Feeling her come on my dick is shredding my control. I keep thrusting, fighting it, but it’s no fucking use.

I push her hard against the wall, getting leverage to pound into her the way I need, lifting her legs higher, burying my cock in her hot pussy balls-deep.

Fuck, she’s clenching and gripping my cock so fucking hard, throwing her head back and moaning my name, that the last thread of my willpower snaps. I press my mouth to her bared neck and come apart. I fucking shatter, burying myself in her deep and shuddering so hard I can’t breathe as my release hits.

And it hits like a runaway truck with a nuclear payload. The pressure in my balls bursts, my dick spasms and pleasure slams into me, leveling me. Totaling me.

I’m a sweaty, shuddering mess, clinging to Tay. I’m fucking clinging to her and I don’t fucking care, my hips still rocking without rhythm, drawing out the last drops of pleasure.

Drawing in her scent, memorizing her sweet weight in my arms, the softness of her skin, the timber of her moans, the silk of her hair tickling my face.

Her curves molding to my body, her legs locked around me, her arms around my neck, her limbs loose and her skin flushed hot in post-orgasmic bliss.

I could get used to this.

I’d give fucking anything for a chance to get used to this.

“Matt… you can put me down,” she whispers, fingertips toying with the ends of my hair at the back of my neck.

Not yet. I tighten my hold on her. “Can’t remember how I lived without you,” I whisper against the sweet skin of her neck. “Don’t… don’t let me lose myself again.”

“You know…” she whispers back, tugging on my hair, a light sting I feel all the way to my dick. “I fell in love with you from the first look, right before you slammed the door in my face. And…”

When I open my mouth to apologize, she tugs harder on my hair, pulling my head back, shutting me up. “And I have no intention of leaving your side at the first hardship. Now…” I hear laughter in her voice and it makes me smile. “Put me down, you big lug, because I can hear the kids at the top of the stairs, and they’re still a bit young for the birds and the bees speech.”

I snort.

This goddamn girl… Making me laugh, making me wanna sling her over my shoulder and carry her to my room, and damn the world and its shit. Take her, sink into her again. And again. And again, until we’re both undone and fall asleep in each other’s arms.

God, I’m hardening again. I’m like a teenager when she’s around. But yeah, I wanna take it slow. Go down on her. Fuck her into the mattress. Make her scream my name.

Have time with her. I want so much time with her, and all I can think of is, thank fuck she’s mine.

* * *

When we come out of the kitchen, the kids aren’t in the living room, or on the stairs. Looks like there was no reason for panic after all. Except I’ll be late for work if I don’t get my ass into the shower and into my clothes in the next five minutes.

If only I can let go of Octavia… I have my arm around her waist and she’s leaning her head on my shoulder, her dress in disarray, her hair a cute mess. We smell of sex, and my dick’s still hanging out. Shit, I need to get rid of the condom.

“Okay?” I kiss the top of her head, drawing in the flowery scent of her shampoo and something else, sweeter, that’s all Octavia.

She nods against my bare skin, presses her lips to my shoulder, and I swallow a moan because yeah, I am getting hard again, and there’s no time to do anything about it.

A cold shower, I decide. Very cold.

“The kids are really quiet,” she whispers, lifting her head, tilting it to the side in that adorable way of hers when she’s in thought.

Or maybe she’s listening for sounds? In any case, it’s cute as hell.

Hot, too.

Before my mind goes down that path again, she straightens. “I’d better go check on them.”

“Wait.”

“It’s what you pay me for.” She winks at me, but I frown.

“Fuck that. You’re my girl first.”

She smiles, a bright, open smile that has me grinning, too. “Then let’s go check on them together.”

So we do that, my arm around her, her arm around my hips—after I get rid of the condom and stuff my hard dick back into my sweats—and go up the stairs to see what the brats are up to.

Cold shower, Matt. Cold shower. The only way to get through the rest of the day with the sounds Octavia made and the memory of her pussy around my dick playing on a loop in my brain. Walking around with a boner like this will be a challenge.

But oh so fucking worth it.

The door to the kids’ bedroom is open. It’s so quiet.

So damn quiet my hackles rise, and my muscles tense. “Mary! Cole!” Letting go of Octavia, I stride right into their room and turn in a circle. Empty. “Where are they?”

Octavia peeks inside. “Maybe they’re hiding.”

Awesome. Now is not a good time for hide and seek, and the bad feeling makes me feel sick. “Cole! Mary! Come out now, Octavia is here.”

No sound.

No reply.

“I’ll check around,” she says, moving away from the door, the tension in her voice telling me I’m not the only one worried. “Can’t see them in your room. Or the bathroom.”

Fuck. I follow her, opening my closet, checking under the bed, behind the door. Jog into the bathroom, look around, in case she missed two kids hiding behind the shower curtain.

“Is there an attic?” she asks.

I shake my head. “This is it.”

“Okay. Why don’t you check downstairs while I look some more? I bet they’re playing some new game.”

But neither of us believes that. I fly down the stairs without another word and run through the rooms, calling out their names, checking any hiding place I can think of.

Fucking hell. My kids. They’re not in the house.

Since when?

Where are they?

I can’t breathe. My lungs do that no-breathing thing, and I brace a hand on the wall of the kitchen where moments ago I was fucking Octavia while my kids were taken.

Blackness seeps into my vision, and I slam my other hand on the wall, too, struggling to draw oxygen.

Not now, dammit. My kids need me. Fuck this shit.

I slam my fist into the wall again, and again, until the pain radiating up my arm clears some of the black haze and lets my lungs expand again.

Staggering out of the house, I check the garden, just in case, but as expected, nobody is there.

I go back in, get my phone and call the police.

What I feared most has just happened, and I’m numb, not feeling much of anything. My kids were kidnapped by a psycho who wants to get back at me for something I hadn’t known about until now, and I feel nothing.

Too much pain, fear, anger, sadness, tugging at me from every direction, and the ice spilling in my veins is the only defense I have, the only way to keep going.

I keep looking. Keep calling out their names. I knock on the neighbors’ doors, ask if they’ve seen them. Ask to look into their backyards. Ask to help me look.

At some point, as I lurch down the street, yelling, my voice already hoarse, I find Octavia walking beside me.

And we look together.

* * *

Later, I find John and a bunch of other cops, both from the police station and the sheriff’s department, milling outside my house. John is asking me questions, but it’s all an annoying insect buzz in my ears, and I ignore them.

My nightmares are coming true.

Four police cars are parked outside my house, lights flashing. It’s surreal. It’s déjà vu, from when Cole followed that kitten, and we couldn’t find him.

Had it been a kitten? Is someone playing with my mind? My thoughts are made of dark glass right now, and there are fissures, fucking cracks going right through.

If this doesn’t break me, I don’t know what will.

“You didn’t take me seriously,” I tell John when I find him in front of me again. “What will it take for you to do something? Fuck you all.”

If he replies something, I don’t sit around to hear, instead walking away to keep searching.

Going crazy. Out of my mind.

I’d probably be already down the rabbit hole if not for Octavia. She takes my hand, and she’s talking to me. I don’t know what she’s saying, but the sound of her voice keeps me from tumbling headfirst into the dark pit.

She keeps me grounded, keeps me here, even when all I wanna do is sink and shut the world out. Hide, like I did when Emma died.

“We’ll find them,” she says, and that’s all I hear.

We will. No other option.

Blood of my heart. Part of my soul.

If I lose them, too, I don’t think there’s a way back for me.