The tiniest of smiles tilted the corner of her mouth. “Well, I suppose when you put it that way…”
I passed her a mug of coffee. She took it, slipping her fingers around the handle while she wandered around the living room. “Aww!” She stopped in front of a framed portrait on the wall. It had yellowed with age, and unsurprisingly, since the two-year-old boy in the photo was now a twenty-seven-year-old man. “This is you, right? Or Hayden?”
Hayden was a couple of years younger than me, so he likely hadn’t been born when the photo had been taken. “It’s me,” I confirmed, joining her.
“You’ve got some fossil-aged artwork on the refrigerator, too,” Heath called from the kitchen. He came back, munching on an apple. “Sorry, I’m starving.”
I gave him a wry glance. “We already did a lot worse in that bedroom, so I think eating the food is okay.”
He sniggered. But at the mention of what we’d done, his gaze drew back to Mae. Mine followed. She had such great legs. She wandered the wall of photos, checking out each one, completely oblivious that both Heath and I were watching her every movement. When she lifted onto her toes, reaching up to straighten a frame while unknowingly flashing us the curve of her ass cheek, both Heath and I groaned in unison.
She turned with a confused look on her face. “What?”
“You…” Heath started, his interest in his apple forgotten. He stared at me helplessly, like he couldn’t find the words.
“He’s trying to say that you, in that shirt, with nothing beneath it, is hella distracting.”
Heath nodded. “What he said.”
She smiled softly. “We should probably come up with some sort of plan, but I don’t think we can go anywhere in broad daylight… We’ve got some time to kill.”
Heath crossed the room to trail his fingertips over her bare thigh. “You want to watch TV, sweetheart?”
She shook her head. “Not exactly what I had in mind.”
My dick twitched, already up for whatever was on her mind. I knew what I wanted. I’d watched Heath take her perfect ass last night, and I wanted to do the same, if she wasn’t too sore.
I boxed her between us again. She undid the top button, giving us a hint of her cleavage, and I pulled aside the collar to kiss her neck.
She let out a happy little noise of pleasure, one that I was suddenly desperate to hear more of.
Heath seemed ready to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder. “Those noises, Mae…”
She closed her eyes and undid another button.
A key being inserted into the front door lock froze us all to the spot. Mae barely had time to clutch her open shirt around her breasts before the door swung open.
I pushed Mae behind me. “Mom, I—”
A man stood in the doorway.
Most definitely not my mother.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked.
At the same time, he said, “What going on here?” His gaze fell on Heath, and his eyes widened in instant recognition. “Holy shit. You’re the guy from the news. The prisoner who escaped last night!”
His panic clear on his face, he reached behind him, pulling a gun from the waistband of his jeans.
Mae screamed. Heath dove at her, while I spread my arms, keeping them both behind me.
“I’m Liam Banks. I’m a lawyer,” I said in a rush, keeping my gaze pinned on the man’s gun. “This is my mother’s house, and I assure you, nobody here is armed or wants to hurt anyone. Want to tell me who you are?”
A small figure pushed the big man aside. My mother’s eyes went wide as she took me in, disheveled and clad in nothing but the suit pants I’d worn yesterday. Her gaze strayed to Heath and Mae behind me but bounced straight back to me. “Liam? What on earth?”
“Surprise?”
She stared at me blankly.
I dropped my arms, eyeing the man behind her. He’d lowered his gun, but it was still clutched between his fingers like he might change his mind at any time.
I ran a hand through my hair. “Okay, bad surprise.”
She stepped inside the house properly. “You broke in?”
I pointed at my keys sitting on the kitchen countertop. “You haven’t changed the locks in a long time.”
“I suppose I haven’t. But…”
I could see the questions tumbling over themselves in her mind, fighting for the top place to come blurting out of her mouth. I knew I owed her an explanation. But there was something I’d been wanting to do for such a long time. And today, after all that had happened the day before, I wanted it more than ever.
I stepped toward her, closing the distance between us. I towered over her, I had even at twelve when I’d gone to live with my grandparents. That was the last time I remembered hugging her.
It had been too long. We had so many wasted years. All of them my fault.
I put my arms around her and squeezed her tight.
She was stiff in my arms for a long moment, and I eyed the man behind her, wondering who he was, and a little wary about whether he might think about shooting me again. But then my mother relaxed in my arms and wrapped her own around my waist. She became all I could think about. Her face, pressed to my chest, grew damp with tears, and I had to blink back a sudden moisture as well. She trembled, clutching me tighter with every passing moment, and I did the same to her. Emotion clogged my throat, making it impossible to explain why I was here, but I felt the acceptance in her embrace.
I felt the safety. And I knew this was the whole reason I’d come here.
For everything I’d done to her over the years, all the rejection and pain I’d caused her, she was still my mother. The mug in her cupboard, my photos on the walls, all the mementos of a long-ago childhood… They were all proof she didn’t hate me as much as I’d feared.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered against my chest.
I blinked at her. “For what? You’ve done nothing wrong. It was all me.”
She pulled back, gazing at me with watery eyes.