CHAPTER 10
Dominic
The scream sent me sprinting into the woods, Ollie clutched to my chest, laughing at the top of his lungs over the way he was being jiggled all over the place.
Leon was at my back, swearing up a storm over a piece of Lego he’d stomped on.
I didn’t stop to worry about him, though.
That scream was bouncing around in my brain.
After less than two hours in Sutton’s presence I could already identify it was her scream.
I didn’t know how, but I knew it was her screaming in my woods.
I trusted that whatever had her in the woods by our house and whatever had made her scream wasn’t dangerous enough to seriously hurt her.
Theo had the property so wired with cameras and motion sensors that he would’ve known if a fucking wasp had flown a little too close.
I had no doubt he was already with Sutton.
He might’ve been the reason she screamed, even. He could be a sneaky fucker.
The forest floor was painful beneath my bare feet but I couldn’t slow down or lighten my steps, not even when I heard her voice and it was clear she was fine. I broke into a clearing and saw Theo and Charlie grinning at a red-faced Sutton.
Her head snapped around to me and Leon and somehow her face grew darker. She covered her face in her hands and groaned.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to cause a scene!”
Leon growled and continued on to her side while I stayed back a bit, Ollie’s weight in my arms suddenly heavier than it’d ever been.
We didn’t let the women we fucked at the club meet the kids.
The kids were sacred and yet…I wanted to see Sutton interact with them and then I wanted to send them away and fuck her senseless.
She was going to be way more than a woman from the club. I just had to convince her of that.
Uncovering her face, Sutton ignored Leon hovering over her and looked at Charlie. The little girl was already dirty somehow.
“If you grow up and become a movie director, I’ll do all your scream work. The only thing I ask in return is that you don’t make too much fun of me today.”
Charlie’s face went blank for a second and then she looked up at Theo.
“I could do that?”
Ollie began wriggling so much in my arms that I had to put him down before I dropped him. I palmed the top of his head to keep him in place and it was like watching a cartoon character the way his little feet tried and tried to get traction.
Sutton seemed to forget we existed as she straightened her skirt and knelt down in the dirt to focus on Charlie.
“Of course you can do that. You can do almost anything you want.”
“Almost anything?”
Sutton’s smile was as bright at the sun breaking through the trees.
“Well, I don’t think you should grow up to be a crash test dummy. Or a dog food taste tester. But if you’re interested in those things…”
Charlie’s face twisted as she fought a smile. It was such a strange thing to see her smile, she was usually as stoic as Theo, that we all just kind of stared at her.
“I don’t think so. I think I’ll make scary movies and you can scream for them. You shouldn’t work for free, though, lady. You need money to live.”
Sutton straightened and hummed.
“I think you’re right. Fine. We’ll work out some sort of payment plan. Should we seal it with a gentleman’s handshake?”
Charlie frowned.
“What’s that?”
“Well, gentlemen never break their word. Or their handshake.” Sutton held out her hand, fighting a smile. “We’ll be gentlemen this morning, if that’s okay with you.”
I felt shocked stupid when Charlie wiped her face to hide a grin and then stuck her other hand out. Sutton had gotten further with the girl than Leon or I had in seconds and we’d been at it for a year.
My hold on Ollie loosened and he took off towards Sutton.
She’d just shaken Charlie’s hand when Ollie showed up beside her, tugging on her skirt.
Whatever desires I had for Sutton somehow multiplied when she looked at Ollie and somehow softened even more.
She practically had hearts in her eyes as she grinned at him and then extended her hand to him.
“Well, hello there. I’m Sutton. What’s your name, buddy?”
“That’s Ollie. He’s four.” Charlie stepped closer to Sutton. “He’s alright. He tries to be bossy but he’s learning.”
Sutton hid a grin at that and glanced up at me quickly, probably looking to see if I’d taken offense to Charlie’s characterization of my son. Her eyes widened slightly when she finally looked at me and realized I was shirtless.
“H-he’s learning?”
Ollie was done being quiet.
“I’m not learning. You’re learning, Charlie.”
Sutton rested a hand on both of their shoulders and looked so much like Snow fucking White that I had to reach up and rub my eyes. Never in my life had I had some kind of Disney Princess kink but that was changing in real time as I watched her.
“We’re all learning. I learned something new just this morning. Want to know what it was?”
Ollie continued tugging at her skirt, even when she stood up. “Yeah!”
Sutton’s nose crinkled when she smiled even wider at the kids.
“I learned that Charlie can sneak up on someone in the forest like a ninja. Did you know that about her, Ollie?”
I looked up at Theo and found him watching me.
Of course. The asshole missed nothing. He raised an eyebrow and his lip twitched like he wanted to laugh at me.
It was true that I was standing there, staring like a fool, but that didn’t mean he got to try to infiltrate my brain the way he was prone to do.
Leon’s voice was sharp in the otherwise peaceful forest.
“Ollie. Get out of Sutton’s skirt.”
Sure enough, Ollie was doing his best to climb under Sutton’s long skirt and she was bright red again as she stepped back and tried to keep herself decent.
Charlie grabbed at Ollie’s legs, doing her best to yank him away but he had a grip on Sutton’s ankle.
Sutton’s arms windmilled for a second and then she went down before Theo could catch her.
Charlie was fast in doling out her form of justice. She pulled back her little fist and punched Ollie in the arm hard enough to make him instantly burst into tears.
“You hurt Sutton! Why did you do that, Ollie?”
I growled and stomped over to scoop Ollie up.
Shit with Charlie had never been easy and when she got violent it was fucking impossible to calm her down.
She had less outbursts the longer she was with us but it was always the same.
It was best to remove Ollie or Lee so they didn’t face more of her wrath before Theo could calm her down.
I felt a wave of shame over the instant showing of our lack of control in our own home. For men who insisted on having complete control in most areas of our life, it was hard to admit that our kids were the exception.
Instead of running and judging us, Sutton sat forward and pulled Ollie into her lap before gently taking Charlie’s hand. She held Ollie and comforted him while locking eyes with Charlie.
“I’m okay. I appreciate you wanting to stick up for me, Charlie. I do. I bet if you really think about it, though, you don’t want to actually hurt Ollie, do you?”
We all held our breath as Charlie balled her hand into a fist and released it over and over. When she spoke it sounded like she was talking around a mouth full of nails.
“No.”
Sutton smiled gently at the little girl.
“I didn’t think so. You did, though, didn’t you? How do you feel about that?”
More teeth grinding from Charlie before she ducked her head.
“Not good.”
“That stinks, doesn’t it? Do you have that heavy feeling in your tummy?
” Sutton continued to stroke Ollie’s head but he’d already stopped crying.
He was staring up at Sutton the same way we all were.
“Yeah? I know that feeling. I get it, too. Feels like it’ll never go away if you don’t hit someone or something?
At least that’s how I always felt when I was little.
It was awful to feel like that, like there was a wild raccoon inside me and it was spittin’ mad. ”
Charlie and Ollie both giggled at that image. Charlie’s shoulders even relaxed.
“A raccoon?”
Sutton put Ollie on his feet and rolled to her knees so she was closer to eye level with both kids. She took Ollie’s hand, too, and lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Yeah. An angry raccoon with no trash cans to play in. You want to know how I learned to scare that raccoon off? I went out in the woods by my house, woods just like these, and I screamed as loud as I could. I screamed so loud it scared that raccoon so bad that it peed its pants and ran off embarrassed.”
I’d once tried to comfort Charlie and she’d told me to fuck myself, so I was in awe as I watched the three of them giggling.
“Okay. On the count of three let’s scream so loud that Charlie’s angry raccoon gets so scared it pees its pants and even lets out a little toot as it scrambles out of here. Deal?”
Ollie cackled, his tears forgotten. “Deal!”
If I expected Sutton to half ass her scream, I was proven wrong when she counted to three and then joined the kids in screaming her head off. I flinched at the sound of them screaming and took a step back but then it was over and the three of them were giggling together like old friends.
Sutton turned those giant eyes on Charlie and I felt bad for the kid because as a grown man I felt the weight of those eyes like an anvil to the chest.
“Want to know my least favorite part of having an angry raccoon inside me? That little turd can’t and won’t apologize. So I have to. Since your raccoon can’t apologize to Ollie, Charlie, that leaves you to do it, doesn’t it?”
Charlie twisted her jaw back and forth for a few seconds and then looked at Ollie.
“Sorry.”
Ollie threw himself at her and hugged her tight.
“It’s okay, Charlie!”