We lay like this for a few moments, breathing each other in, reveling in the moment.
He doesn’t move for so long that I start to think that he fell asleep—inside me. I wait another minute, and he finally turns his head toward me.
“Hi.” I smile.
“Hi.”
I run my fingers up and down his spine. “You all right?”
“Oh, I’m very all right.”
I shake my head at the playful tone. “Are you planning on getting up?”
He grunts. “I’m fine.”
“Liam.” I giggle as he tucks his face against the crook of my neck.
“What? It makes it easier for round two.”
He’s a mess. A beautiful mess. “Come on, babe. I need to get up.”
Liam hoists himself up a little, his smile is lazy and beyond sexy. Everything about him makes me happy. He runs his thumb against my lips, touching each part of my face. “Each day I ask myself what in the world I did to deserve you.”
“You were you,” I reply as if it’s the only answer in the world.
“And you were meant to be mine.”
He presses his lips to mine, and once again, tears spring to my eyes. “Then I guess it’s a pretty good thing we found each other, huh?”
Liam nods. “You’ve given me everything a man could ever want in his life.”
My heart swells, and I brush my thumb across his cheek. “Yeah?”
“I have a son and a daughter who I would lie down my life for. A woman who loves me more than I deserve. You’re the other half to my soul, Lee. You think I say this shit because I’m so sweet or whatever crap you tell Catherine and Charlie, but the truth is that I wouldn’t be who I am without you.”
“Why do you have to be so amazing all the time?”
Liam rolls off to the side, pulling me against his chest. “Because I love you, sweetheart. I know you’re tough and you don’t need anyone to take care of you, but I see the cracks.”
My head sits on my hand while I look at the man I love with my whole heart. “You keep coming home to me, and I’ll keep spackling.”
“You’re not the handiest person.”
I laugh and slap his chest. “You shouldn’t talk, Mr. Duct Tape, you’re the one who taped your daughter’s diaper and then tied the Christmas tree to the ceiling.”
He shrugs. “You love me.”
“That I do, I most definitely do.”
“I love you. You know what else I love?” Liam asks.
There’s mischief in his eyes, and I can only imagine what the hell is coming next. “Now I’m scared.”
Liam pushes my hair out of my eyes with a wicked grin. “Chocolate.”
“Oh, I can get with some chocolate!”
We climb out of bed and throw on some clothes. Once in the kitchen, I grab the bag of KitKats I keep hidden from Aarabelle and Shane.
“That’s where you keep the stash?” He laughs as I’m climbing down from the chair I used to get in the top cabinet.
“Don’t judge. I need my candy when you’re gone.”
“Come here,” Liam says, holding a hand out to me. “I want to show you something.”
“Okay,” I say hesitantly.
Liam pulls me out of the kitchen, grabs the blanket off the back of the couch, and tugs me back toward the hallway.
“What are you doing?”
“Showing you what it’s going to be like when the kids are out of the house. Sex in all the rooms. Starting with the dining room.”
Two
“Where is she?” Liam asks as he paces the hall as he pulls the beanie off his head.
“Calm down!”
“Don’t tell me to calm down, that little cocksucker was supposed to have her home five minutes ago,” he bellows.
Sometimes he’s this calm, level-headed man that I love being around. Then, we have this madman who makes me crazy by being a complete freak show.
“Liam, sit down.”
He goes to the window, pushes the blinds down, slips his beanie back on, and then grumbles again. “I can’t. This little shit is probably—”
“Is, nothing,” I finish. “They went to a movie across town, you and I know better than anything that traffic here is horrible.”
My phone vibrates.
Aarabelle: There’s an accident on Shore Drive. I’m trying. Please tell Athair we’re coming and not to shoot anything or anyone.
* * *
Me: Okay. Just get here safely.
“See?” I hold my phone up. “She’s on her way, but there’s an accident.”
He laughs. “Yeah, right. She was probably doing God knows what and lost track of time.”
“Oh, so she acted like you as a teenager?”
Liam levels me with a stare. “Don’t try to send me over the edge.”
I’m pretty sure he jumped over the edge ten minutes before she left. Since the prom where Aarabelle was adamant they were just friends, she and Chase have grown very close. He’s a good kid, though. He came to the house and asked Liam for permission to ask his daughter out.
Liam, of course, is a dick and made him sweat it out.
I bet he wishes he said no now.
But, seriously, Chase is a good kid.
“Where is your son?” I ask absently. It’s been quiet the last hour in the garage where he was working on his bike.
“He’s in the garage . . .”
“Go bother him. Maybe he needs some help while you wait.”
Liam kisses my forehead and heads out the door.
I watch as he leaves, admiring the view of his ass. Sometimes, I can’t help it. He’s just too cute.
Instead of waiting in here, I walk out to the porch with my coffee cup and curl up on the wicker couch. I love sitting out here at night. I can hear the waves crashing against the shore. The salt air calms my soul, and it always makes me grateful I got to stay in this house.
“Are you fucking crazy?” I hear Liam’s deep voice yell.
“Dad!”
“Don’t you dare Dad me!”
“It isn’t what it looks like!”
Oh, this can’t be good. I place the cup down and jog around the front of the house to see what the yelling is about.
When I get to the garage door, I see Shane pulling his shirt on and a girl doing the same.
“Fucking hell, Shane!” I say with horror in my voice.
“I swear, we were—”
Liam slaps Shane in the back of the head. “Shut your mouth.”
“But she—”
Another smack.
“I didn’t give you permission to talk. I’m contemplating letting you breathe much longer,” Liam says through gritted teeth.
“You should head home,” I say to the girl, whose face is bright red as she refuses to look anywhere but at the ground.
Shane opens his mouth to say something and Liam steps closer, grabbing his neck. “Not a word.”
Why is it the bigger they get the bigger my fears are? Can’t we go back to diapers and duct tape? Anything other than condoms.
She scurries out just as headlights illuminate the driveway.
Great. Aarabelle is here now and is going to get the wrath of this fiasco.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Aara says as she and Chase walk up the drive. “I swear, we weren’t doing anything.”
“No one! No. One. Other than me and your mother should be having sex in this house. No one. Do you understand?” Liam explodes, his eyes firmly locked on his son as Aara and Chase come to stand next to me. Clearly, my daughter doesn’t think she is included in that edict, which tells me she isn’t doing anything she shouldn’t be.
Like an idiot, Shane laughs, which has both Aarabelle and I looking on in horror.
“What are you talking about?” she finally asks, drawing Liam’s attention.
No. No. No. Aara. You should know better than to talk when Liam has that look on his face.
“Did you have sex? Is that why you were late?” Liam, still holding Shane’s neck asks as he moves toward her.
“No! God! We were stuck in traffic!”
He turns to Chase. “I swear that if you were at some sleazy motel or steaming up the back seat, boy . . .”
Chase lifts his hands. “I swear, Mr. Dempsey, it was traffic.”
“Liam.” I step in.
“These kids are nuts, sweetheart! They’re nuts! I catch one with his pants down and the other . . . well, I don’t know what she did, but . . .”
Or maybe their father is the one who’s nuts, but I decide to keep that one in. I think the hardest thing about parenting is the loss of control.
The older they get, the less control you have. It is just the way of life.
“Everything okay, Lee?” My elderly neighbor asks from the window.