“We’ll try again soon, Shep.” Sloan clapped me on the back. “I talked to Carol today, and she asked to have the kids a bit more before she leaves. We’re gonna put the every-other-week schedule on pause.”
I side-eyed him. “When’s my week with them?”
He grinned a little and nudged his shoulder to mine. “Would you even spend time with me if I didn’t have my kids?”
Oh Christ. I laughed and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Keep that up. You’re hot when you’re jealous.”
“Only then?” He shoved at me, failing at looking annoyed. “I’m trying to tell you I’ll have more time for kink, and you’re asking when you can see the kids again. Asshole.”
Fuck, I couldn’t stop grinning at him. He was too cute sometimes. “Since when does Carol having the kids mean you’ll make time for kink, you fucking workaholic?”
That earned me an eye roll. It was his way of ending an argument, and I wasn’t ready to change the topic yet. I wanted to get closer. I wanted to push. It felt safer today. Sloan had been wrong. And I had been wrong to consider he might be right. Fuck distance. Fuck boundaries.
“I didn’t make you a member here because I wanted to see less of you.” I grabbed his jaw and smacked a kiss to his cheek. “You’re the one pulling away.”
“I don’t…” He made a face. “…pull away.”
“Ha! Right, sure.” I rose from the steps and yanked him with me. No use in standing around here if Corey was busy playing games on his computer. “Come on, let’s get something to eat back in the city.”
The flip side of driving him home tonight was that we didn’t have to spend the night at the cabin as originally planned. We’d both be able to sleep an hour longer tomorrow morning. And I wouldn’t have to ask Katie to collect eggs from my coop. She could spend every waking hour with horses, dogs, cows, pigs, and most other animals, but she hated everything with a beak.
She’d do well as a countryside veterinarian one day.
“You’re hungry? I just wanna sleep.” Sloan yawned as he climbed into my truck. “It’s almost midnight.”
I shook my head and got behind the wheel. “It’s ten o’clock, Gramps.”
He chuckled tiredly and buckled in. “I remember when you still said twenty-two hundred and whatnot. Jason stopped asking you for the time.”
I grinned. I remembered that too.
“You really want me to take you home?” I backed out of the carport and headed toward the dirt road.
Despite my own exhaustion, I felt a little restless. I’d been mentally prepared to give Corey a nice beating, so now I was wondering if I could bother someone else. Since Sloan evidently wasn’t going to entertain me.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t born with crack in my system.”
Not the time to push, I decided. I wasn’t born with crack in my system—or more energy than anybody else, for that matter. I just didn’t have four children and two jobs.
“Don’t worry about it.” I reached over and gave his leg a squeeze. “So when do you see the kids again?”
“Carol drops them off on Saturday around noon,” he replied. “Then she’ll pick them up again after school and day care on Monday. I don’t know after that. We’re gonna play it by ear.”
Hmpf. Well, she’d be out of state for a year soon enough. I had a feeling that would be my time to shine and coerce.
This would’ve been a lot easier if Carol had been a shitty mother. She was by no means perfect, but nobody was. Her main flaw was that whenever she picked a fight with Sloan, she didn’t care that the kids were present. That would never cease to infuriate me.
Then, of course, the timing of her one-year stay in Chicago. It didn’t matter how much it would skyrocket her career; Loki and Emma-Jo were both under five. Other than that…I mean, I knew she loved them. I knew she was gonna miss them. She’d never been an absent parent in that regard. Just…selfish sometimes, especially where Sloan was concerned, and I couldn’t stop feeling protective of him.
As we reached the Beltway, the silence was comfortable, and it made me think twice about talking. He was tired. I could tell him about Archie some other time.
Maybe I was stalling for other reasons too.
Maybe I was worried Sloan would come in as the voice of reason and point out why me starting over with Archie was fucked up. It was Sloan I’d unloaded to after the showdown five years ago. Christ, I’d been so livid. I’d been freakishly honest too, about the connection I’d felt.
Would he understand?
The photo Archie had sent me yesterday had pulled me in further. I couldn’t walk away now. He could’ve sent me any explicit picture, or maybe of him kneeling, or perhaps a collar or just his head bowed. Instead, he’d gone all in on the domestic part of domestic servitude, and he’d sent me a photo of himself holding an old-fashioned silver serving tray, complete with a full English breakfast and a newspaper. The paper kind, for chrissakes.