The Truest Thing - Hart's Boardwalk

As Jack entered my body, we both moaned, breaking the kiss.

I pressed my hands to his chest, gazing lovingly, hotly into his eyes as I rode him.

Jack gripped my hips, watching me with deep, male satisfaction. Our pants were deliberately restrained, my cries choked in my throat as the tension coiled tight and low in my belly.

“Em,” Jack groaned, his hands moving to my ass. “Fuck.”

“Shh,” I reminded him.

In answer he sat up, changing the angle of his thrusts and catching my pleasured cry in his mouth. Wrapping my arms around his shoulders as he pulled me tight to him, kissing me hard, deep, our mouths fighting to stay together as I rode him, I moaned helplessly against him.

I missed being able to scream his name as I came, and I knew he missed it too.

His hand moved between us, his thumb pushing down on my clit. “I’m close, sunrise. I need you with me.”

He rolled his thumb on the bundle of nerves between my legs and I slammed my mouth down on his so he could swallow the sound of my climax. Then I was taking his grunts of release. He throbbed inside me as my pulsing sex wrung him dry.

“Fuck,” he muttered, pressing kisses down my chin, my throat. I arched my neck, sighing blissfully as he captured a taut nipple in his mouth and sucked.

“Jack …” I undulated against him again, my fingers curling in his hair at the nape of his neck. “Baby—”

“Daddy!”

Jack released my nipple and pressed his forehead to my chest.

“Mommy!”

“I’ll go,” I whispered.

Jack lifted his head. “It’s okay.” He gave me a squeeze.

“No, you don’t have to get up for another half hour. Sleep.” I gently pressed him back to the mattress as I lifted off him.

His jaw clenched and he grunted as he lost me. “Fuck, I miss my sunrise.”

“I’m right here.” I grinned at him as I rolled out of bed.

I could feel his eyes on my ass as I moved across the room to where I’d thrown my nightie.

“You know what I mean, Em,” he murmured.

Turning around, I pulled on my robe just as our daughter yelled for me again. We could tell by her tone it was not urgent, she was not hurt. She was just ready to get up and face the day.

“You’re launching a business. It takes time.”

“It’s not worth losing time with my two favorite girls. That’s the first time we’ve made love in three weeks.”

I knew that.

I was counting.

“We’ll talk about this later.” I threw him a reassuring smile and hurried out of the bedroom.

When we were deciding about where we would raise our kid, we’d decided on the beach house, even though Jack’s house in South Hartwell was larger. I told Jack to continue with the sale, and while he was at it, sell his place in North Hartwell too.

Despite only having three bedrooms, the beach house was in the perfect location.

Thankfully, it also had land on either side of it because we would need to build an addition. And I didn’t want to move.

Hurrying down the hall, I pushed into Tabitha’s room. Our daughter was turning four in three months’ time. However, first, her archenemy, Tyler Joseph Lawson, was turning four today.

We had such high hopes that those two would hit it off.

But they fought like cats and dogs and had done this since they could walk.

The problem was they were both too bossy for their own good.

It seemed my child had inherited her grandmother’s sass.

Despite our differences, it made me smile to think of my grandmother looking down on us and feeling smug that she’d passed along some of her traits to her great-granddaughter.

Tabby was sitting on the floor of the bedroom her father had worked with painstaking attention to detail to put together. He’d built custom shelving for all her books and toys. Even her bed was custom built by Jack and his old boss Ray. It had storage underneath for more toys. An old-fashioned armoire that Jack had sanded down and repainted stood in the corner, filled with more clothes than any kid needed, as was the matching dresser.

Surrounding our daughter on the carpeted floor were her cuddly toys and dolls.

“We’re having breakfast,” she announced in her cute, high-pitched voice as she gestured to her toy companions. “And I got hungry for real.”

My lips twitched. “Is that so?”

She gave me a look that said “well, yeah” that reminded me a lot of her father. Tabby was a wonderful mix of us both—she was a miniature version of me in looks but had her father’s mannerisms and sense of humor.

And his appetite.

“C’mon, then.” I reached down, hooked her under the arms, and lifted Tabby. It amazed me how one day she was this tiny little thing, and now I had toned upper arms and shoulders from carting her around everywhere. She wrapped her little legs as far as she could around me and clung to my neck.