“Help?”
“I could hold your boob while she drinks. Or I could hold the other one.” I wink, and she blushes. It lights up all the golds and greens in her brown eyes.
“Ty,” she hisses, glancing meaningfully at Dylan.
As if it’s the first time I’ve said such things in front of the guys. “Fine. But the offer stands.”
She shakes her head, cheeks colored crimson. “I’m going to find a bench and feed our daughter. We’ll talk later about this.”
But as she walks away, cooing to the baby, she turns to smile at me over her shoulder, and I grin. Man, I can’t wait to sink inside her and fuck her into the mattress. Make her come again and again, calling out my name.
My dick twitches in agreement.
“Get a room, you guys,” Dylan mutters good-humoredly, and it serves as a reminder that walking around thinking about what I wanna do to Erin tonight and sporting a tent in the front of my jeans is generally frowned upon in children’s playgrounds.
Hell.
>
“Ash said you wanted to talk.” I follow his gaze to two boys bouncing on the trampoline, one blond, the other dark-haired, both wearing his face in miniature. I swear, all three Hayes brothers were cut from the same mold. “If it’s not about Tessa or your brothers, then what?”
He grunts, rolls his shoulders. Since he went back to college and sports, he’s bulked up a lot more. “Later. Let’s go watch over the kids. They’re a handful, and Ash looks tired.”
He does? I frown in the direction of my brother who’s pulling Jax back with one hand, hugging little Scott close to his body with the other, while saying something to Dylan’s brothers who are jumping too close to some other kids.
He does. “Let’s go.”
Tired doesn’t mean unhappy, I remind myself, and I should know. With the new baby in the house, sleep has become a precious commodity. A luxury. And still we’re happy. Happier than ever.
Still.
Maybe we should move to Rockin’ Jump trampolines where there’s much more space and we can all watch over the boys. Talking can wait.
Chapter Two
Erin
I watch as Tyler and Dylan head toward the trampoline, and my heart settles in its place. No matter how much I trust Asher—and I trust him a lot—I only feel relaxed when Tyler is with Jax, looking over him.
Call me overprotective if you like. I’ve just had a baby, and all my mother instincts are burning in my blood like fire. Letting Jax out of my sight is harder than ever. Hopefully the feeling will fade a little before I go stir-crazy.
Hormones rule…
I cover up my boob and lift the baby up to pat her back. Milk drools down the side of her mouth, but not too much. My blouse is already stained from the last breastfeeding session, and I don’t have the energy to reach for a tissue to clean it up.
I can’t remember being so tired with Jax. Then again, I was sixteen when I had him. And Mom and Dad were with me all the time.
Or I just forgot how I felt. That’s it, probably. My mind erased the pain of childbirth and the exhaustion of taking care of a baby so that I’d have another.
They’re Tyler’s babies, though, both of them, and I’d take all the exhaustion in the world a hundred times over for the joy of holding them, loving them, watching them grow with him by my side.
Tears burn my eyes. Happy tears. It wasn’t that long ago that I’d given up on him, that I’d thought him lost to me, gone, perhaps even dead. Not that long ago he returned to me out of the blue, back from the dead, with a terrible story of his dad torturing him, carving the word Bastard in his chest, carving him open—then his mom sending him away to live with a half-crazed, drug-addicted uncle. A story that left him scarred in and out, battling with benzo withdrawal, panic attacks and nightmares.
But he came back. And he fought to win my trust again. He showed me he was here to stay, that he meant it when he said he loved me, that he’d do anything to be with me. He took my anger and turned it into sadness and then back into love. He fought with his nightmares, sold his motorcycle to pay off the debts my family had since my difficult first pregnancy and birth of Jax, and dated me. Courted me. Screwed my brains out, too, but I wanted him to.
I’d missed him so damn bad. He’s both the boy I used to know, and a man, male through and through, tall, strong, handsome, sexy—but also loving, trustworthy, dependable. The best man I could have ever imagined. The best daddy I could have ever wished for.
My best friend, and soon-to-be husband.