“We should probably wait,” I grind out because, shit, I guess I'm fucking crazy as hell. Must be nuts to say no to a girl as pretty as this—especially with her hand pumping furiously on my cock. It's amateur as fuck, but also kind of sexy.
My mouth drops to her collarbone, licking up along that graceful neck of hers, teeth nibbling the sensitive skin of her throat as she moans and digs the nails of her right hand into my bicep. Her left is still working me with a frantic, wild rhythm, begging me for something that I'm not sure she even really wants.
“No.”
I reach down and take her wrist, pulling her hand out of my pants.
When I sit up and scoot to the edge of the bed, she shoots up and presses her back into the headboard, breath coming harsh and quick, her breasts rising and falling with the motion. I glance back at her, but I can only look for a second.
It's too much. It's all just too much.
“I looked at you,” I tell her as I stand up and button my pants, grabbing my shirt and slipping it over my head. “I looked at you, Brooke.” My hand curls around the handle of the sleeping baby's seat, and I move out of the room and down the stairs to find the kids still enraptured in their show.
“You sure look stupid right now,” Kinzie says as I pause and glance into a small mirror at the bottom of the stairs. My hair is mussy and my pupils are huge, like I'm high or something. Nothing I can do about that, I guess. “Can we eat now? It's late and I'm hungry.”
“Yeah, yeah, I'll get right on that, your majesty.” I move into the kitchen and find that the fridge has been stocked with plenty of food. Well, hell. Somebody's thinking way ahead of me, that's for sure. I start to pull stuff out when I hear the front door slam and pause, heading back into the living room and looking out the window just in time to see Brooke's car pull out of the driveway.
I wonder if I'll regret letting her leave like that.
I have no idea what came over me upstairs with Zayden. Like, literally none. I feel like I went crazy there for a minute, like I was sure that anybody would be better than the customers at the club. But … then after I left, I just felt cheap and weird, and I didn't know what to do.
So I pulled over on the side of the road and I just sat there in my ugly panties and my top with the buttons all screwed up, and I put my face in my hands and cried. For an hour. An hour that made me late to my new job.
When I got there, my new boss screamed at me and then fired me right on the spot.
So apparently I was freaking out for nothing. I'm not going to be a stripper.
But what I am going to be is homeless and hungry and praying that my nieces don't get dragged into foster care, or maybe that when my parents come home, they'll be able to take them—even though my dad has early onset Alzheimer's.
Because it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to handle this.
I stay out for most of the night, as long as I would've worked, just sitting in the parking lot with the cheap, cheesy glow of the club's lights bathing my car in neon pink and blue. I don't do anything but sit there and watch men go into the club, laughing and joking and hanging on one another. When they come out, they look like they're even more drunk than they were before.
After a while, I admit defeat and head home, unlocking the door and letting myself into the living room to find Zay asleep on my sister's couch. The baby's with him, sleeping quietly on his chest, her tiny body wrapped in strong, tattooed arms.
I suck in a deep breath and wrap my own arms around myself. I don't see any of the other kids, but I guess that they're parceled out upstairs. Without saying anything, I slip my heels off and move inside, plopping down on the small couch and turning on my side.
The cushions smell like dog piss. In fact, as I'm thinking that, I see Dodger run up to the coffee table and lift his leg.
Great.
I can't wait to start cleaning this place up for the inevitable move. Can't stay in a house if you can't pay the rent.
I stare across the moonlit room at Zay with the baby on his chest and try not to smile. I don't want to smile, not after the shitty day I've had. But I can't help it. What is it about tattooed guys and babies that make girls crazy? Is it that juxtaposition of hard and soft? I have no clue. Clearly, I'm no good at psychoanalyzing myself or else I would've known I was incapable of making a sacrifice for my family.
I'm such a selfish bitch.
I close my eyes and breathe deep, almost falling asleep before I hear a rustle from across the living room. It's Zayden, laying the baby gently in the folding crib he brought over. She fusses, but he coos at her, singing some soft song under his breath. I think it's … Africa by Toto? What the hell? But anyway, it's cute as hell when she settles with a little smack of her lips and falls back asleep.