Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
You know what hurts the most? My back.
— Jeremiah’s secret thoughts
JEREMIAH
“ All done,” I said to the little girl that I hadn’t put down in the four hours that she’d been here.
She smiled, her eyes looking tired, and said, “ Yeah .”
Fuck , but she was sweet.
And my arms were tired.
“ You want to take a nap next to the tree?” I asked, pointing at my chair.
My sister had sent it to me—we had a thing about sending each other the most comfortable looking things on the internet—and she’d bought one for herself and one for me.
The perks of having the kind of money that I did was nice.
“ Yes .” She smiled. “ Bear ?”
I walked over to where the bear now sat on the kitchen table and picked it up, handing it to her.
She laid her head down on my shoulder and tucked the bear up high under her chin and mine.
I walked over to the chair and contemplated just sitting her down, but decided that she might go to sleep better against my chest.
I was right.
Pulling the blanket off the chair and wrapping it around Anleigh , I took the seat, propped up my feet, and rubbed her back.
Her body went limp in five minutes, her soft snores pressed up against my neck.
I stayed there for another ten to make sure she was truly asleep— I’d learned that lesson the hard way from my nieces—and only put her down onto the chair by herself when I knew for sure she wouldn’t wake.
Once I’d disentangled myself from the little girl’s clutching grasp, I made sure she was nice and warm with the blanket, then headed outside onto the balcony.
Once out there, I shivered.
The air felt outrageously cold.
I’d been all over the world and experienced all kinds of weather.
But there was just something about the South when it snowed.
Almost like it wasn’t supposed to happen, and the extreme weather only amplified the oddity.
Pulling out my phone, I went about calling my family to make sure they were all right.
I’d felt my phone vibrate multiple times with texts, but I wasn’t much of a texter.
I liked to hear the voices of the people so I could tell the temperature, so to speak.
Text messages were so impersonal.
“ Hello ?” my grams answered, sounding chipper.
“ Grams ,” I said. “ Everything okay?”
“ Everything’s great.” She sounded excited. “ How’s your houseguest?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the two sleeping girls.
“ One’s asleep in my bed, and the other’s asleep in the chair next to the Christmas tree,” I said. “ Anleigh’s running a fever, though. I haven’t put her down since she got in the door.”
“ Oh .” She sounded sad. “ That’s awful.”
“ How’s it lookin’ over at the asshole’s house?” I asked.
“ The window is still open, and I’ve watched it snow into that window for the last four hours.” She giggled. “ Guy’s passed out in his recliner.”
“ Good ,” I said. “ I’m going to call the rest. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
“ Okay .” She smiled. “ Take care of those girls.”
“ I will,” I promised and hung up.
Noel , Ginger , then Christopher were my next calls.
By the time I was finished, I was freezing my ass off and ready to get warmed up.
When I made it back inside, I contemplated my two options.
One , the couch that looked comfortable, but wasn’t really. Or the bed beside the woman that was quickly taking up a space in my heart.
I weighed my options while using the bathroom and changing into some comfortable sweatpants.
In the end, I decided to go to the couch, because it would be weird for her to wake up and find me next to her.
And I wasn’t a complete asshole.
Heading for the couch once I came out of the bathroom, I began to climb into it when I heard a soft, “ Hey .”
I looked over to find the mussed woman in my bed smiling at me. “ Come over here.”
I didn’t hesitate.
I detoured to the other side and climbed into the bed next to her.
By the time I was settled in next to her, her eyes were once again closed and she was back to sleep, her face buried in my usual pillow.
Turning onto my side, I watched her sleep for a few minutes before succumbing myself.
“ I’ll make it worth it, Dix .”
I grinned at my woman. “ Yeah ?”
“ Yeah .” She giggled and turned, tugging my hand. “ Come on.”
I followed my beautiful woman, allowing her to pull me into the rest stop.
“ Oh , look,” my girl said. “ A family bathroom. For families.”
Her eyes twinkled as she looked at me over her shoulder.
I grinned like a damn loon and followed her inside.
The moment the door was locked behind us she started on the belt around her hips.
Those supple, makes you want to squeeze them tight while you fuck her, hips.
I watched in avid fascination as she slowly unbuckled, unbuttoned, and unzipped.
My cock was hard as a rock by the time she turned around and shoved those molded-on blue jeans over her ass and exposed herself to me.
She bent over the sink and wiggled, urging me to take her.
Sidling up behind her, I smoothed my hand up the soft skin of her ass, then brought that hand down hard.
The satisfying smack of my hand meeting her ass filled the air around us.
She gasped and pushed back against me, begging for more.
I didn’t give her more.
I wasn’t a masochist.
I liked a little spanking in my sex play, but I didn’t like it more than I wanted to sink inside of her.
Pulling back slightly, I unzipped, unbuckled, and then unbuttoned myself.
The moment my jeans had some slack, I pushed them down just far enough to pull my hard cock out of them, then pumped it twice before pressing it to her entrance.
I knew she’d be wet.
She always was when we rode for hours, and the vibration of the bike paired with her being pressed up against me was ramping her up.
The moment my cock head touched her soft warmth, voices sounded in the lobby outside.
I ignored them and pressed into her, sinking myself in a few inches before pulling back out.
“ I think I’ll wait for the family bathroom,” I heard someone say.
I ignored them but thought, ‘it’s going to be a while.’
“ Oh , Dix ,” she whispered as my cock pressed forward, sinking farther and farther inside of her.
“ Yeah , baby. Take my cock like the good little girl you are,” I growled, my hands going to those hips I loved so much. “ You take me so good.”
She wiggled her butt and…
I woke up, my cock rock hard, and blinked.
When my eyes finally focused, I found Merriam staring at me with heat in her eyes.
“ Do you own a motorcycle?” she asked curiously.
My heart started to pound. “ Actually , yeah. I love riding it around, but it’s too cold yet, so it’s in storage.”
She scrubbed her face with her hands, then scooted closer so that she could whisper.
“ This is going to sound really weird,” she admitted. “ But I just had the weirdest dream.”
“ What about?” I asked, hoping she didn’t ask about my dream.
“ Motorcycles . And riding,” she said. “ I’ve never ridden on one before, but I swear, I could feel the wind in my hair.”
I reached for her curly black hair and tugged loosely on one curl before saying, “ Your hair would be wild if you let it go free on the back of my bike.”
She licked her lips, her eyes going to my hand, then back to my face.
“ Is it all vibraty?” she asked. “ Are your legs noodly when you’re done?”
I grinned at her inventive terms. “ Yeah .”
“ And , uh.” She scooted closer, not quite plastered against me, but close enough that if she breathed deeply her breasts would touch my chest. “ Will you take me on it?”
I laughed. “ Of course I will.”
She nodded, her eyes curious.
“ What did you dream about, exactly?” I wondered.
She opened her mouth and then closed it.
“ Well ,” she said. “ I guess maybe just riding on a bike.”
I frowned. “ I had a similar dream.”
Her brows rose. “ You did?”
I nodded. “ I did. But it was more than just riding a bike.”
“ Was it you in the dream?” she asked.
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
Frowning , I said, “ You know, I can’t quite remember. Why do you ask that?”
“ Because I felt like I was having this out-of-body experience. Like I was reliving something that I’ve experienced in the past, but I can tell you with a hundred percent certainty that I’ve never been on the back of a bike before. So how would I know the kinds of details that I know?”
When she put it like that…
“ I was on the bike with a girl,” I said. “ At least, I think it was me. But you’re right. I’ve never had a girl on the back of my bike before.” I grinned then. “ How would I know how it felt to have a woman’s thighs pressed against me? Or how her breasts would feel pillowed against my back? I can distinctly remember the warmth, and the way that the sweat slicked my back between her body heat and the leather vest that was covering me. Or maybe I was just projecting. The thought of you on the back of my bike does give me the warm and fuzzies.”
“ The warm and fuzzies?” She giggled.
I swept a piece of hair behind her ear and said, “ You feeling okay? Your cheeks are a little rosy.”
She licked her lips, and my eyes were drawn to them.
“ I might or might not have had a bit of a crazy dream,” she said. “ I think the heat is from that.”
“ What do you mean by ‘crazy’ dream?” I teased.
“ Crazy meaning things that I won’t talk about with you because I think it’s supposed to be inappropriate,” she admitted.
I chuckled. “ I don’t think that anything we’ve done so far is conventional.”
She frowned, causing me to lift my eyes from her lips to her eyes.
“ What ?” I asked, feeling the tension in her small body, despite not touching her at all.
She sighed. “ I’m trying to decide what my next step should be.”
The thought of her considering her next step worried me.
I wanted her to stay here.
I wanted her to stay in my life.
I wanted her .
“ Your next step should be to get through Christmas ,” I suggested. “ Then , when you’ve done that, we contact a lawyer that’ll help dig you out of the hole that your father put you in.”
She scoffed. “ I can’t afford a lawyer.”
“ Maybe not,” I agreed. “ But I can.”
“ I can’t let you—” she started, but I interrupted her.
“ I think maybe you should let me tell you a story about my father,” I spoke softly.
She opened her mouth to reply but closed it, nodding once to let me know that I could talk without interruption.
“ I’m forty-two,” I started. “ All throughout my childhood, I knew that my parents had a very unstable relationship. Mom was a wild girl who loved spending time with people. It didn’t matter who. Boy . Girl . Kids . Adults . She was a people person. And Dad was not. He hated people. He hated anything that had to do with putting himself out there.”
“ That’s tough,” she agreed.
“ One day, Dad found out that Mom was having an affair,” I shared.
Her mouth dropped open.
“ Yeah .” I nodded. “ So you can imagine how that went over with my dad. He was rightfully pissed.”
“ What happened?” she asked.
“ Dad started drinking.” I went on with the story. “ To hide his head in the sand and not think about what her affair meant for their relationship.”
“ Okay ,” she acknowledged. “ What happened?”
“ My sister, Noel , happened,” I answered. “ In her attempt to fix what she’d broken, she all but threw herself at my dad to fix it. Dad and Mom had a toxic relationship after that. Mom would try to make up for her affair. Dad would drink. Mom would sleep with him. Dad would get pissed the next morning when he realized what he’d done when he was drunk.” I shook my head. “ It was a vicious cycle, and eventually, Dad started to get really fucking pissed that she was taking advantage of him in that state. One day, he started hitting her, and it just never stopped.”
Her mouth fell open.
“ Mom got pregnant with Noel , then Ginger , and finally Christopher ,” I explained. “ Over the years, Mom would be pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or sleeping around having affairs behind my dad’s back. Then she’d come home, Dad would take his anger out on her with his fists, and the cycle would continue.”
“ That’s …messed up,” she said.
“ It was,” I confirmed. “ Until one day my mom finally saw what she was doing to her kids. One , by having multiple affairs. And two, by staying with a man that enjoyed beating the shit out of her to take his anger and frustration out in an attempt to rid himself of the grief of having a wife like my mom.”
“ Did you witness these actions?” I asked.
“ I’m two years older than Noel . I witnessed it all and understood it,” I said. “ I knew that my dad was beating my mom. I knew my mom was cheating on my dad. I knew that our life was a circus show that kept getting worse and worse until finally my mom admitted that she was fucking us up.”
“ What happened when she realized?” Merriam asked.
“ She was killed,” I replied. “ By my father. One day she was there, the next she wasn’t.”
“ What happened?” she gasped, shock evident in her voice.
“ My dad killed her. Shot her. Then himself.” I felt the usual nausea sweep through me at the reminder.
“ So you and your siblings had to experience that in some very pivotal years during your childhood.” She closed her eyes. “ I have shielded Anleigh from my dad’s treatment. She’s never seen me get hurt.”
I touched the tip of her nose, causing her to open her eyes. “ Good .”
“ But what does that have to do with you helping me pay for a lawyer?” she asked.
I grinned. “ I donate almost a quarter of my salary every year to help women escape abusive situations.”
She blinked.
“ When I was drafted, I made it my life’s mission to make sure that if a woman wanted to leave, she could,” I continued. “ And helping you would be no different than me helping those women at a shelter.”
“ Maybe you’re right, but…”
I interrupted her comment with one of my own. “ I like you, Merriam .”
She closed her mouth.
“ And I know you like me,” I continued. “ I want to see where this goes. But in order to do that, I have to help you get yourself free first. You have to stand on your own two feet, and I want to help you do that. And when you’re finally able to do that, I want you to choose to come back to me.”
Her eyes softened.
“ What are you trying to say?” she asked.
“ I want to help you every step of the way,” I exclaimed. “ I want to help you find a job you’ll love. I want to help you find an apartment. I want to help you watch over Anleigh when you start working. I want to be with you, in any capacity that you’ll let me.”
She looked down, her eyes studying the white sheets beneath us, before looking back up. “ But what’s in it for you?”
My stomach knotted.
“ You ,” I whispered. “ I get you.”
She was already shaking her head in defeat. “ I’m no prize, Jeremiah . I come with a lot of baggage. I have zero experience doing anything besides working the front counter at a candy store. I have had one, and only one, sexual encounter that resulted in a child. A child that’s scared to death of speaking above a whisper because my father yelled any time she got over a certain decibel. I have no clue what I want to do with my life. I have no money, horrible credit, and a laundry list of negatives that practically scream that I’m a bad catch. I’m not worth it, Jeremiah .”
My stomach dropped. The fact that she thought she wasn’t worth it. That she wasn’t a prize.
I shot an arm forward and pulled her into my heat, then rolled, putting her underneath my body. “ You’re everything that I’ve ever dreamed of.”
She started shaking her head. “ I’m not that…”
“ I peed the bed until I was twelve,” I persisted.
Her mouth dropped open.
“ Every time I lose a game, I get in the worst fucking mood ever.” I continued to list my faults. “ When I get sick, I turn into a baby that my family hates to be around. Even my own grandmother can’t stand me.”
She snorted. “ That’s not a bad thing. You can’t help how you act when you’re sick.”
“ No .” I shrugged. “ Maybe . Maybe not. Maybe you’ll be finding out in a couple of days because your daughter’s sick. What I’m saying is, I have so many faults. Maybe it’ll be you that wants nothing to do with me.”
She snorted.
“ I donate or give away almost three-quarters of my salary,” I said. “ If I see a homeless person on the side of the road, I give them everything that I have in my wallet.”
Her lips tipped up. “ That’s a bad thing?”
“ It is when you needed to give that money to someone who was expecting it,” I said. “ I can’t manage it, either. I seriously can’t control my spending habits. At any given time, I very well might be in the negative and not even know it until my bank calls and tells me that I am.”
She laughed. “ You’re delusional, Jeremiah . All you have to do is get an accountant that can help you. Or a financial adviser.”
“ My grandmother does it,” I admitted. “ She gives me an allowance every week.”
She giggled, which was the most beautiful thing in the world.
“ I have a college education,” I admitted. “ But only because I was extremely good at playing hockey. I would’ve flunked out, no question, had my coaches not wanted me to play at their college so badly. They talked to the teachers, and I got a diploma, but seriously, it’s in name only.” I looked deep into her eyes. “ I’m not dumb. I just have some serious ADD —attention deficit disorder. I can’t sit still. I hate just being cooped up, forced to do something I don’t want to be doing.”
She reached up and ran her finger along my bristled jaw. “ Jeremiah …”
“ I work a lot. Our season extends from October to April , and we have eighty-two games a year,” I continued. “ I’m gone. A lot. Sometimes I’m only home for a day or two, then I’m gone again. When I am home, we’re practicing. When I’m off during the off-season, we’re still doing a ton of promo for the team. I might as well not be off.” I sighed. “ There are so many things about me that say I’m a bad bet, too.”
She sighed. “ I think those are uncontrollable aspects…”
“ And yours aren’t?” I asked. “ You didn’t ask for you to be blessed with a father that’s a complete dick.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. “ Jeremiah …”
“ I like how you say my name.”
Her eyes studied my face. “ I’ll only let you help me until I can help pay my own way.”
“ Okay ,” I said reluctantly.
“ And you let me help as much as I can,” she continued.
“ You’ll stay?” I asked.
She hesitantly nodded. “ For now. Until I can afford a place of my own. But the moment I can afford a place of my own, we’ll move out. I don’t want you to have to deal with a kid and me in a single-room loft apartment.”
I hopped up, pulling her with me.
She made an adorable squeak at my suddenness.
“ Come on,” I said. “ I’ll show you the rest of the place.”
“ The rest?” she asked.
“ The rest,” I confirmed.
I opened a well-hidden door that led to the rest of the apartment and pulled her through.
She gasped when she saw the rest.
“ When we were building this, my brother Christopher and I decided to redo the apartment that split our two units. We divided it into six bedrooms. That door at the end of the hall leads into Chris’s half of the apartment. I also have an office in here.” I laughed. “ Even though I’ll never ever use the office.”
I showed her through the rooms, all of them fully furnished.
“ This one is the one I coined the kid room because this is where my nieces stay when they’re over,” I said as I threw open the door.
She walked inside, her mouth practically falling open, and said, “ This is amazing, Jeremiah . Like , truly amazing.”
“ My brother did a really outstanding job,” I agreed.
“ Don’t let him fool you.”
Merriam jumped at the sound of the male’s voice behind her.
“ And this is my brother, Chris ,” I said as I introduced him.
Chris grinned.
Though we looked alike, he was about two inches shorter and had sixty less pounds on him than I did.
He could very well pass for my twin if you squinted, though.
“ And I see that you’re definitely related,” the girl at my side said.
“ That we are,” Chris confirmed. “ Nice to meet you. I’m Chris .”
“ Merriam .” She offered him her hand.
He shook it gently just as my sister-in-law’s head poked around the corner.
“ And this is Neesha ,” I said. “ Chris’s wife.”
Neesha came farther into the room and offered her hand to Merriam .
Merriam took it and didn’t even blink at how my brother and Neesha were dressed.
My brother was in a pair of swim trunks that were so short that if he bent just right, you’d definitely see his dick and balls. ( Thank God for swim liners.)
Neesha , who was heavily pregnant, was in a bikini and nothing else. Her pregnant belly round and cumbersome.
“ I’ve heard a lot about you,” Chris said, giving me a shit-eating grin.
Merriam’s brows rose. “ What ?”
“ He talked about you non-stop when you ate wings with him after your roller derby mishap,” Neesha expounded on Chris’s cryptic comment. “ We group chat a lot. Video call a lot, too. This family is beyond connected. I can’t sneeze and pee without Chris calling to tell Jeremiah , Noel , Ginger , and Cinda about it.”
“ Well , it was at the same time. It was funny,” Chris defended himself.
“ It was embarrassing.” She rolled her eyes. “ Just be warned. No topic is too much information for them. Hope you don’t care about your privacy.”
Merriam’s eyes sparkled as she said, “ I ceased having any privacy when I had my daughter.”
“ Oh , you have a daughter?” Neesha’s brown eyes widened.
“ I hadn’t gotten to that part yet,” Chris admitted. “ We were just talking about the candy store when we heard y’all over here.”
“ We were working on the baby’s room.” Neesha patted her round belly. “ Would y’all like to get into the hot tub with us? Though , it’s actually not all that hot. More like warm bath water since they don’t recommend getting into a hot tub when you’re pregnant.”
“ Oh , I can’t.” Merriam looked sad. “ Which reminds me, you should probably go wash your hand that I shook. My daughter has a cold, and she’s running a fever.”
“ We just got over whatever it was going around,” Neesha and Chris said at the same time.
“ The nieces shared it all with us before their Christmas break,” I grumbled.
“ And I hope that Dix told you that he’s a horrible sick person.” Chris rolled his eyes.
“ Actually , he did, when he tried to convince me to stay with him,” Merriam said.
“ Let me go change and we can move into your half of the apartment.” Neesha all but ran away.
Chris and I both chuckled.
“ The fact that she still has that much energy…” Merriam shook her head. “ When I was that pregnant, I was like a beached whale.”
“ Neesha is a sprinter.” Chris shrugged. “ She’s been to two Olympics and won bronze twice. This last time, she was six weeks pregnant when she won. Her goal for this next Olympics is to get gold.”
“ She got bronze six weeks pregnant?” Merriam gasped.
“ She did,” he confirmed, puffing up his chest. “ I’m proud as fuck of her.”