KILLIAN
“Red lips are telling white lies. Won’t let you break my heart a thousand more times. Red lips are telling white lies…”
I smile at my wife as she owns the stage next to Noah, finishing the multiplatinum song that has become her biggest hit. She likes to call it our song, but then again, she also likes to tell me they’re all our songs.
What can I say—I’m inspiring.
Our baby girl smacks my face between her pudgy hands and babbles with wide eyes, as enamored with the lights and the crowd as she is with the pink and white headphones protecting her hearing.
This is no longer our norm.
We were married a year before Lilah and Noah went back out and finished the Captivating tour. They even added a few stops. But this time it was on their terms and their timeline. A year later Noah was kicking off his first solo tour and Lilah was peeing on a stick. Noah got word mid concert when Daisy was born and announced it to the whole world from a stage in Germany. Not exactly what we had planned, but he was excited, so we weren’t exactly surprised. Tonight is the final stop on that tour and since the concert is in Philly, Lilah was thrilled he asked her to take the stage again with him.
The final notes of the song fade out and my beautiful wife runs off stage and into my arms, stealing a kiss from Daisy first then taking her spot against my chest, and as it always does when I have both my girls in my arms, the world rights itself again. “You sounded incredible, princess.”
Lilah runs her fingers along the scruff of my jaw, and she smiles so softly it’s as if we’re the only two people in the room instead of two in a stadium full of over seventy-five thousand people. “Thanks, champ. Now how about you take me home and let me work off some of this excited energy?”
She cocks a single eyebrow as her body vibrates with excitement and I can’t hold back my smile.
I know where this is going and it’s as hot today as it was the very first time.
“You think we can get her to sleep?” I drop a kiss on Daisy’s soft blonde curls. She seems to be regressing a little as her first tooth fights to break through.
“I mean...” She drags her eyes from our girl in her pink ruffled-butt covered leggings and red ruffle-y socks with pink hearts all over them back up to me. “It’s worth a shot.”
“Oh, baby. It’s always worth it,” I tease.
“Come on, princess. Tap,” I laugh as Lilah’s blonde curls stick to her forehead.
“Never,” she giggles as I straddle her on the mats we had installed in the basement gym years ago.
“You know you’re not getting out of this.” I drop my arms to the mat on either side of her head. “Admit defeat,” I tell her, knowing she never will. It’s not in her blood. My girl is the true fighter.
As soon as the doctor gave the okay after the gun shot, Lilah started training again. Only now, she doesn’t train to maintain her strength for tours. Now, she trains so she never has to feel helpless again. She’s fucking incredible and I’m still in awe every single day that she’s mine.
I’ve pinned my wife a million times over the last few years, but she’s never actually tapped. Guess that makes me a sucker, but the reward is worth it. “Come on, Lilah. Tap.”
She licks her pouty pink lips and wiggles beneath me, knowing exactly what she’s doing. “What if I like you above me?”
Yeah, she does.
I flip us over in a move so quick she giggles again then realizes she’s now in mount position and I’m the one lying prone between her thighs. “I’d say I like you above me more.”
The baby monitor crackles a moment before Daisy’s cries echo through and Lilah drops her head in defeat against my chest while we both wait to see if Daisy’s cries stop. She’s not the worst sleeper in the world for 9 months old, but it’s like she had impeccable timing and some kind of psychic radar for waking up as soon as I’m about to do filthy things to her mother.
I press my lips against Lilah’s hair, still damp from her shower. “I’ll get her.”
“No. I’ve got her,” she argues as I pick her up and prop her on her feet, admiring the way those booty shorts cling to every curve and wondering exactly how quickly I can get Daisy back to sleep.
“Not tonight, princess.” I squeeze her ass. “I pinned you down here and now I plan on pinning you in our bedroom.” I kiss the hollow of her throat, loving the way she moans. “Meet you in our room.”
Her sweet grumble of protest as I walk away goes right to my cock.
“Wow, that was cheesy, St. James.”
“You loved it, and you know it,” I call over my shoulder and smile as I look back and see her lust-filled eyes.
“I didn’t say I didn’t love it. Just that it was cheesy.”
Fuck, I love my wife.
By the time I walk into Daisy’s room, she’s wide awake and worked herself into the kind of frenzy I know isn’t going to fade fast.
Damn…
Big crocodile tears cling to her long blonde lashes and her little lips purse as she tries to hold back another cry.
“Shh, baby girl. Daddy’s got you.” I change her diaper then cradle her to my bare chest and take my spot on the ridiculously expensive glider rocker that Lilah insisted we needed. She was right, of course. It’s the most comfortable chair in the whole damn house, but for the price, it should seriously massage my balls while I’m sitting in it.
I may have gotten a baby bottle thrown at my head the first time I said that.
Good thing I’ve got good reflexes.
Daisy’s fingers play with the hair on my chest as I sing her one of her mother’s songs on repeat until I feel her breathing even out. It’s nearly an hour later before I finally get her back in her crib and quietly pad into our bedroom to find Lilah asleep under the covers, hugging my pillow and looking like an angel.
My angel.
I crawl in bed next to her, pull her body against mine and breathe deep as Lilah wraps herself around me like she always does.
This is it.
This, right here.
This is my why.
My wife.
My daughter.
My family.
My world.
I’ve never fought harder for anything in my life, and I’ll never stop fighting for them.