Page 65 of Inked in Devotion

I nodded.

“Seeing him holding Seb.” She was shaking her head. “A slew of emotions hit me. Anger came first, and it came fast and hard. I think because I’d kept it locked down for so long. But there was also the bittersweetness of what could have been.”

I brushed the hair from her face and kissed the tip of her nose. I was ill-equipped to offer empathy, and sometimes the best thing I could do was listen.

“Ivan’s face had blurred out from my memory, but today I finally remembered when that picture was taken. The one Lucy showed me in the cabin. The one Renée sent Ivan.”

“You did?”

“It’s still snatches of it. We were in a children’s playground and he had me on the slide and those spinny things.” Her eyes glazed over. “I fell, and I started crying. He bought me ice cream. I was so happy.”

The only way I could describe Ivan in the picture was contented. After he’d lost a son to death and sent another to Russia as punishment, he sought solace in a mother and child he knew could never be his. They eased his pain.

But Ivan wasn’t only to blame. Renée was as well. She’d fallen for two unavailable men, and I think Chloe understood this. Her mother wasn’t blameless.

And that was why I had no advice to offer. What was done was done. Didn’t they always say in affairs, it was the children who suffered? Kirill—although getting away from Irina’s coddling might have saved him because Christ, was he a pussy when I first met him. The victim here was Chloe because she didn’t choose any of this.

I glanced at Sebastian. Just like my son didn’t choose to be born into this chaos.

I couldn’t shield him from the dangers of what it meant to be related to me, but I could teach him how to survive them.

Looking at Chloe now, the way she was staring into space and looking so despondent, I couldn’t help reaching for her and pulling her close. She didn’t resist. As if that was exactly what she needed.

“I’m sorry.” There. That was the right thing to say, right? I was so out of my depth. But she was the mother of my child. I should offer comfort. With a flimsy barrier of her sleep shirt, her softness molded to my body in a way that made me want to live inside her.

My hands stroked up and down her back. I wasn’t even aware I was doing this. My breaths came faster, not quite exhaling a lungful before I dragged in my next inhale.

I wanted to fuck her.

I was such an asshole.

Maybe she needed an escape? When I fucked her that weekend, it felt like she was running away from something, and I delivered exactly what she needed. And last week when I got her off before Kirill barged in on us, I gave her solace from her fear of storms.

I did two things, and two things well: kill and fuck.

My fingers ran up her sides and cupped her heavy tits, and my thumbs flicked her nipples. She moaned into my chest before she slowly raised her head and kissed the base of my throat.

A deep, affirming sound rumbled inside me, and I slipped my hands under her shirt and cupped her ass, making her aware of the raging erection outlined against her belly.

She raised her eyes, which were fogged with desire. I bent my head and claimed her mouth, devouring it. I was telling myself I was comforting her the way I knew, but guilt was an ever prickly presence.

Sebastian made a tiny sound.

While kissing Chloe, my eyes flicked to my son. Did he even understand what we were doing?

He made a chortling noise and threw his spoon.

Chloe sprang away from me. “Shit,” she whispered. Her cheeks were flaming.

I smirked at Sebastian, and he grinned at me. That little cockblocker.

“We just made out in front of our son!” Chloe exclaimed.

“You think he’s going to remember this?”

Chloe couldn’t look at me and went straight to Sebastian. “I don’t want to traumatize him.”

“He’s only ten months old. I don’t think he’ll have any memory of his parents going at it in the kitchen.”