“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.” Folk tugged me to my feet. “We both need to sleep, though, eh? Let’s go to bed.”
We went inside and moved around each other like we’d spent a lifetime of nights together. Folk checked the house, then went in the bathroom first while I poked my head in Ivy’s room. She was asleep, but not in bed. I lifted her from the rug and tucked her in.
Then I brushed my teeth and slipped into my own room.
It was dark and Folk already in bed. I lay down beside him, leaving a respectable distance between us when all I wanted to do was roll over and drag him closer. Kiss him. Strip him. Wrap my lips around his cock again.
More.
Whatever that was. Over the years, I’d imagined us fucking more than I cared to admit, but the sensation had come to me easier than the logistics. I didn’t know what I wanted. Or how I wanted it.
Fuck, I didn’t know whathewanted.
I shifted onto my side in the same moment he did. Reached for him. Found his hand open and waiting.
“I really want to kiss you,” he whispered. “But I don’t think I can stop.”
A startled grin split my face. Was he inside my brain? “Me too.” I kissed his knuckles instead.
He shivered, and that startled me too. It still made no sense to me that my touch was as potent as his.
I closed my eyes so he wouldn’t see it in my face. Folk squeezed my hand and it calmed me enough that I fell asleep.
The next morning, I woke alone to the sound of soft laughter filtering up the stairs. And I spent the next two days at the beach, swimming, hiking. Eating healthy food and ignoring my phone.
Sleeping next to Folk while he held my hand and waited for whatever trick my kid had come up with to kick him out of bed before waking me up.
It was bliss. And it was over too soon. On Sunday afternoon, Ivy and Folk dozed off on the couch. I went outside so I wouldn’t stare too hard at them and picked all the strawberries that hadn’t been eaten yet. I held them in the palm of my tattooed hand. Till I’d moved into this house, I hadn’t known gardening was therapy, but the misshapen berries fixed something inside me I hadn’t known was broken.
I stepped into the house, glancing into the living room. Folk was stretched out and snoozing with my kid sprawled on his chest. An accidental nap that was cute as fuck. It made me wonder how early they’d been up every morning since Friday, but if the result was a moment as magical as this, I was okay with it.
More than okay. I tucked the strawberries into the fridge and went back outside to take a perch on the steps, letting the sun beat down on my face. Before Folk had gone to sleep, he’d picked a record from the collection the O’Brian’s had left behind—the only thing in the house I knew without question had to stay where it lay. An old song about sunshine, highways, and alligators filtered softly through the open patio doors. I didn’t know much about music, except that I liked it, and I let it carry me into a daze of my own until my phone buzzed with a notification from the new motion sensor Folk had installed last night.
Someone’s here.
I surged to my feet and strode inside, but I lacked the supernatural ability to move at warp speed. By the time I reached the hallway, Alexei was already in my house, in myliving room, conversing with Folk inRussian.
That was a new one. So was the tousle to Alexei’s usually neat hair and the hickey on his neck. Unless it was more that I was finally attuned enough to my own sexuality to notice these things. To be so goddamn sure it wasCamwho’d put his mark on Alexei’s throat—that dude had alpha male in his DNA.
I offered Alexei a drink.
Predictably, he shook his head. “I come only to tell Folk where he needs to be later. And to remind you that you should not be here without him.”
“I’m aware.” I stepped around him and peeled a sleepy Ivy from Folk’s arms. “I’m on the bar tonight and opening the yard in the morning, so there’s no point coming home anyway.”
“There is always a reason to come home, soldier. It will not be like this forever.”
Like I needed reminding that Folk taking an afternoon nap on my couch wasn’t permanent.
I left them to talk Russian to each other and took Ivy upstairs, my mood already dipping as I dressed her in clothes Lauren wouldn’t sneer at and packed her bag with clean school uniform.
“Daddy, can we go swimming again?”
“Not today, sweetheart. Maybe on Wednesday after school.”
“With Folk?”
