Then I took a chance.
“I know it isn’t why you’re here but I don’t care,” I said to Joe in the dark, my arm moving around his waist, closing in, going tight. “I’m glad you’re here because I like what we just did and because I like you in my bed and because I feel safe and I feel my girls are safe. I don’t want you to go all Joe on me and remind me that isn’t what we are. I don’t care it isn’t. You should know that’s how I feel and I haven’t felt safe for a year and a half and you cannot know how much that sucks. So,” I twisted my neck and kissed his chest again then murmured into his skin, “thanks for makin’ us safe.”
Then I settled back, cheek to his shoulder and gave him a squeeze.
His body had gone still while I talked, still and tense. I felt it but I ignored it and decided to go for the gusto.
“And, by the way, I liked having you at my table and the girls did too. I know that isn’t what we are but you’re welcome there anytime you get hungry and I’m cookin’.”
“Vi –”
“Shut up, Joe.”
“Buddy –”
“I said, shut up.”
Surprisingly, he shut up.
And he didn’t do what I worried he’d do, retreat, not in any way. He turned into me, slid his knee between my legs, forcing my thigh to hook on his waist and he gathered me close in his arms as mine went around him.
He didn’t say anything, not a word, he was silent.
I fell asleep before him, I knew I did because his weight didn’t settle but his arms kept me locked tight.
But I fell asleep hoping that maybe I just gave him a little something that would make him feel less empty.
And I was hoping hard.
Chapter Twelve
The End
Cal left Nadia and went to his truck.
He didn’t fuck her, she wanted it but he wasn’t in the mood and he had to get home.
It was going to end with Vi tonight.
He knew it because when Nadia got dropped at his place, Vi, Kate and Keira were saying good-bye to Sam and Melissa in their front drive.
The timing couldn’t have been better. Tina was also getting in her car and Colt, Feb and Jack were just getting back from somewhere. They all saw Cal greet Nadia in his drive with a kiss, they saw him put her in his truck and they saw him drive away.
He’d looked through them. Tina looked smug; he could see it two yards away, the fucking bitch. Colt looked pissed, Feb worried. Sam and Melissa looked confused.
But it was Vi, Kate and Keira that hit him, straight in the left chest, a twist and squeeze so brutal it was a wonder he didn’t drop to his knees.
Kate looked shocked but in that way someone looks when they just got hit with a surprise attack, not expecting it and then, all of a sudden, they get socked in the gut, the wind knocked clean out of them.
Keira looked betrayed. It was plain on her face, betrayal and pain.
But Vi looked like he’d inflicted a mortal wound, face pale like he’d shoved a knife in her and twisted it, letting her blood leak out.
He just got in his truck and drove Nadia to her place.
*
The last week with Vi and the girls had been good.
He’d stayed home. After the gift had come, he’d had Lindy rearrange his appointments, telling his clients he had an emergency.
The gift had been an enormous, expensive vase. No card, no prints that came up in the system, just some random message from a dickhead who liked fucking with people’s minds.
Cal checked Vi’s front steps before joining her in bed at night and he checked them after he got up and went home in the morning. Nothing more.
But Vi had changed, after that night she found him on his deck drinking beer, she’d changed. She wasn’t unconsciously getting under his skin just by being Vi. Now, she was digging her way in.
And he was letting her.
He knew she went to dinner with Mike because she let him know.
But when he hit her bed, every single night for a week, she was all about him, all about finding that opening, tearing it wider, forcing more of herself in.
Fucking her had always been great but it got better. She didn’t lie when he’d made her make herself come and she watched while he did the same, she liked everything they did together. He thought he had her, she was all his when they were fucking but she proved differently. When he was in her bed, she opened something up in herself and there was so much of it flooding out, if he wasn’t careful, he’d get washed away.