Poppy
I stared at the beautiful blonde woman seated across from me with a mixture of fear and admiration. I was waiting for her to rage at me, to yell and make a scene the way she had done when she showed up at her sister’s apartment to confront Wheeler after he called their engagement off. She looked like a supermodel but I knew she had the temper of a reality-TV housewife. Along with being nervous that she was going to snap on me, I was in awe of how friendly and welcoming she seemed to be. She’s been asking Wheeler for weeks to set something up so that she could meet me and I’d finally given in, more so he could get some peace and quiet than out of any real interest in meeting the woman who was pregnant with his child. That being said, my reserve was met with nothing but warmth. Kallie even brought me a fancy jar of artisanal honey as a cheeky gift, though Christmas was several weeks past.
I’d spent the holidays with my sister and Rowdy, as well as with Sayer and Zeb and their son. Salem whined about the fact she would just be starting to really show when she was supposed to be a bridesmaid in her friend Cora’s upcoming wedding, and Sayer bought out an entire Toys “R” Us for Hyde’s first Christmas with his dad. All in all, it was the perfect mix of family and friends even though I missed Wheeler. He’d agreed to spend Christmas day with Kallie and her family. I understood why, but I knew we both would have preferred that he got to spend the day with me. It was good practice for the choices we were going to have to make when the baby came, and while it wasn’t easy for either of us, knowing we were doing the right thing for the baby took some of the sting out of it. My willingness to let him go when Kallie needed something from him was one of the reasons she’d been so desperate to meet me. The first thing she did when I walked into the coffee shop was throw her arms around me, tell me I was a saint, and then burst into tears as she apologized for all the havoc she caused in my relationship with Wheeler.
It was a lot to take in, which is why I was waiting for her to swing the other way emotionally. Wheeler warned that she was a naturally dramatic person and that her now raging hormones had made her even more so. He’d gotten really good at picking and choosing which of her whims he was going to cater to over the last month or so, making himself available only when she really, truly needed him. He told me he’d been taking care of her for so long that she still hadn’t quite figured out how to be okay on her own.
I wrapped my fingers around the warm, white-and-green cardboard cup in front of me and listened patiently as Kallie rambled on about how they were going to find out the sex of the baby at her next appointment. They’d gone right before the holidays started but the little thing had been uncooperative and refused to get in position for the ultrasound. They were still in the dark about what they were having, much to Wheeler’s dismay. I obviously already knew they were anxiously awaiting a determination because even if he wouldn’t tell her, Wheeler had told me on numerous occasions he was hoping for a little boy. Her excitement was nearly palpable, and after a few minutes of endless one-sided conversation, I realized that her nervousness was too. She was just as anxious as I was about this little get-together.
“This is going to be weird. No matter how hard we try and not make it weird, we both love the same man.” I lifted an eyebrow and let a tiny grin tug at my mouth. “We both know what he looks like naked and that he snores when he sleeps on his back.”
She blinked wide blue eyes at me and cut off her flow of words with a grateful nod. “I didn’t want it to be weird. I know you know why Wheeler and I split and why we’re not getting back together. I thought knowing that there wasn’t a chance in hell that he’d ever come back to me, or that I would ever try and take him from you, would make it easier.” She returned my grin. “It didn’t. I’m sitting over here thinking about how stupid you have to think I am. You know exactly how good I had it and I threw it all away.”
I shrugged and traced the logo on my cup with my thumb. “I don’t think you’re stupid at all. I think it would have been far more foolish to stay in a relationship that didn’t make you happy.”
She looked down at the table. “I probably would have stayed if my secret hadn’t gotten out.” She lifted her eyes back up to mine and there was shame and embarrassment threaded throughout. “I didn’t know anything else, how to love someone else, and I was terrified to live a different life. Wheeler always made everything so easy; he took care of everything and I knew no one else would do that.”
I tilted my head to the side and considered her thoughtfully before telling her truthfully, “That’s why a lot of women stay in failing relationships, even ones that are dangerous and unhealthy. It’s all they know and they don’t know how to walk away. They’re scared to be alone, scared no one will understand what they’ve been through, and won’t try to understand why they couldn’t leave. They feel like damaged goods, like they’ve somehow brought everything bad that’s happening to them upon themselves. The lucky ones eventually find their way out and find their way to something better.” I cleared my throat and reached up to push my hair out of my face. “But far too many stay.”
She wrapped her hands around her own drink, a hot chocolate, and copied my pose as she looked back at me with serious eyes. “Would you have stayed? If things hadn’t happened with your husband the way they did, if he hadn’t kidnapped you and hurt you, if he hadn’t shot himself, would you have gone back to him?”
This wasn’t the kind of conversation I planned on having with her. I thought we were going to make small talk about the weather and chat about the baby. I thought she was going to ask me if I was serious about Wheeler and serious about staying a part of his life after the baby came. I wanted her to like me because that would make things easier for all of us but I had no plans on letting her into all those dark corners where the scary parts of my past lived.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair and shrugged again. “I don’t know. I’d like to say that I would have left for good; he broke my arm and beat the crap out of me, which was what sent me running to my sister in the first place. There was no more hiding or covering up the abuse and I was ashamed, but when the bones were set and the bruises faded, he was still going to be my husband, the man I promised to spend the rest of my life with, and I didn’t take that lightly.” I bit down on my lower lip and felt my brows knit together over the bridge of my nose. “He wanted to have kids, that’s what we were fighting about the night I left. He wanted to know why I wasn’t getting pregnant. He called me terrible names, told me God left me barren and empty because I’d had sex before marriage. He told me I didn’t deserve a baby because of my loose ways and claimed that’s why I’d miscarried my first pregnancy when I was a teenager.” Kallie gave an audible gasp from across the table and lifted her hands to her horrified face.
“I could take what he threw at me. Like I said, I think part of me believed that I hadn’t been the best daughter, sister, girlfriend, wife I could be, so I deserved it. But I knew there was no way on earth I could subject a child to that kind of life.” I shook my head a tiny bit and swallowed back the bitter taste in my mouth that talking about Oliver always left. “So I can’t honestly say that I would have left for me, but I know without a doubt I would have left to keep him from hurting anyone else.”
“That’s so scary, Poppy. He would have killed you.”
I nodded in agreement. “Yes, he would have, which is why I do my best to make sure anyone in a similar situation knows that there are options, knows that there is someone out there that has been where they are and can show them that it gets better once they get out. The person I am today never would have given Oliver the time of day, let alone married him. The woman that survived all of that knows life is a precious thing, that time is limited, and none of it should be wasted on people that want to cause you pain.”
Kallie sat back in her chair and put a palm over her belly. She was a month further along than Salem, so she was just now starting to show. The burgeoning bump was adorable and I couldn’t stop the pang of envy that worked under my skin as she caressed it.
“This baby is going to be so lucky to have you in its life, Poppy.” The sincerity of her tone warmed me up more than my latte had. She was actually very sweet and I could see why Wheeler had been so into her from the start.
“Well, I feel pretty lucky that both you and Wheeler are allowing me to have a place in your baby’s life. That’s not a responsibility I take lightly. It means the world to me.” It really did. Thinking about babies and everything that I’d lost used to paralyze me, the pain of that loss crippling me and stealing my motivation to move on from the past, but now the idea of cuddling a newborn, of touching that baby-soft skin and smelling their innocent, sweet smell, brought nothing but joy. I was going to be the best auntie in the world and I was going to soak up every minute I got with Wheeler and Kallie’s baby. Watching the man I was undoubtedly falling in love with figuring out fatherhood was a fantastic motivation to keep putting one foot in front of the other every day. Slowly but surely, I was leaving what was behind me and moving solidly into what could be.
“Well it’s obvious that you mean the world to Wheeler. He’s different with you, I mean he’s still great, still pretty much the most perfect guy anyone could ask for, but he seems … happier.” She made a face at me. “That was a hard pill to swallow at first. I thought I made him happy but seeing him with you … I wasn’t even close.” She leaned forward in her chair and her ocean-colored eyes doubled in size. “Did he tell you today is the day we were supposed to get married? I tried to call him and check on him but he didn’t answer.”
It was my turn to fall back in my chair with a horrified expression stamped across my face. “No, he didn’t mention it. I told him I was coming to meet you for coffee and he said he was going to take Happy for a walk.” He hadn’t seemed upset or withdrawn but I was learning that he was really good at locking down anything that might lash out and touch anyone else. I wanted to tell him that nothing he let escape could be anywhere as bad as the monsters my father and former husband had set free, but in order to do that I needed him to know I wasn’t scared of his brand of dark and dangerous. I’d spent a lot of time in hell, so I was intimately acquainted with all variety of demons and devils. Wheeler didn’t have it in him to be evil and purposefully malicious. The boy should have a halo tattooed around his head.
I pulled my phone out and fired off a text asking where he was. He’d been putting a lot of hours into the Hudson lately, so I was hoping he was going to reply that he was at work. What I got back instead was:
Had things to do at home. I’ll touch base tomorrow.
It was more dismissive than he ever was with me and the absence of his usual “honey” made my jaw lock and had my eyes narrowing on the short response. I lifted my gaze back up to Kallie and saw that she was watching me intently, clearly waiting to see what I was going to do.
I slipped my phone back in my purse and picked up my drink as I rose to my feet. “I’m sorry to cut this short but I need to make sure he’s okay.”
A grin tugged at her mouth and she nodded in understanding. “I didn’t really expect anything less. I knew today was going to be hard on him because I woke up sad and felt like shit. I knew that I was the last person he was going to want to see. I’m glad he found you, Poppy.”
“I’m glad he found me too. I might have stayed lost forever without him.”
I turned to go when her next words stopped me short. “For the record, I had no idea that he snores. I’m not much of a cuddler, so we always slept with our backs to each other on opposite sides of the bed. He never made a sound in all the years we shared a bed.”
My mouth shaped itself into an oh of surprise and I could feel heat work its way into my face. When we fell asleep, we typically did it wrapped around one another and he seemed to prefer me and the weight and warmth of my naked body to any of the blankets I kept in the house. I woke up every single morning with his arm wrapped around my waist and his chin on the top of my head. I didn’t mind the rattling air moving in and out of his lips at night any more than he seemed to mind my midnight screams of terror. I was disgustingly relieved that there was a part of him I had that she hadn’t.
I offered softly, “We can do this again and again until it gets less weird.” She stood up and gave me hug that I had no trouble returning. I’d gone from avoiding strangers and interaction with others at all cost to hugging my boyfriend’s baby mama in the middle of a busy coffee shop. Instead of walls to keep everyone out, ones that were heavy and exhausting to lug around everywhere, I now had doors, and it was up to me who I decided could come in and out of them. That was far easier and a lot less lonely. Everyone liked company now and again.
I decided not to let Wheeler know I was coming over. I knew he would do his best to wrestle his emotions until they were under control and I didn’t want that. I wanted him to be able to let his wild out with me, I wanted him to know that I could handle his chaos the same way he handled my catastrophe. I wasn’t afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, not the one on his chest or the one that lived inside of him.
It took longer than normal to get across town because sometime during my coffee date with Kallie it started snowing. The roads were starting to get slick and the last thing I wanted to do was slide into a ditch and have to call Wheeler to rescue me when I was on my way to save him.
I parked behind the Caddy and noticed that along with his boot prints and paw prints in the snow there was also a set of tire tracks that looked much bigger and wider, and led all the way to the front door. I picked my way carefully through the snow and made my way up to the door. It opened before I could knock and I fell back a step when I was confronted with a scowling, shirtless Wheeler. His auburn hair was standing up in a million directions like he’d been pulling at it and he had an open bottle of some kind of liquor in his hand. I heard Happy bark from somewhere inside the house behind him and narrowed my eyes at him when he didn’t immediately open the door and let me in from the cold.
“Are you going to let me come inside?” I lifted my fingers to my mouth and blew on them to warm them up and to make a point.
He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a healthy swig. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Poppy. It’s not a good day. I’m not feeling very nice at the moment.”
Annoyed at his attitude and the fact that he thought I would only take him when he was sunshine and roses, I pulled open the glass storm door and wiggled my way around him into the warmth of the house. I took my coat off and went to throw it on the back of the couch when I suddenly realized the living room was completely empty except for the flat-screen TV that was sitting woefully alone on the floor in the corner. Every stick of furniture was gone. The walls were bare. The floors were barren and the windows naked. It looked like a home that had yet to have anyone live in it.
I spun around to face Wheeler, who was propped up against the wall still sucking back booze and glowering at me through narrowed eyes. “Where is everything?”
He lifted a tattooed shoulder and let it fall. His eyes looked like ice and his demeanor felt about as warm. “I finally hired some people to take it to storage. Kallie’s going to take it all when she gets her own place.”
“You got rid of everything without having anything to replace it?” I cocked my head to the side and asked, “Why would you do that?”
He swore and lifted a hand to shove through his disheveled hair. “Kallie told you what today was supposed to be, didn’t she? That’s why you’re here.”
I dropped my coat and my purse on the floor and crossed my arms over my chest. “She told me but that’s not why I’m here. I’m here because I was worried about you and I couldn’t stand the idea of you hurting and dealing with it all by yourself.”
He lowered his head and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’ve had enough hurt in your life, Poppy. You don’t need to take any of mine.”
I gritted my teeth and pointed a finger at him. “That’s bullshit and you know it. ‘All in’ means we’re in it together through the good and the bad, Wheeler. It means we tackle the ups and enjoy the downs together. I’m not going to fall apart because you’re surly and don’t feel like playing nice. I’m not going to run away from you because the wolf is off the leash and looking to sink its teeth into anyone that might be close by.” I took a few tentative steps toward him, and when he didn’t move I reached out and snagged the bottle of booze from his limp hand. “I gotta tell ya, Hudson, a bad day with you is still better than the best day without you.”
His chin dropped until it almost touched his chest and I watched his shoulders lift and fall as he battled emotion that threatened to overwhelm him.
“I have you, so I didn’t think today was going to hurt so bad.” His voice was raspy and raw.
I set the bottle on the floor and moved into him so that I could wrap my arms around his waist. I tucked my head under his chin and kissed his chest where his heart was thundering erratic and wild under my cheek. “Of course it hurts, you wouldn’t be the man you are if it didn’t.”
I felt him sigh against my hair and slowly his arms lifted so that he was holding me the same way I was holding on to him.
“Did you really get rid of everything?” I couldn’t keep the disbelief out of my voice.
He nodded, his chin bumping into the crown of my head. “I did. Happy’s in my room playing with all the clothes I threw out of the dresser before they hauled it off. I don’t even have a bed to sleep on tonight. I didn’t want any part of Kallie in this house. It was always supposed to be ours and it’s about time I made it mine.”
I tightened my hold on him and tilted my head back so that I was looking into his frigid gaze. “When you first started coming around, when you made it known that all my issues and hang-ups didn’t scare you, I noticed that all the bad things I couldn’t forget were slowly being replaced by all the good things you forced me to focus on. We need to do that here, replace the memories of you and her and create memories that are just yours so you don’t have to try as hard to forget.”
All he was wearing was a pair of thin, nylon track pants, so when I pressed my hips into his I felt the immediate response. His body tightened and his dick twitched where I was rubbing against him.
He cupped the back of my head and I felt his lips touch my forehead. “I told you I’m not feeling very nice today and I’ve been drinking. That’s not a good combo, honey. I don’t want to scare you, ever. Right now, I’m scaring myself.”
I appreciated the warning. A lesser man would never give one, he would simply take my offer to kiss it and make it better, damn the consequences. Not Wheeler. He was always protecting me even from himself.
“Do you know why I’m here, Wheeler, why I had the courage to show up at your garage and ask you to take me to bed in front of all your guys and anyone else that might happen by?”
He slowly shook his head in the negative and moved his hands so that he was cupping my jaw in his rough palm. “Why are you here, honey?”
I let out my breath slowly and flattened my hands on his chest. “Because when I couldn’t trust myself, when I didn’t know anything or believe in myself, I believed in you. I knew that you wouldn’t hurt me, that you would be careful with me, so I didn’t have to trust myself and my choices because you were never going to be anything but a good man.” I slid my hands up around his neck and lifted myself up on my tiptoes so I could press my mouth to his. “I knew it then and I know it now. You are not a guest in this house, Wheeler. This is your home. You belong here and the only thing you should let through that door is happiness.”
He chuckled low and deep and shifted so that I was the one with my back to the wall and he was pressed all along my front. My nipples immediately contracted into tight points and my legs found their way around his narrow hips without me having to think about it.
“I didn’t have to let happiness in. She forced her way in while I was being a jackass.” This close, his words smelled like bourbon and he tasted smoky and rich when his tongue found its way to mine. “This house isn’t the only place I belong, is it, honey?”
He urged me to lift my arms above my head so he could work my sweater up my torso and off my body. He popped the clasp of my bra with one hand, wiggled his eyebrows at me when I made a face at him, and ran the tip of his nose along my now naked collarbone. “I don’t want to be a guest in your life, Poppy. I’m not interested in visiting your heart. I want to move in, stake my claim, and plant roots so deep nothing will ever be able to move me out. I don’t want you to ever have to replace the memories you have of me with something better.”
“There isn’t anyone better than you, Wheeler. You are the only person I made room for in my heart, so if you want to live there it’s all yours.” I looked into his eyes as he struggled to get my pants unfastened without putting me down. “You need to get some furniture if you plan on staying, though.”
He rolled his eyes at me and begrudgingly dropped me to my feet so I could wiggle denim and lace down my legs after I kicked my maroon Free Bird boots off. Naked, caught between him and the wall, I’d never felt more safe and secure in my entire life. He wasn’t the only one that knew how to slay demons and exorcise ghosts.
His lips landed on mine, his hips rocking seductively against mine as his hands found their way to my backside so he could lift me back up all while he pressed between my legs. I wound my arms around his shoulders and let my head loll to the side against the wall behind me. He licked a long line up the side of my neck and nibbled delicately on the curve of my jaw. It made me whimper and had my thighs tightening where they were wrapped around him.
His teeth grazed my earlobe and one of his hands moved between us so that he could free himself from the confines of the slippery material of his pants. I loved him in his torn jeans and his dirty coveralls but I liked the ease of access those running pants offered a whole hell of a lot. It took no time at all for his hardness to meet my wetness and we both groaned at the contact. After that morning in the hotel room, I’d gone on birth control. Knowing how good he felt, how good we felt without anything between us, made the decision easy. He shifted his hips, lifted me up higher so that just the tip of his erection dragged through my damp and quivering folds. The friction made my breath shudder and had my fingernails digging into the solid muscle of his shoulder, and when the tip knocked stiffly into my swollen clit, I felt like I was going to come out of my skin. He repeated the motion over and over again while he dropped biting, wet kisses all along the side of my neck and across the top of my chest. I was going to look like I’d been eaten alive tomorrow and I wasn’t even the slightest bit sorry about it. He was definitely handling me rougher than he normally did when we had sex, but I loved everything about it.
His chest pressed into my sensitive breasts as his hips kicked forward. My body moved against him, opened for him, and welcomed him. Usually he took his time, prepped me, played with me, and worked me up so much that I was beyond ready for him to be inside. This time there had been no foreplay, no warm-up, so I felt every single inch of him as he slid inside. My body had to adjust, had to soften and relax in order for him to move. He groaned as the slight resistance forced him to slow down, but he did it because he was perfect and I was right to trust him. He was never going to hurt me and I was never going to be afraid of him.
He lifted a hand to my breast and started to swirl his thumb around my puckered nipple. The other was holding me up and keeping me braced against the wall, so his eyes blazed with heated demand when he ordered me to touch myself. “Touch your clit the way I touch it. Get yourself off the way I usually do.”
I sucked in a breath as my hand skimmed over my chest and across my stomach. The winter in his eyes thawed by several degrees as I did what he asked. I started circling slowly with my fingertips, exactly the way he did. The backs of my fingers brushed against his cock as it pounded in and out of me. Every time he pulled out and sank back in, my body went more liquid and took more of him in. It only took a sweep of my thumb across the stiff little nub for everything inside of me to go molten. His hips ground into me and my fingers rasped against that happy trail that led to heaven.
“I told you, I’m not feeling very nice today and I told you to touch yourself the same way I would. If I had a free hand, I would be showing that pretty little clit how nasty I can be.”
His words made me whimper and my fingers reflexively closed tighter on the sensitive bundle of nerves. It stung in a delicious way but I knew it would feel even better if it was his callused, rough hands doing it. I tossed my head from side to side as he did his best to fuck me through the drywall, then on a strangled scream I demanded that he touch me. I needed more, wanted all the not nice he was promising me.
Wheeler swore, and before I could blink or protest I was yanked from my position pinned against the wall and laid out like some kind of sacrifice across his barren living room floor. It was just as hard as the wall, so no more or less uncomfortable, but in this position we ended up with him stretched out over the top of me, his weight braced on an arm above my head as his eager lips found my breast and his talented fingers found their way between my legs. There was the scrape of teeth and the graze of rough fingertips. It all felt so good that I didn’t have any room for the uneasiness that usually overtook me when he was above me. I didn’t feel trapped or threatened in any way. No, all I felt was pleasure, burning hot and bright everywhere we touched, and his desperation as his body pounded relentlessly into mine.
I wrapped my fingers in his hair and lifted myself up to meet his frantic thrusts. I shoved my eager nipples deeper into his mouth and writhed across his fingers and he continued to torture me with his touch. I was going to have bruises and a sore ass tomorrow. He was going to have claw marks among his tattoos and there was a good chance he was going to be sporting a bald spot by the time I got my hands out of his hair. He was relentless with my clit, unrelenting against my nipples. His cock wasn’t taking any prisoners as he wrung first one then another orgasm out of me, all while his much bigger, heavier body hovered over mine.
His fingers dug into my hips and his forehead found mine as he eventually reached his own release. His eyes drifted closed and his breath huffed out in a long sigh as he lowered his body to mine. He wrapped his arms around me and slowly rolled us over so that he was the one lying on the hard and unforgiving floor.
“You okay, honey?” He was asking if I was freaking out after the fact about the position he put me in.
“I’m fine, but I think the first thing you need to buy yourself is a new bed.” I ran my hand down the inked length of his side and tilted my head so I could kiss the underside of his jaw. “You aren’t the only one making new memories in this house, Wheeler.”
“Floor sex is fun but hell on the knees.” He chuckled into my hair and gave me a squeeze. “I’m glad I didn’t scare you.”
I snorted and told him, “Your not-so-nice is still pretty damn nice, Hudson. That’s who you are.” And it was also why I loved him.
Having him on top of me, looking up at him while he took me to places I’d never been before, was the opposite of feeling imprisoned … it made me feel free. Now there really was nothing and nobody between us.