In the Arms of the Beast (Kings of Hell MC 5)

Lana shook her head. “I think he’s running some errands. I was hoping to ask him to watch over Xavier while I deal with a couple of things in town, but I guess I’ll need to find someone else.”

“I can watch over him,” Laurent said, extending his arms.

Lana blinked but passed Xavier to Laurent. “Really? You’d do that? Lifesaver.”

“Of course. No problem at all. Take as much time as you need.”

It was a tiny baby who couldn’t even walk. How hard could it be?

*

Laurent didn’t remember ever hearing a child cry as frantically as Xavier. An hour into Lana’s absence, her son had awoken to give a shrieking concert that grew louder with each passing second. Laurent tried to feed him the already prepared formula Lana had shown him in the fridge, but it was only once he discovered the baby wasn’t hungry that Laurent decided to have a look into his diaper. And that turned out to be the source of the issue.

Problem was that Xavier kept moving around, and by the time Laurent discovered what was going on, the excrement was smeared all over the little body, and Laurent was close to having a panic attack.

“No, no, no, Xavier, please don’t move,” he said in a shaky voice, unsure how to grab the child to avoid getting the poop on himself.

This was a disaster in the making. In his worst nightmares he wouldn’t have fathomed the extent of chaos a baby this tiny could bring. No matter what he did, Xavier wouldn’t stop crying, and the sound was so terribly shrill Laurent considered stuffing his ears with cotton.

What if their baby was like this? What if he was doing something wrong and didn’t even know it? He had no idea what the child would require. He’d been shipped off to America not long after his youngest brother was born, and none of his siblings had children at that time. He had little recollection of how women dealt with infants. Mr. Barnave didn’t have a wife, and it wasn’t like bringing up children was something Laurent talked to women about.

What if he’d made a terrible mistake and failed with his own son?

The familiar clomping of platform sandals boosted Laurent’s sense of shame, but at the same time, maybe one of the girls could provide him with necessary insights. He looked over his shoulder just in time to meet Nao’s gaze as she entered the kitchen.

She wore a one-piece costume with a flower pattern, and wedges designed to make her tiny form that bit more slender, but she must have come because of the screaming, not for fashion advice, because she shook her head in wonder when she saw Laurent.

“What the hell is this? Where is Lana, and why are you changing him on the freaking kitchen table? Oh, my God, what if someone made sandwiches here later?”

Laurent gave a hopeless sigh and looked her way, hovering one hand over the tiny body. “I offered to watch him, but Xavier won’t calm down, and I don’t know if the regular soap is agreeable with baby skin. She didn’t say, because I told her I knew my way with children. Oh, Nao, I’m such a fraud!”

Her hands dropped when she glanced at the soiled clothing and scowled. “Oh. My. God. What does this thing eat?”

Laurent chewed on his lip. “Can you do something?”

Nao blinked and pointed at herself. “Me? I’ve never seen anyone change a diaper. There were no little kids in my family!”

“Oh, I thought…”

Her eyes narrowed. “You thought what? That women magically know how to take care of children? Laurent, it’s a skill like any other.”

“But you offered to pretend to be our surrogate.”

Nao scoffed. “’Pretend’ is the key word here. I don’t even want kids.”

Laurent could hardly believe what he was hearing. “How old are you?”

Nao squinted at him. “Laurent, I warn you… Stop digging your own grave.”

“Fine. What are we going to do? If I mess this up, everyone will think I’m going to make a terrible father. Oh, God, I am so unprepared!” Laurent cried, already feeling Beast’s judgmental gaze on his flesh. And he deserved it all!

Nao licked her lips and quickly dove under the sink, pulling out two aprons and a set of rubber gloves. “Let’s just calm down. We can do this. We’ll just put him under running water to clean the mess and wipe him with paper towels. Nobody will know if we clean the sink with bleach afterward.”

They proceeded with this plan, but since Xavier kept twisting and crying, the operation still proved difficult. When Laurent managed to put the boy in clean clothes, he was positive the nightmare was over, but the crying wouldn’t stop despite repeated offerings of the formula.

They were at loss.

“Maybe he’s got like baby insomnia or something,” Nao said, watching Xavier shift around in the Moses basket.