Caveman (Wild Men 1)

What the hell is going on?

And I still can’t breathe.

It’s not until Octavia settles beside me, lifting Cole in her lap and leaning against me, that the pressure on my chest eases. It feels so good that I don’t even ask what the phone call was about.

“They’re so tired,” she whispers, and I put my arm around her, drawing some deep breaths into my starved lungs. “We should put them to bed.”

It’s still morning. Or midday? Not sure how long we spent looking, but I don’t argue. She’s right, they’re exhausted, lying limp in our laps. “I’m not letting them out of my sight.”

“I know.” She looks up at me, and I kiss her forehead. “Let’s just put them here on the sofa, and we sit down beside them.”

We get up, arranging the sleepy kids on the sofa, and she brings blankets from upstairs to cover them.

Then I sit in the armchair and pull her in my lap until she’s curled in my arms.

“You know John and his cops will show up at any moment to talk to us, right?” she murmurs against my neck, and I shiver. She threads her fingers in my short beard, tugging a little, and I let my head drop back.

“I’ll kick his ass.”

She snickers softly. “You’re so hard on him. He’s doing his best.”

“Not good enough.” Okay, maybe I did go kinda hard on him. “They had my goddamn kids.”

“I know.” She pets my beard, my cheek, my hair. It’s nice. Relaxing. My heart is finally starting to slow its frantic hammering. “I know.”

Even as my body starts to relax, my dick starts hardening in my pants. I mean, she’s sitting on top of me, all soft and pretty and goddamn mine. My dick notices.

I notice. Every single time. I could be in hell with a river of fire to cross and I’d still get hard just by looking at her, just from her scent.

And then I think how she stood by me every step of today’s ordeal, how she brought me back from the brink. So determined, so worried. Caring about me and my kids.

How she fits so perfectly by my side, in my house, in my family.

If I could have her straddle me now, I’d slide inside her, sink deep, fuck her so hard. Fuck her until this day brightens, until I fuck the darkness out of it.

But the kids are here, and I’m too content sitting with my girl in my arms to care.

I’m half-dozing, her soft hair tickling my nose, flashes of images passing behind my closed lids—meadows and trees and a lake, and children laughing—when she shifts against me.

“There’s something I got to tell you,” she whispers.

My heart lurches against my breastbone. “What?”

I’m leaving you. I changed my mind. I decided to go back to dating the girly boy next door. I’m going to study in New York and become an actress.

Yeah, I’m not making much sense. Hey, at this point, I don’t expect good moments to last.

Her blue eyes are wide, staring right into my face. So serious.

Making my heart race faster.

“Ross told me,” she whispers, “and Mom didn’t deny it… God, Merc was so furious, never seen him like that before. He went out last night, and fought with Ross, and the cops put them in jail to cool off... Anyway…” She blinks. “It’s true.”

In my mind I high-five Merc for taking Ross on, even as I try to make sense of her words. I hope he broke Ross’s fucking nose. “What is true, baby? What did fucking Ross tell you?”

She smiles then, a quick, fleeting thing. “You called me baby.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” I lift a hand to brush a dark strand from her forehead. “Are you trying to change the subject?”