Only Ever Yours

I cup her face in my hands and kiss her softly. “Hopefully you never have to use it, but I don’t know what Noah is capable of.”

“I get it,” she says with a steady voice. “What happens when your guys who are searching for him find him?”

“I don’t know,” I admit truthfully. “But if it’s between him and us, I’m always going to choose us.”

“Oh my God! Did you feel that?” Camilla’s face lights up, her eyes filled with such love and happiness, my heart damn near stutters in my chest.

“Feel what?” I joke, making her slap my shoulder. We’re lying in bed in post coital bliss and Camilla is trying to get me to feel the baby kicking. The last few weeks the baby has been getting more active and she’s dying for me to feel what she’s feeling. Dr. Tobias came over this morning for her twenty-four-week checkup and everything looks good. Camilla’s bloodwork is perfect and she took some glucose test that made her feel a bit sick, but the doctor said is important.

I can tell Camilla is starting to get antsy here. She’s missing her dad, and with the holidays right around the corner, she’s mentioned wanting to visit him so he’s not alone for Thanksgiving. It will be their first holiday without each other. She also feels bad that Yasmin has no idea if she’s dead or alive, since she can’t speak to anyone until we find Noah and get this shit sorted.

I’ve told myself that if my guys haven’t found him by Thanksgiving, I would step back out into the spotlight because I can’t keep Camilla locked up here forever, even if I love having her all to myself twenty-four-seven. She’s already missing a semester of college and won’t be able to start back until January, putting her behind. On top of that, the baby is due in February.

“Put your hand… right… here,” she says, her eyes locking with mine as she places my hand against her bump. We lie in silence for several seconds, and I’m about to roll over on top of her and kiss the hell out of her, when I feel it. A nudge against my hand.

“Holy shit,” I breathe. “That’s…”

“Our baby.”

“Do it again.”

She throws her head back, laughing. “I can’t do it again. It’s the baby, not me.”

“I’m going to keep my hand on you until he does it again,” I tell her, mesmerized by the feel of my son’s tiny body connecting with mine in some way.

“That could be hours!” she says through another laugh.

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I do because I need to go pee and shower.” She scoots up into a sitting position. “Wanna join me?” She waggles her brows. “You can clean me up since you were the one who dirtied me.”

I’m about to tell her it’s on, when the sound of my phone rings out through the house. “Shit, I must’ve left it downstairs. Get the water running and I’ll meet you in there.”

I peck her lips and climb off the bed, throwing on my sweats before I sprint down the hall and stairs to find my ringing phone. It stops momentarily and then the sound indicating there’s a text chimes. I swipe it off the counter where I left it, click on the text, and am reading it, when a throat clearing from behind me draws my attention.

“I couldn’t figure out how the fuck the bitch got away. I was searching everywhere for her, and then when I realized something fishy was going on, I disappeared to stay under the radar. Good job hiding.” Noah slowly claps as I turn around to face him. “And bonus points for faking your death.” His shitty smirk confirms what I already knew. He was responsible for trying to have me killed.

“I never would’ve thought to come here,” he says, pulling a gun out and pointing it directly at me. He clicks the safety off. “All these years and you never once mentioned keeping this place.”

“Apparently I wasn’t the only one hiding shit,” I say in response to the text I just read. “Brother.”

Noah laughs, full on crazy fucking laughs. “So, you figured it out, huh?”

“That you’re Ian Perry and my half-brother… yeah. But what I want to know is, why you didn’t tell me. All these years, I thought we were friends.” It doesn’t make any sense, for him to go over a decade of knowing me without saying a word.

“I was your friend,” he barks. “Until you chose that bitch over me, the same way our father chose your mother over me and my mom.” His words have the hair on my nape standing at attention, as everything suddenly clicks into place. My truck being bombed… My father’s vehicle blowing up… There’s no way… It can’t be.