“Yeah,” I murmur, lips barely moving.“I’m more than okay.”
“Good,” he says, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.“Because I don’t want to stop taking care of you.”
My fingers curl against his chest, my lashes fluttering closed.
He’s still murmuring, still whispering praise and promises against my skin, but it blurs—soft, sleepy static against the thrum of my pulse.
I drift.
Full.
Loved.
His ...and Cally’s.
ChapterForty-Six
Callaway
The first time my mother threatened me, I was seven.
A manicured hand resting lightly on my shoulder in the foyer of our penthouse, her diamond ring catching the morning light like a halo.Her voice a hush meant for bedtime stories.The doorman pretended not to listen as she leaned in, her nails pressing just enough to make me flinch.
“You don’t embarrass this family,” she said.“Because if you do ...we’ll handle it, but you’ll regret it.”
Handle it.
That phrase clung to me like cologne I couldn’t scrub off—always there, polite, expensive, and absolutely rotting underneath.
So when my phone buzzes at 5:12 a.m., screen lit up with WHITMORE & KLINE—PRIVATE, I don’t feel surprise.I feel rehearsed.Like a kid standing at the top of a stage he didn’t audition for, knowing every line by heart because he’s been living them since birth.
I don’t answer.
Not yet.
Instead, I stay in the kitchen, barefoot on the stone floor that’s still warm from the heating system we splurged on before we moved in.The mug in my hand is filled with coffee I’m not drinking.The smell turns my stomach.Which is ridiculous.I’m not the one who’s pregnant.
Vesper’s upstairs, still asleep.Probably tangled in too many blankets, wearing one of my old t-shirts that slips off her shoulder every damn time I tuck her in.Even when she’s dead asleep, she makes it impossible not to touch her.She mumbles when I kiss her hair.She pulls my hand under the covers when I try to leave.
And Monty is already in the home gym, headphones on, body drenched in morning sweat, lifting like it’s therapy and punishment wrapped in iron.I missed him today.Missed us.
Which might be for the best.
Because yesterday?
Yesterday we barely made it through warm-up.
I walked into the gym, still rubbing sleep from my eyes, and he looked up from the bench press like I was prey.No shirt, no patience.Just a bite already forming in the line of his jaw.He nodded at the bar like we weren’t seconds away from defiling it.I straddled the bench to spot him, and he arched up into my space on purpose, breath coming faster—not from the weight, but from the way I said, “Come on, big guy, lift for me.”His arms shook.His cock twitched.I noticed.
He muttered something about form.
I said something dirtier about position.
We didn’t last.He dropped the bar, shoved me against the rack, and we were on our knees before the next rep.I sucked him off with his hand buried in my hair, sweat dripping down his abs, his mouth open but silent.The way he always is when he’s about to lose control.That man fights pleasure like it owes him something, like surrender might split him open in ways he won’t survive.
I didn’t mind.I like wrecking him.
God, I love wrecking him.
