Facing West (Forever Wilde 1)

We’d been sitting down for Pippa’s bedtime bottle, Nico on the sofa and me in a side chair feeding the baby, when I realized he’d stopped talking in the middle of a story about a tattoo client of his. I looked up from the bottle Pippa was downing and noticed he’d fallen asleep sitting up. Just the realization he’d literally fallen asleep midconversation almost caused me to snort out loud.

The poor guy was wiped out. He’d mentioned one of his employees was handling the tattoo shop for him while he was gone, but he was still having to juggle some of the administrative duties long distance. In addition to the shop, I knew he was starting to worry about Adriana’s bakery and the maintenance of her house. I wasn’t sure what his plan for her assets was, but I’d overheard Honovi reminding him that there were bills that needed paying and employee payroll that needed to be run.

I’d offered to put Nico in touch with my sister who could do payroll stuff in her sleep, but the stubborn asshole hadn’t even let me finish speaking before announcing he was fine. He could do it himself. Apparently, the guy fancied himself a goddamned superhero.

When Pippa finished her bottle, I put her up to my shoulder with a burp cloth. I rubbed her back while watching Nico slowly slump farther and farther down in the soft sofa cushions. Instead of rocking Pippa for a few minutes before putting her down, I just kissed her little, fuzzy head good night and placed her in the crib.

When I’d returned to the living area, Nico had been lightly snoring in a heap on the sofa, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. Cover him with a blanket and leave? Try to move him to the master bedroom and tuck him into bed like a child? Leave him untouched and just stare at him like a creeper? Apparently, that was what my subconscious wanted to do since I was standing there gazing at the man like an idiot.

“Right then,” I muttered, stepping into action. The physician in me knew that the guy needed a restful night’s sleep in a real bed, so I reached around his back and began to lift him off the sofa in a kind of hug maneuver.

Nico smelled like heaven—an intoxicating blend of coffee, raspberries, and some kind of masculine body wash, along with the sweet familiar scent of clean baby. I wanted to inhale that scent into my nose and imprint it on my brain permanently.

As I pulled him up from the sofa and into my arms, he mumbled. His lips brushed lightly against the skin of my neck as he spoke, and I felt the sensation deep in my belly.

“Hm?” I murmured near his ear. I hoped he was still sleeping enough not to remember this, not to register who it was moving him. I didn’t want him to realize I was touching him and suddenly freak out.

“The baby,” he repeated in a gravelly voice.

“Shh, she’s asleep. It’s okay. Time for you to sleep too.”

He was slight enough for me to lift him in my arms and carry him the short distance to Adriana’s bedroom. As I lay him down on the bed, I noticed his long-sleeved T-shirt had ridden up over his belly button, revealing the illustrations permanently marked into the skin of his lower abdomen. For once, I was close enough to see what they were, and I noticed the most odd collection of images, everything from religious icons to Japanese lettering to tribal tattoos. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what he’d chosen—almost as if he’d just closed his eyes and pointed to the boards each time he’d visited a tattoo parlor.

I rolled him across the bed enough to open up the covers and roll him back in place. It wasn’t until I pulled the covers over him that I realized how perfectly made the bed had been before I pulled the blankets back. Almost as if he hadn’t slept in it at all. Maybe he was just as fastidious as Goldie was about tidying up after himself when he was a guest in someone’s home.

The room was dark, but there was enough light coming in from the rest of the house to see the lock of colored hair that had fallen across one eye. I reached out to brush it back and felt a pang in my chest. He looked so peaceful and vulnerable—no longer the feisty man I’d encountered the day of Adriana’s funeral or the one I’d confronted years ago in the movie theater but a sleep-deprived new parent, brought down a peg or two by fifteen pounds of chubby-cheeked baby.

It had taken every ounce of strength I had to turn around and walk out of that house instead of crawling into the bed beside him and curling around his tired body. Despite knowing he was a selfish prick who’d ditched his family as a teen just to prove a point, there was something about the sight of him there, asleep in Adriana’s bed that made me want to look after him—hold and protect him. Comfort him.