Reckless (Irresistible 6)

“I love you so fucking much, AJ.”

I didn’t know those words were going to come out. They just happened, but I didn’t think twice about them. I said it again and again as she gasped and moaned through her climax, crying out my name and taking me with her over the edge.

My dick jerked and pulsed inside her as I filled her and as I collapsed against her, my mouth buried in her neck, I heard her say it back, exhaling the words.

“I love you.”

Three words I never knew I needed from her.

But now that I’d heard them, I knew I was never going to settle for living without them.

33

ADAM

I’d passed out with her in my arms, but somewhere around 4AM, I’d gotten up.

It wasn’t unusual. Sometimes, this was just the hour that I started my day.

But today, I didn’t have the mind to get to work. I didn’t need to anyway. Knox was signed and at this particular moment, my clients were happy, all of them scattered between Florida and Arizona, set to start their first games of Spring Training this week.

So instead of checking my emails or going on my computer, I went out to the deck, stretching out on the chaise by the pool, and just staring out at the stillness of the water.

I’d only missed AJ for about ten minutes before I heard the sound of the sliding door pushing open, followed shortly after by her footsteps.

I smiled as she simply assumed her rightful place on me, climbing on top of me and resting her head on my chest. She was wearing one of my hoodies and literally nothing else underneath, which easily had my dick stirring again, but as soon as her head hit my chest, she was back asleep, breathing softly and making me wonder what the fuck my life was like before she came into it.

It wasn’t that long ago, but it was a different world.

Hell, just three weeks ago was a different world.

Three weeks ago, I never touched her like this. Never felt her this close. And now that I had, I knew there was no going back.

Thank God for that weekend in Palm Beach.

It was one of the last thoughts that drifted into my mind before I dozed off myself, waking what I guessed was two hours later, because the sky was no longer black but gold streaked with a fiery, almost neon orange.

We didn’t move, and there were no words spoken to announce that we were awake. We just knew. And when she said, “Tell me about her,” I knew who she meant.

My mom.

My actual mom. The one I loved.

“She met my dad when she was nineteen. But she lied and said she was twenty-three because he was twenty-five and single and he was just in LA for the weekend to visit friends. They were a one-time thing and they were from ‘different worlds’ is what my mom said.”

“Different worlds,” she repeated. “How so?”

“He was from a good family,” I said, repeating the version of Dad I was given from my mom. “Educated even beyond college. He was just a guy enjoying his weekend before he went back to his real world, which was living in Jersey. Working finance in Manhattan. Saving up to buy a house so his dog could have a bigger backyard.” I managed a laugh when I pictured my dad at this age. Still pretty much the same guy, but with so many fewer concerns in life that it made my chest kind of twist a little. “He was just a nice stranger she got the chance to meet. And the fact that she got pregnant didn’t change that. That’s at least what she felt.”

“So she never told your dad?”

“Not for awhile. I was her son, her responsibility, so she fought to keep me fed and happy and pretty impressively clueless to the fact that we didn’t have a permanent home, and living the way we did wasn’t actually a fun adventure.”

>

I heard AJ’s lips part a little as the next realization hit. That I hadn’t always lived that stereotypically charmed life with the big house, the pool. Captain of the basketball team who drove a Range Rover to school.

I had the good life you saw on TV, but it wasn’t the one I was born into.