Everything else disintegrates in the light of this monumental development. Because even though Sofia is chanting everything is fine to no one in particular, her face is tight and pale. She’s shaking scared, and she’s one of my best friends in the whole world. She needs me.
Jake and I move at the same time—him out the door, me sweeping Sofia up into my arms. Her hands clasp around the back of my neck even as she says, “I’m in labor, Brent, not an invalid. I can walk.”
“Of course you can—but why should you have to when you have a manly man like me around?”
As I head down the stairs, I adjust Sofia’s considerable mass in my arms. And of course, she notices.
“If you tease me about how heavy I am, I’ll rip your beard hairs out.”
“Tease? Me?” I grin. “I would never tease a woman about her weight—especially a pregnant woman.” I make it down the last step, then add, “Although . . . I think my titanium prosthetic just bent under the strain.”
She pinches me. On my neck, my arms—anywhere she can reach.
“Ow, Jesus! No pinching! Pinching is not cool!”
Sofia’s got a lethal finger grip. Her older brothers, who teased her mercilessly, must’ve looked like Dalmatians growing up, ’cause I doubt she took that shit lying down.
But as I carry her out to the sidewalk, she’s laughing. So my mission for now is accomplished.
And sixteen hours later, Sofia’s mission is accomplished too. Because that’s when our law firm’s first baby comes screaming—arguing—into the world.
• • •
“Samuel, huh?”
I peer down at the bundle of sleeping, sweet-smelling baby in my arms. People always talk about how newborns have their mother’s lips or their father’s nose, but I never got that. They all just look like babies. Insanely cute, but pretty much the same.
“So, you guys are doing the S thing? As if Sofia and Stanton Shaw wasn’t nauseating enough?”
Stanton tilts back in the pleather recliner beside Sofia’s hospital bed. He picks a green grape from the bag on his lap and pops it into his mouth. “Nah, he just looks like a Samuel.”
“He looks like an alien.”
At Sofia’s frown, I amend that statement. “An adorable alien, but still, he’s got a head on him. How’d that feel coming out?”
Sofia smiles sweetly. “I hope you get kidney stones, so you can find out.”
Then we sit in companionable silence for a few moments. Until Sofia gently prods, “Have you talked to Kennedy?”
My heart squeezes until my whole body throbs. My anger bled out sometime last night. Now I just ache for her.
“No.”
Stanton pops in another grape. “Why not?”
“I’m still hoping she’ll come to her senses.”
“Do you love her?” Sofia turns to her husband with an open mouth. “Hit me.”
He effortlessly lands a grape in her mouth.
I brush my knuckle across Samuel’s perfect hand, imagining how it’d feel to hold a tiny newborn girl with blond hair. “Yes, I love her.”
“Then fucking fix it, man,” Stanton insists. “You had a fight; you said things you didn’t mean—welcome to Relationship Land. But you don’t break up over a fight. Not if you love her.”
Sofia talks as she chews. “He’s right. If we broke up every time we disagreed about something, Samuel’s home would’ve been broken a long time ago.”
Stanton nods.
Sofia’s voice is sincere with experience. “It’s scary, I know. Giving someone that kind of power over you—accepting that your happiness will forever hinge on theirs. But it’s worth it.” She reaches out and Stanton takes her hand, giving her a secret smile.
Words from two decades ago echo in my head and slip out of my mouth. “The ride is the only thing that makes the fall worth it.”
Sofia’s head tilts curiously and I shrug. “A smart, fearless girl told me that once.”
Stanton grins. “She sounds like a keeper.”
Damn straight she is.
• • •
In my head, I act out every sappy grand gesture teenage girls fantasize about. I stand outside her bedroom window with a boom box over my head. I run through the airport, catch her moments before she boards the plane, and profess my undying love. I completely redecorate my home office, put her desk right next to mine, to prove to her how much I want her in my life.
In reality—I don’t do any of those things.
Because this isn’t a movie—this is real life. And Kennedy and I are the realest thing I’ve ever known.
What she needs most from me isn’t over-the-top gestures or expensive gifts I could buy her without a second thought. She needs the words. And she needs to look into my eyes when I give them to her, so she can see that I mean every single one.
I nod to the federal agent stationed at the gate of her house. He lets me through and I march up the steps of her porch, knocking on her door. After what feels like forever and a day, it opens, and shiny eyes—one still swollen—stare up at me from her bruised, beautiful face.
A guilty blade thrusts up under my rib cage—because she’s still hurting. And I’ve made her hurt more.
The words rush from my lips.
“We’re not done. I didn’t—” My voice cracks. “I didn’t mean it.”
Her face softens in fucking sympathy—for me. And the blade plunges deeper, twisting cruelly.
“I know, Brent.”
I touch her cheek, because I can’t not touch her for a second longer. “I’m sorry.”
Her breath hitches. “Me too. I’m sorry I can’t make this easier for you.”
“No. I was an ass. You don’t have to make it easier for me—I don’t want you worrying about that. I love you, Kennedy.”
“I love you too.” She takes a deep breath—then her chin rises and her voice is stronger. “Don’t ask me not to go again. I don’t think I could stand it.”
“I won’t. The only thing I’ll ask is”—my head dips, moving closer—“let me come with you.”
Her face crumbles and she surges against me. I hold her as tight as I dare as her tears soak into my shirt, and she nods against my chest. “Yes. Please come with me.”
21
On the first day of a big trial, some lawyers want
their sole focus to be on the case. They think about it while shoveling oatmeal into their mouths. They rehearse their opening statement while sipping their coffee, and tape their notes to the mirror while they shave and straighten their tie.
But not Kennedy. Because this morning, in our Nevada hotel room, her focus is wholly on my cock.
She’s on her knees in front of me where I stand by the bed, teasing the sensitive indentation on the underside of my hot, hard rod as she sucks me off. And it feels so fucking good I practically decapitate myself when my head rolls toward the ceiling. I dig my hand into her hair and fist it tight, holding her still, so I can pump into her mouth.
Goddamn.
It’s the roughest I’ve let myself be with her the last two weeks—and she loves it. She hums around me, sending ripples of decadent pleasure through every nerve in my body. My chin touches my chest as I look down, watching my dick slide smoothly between Kennedy’s rosy lips.
“That’s it. Take it just like that,” I rasp. ’Cause I’m feeling fucking dirty.
Her responding moan is almost my undoing. With a swiftness born of desperation, I lift her up, toss her onto the bed, and grab her ankles—dragging her to the edge. Then I bend my knees and drive into her.
“Oh god . . . Brent . . . Oh yeah . . .”
She watches me, those golden brown eyes burning like a bonfire of fall leaves.
The angriest of her bruises have faded to mere discoloration, and a smattering of tiny scabs remain from the abrasion on her cheek. But the split lip and swelling around her eye are fully healed.
I rotate my hips, pushing in deep, then changing to smooth and steady thrusts. I slide my palms up her calves, grasping beneath her knees and spreading her wide open. Giving me a perfect view of her glistening dark pink flesh.
It’s times like this I wish my mother had mated with Dr. Octavius.
Words scrape up my throat. “Play with your tits. Pinch those pretty nipples like it’s your fucking job.”
Kennedy closes her eyes with a moan. And it’s only a second before she does my bidding—her small hands squeeze her supple mounds, then her fingers tug at the mauve peaks.
Hard.
Oh yeah—that’s my girl.
Her needy cunt tightens around me, trying to hold me inside. And she begs, and Christ—there is no sweeter sound on earth than Kennedy Randolph begging.