand channels weren’t enough because she grabbed my phone.
“What’s your unlock code?” she asked.
“Same as it’s always been.”
“That’s great, Carter, but I still don’t know it.”
“No shit?”
How could that be? The code to my phone had never changed. Not since the very first one my parents had gotten for me when I went into middle school and started playing sports.
“No shit. I don’t know it.”
“It’s your birthday.”
My answer was met with an audible inhale.
“The code to your phone is my birthday?”
“Yeah. Always has been.”
“The code to unlock mine, is yours,” she told me something I knew.
“Know that, baby.”
“Of course you did,” she mumbled and unlocked my phone. “By the way, you have a text message.”
“Read it.”
“I can’t read your text message. What if it’s private?”
“There’s nothing private in my life. Not from you, anyway.”
“What if it’s like top secret or something? I don’t want the CIA to come pick me up and lock me away for reading something I shouldn’t.”
She was joking. I didn’t have to take my eyes off the road to hear the teasing in her voice.
“All of the top-secret nuke codes are on my red phone. You’re safe, Laney.”
“It’s from Logan. It says he’ll be at your apartment tomorrow at noon and the rest of the team will be at dinner.”
Noon was great. That meant we could sleep in before Logan showed.
“Perfect.”
“You’re going out to dinner with them?”
“We’re going out to dinner with them.”
“We are?”
“Thought you’d want to meet them. But if you don’t, I can cancel.”
Shit, I thought she’d be happy about the surprise, but maybe I should’ve talked to her about it first.
“Well…”
“No pressure. I can cancel.”
“I don’t want you to cancel. I’m just nervous. I’ve never met your friends.”
Direct hit.
Fuck, but I’ll be happy when these reminders stop coming up.
“You got nothing to worry about. They’re a good group of guys.”
“How many are going to dinner?”
“Only five. The others are training.”
“Five?”
“Luke, Matt, Trey, Drake, and Logan.”
<
br /> She said nothing.
“So, Logan is the wise-ass of the group. He’ll also probably hit on you within minutes of meeting you. Matt comes from money, a lot of it, but you’d never know it, though he will sneak away to pay the check and will get irritated if someone mentions it. Luke is pretty standoffish. He likes to watch more than he talks so don’t be surprised if he doesn’t say more than hello to you. Trey looks like he should’ve been a male model and has serious issues with aggressive women. And considering I’ve watched many throw themselves at him I understand why. Drake is the most chill. He’s like a duck, everything rolls off his back and nothing stresses him out and he’s the one you want at your back when shit hits, he’s that good under pressure.”
Still nothing.
I glanced over at her. She was staring at my phone, her face blank.
“You have nothing to worry about, baby. I wouldn’t put you in a situation I thought you’d be uncomfortable in, promise.”
“Your background picture is me.”
“Yeah.”
I wasn’t sure where she was going with her comment but I didn’t like the softness in her tone.
“It’s recent.”
“Honor sent it to me. She took it the last time you were over there. You were helping Carson frame some picture she’d taken or something.”
“Did she do that a lot?”
Oh, shit, we were approaching the danger zone. I didn’t want to lie to her but I had a feeling she wouldn’t be happy to know about all the information our family had supplied.
“Laney—”
“I’m not mad. I’m just curious.”
“Since Honor’s been around, I get more pictures than I used to. Before I only got what my parents sent me. The ones from family get-togethers. And occasionally Ethan or Jason would send me one.” I took a breath because I had to come clean about everything before it crept back up and she found out later. “Ethan told me the most. He wasn’t keeping tabs on you, but he’d tell me things he thought I’d wanna know. He also knew about us. All the way from the beginning, I never hid anything from my brother. He was also my lookout if I was in town visiting you. But your brother emailed me, too. Since everything that happened with Lowe, your brother, mine, Jackson, and Nick have been sending me more messages. But that’s only because they were worried about you and they knew you’d been avoiding me.”
“Mercy told me my brother talks to you. I already knew he was feeding you information.”
Mercy had not been my biggest fan. As a matter of fact, she’d flat out told me she hadn’t liked me much for Delaney.
“She knew about the baby. I told her while we were in the hospital.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Mercy knowing before me, but I decided to let that go and just be happy Delaney had someone she could confide in and offer her comfort. Mercy may not have liked me much but she adored Delaney.
“And for the record, she begged me to tell you. She also told me if I didn’t take a chance and see if we could move forward, I’d regret it.”
That shocked the hell out of me, even though Mercy had softened a tad toward me, I hadn’t thought she’d give Delaney that advice. Though Mercy had provided a few pictures herself.
“I can’t believe you saved this old playlist.” The sudden change in topic and the humor in her voice gave me pause.
“What playlist?” The bassline of “Undiscovered” filled the truck and I smiled. “I have fond memories of this soundtrack,” I told her.
Damn, I wished I wasn’t driving because I was sure her face was flaming red. One of the many things I loved about Delaney. She looked and acted sweet and innocent, the mere mention of our sex life while outside of bed made her blush. But when we were in it, she held nothing back.
And when Delaney let herself go, she did it in a way that was so fucking wild she set me on fire. The blaze was scorching and I had to fight to keep myself in control.
“I bet.” She giggled.
Hell, yeah, she remembered. It was a night neither of us could forget—one of many. She’d read some spicy romance novel about a tortured man who liked to tie his women up. The book had given her lots of ideas she wanted to try. Things I was more than happy to indulge her curiosity.
I’d always been in control when it came to sex, but after that night, we’d taken it to a whole new level. One both of us got off on.
“First time you let me blindfold you and tie your hands this song was on. And by the time we’d made it to “Where You Belong” you were begging me to let you come.”
“I don’t think I was begging.”
“Yeah, baby, you were. You also let me bend you over my lap and swat your fine ass. It was a pretty shade of pink and your excitement was running down your leg onto my pants. You were beggin’ alright and all it had taken was me strummin’ your clit and you screamed. Hottest thing I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something because when you catch for me it’s always hot, but there was something about that night. You giving me everything, allowing me to be in complete control of your body. That was so goddamn sexy I still stroke myself off thinking about it.”
“You’re serious?”
I wanted to laugh at the shock in her voice but I was too busy trying to ignore my now hard cock and concentrate on the road.
“About which part? That you were so fucking wet for me all it took was me flicking your clit and you came so fast and hard I almost lost it and joined you coming in my pants. Or the part about me stroking my dick thinking about it? Because I have to tell you, Laney baby, I have thousands of images to pull from. Just thinking about you going down on me and the way you swirl your tongue around the head of my cock is enough to bring me off. No joke, I could come from thinking about just your mouth.”
“Carter,” she groaned
Oh, hell yes. Her shock had made a hard left straight to turned on. I knew that tone, it was how she said my name after I kissed her and right before she started moaning her pleasure.
“You don’t believe me, Laney, reach over and check for yourself.”
“You’re hard just from talking about it?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw her shift in her seat.
“Babe, I’m so fucking hard my dick hurts. And I know I don’t need to check to know you’re wet just from hearing me admit to strokin’ myself thinking about you. Bet your panties are soaked and you’re clenchin’ your thighs.”
She went quiet and I really wished I could see her. But between the darkness in the cab and the tiny detail that I was behind the wheel and needed to pay attention to the road, I could only steal glances every few seconds.
But those glimpses told me she was thinking hard about something.
“Have you ever had highway head?”
“Come again?” I choked.
“You know, a blow job while you’re driving.”
“Baby, I know what it is. What I don’t understand is why you’re asking.”
“I’ve never given highway head.”
“I know you haven’t,” I unintentionally growled. “Considering my cock is the only one you’ve ever wrapped your lips around and I’ve never had a blow job while driving, I drew the conclusion.”
“I want to.”
“What?” My head snapped in her direction before I remembered to watch the road and looked back.
Thankfully it was nearing eleven and there wasn’t traffic on the highway or I may’ve crashed my truck.
Delaney’s answer wasn’t verbal. She pushed up the center console, making the front a bench seat, and unbuckled her belt. She slid to the middle, put the lap belt on, twisted toward me, and her hand dove to my crotch.
“Whoa, Laney.”
I moved my hand over hers, stopping her movement.
“You told me to check for myself.” Her voice was husky and lust-filled.
Delaney had initiated sex plenty over the years. She wasn’t afraid to tell me what she wanted. But she had never been this forward.
“I did. But
I have a feeling you’re planning on doing more than checking.”
“No, I’m just checking.”
Her hand wiggled out from under mine and she had my jeans unbuttoned and my zipper pulled before I could stop her.
What the fuck was happening? And who was this woman?
“Laney.”
“Shush, Carter.”
Her hand reached in and she wrapped it around my bare cock.
“Jesus.”
“You think you can drive like this?”
Was she fucking crazy? I could barely think as she palmed my cock and began to stroke.
“No.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to concentrate really hard, honey.”
Fuck, I hadn’t heard her call me honey in so long I wasn’t sure what felt better, her jerking me off or her calling me something she only did while I was inside of her.
“I don’t—”
“Concentrate,” she demanded and tightened her grip.
Her head lowered and without preamble she slid my cock past her lips and damn near swallowed the whole thing.
“Laney baby,” I groaned. “We shouldn’t—” My protest died as she glided her mouth up my shaft and tongued around the head of my cock. “Jesus fuck, your mouth feels good.”
Up and down she went, bringing me closer and closer.
I switched lanes, taking us to the far right and set my cruise control to just under the speed limit and tried to force myself to watch the road.
It was damn near impossible.
Adoring Delaney: The Next Generation Page 14