He leaned back and searched my eyes, for what I don’t know, but he must have found it because the next second his lips met mine in a searing kiss. I lifted my good arm to pull him closer to me. Fuck, I missed this man. Duke always felt like home when we were together.
He groaned into my mouth and placed his other hand on my jaw. He tipped my head back so he could deepen the kiss. Things were on their way to getting hot and heavy when we were interrupted by a throat clearing.
Leigh stood in the doorway with our son, sleeping soundly in her arms. “He must have been worn out. He fell asleep during his bottle and didn’t even stir when I changed his diaper and put him in new pajamas.”
“I think we’re all worn out from today,” I replied.
“Agreed,” Duke said.
I couldn’t get up and Duke made no move to go get our son. Leigh didn’t miss a beat. She strolled over to us and leaned down, “You want to give him a goodnight kiss and I’ll put him down for you?”
“Absolutely, thank you for your help tonight.” I kissed my boy on his forehead and murmured, “Mommy loves you, little man.”
Duke leaned over and kissed his temple, “Daddy loves you, too. Thank you, Aunt Leigh.”
“No problem. You two get some rest. I’ll be around in the morning if you need me for anything. Goodnight.”
When she pulled the door closed, I turned to Duke, “Why didn’t you get up and go get our son from her?”
He looked at me incredulously. “Because I didn’t want my aunt to see how hard you made my cock, sugar.”
“Oh,” I muttered. What else could I say?
“Oh,” he mimicked.
“Shut it, Duke.”
“Go to sleep, Reese.”
“Fine.”
CHAPTER TEN
Duke
I didn’t sleep for shit last night. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Reese’s fear filled face trapped in that damn car.
Then, there was the other thing that kept me up. Something I wasn’t sure I should mention. Something I pushed to the back of my mind years ago and never thought about again. In my mind, it was like it never even happened.
See, Reese didn’t know anyone from Arizona, but I did. I knew a woman with dark, curly hair who lived in Arizona. I wanted to believe it was a coincidence. There was no way she could have found me and definitely no way she could have linked Reese to me. It was just a coincidence. It had to be.
I walked into the common room, my boy against my chest, and found Carbon sprawled out on one of the couches. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
“Nope. The whole thing kept playing over and over in my head. Finally, I said ‘fuck it’ and gave up on sleep. I would rather be tired than relive my sister’s near-death experience over and over again, each time with a different ending.”
“Same here, brother,” I said and dropped down beside him and shifted James to my lap.
“How’s Reese?” Carbon asked, anxiety evident in his voice.
“She slept through the night and is still sleeping. If she doesn’t wake up on her own soon, I’m going to wake her up and give her some more pain meds like Patch said. Don’t want her to start hurting so bad we can’t get it under control again.”
“Good,” he shifted, almost as if he was uncomfortable. “Did, um, did you guys talk?”
“Not much. I told her I didn’t want to talk about it until later, that I was just glad she was okay.”
“Thank you for that. I don’t know why she did it, and any other time I would be beyond pissed at her, but right now, I feel the same as you, just glad she’s okay,” he said honestly.
“She’s got a lot to tell us…” I said, trailing off at the end of my sentence.
