Her deep brown hair was twisted up at the top of her head in a messy knot, and she’d changed into a cute black pajama set. A long-sleeved top with matching shorts.
Her smile was sly and soft. I wasn’t sure how she pulled it off.
“I think I’m good, thank you.”
“Are you sure? You ask for it, and I’ll see that it’s delivered.” She wagged her brows, clearly tempting me into some sort of gluttony.
I let go of a light giggle. “If you’re trying to offer me more food, then you are looking at the wrong woman. I pretty much had to crawl up the stairs, I’m so full.”
That meal of creamy pesto chicken and mashed potatoes had tasted even better than the heaven it’d smelled like.
I was stuffed.
And confused.
Trying to orient myself to yet another change I didn’t fully comprehend.
It was nearing ten, and by some grand mercy, Silas had remained downstairs when I’d come up to get ready for bed, the confounding man sending Meems off as well and promising to clean up the kitchen.
Who freaking knew bikers were so damned helpful.
Kai was long asleep, zonking out halfway through dinner.
Silas had pushed from his chair and swept him off my lap to take him to his room.
A loaded awareness had rippled around us as he’d pulled the sleeping baby into his massive arms, freezing to stare down at me for two elongated beats before he’d turned, snatched his blanket from the floor, and carried him upstairs.
I was still trying to process that one.
The child constantly trying to give me bites of his food.
His sweet laugh.
His even sweeter face.
The way it made me feel when he called meBwinwey. Something that felt like it might both heal and hurt. But maybe I needed it. Maybe I needed to feel something I hadn’t ever allowed myself to feel.
Elena’s smile widened. “Meems has that way about her.”
“You mean making you feel like you’ve been a part of her family your entire life when you just met her?”
Elena giggled and shuffled deeper into the room. “Give her five minutes, and you’re hers forever. That is, if she likes you.”
“Did I pass the test?” I tried to play it as a quip. I really didn’t care one way or the other.
At least that was what I was telling myself.
But if I was being honest, I felt like I’d witnessed something special during dinner.
Something unexpected.
Something that I’d been missing for a long, long time. The vacancy inside me was so aged by now, the wounds thickened by scars and calluses, that it felt almost foreign.
Watching them chat and tease and play through the entire meal. Like they were this normal family when you could not mistake that there was a seedy underbelly.
Those men weren’t just wearing those cuts because they liked motorcycles.
I’dheardit last night. I had heard the brutish malevolence that had seeped through that rugged door that I imagined protected some sort of dungeon on the other side.
