A Beautiful Funeral (The Maddox Brothers 5)

“Just try to put it out of your head until Liis gets here tomorrow. Most of the burden is going to be hers.”

He sighed, looking up at the ceiling. He crossed his arms over his middle. “She just had a baby, Pidge. She’s alone. How can I make her do that?”

“She’s not alone. We can support her. We can help.”

He was quiet for a moment. “There has to be another way. Dad is going to have a heart attack. This is going to kill him.”

“He’s stronger than you think.”

“We can’t do this,” he said. The panic that had been just beneath the surface all evening was now evident in his voice.

I grabbed his face, forcing him to look me in the eyes. “We don’t have a choice. Think about what they did, Travis. They thought they were shooting at me. They thought they were running me off the road. Jessica and James could have been in the car. We could have been killed. Everyone could have been coming home for our funeral. If we don’t do this, it still could be our funeral—or Shep’s, or even Olive’s. As of yesterday, we know we all have targets on our backs. Even the kids. When Liis makes the phone call to the Bureau that she’s not testifying, and my dad goes missing,” I said, making quotation marks in the air with my fingers they’ll back off. Then you can hunt every single one of them down until they’re not a threat anymore, and anyone else will think twice about threatening your family again.”

Travis blinked. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”

I leaned in to kiss his lips, just as soft and warm as the first time I’d felt them on mine. He pulled my bare leg closer to him, kissing me harder, deeper. Travis always thought I was beautiful, but up until the moment I told him we were pregnant again, I’d forgotten just how the idea of carrying his child made Travis insatiable.

“If you want me to stop …” he trailed off. “Any contractions today?” I smiled and shook my head. I’d been having strong Braxton Hicks for nearly three weeks. We’d even gone to the hospital once but were sent home. He slipped my silk nightgown over my head and kissed my belly. He knew I had no intention of saying no.

We were at the part of my pregnancy that made my curves more difficult to work around, but Travis easily navigated every high and low, running his tongue over my stretched skin more eagerly than our first time in his apartment.

He sat on his knees at the end of the bed, holding my right foot in his hand, kneading my aching arch with his thumbs. He lifted my toe to his mouth and kissed the tip and then continued with my massage, moving up to my calf. Each time he finished a section, he would say goodbye with a kiss. My insides tensed when he found his way to my thighs. His head disappeared behind my pregnant belly, and I rested my head back.

“Where did you go?” I whispered.

His tongue made a wet line from my thigh to the inner folds of my most sensitive parts, and I let out a quiet sigh. “Oh. There you are.”

Travis gripped my hips and pulled me toward him, just as eager for him to be between my legs as I was. I could hear his legs brushing against the sheets, getting more excited with each flick of his tongue.

Just as I felt my insides building to release, he crawled to lay beside me, pressing his lips against my skin. Running his tongue up my belly, he followed the dark line that had formed beneath my belly button, spanning to my pelvic bone sometime during my second trimester. The baby stirred, and Travis jerked his head up, smiling and running his palm over the place our son had moved. It was such a strange combination—sex and parenting. It didn’t seem to be a struggle for Travis, to go from foreplay to attending to a wet bed or nightmare, and then returning to feeling sexy and desirable. Transitioning from mom to lover was more difficult for me.

Travis pulled me on top of him, running his hand over the small of my back to my ass. His fingers pressed into my skin as his eyes scanned my naked body from my hair to where our skin met. Everything around us melted away, and I was nineteen again, feeling his hands on me for the first time. Sex with Travis Maddox had always been amazing, but something about the way he worshiped my body when I was pregnant made it even better. I had never felt more beautiful or wanted than at that moment, and I would feel even more beautiful and wanted the next time he made love to me.

Travis gripped my thighs, steadying me as I slowly lowered myself onto him. The black leather braided bracelets on his wrist tumbled up his tensed forearm, drawing my attention to his tattoos dancing on the surface of his skin. I let my head fall back, biting my lip to keep myself from moaning. A quiet sigh left my lips instead. Travis rocked his hips just to reposition, and I tensed, already feeling close to climax. My body reacted so differently during pregnancy, to everything. Best of all … sex. Not everything was such a bonus, but bigger breasts, my husband catering to my every craving, and the ability to come faster than my husband were certainly the highlights. All Travis had to do was slip his fingers beneath my panties, and I was a flustered mess.

I slowed my movements, and Travis complied, letting me set the pace. His russet irises pored over me, relishing the moment. His eyes rolled back, and he groaned. As soon as the noise escaped his lips, we froze, waiting to hear a pause in the light snoring on the floor below.

I covered my mouth, trying not to giggle.

Travis smiled for a moment, and then his gaze fell to the place where our bodies met. He rolled his hips again, arching his back to bury himself deeper inside me. I had to concentrate to hold back, both hoping he would hurry and dreading the end.

“My God,” he whispered. “It blows my mind every fucking time how good you feel.”

I anchored my knees on each side of him, lifting up so I could feel him against me as I slid down around him again.

Travis paused, his eyes moving around the room. I started to speak, to ask him what was wrong, but he held his finger to his mouth.

We heard raised voices downstairs, and Travis closed his eyes, disappointed and regretting his next request. He patted me gently on the thigh, and I climbed off him, watching as he hopped out of bed and pulled on a pair of red basketball shorts. He put on a navy blue baseball hat and swung it around backward, hiding the mess I’d made of his hair while he was between my thighs.

“I’ll be back,” he said, leaning down to kiss me. His lips still tasted like me.

The muscles of his chest rippled as he moved, rushing to get downstairs to find out what was going on. He closed the door behind him, and I fell back against my pillow, frustrated. As Travis made his way downstairs, the snoring of the twins picked up, echoing one another. Travis’s voice joined the symphony of deep tones, and then I heard him yell.