Chapter Thirteen
By the time we emerged from the bathroom, I’m pretty sure all the adults at the party understood exactly what had transpired in that room. If they didn’t have a clue, it was because they were blind. Or as dumb as a box of rocks.
Seth couldn’t seem to stop smiling, and I couldn’t seem to stop sweating. I thought I could play it cool and pretend like nothing had happened between the two of us, but my mussed hair and smeared makeup didn’t help matters any. Nor did the fact that I was wearing a different blouse, since Seth had ripped all the buttons off my other one.
Oh, and my damn panties were still in his pocket, though no one could probably tell that I was missing my underwear unless they had X-ray vision. Then again, Emily did give me a few suspicious nods of approval, and Anna blushed beet red every time she even looked at me.
The only person who looked overly concerned about the whole situation was Jake. I don’t think any of my other boys liked that I just got banged in a bathroom by my live-in handyman, but the others didn’t seem to worry nearly as much about it. After all, I was an adult.
But it took me forever to convince Jake that I was really okay before he would actually leave. His gray eyes had spoken volumes when he turned them onto me and said, “Call me if you need anything.” Probably because he’d casted a warning shot onto Seth with them directly afterward.
Thankfully, they all finally left.
Seth and I were quietly putting away the leftover party food, but the dreaded awkward silence bothered me. Not only was I worried about my son and what he was doing at the moment, but there was also this unspoken tension between Seth and I now. So I sighed and said, “I’m sorry.”
Confusion warped his face. “For what?”
“I’m sorry about…earlier, I guess.”
“Why? I’m not.”
“I don’t know. I guess since I instigated it, I thought maybe I should just say I was sorry for—”
“Stop apologizing for it. You and I both know we’ve been tiptoeing around that for weeks. It was bound to happen eventually.”
“Yeah, maybe. But we shouldn’t let it happen again. For all the reasons we previously stated. It’s just not smart for us to do.”
He paused. “Okay,” he said, grabbing a beer and heading onto the front porch.
He didn’t seem at all happy with my comment, but I couldn’t worry about that right now. I had something more important to do. I picked up the phone and dialed Jeremy’s number. Not surprising that he didn’t answer. So I called my mom at work to let her know what had happened at the party.
The part about Austin, anyway.
She’d been there for the first half of the party to see him open gifts and have some cake. But after that, she’d gone home to catch up on some paperwork sitting on her desk. When she answered, I filled her in on what Jeremy had done, and she had all the appropriate responses that any protective mom and grandma would have. She said she wanted to smack the tar out of Jeremy, threatened to slash his tires for me, and then asked me if I was okay. Not necessarily in that order.
I teared up a little while we talked, but got better once we changed subjects and she started to tell me about running into an old friend of hers from high school. I was leaning on the counter listening to her talk when Seth entered through the screen door behind me. Almost immediately, his gravelly voice ground out, “I’m sorry, but I can’t stop thinking about fucking you. Damn it, Bobbie, I want to do it again.”
My mouth fell open, and I straightened, turning toward him with wide eyes. “Um, Mom, can I call you back?”
There was a slight pause on her end, and then my mom asked, “Did he say again?”
“Gotta go,” I said, hanging up on her.
Seth lowered his head and rubbed at his temples. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were on the phone.”
“Uh, yeah. That was my mom.”
He nodded. “I kind of figured that out already.”
“Yeah. So, uh, as you were…saying.”
Seth’s heated eyes roamed over my face. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Bobbie.”
“Okay.”
He edged closer to me and backed me up against the counter, his hand skating up my leg and in between my damp thighs. “I want to make my intentions very clear,” he said, his thick fingers finding my center and probing lightly.
My breathing deepened. “Clear is good.”
His heated breath brushed my lips. “We aren’t done here,” he whispered, punctuating the word as his fingers slipped into me.
I moaned and bit my lip. “Not done. Got it.”
His lips curved. “Do you want me?”
“Yes.” God, yes. I closed my eyes, reveling in the sensations spiraling through me.
With his free hand, he unzipped his pants and took out his cock. “Good. Because I want you, too. You’re not out of my system yet. I need more.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Can I take you right now?” He said that as if at any moment, he would toss me over his shoulder and haul me to the nearest bedroom.
“Take me where?” I said, my mind not grasping whatever the hell he was saying.
He chuckled quietly under his breath and removed his fingers from me. Like that would make me hear him better? “I want to take you right here on the kitchen counter. Possibly on the table, too. Are you okay with that?”
I opened my eyes, frustrated that he wasn’t touching me anymore. “As long as you’re damn good at whatever you’re about to do to me.”
Challenge flashed in his golden eyes. “We both know I will be.”
I gazed up at him, my chest heaving. “We just need to get it out of our systems one last time, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“No more after this, though.”
He nodded in agreement. “If you say so. Would you like me to take off your clothes now?”
“No time. I need this to be fast and hard.”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
…
The next day, I sat out on the front porch in my rocking chair so I would be right there the moment Jeremy dropped Austin off at home. I kept looking at my watch because if he was so much as a minute late, I’d be reporting it to the court first thing in the morning.
Five minutes and counting…
After the stunt Jeremy had pulled yesterday at Austin’s party, I loathed him even more than I ever thought was possible. Who in their right mind doesn’t let a five-year-old tell his mother goodbye? Only a heartless bastard would be so cruel.
I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep last night. Not because I was having sex with Seth again, either. I mean, yeah, we did it twice yesterday. Once during the party and then again after he announced it to my mother. But after that, I went straight to my room and stayed there all evening, trying to figure out what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
Three minutes to go…
I ended up chalking the whole thing up to a weak moment—okay, two weak moments—and not trying to figure it out anymore. Besides, Seth and I both agreed that it was done and over with, and it wouldn’t happen again. Though I was pretty sure that one of us was being serious and the other wasn’t. If only I could figure out which one I was in that scenario.
Sex with Seth was amazing. No wonder he was so damn cocky when I first met him. The man definitely had the goods to back up his mouth.
I glanced at my watch. One minute. Damn it, Jeremy. Where’s my child?
I didn’t want to start counting down the seconds, too, so instead I held my breath. I figured I could go without oxygen for at least one minute without passing out or dying. Well, hopefully. And if not, then I seriously needed to work on improving my lung function and capacity.
After a few moments, I began to struggle for air and got a little worried. Either I had bad lungs or Jeremy was about to be late in bringing my son home.
But then I saw it.
Jeremy’s black Ford-350 pulled off the highway and turned onto my driveway. The moment the truck stopped in front of the house, I ran out to greet Austin, who was waving at me from the back seat with a big smile on his face. I didn’t even wait for Jeremy to get out and open the door. I slung it open myself, unbuckled my son, and pulled him into my arms as fast as I could.
Happy tears built behind my eyelids as I inhaled the deepest breath I had taken in the past twenty-four hours. I kissed his face and squeezed him tighter. “I missed you, monster.”
Austin giggled. “Missed you, too.”
Romeo must’ve heard Austin’s voice because he came flying around the side of the house to see his best friend. I set Austin on his feet. “Take Romeo up onto the porch and then you go inside for a minute. I’ll be right there.”
Austin ran up the stairs with his dog right beside him, then he did exactly what I asked him to do. Good boy. I reached inside the back seat of Jeremy’s truck and grabbed Austin’s booster seat and his bag from the floorboard. Then, without a word to Jeremy, I spun around and walked toward my house.
“You don’t have anything to say?” Jeremy called after me. “That’d be a first.”
I knew the idiot wouldn’t be able to just leave without picking a fight. So I got to the top of the porch and then turned back to him. “You want me to say something to you? Fine. Fuck you, asshole.”
The moment he started toward me, Romeo stood up, bared his teeth, and released a low growl. I patted his head. Who knew this stray mutt would end up making such a fine guard dog? I raised a brow at Jeremy, daring him to come up the stairs.
He shook his head. “What? Are you scared of me? You have to hide behind a vicious-ass dog?”
“I’m not scared of you, Jeremy. And I don’t have to hide behind a dog, either,” I said, heading downstairs. “Not when I had Seth install security cameras all around the perimeter of my house last night. Everything you do while you are on my property is being recorded. So if you violate the court order in any way or want to threaten me, go ahead. But understand this. I will take any and all evidence directly to the judge to get your parental rights revoked. You can count on it.”
“You’re just trying to set me up.”
I shook my head. “I don’t have to set you up. You’ll be your own downfall. You always have been.”
Fire flashed in his eyes, but he turned around and headed back to his truck. He peeled out in the dirt as he drove off, leaving ruts in my drive. The moment he pulled out onto the highway, I released a sigh of relief.
Little did he know that I’d only been bluffing about the security cameras all along. But now that I’d come up with the idea, I would definitely be getting them installed as soon as possible.