I watch, leaning against the doorway between the kitchen and the great room as Rayne tosses her purse haphazardly on the countertop. Her keys skitter along the gray stone, sliding until they tumble onto the floor just as the contents of her purse spill out onto the counter.

I bit my lip against a grin.

“Dammit!” she grumbles as she bends down to retrieve her keys.

Tossing them on the counter, she turns to Decker whose expression is very reminiscent of mine. Oblivious to either of our humor, she places her hands on her hips.

“Okay, kiddo. Upstairs to get ready for bed. Then I want you to come on back down here. Jeremy and I have something to talk to you about.”

“Okay, Mom.” Decker turns for the door, my lovesick dog bounding into action in front of him in his rush to beat my son to the stairs. But as Decker passes me, he gives me a wide, devious grin as he turns back around.

“Oh, and Mom?”

“What, babe?”

“Put your keys in your purse, in the pocket where they belong, or you’ll have no clue where they are in the morning.” He almost chokes on the last word, he’s trying so hard not to laugh.

My answering snort is met with an icy stair from Rayne just before she turns it on Deck. “You two ganging up on me? Not a good plan for either one of you. ”

“Also,” adds Decker helpfully as he turns to go, “you need to put a dollar in the swear jar.”

Night takes off, his nails clicking wildly on the floor as Decker races him for the stairs.

“There’s no swear jar at Jeremy’s house!” she shouts behind him.

Chuckling, I watch as she whirls away from me. Kicking off her heels so they’re lying on their sides next to the island, she heads for the refrigerator. She tugs it open, and her skirt rides up high on the backs of her thighs as she leans down to grab a bottled water out of the lower drawer.

Immediately, I push off the wall and stalk toward her, led forward by instinct and the surge of lust-tinged desire.

Coming up behind her, my hands smooth up the backs of her legs, sliding around to palm her thighs as I yank her toward me. Her surprised gasp makes my now rock-hard erection strain against my pants. I’m a mixed jumble of emotions after today, my head cloudy with the memory of the meeting with my grandfather and the high from the successful hack into the mainframe at Horton Tech. But right now, all I can see is Rayne.

“You know,” I whisper as I nibble the shell of her ear and am rewarded by a low moan from her lips. “There’s a different kind of swear jar at this house. And I don’t want to hear you calling it ‘Jeremy’s house’ again. It now carries the title of ‘our house.’”

Bracing her hands against the refrigerator shelf, she rocks her hips back against me. All the blood rushes straight to my dick, and my fingers tighten their hold, digging into her thighs.

“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself a little bit there, Mr. Confident?” Her throaty voice is like my Kryptonite, pulling me toward an out-of-control spiral of need that I can’t deny.

“Damn, darlin’. What is it about you? I can’t get enough…can’t control how much I want you. Our son is going to be back downstairs any minute, I’m about to tell him I’m his father, and I should be prepping for what I’m going to say. But all I want to do right now is rip off this skirt and fuck you.”

When she presses her lush ass against me again, this time I’m ready for her, using my grip on her thighs to meet her with a powerful thrust. One of my hands slides over her mouth to cover her moan.

“Shhh. Not now.…but later? I need you. I need you so bad, baby.” I slide my lips from her ear down to place open kisses along the side of her throat.

Night’s clicking nails on hardwood are as good as a cowbell, and I drop another kiss to her skin before stepping back and adopting a casual stance at the island.

Decker, moving at full speed, flies into the kitchen just ahead of Night and he whoops in triumph. Night lets out a short bark to match, and Decker laughs.

“You can’t whoop, Night! I’m the winner, only I can whoop!” He scolds the dog while scratching him behind the ear.

Night butts the boy with his big head and barks again.

“Fine.” Decker sighs. “You can have the win this time. Brat.”

He climbs onto a stool and tosses me a grin before reaching into the jar at the center of the island for a chocolate chip cookie.

“Hey!” Rayne’s tone is half-jovial, half-commanding. “At least grab a plate.”

“I’m on it.” I saunter toward the cabinet, grab a plate from the shelf, and lower it onto the countertop in front of Decker. Then I grab two more cookies to add to his pile. “How was your first day of school, Deck?”

Decker shrugs, his mouth too full of chocolate and sugar to answer. Rayne nails me with an eye roll. “This is what it’s like, living with an eight-year-old. Never more than a one-word answer to the question ‘how was school today?’” She pulls up the stool beside Decker and pulls me in with a sexy smirk. “Watch and learn, mister. Hey, Deck?”

Decker swallows his cookie and turns to face her. “Yeah, Mom?”

“Did you write anything down at school today? Say, maybe some sentences about some topic or other, or maybe some numbers that were added together to create new, bigger numbers?” She places her chin in one hand, focusing on him with a winning smile.

Decker contemplates, before his face lights up. “Oh, yeah! The teacher put a picture on the screen of this awesome giant panda fighting with an orangutan. They were in some kind of tropical jungle or something. And I wrote a paragraph about it that the teacher asked me to read for the class. And then in math we worked together in a group to solve a story problem about making change at the mall. Pretty cool, right?”

She beams at him, tousling his hair.

I’m floored, watching the interaction with pure amazement. I pull out the stool across from them and sink onto it, my eyes never leaving Rayne’s face. “That was…how’d you know exactly what to ask to make him talk?”

She shrugs, leaning back and folding her arms across her chest. “It’s called Magical Mommy Juice. See, I drink it in the morning? And then it helps me interact with my son in a productive way all day.”

“Huh. Magical Mommy Juice? Do you think they make something called Delivering Dad—” I cut my words off abruptly as my eyes widen, realizing what I almost did.

Shit. I almost jumped the gun there.

Rayne isn’t fazed; she gives me a reassuring smile as she wraps one arm around Decker. “So remember how I told you that Jeremy and I have something to talk to you about?”

His green eyes slide to mine with curiosity before nodding. “Yeah.”

“Um.” She searches his face, looking for the words that will make this monumental discussion easier for him to grasp. “Jeremy isn’t just a friend, Decker. He’s so much more than that to me…and to you.”

Picking up his second cookie, he takes a bite and munches, waiting. “Okay. So what is he, then?”

There’s a tiny hint of worry in Decker’s face as he glances around the kitchen. He looks down at Night, lying faithfully on the floor beside him before finding my gaze again. “Do we have to leave?”

My heart stalls; just the thought that he might think I don’t want him here, with me, brings the words that I want to say to the surface.

Catching his eye, I glance at Rayne for the OK. She nods, and I take a deep breath before plunging right in.

“No, Deck. You never have to leave. I mean…I don’t want you and your mom to go because you’re both really, really important to me.”

Decker tilts his head to the side, a quizzical expression crossing his face. Then he nods, as if in understanding. “Oh, because you want my mom to be your girlfriend?”

God, how am I messing this up this badly?

I know that Decker won’t be able to wrap his head around it, but Rayne is so much more to me than a girlfriend. And she always will be.

“Not exactly. Well, kind of. I mean, I care about your mom and you, Decker.”

His little face screws up in confusion. “Me?”

Rayne’s arm tightens around him as her eyes fill with tears. Seeing them starts an ache in my chest that won’t go away until I reassure him that I care about him because he’s mine. I more than care about him. I love him with every fiber of my being, and not because he’s earned it, or has done something to make me happy, but because I’m his father and my love began unconditionally the second I knew he existed.

I reach out and take his hand, dwarfing it in my large one. “I care about you, Deck, because I’m your father.”

Silence creeps in from the edges of the room, covering us in its heavy blanket until Rayne can no longer stand it. Decker is staring at his plate, his cookies forgotten, and I’m staring at Decker, waiting for his response. Any response.

“Decker, sweetie?” Her voice is soft, nudging. “Did you hear what Jeremy said? He’s your dad.”

Decker glances at her. “I thought you said you didn’t know where my father was?”

She nods. “I didn’t, sweetie. I mean…Jeremy and I went to high school together. That’s when we met and that’s when we created you. But after that, we lost touch and I didn’t know where he was. It was coincidence that I ran into him here…or fate.”

Decker glances at me. “Why didn’t you call me? Or tell me happy birthday? Or send me Christmas presents?”

His voice isn’t accusing; it’s just demanding. He genuinely wants to know why I never reached out to him. And my heart hurts, just knowing that he thinks I ever would have purposely neglected him.

Rayne steps in again. “Honey, that’s not Jeremy’s fault. He never even knew he was a daddy.”

Another round of silence covers us while Decker thinks this over. “You just found out that you’re my dad?”

I nod, never taking my gaze from his face. I’m watching him, studying him, wanting nothing more than for this to be okay with him.

“Yes. There’re a lot of reasons, Deck…grown-up reasons, I mean, that I didn’t know about you before. There’s no fault here, not mine or your mom’s and especially not yours. But now that I know, all I want is to be here. I want you and your mom with me. Can you understand that?”

His eyes, finally full of understanding and now a little bit of uncertainty, stare me down. His dark hair falls into his eyes and his bottom lip disappears between his teeth. “You…want me? I mean, you want me to stay here? And Mom, too?”

Unable to stay seated any longer, I round the island and stop in front of him. Pulling another stool around so we’re face-to-face, I put a hand around his neck as I stare into his eyes. I’m begging him to see the sincerity there. “Yeah. I want you. More than anything in the whole entire world. I’m so happy about this, Deck. Happier than you could ever know. And I hope that eventually you’ll be happy about it, too.”

Finally, finally, his face breaks into one of his true-blue grins. The sight almost causes me to break down, but I swallow the enormous ball of emotion in my throat and return his smile.

“I’m happy about it.”

I glance up at the ceiling, thanking God.

“But…what am I supposed to call you?” Decker’s uncertainty shows in his little confused expression.

Still looking into his eyes, I make sure he knows I’m not going to be disappointed by anything he does right now. “You can call me whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be ‘Dad’ right now. Not until you’re ready.”

He nods, giving me one of his grins, and my chest constricts.

Everything is out in the open. Glancing at Rayne, her eyes are glistening with tears and she nods at me with a smile on her face. The enormity of this moment is taking up so much space in my heart there’s no room for anything else but the two of them. My family.

My everything.