Never Say Forever

She’d stomped out without a backward glance, pretty much leaving me with my dick in my hand. Figuratively, at least. Bad enough that I’d forgotten Rose’s friend would be using the place, but I’d also forgotten she had a child.

Well, fuck.

I thought I’d read the signs pretty well in the bathroom. The way her eyes had darkened, the catch in her breath as I’d held her ankle, and the way her nipples puckered under their thin veil despite the heat in the room.

I guess her head won over her libido. For one of us, at least.

“This owange juice is yucky. It’s got bits in it.”

I glance up and find the little girl using the napkin to wipe her tongue.

“Yeah, bits of orange. It’s called pulp, kid.”

“Tastes like bum.”

I set off laughing, biting back the inappropriate for the audience answer of I’ve come across a few peachy asses in my time, sometimes literally, but never savoured an orange juice-tasting one. “Those are the best bits,” I answer instead.

“You are so wong,” she counters seriously.

“I am, am I?”

“Yes. I jus don’t have the time or the cwayons to ’esplain it to you,” she answers with the kind of seriousness that sets me off laughing again.

Little Miss Lulu here had stumbled into the kitchen this morning while I was making coffee. Without removing the thumb stuck in her mouth, she’d mumbled something that sounded like ‘Norman is hungry’. Norman, I later found out, was the name of the stuffed bunny clutched under her arm. As I’d tried to work out what the hell I was supposed to do, she’d then pulled herself up onto a stool and announced that it was Saturday morning, and therefore, time for pancakes.

I, being the lady pleaser I am, acquiesced.

If I couldn’t please the mother, the least I could do was please the daughter. Which is not the kind of statement I thought I’d ever make.

“I do like pancakes with bluebs.”

“Pardon?” Pancakes with what the fuck?

As my mind plays catch-up, I let out a breath long and low. Bluebs. She said bluebs, which must be kid speak for blueberries. Nothing to do with pubic hair.

“That’s what Mummy says all the time. I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon!” Her parody includes a scornful shake of her little dark head. It doesn’t resemble the woman I’d found in my bath last night with big brown eyes, lithe limbs, and the ultimate blowjob mouth . . . which are thoughts inappropriate to be entertaining in the presence of a child. Especially as I realise she’s still talking. She pretty much hasn’t stopped since she’d turned up.

But she’s a lot more fun than the run I had planned.

“She also says what the fluff lots. And when she’s really annoyed, and she doesn’t think I’m listening, she says what the farrrk!”

“What the fu—fluff is going on here?”

“Mummy!” Lulu scrambles down from the stool, throwing her arms around her mom’s waist.

I stifle a smile. The pair may not look alike, but they are wearing matching nightwear. Unlike her daughter, sleep doesn’t cling to the mother. In fact, she looks wide awake and more than a little unnerved and—

Holy fuck!

It wasn’t Goldilocks she reminded me of. It was her—the girl from Saint Odile!

No way. I am not conversing with the succubus who haunts my dreams on a regular basis, the woman who I’ve been unable to dislodge from my head for the past few years. Another country, another lifetime, broken down on the side of the road at a time it seemed like my world was falling apart. She isn’t so much the one who got away as the one who disappeared after the most passionate night of my life.

Motherhood looks good on her. She looks good. And not at all like a sultry demon, her wild hair instead giving her the air of a lioness protecting her cub. And fuck me blind for noticing she’s a little fuller now, fuller in all the fun places that count.

“Not fluff, Mummy.” My attention is drawn to the little girl, devilment flashing in her blue eyes. Her blue eyes and dark hair against her mother’s brown and blonde. “You know you want to say what the farrrk!”

“I know I want to.”

“Come here,” the woman in pyjamas commands, ignoring both my rough interjection and her daughter’s goading as she lifts her against her hip. “What have I told you about talking to strangers?” she asks, her tone stern.

“Strangers live outside.” Lulu takes her mother’s cheeks between her hands. “Not in the kitchen. Oh!” Her eyes suddenly widen, her head swinging my way. “Are you a house elf, Uncle Carson? Like Dobby? Was it you that washed my bre’fast plate yesterday?”

“You don’t have an Uncle Carson,” her mother hisses, her gaze warily sliding my way. “And I’m pretty sure elves aren’t that big.”