Inked Babies (Inked Brotherhood 6)

Hey, husband or not, my man is seriously hot.

His mouth lifts in a grin, and now he knows it, too. He didn’t use to think anything of himself before. Two years ago, when we got back together, he hid his powerful body rather than show it because of the scars on his back.

Because his father had made him feel unwanted and undesirable, and now he knows how much I want and desire him.

A whole lot. More than anyone else. More than anything else in the world.

He winks at me. “Come here.”

I obey, the nightie dropping from my hand to the floor. I get on the bed and crawl toward him.

“Fuck…” His eyes darken as he tilts his head back, watching me. “If you could see yourself, girl. Hottest woman ever.”

Smiling, I straddle his legs, and he locks his arms around my back, pressing our bodies together. His mouth captures mine, and between my legs I feel him, long and rock hard inside his thin boxer briefs.

He kisses me like I’m oxygen and he’s suffocating, sucking on my mouth, on my tongue, licking and biting and possessing me. I moan against his lips, caught by surprise in this storm of desire and need.

My need for him, and even more his for me. He lifts me off him and lays me down on the mattress in one fluid movement, bending over me and smoothing the hair away from my face. He leans in until our foreheads touch.

“Christ, Auds…”

I stroke his rough cheek, cup his face. “What is it?”

“Can’t stop the noise inside my head.” He sighs, still pressed between my legs, steadying himself with his hands on either side of me on the bed. “Can’t find the quiet.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not, I…” He shakes his head. “I should let it go.”

“Ash.” I wind my arms around his neck and pull my beautiful, lovely husband in for a quick kiss. “It’s normal to be upset.”

“I’m not fucking upset.” He huffs, closes his eyes and bows his head. “Okay, I am.”

He sits up and scoots back, rubbing a hand over his chest, and I try not to drool at the sight of him like that—the bunching pecs, the bulging biceps, the clenched six-pack—because he’s unhappy, and all I want is to make him feel better.

“I was so sure it was all true,” he whispers. “That those horrible things really happened to him, but they didn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Nothing checks out. Not the name, not the house, not…” His voice has risen a little, and he glances at the door.

“Don’t worry about Scott. He’s fast asleep.”

He nods. “Tyler was right. His mind created a story to fill in the gaps of his past. I should be relieved.”

“Ash, he still had a hellish childhood. You can’t blame him for it.”

“I’m not blaming him! Fuck…” He lets his hand drop to his side. “How could I? I’m upset because I’m worried about him in a different way. Why did he have a relapse? Why now?”

“Getting married and having babies is stressful for some people,” I remind him. “You were stressed when I got pregnant, and also when Scott was born.”

“Yeah,” he admits, so low I barely hear it.

“So it could be that. Or anything else. Triggers are like that. You don’t always identify them.”

“How do you know so much about them?”

I shrug. “I talked to Tyler a lot when he first came back. He told me a lot about triggers.”