Chapter 18
Layla
Friday evening, after my shift at the diner, I toe off my sneakers and marvel once again at my huge oval diamond engagement ring with a smaller stone on each side as I set my recently upgraded leather tote bag on the kitchen table—another gift with a matching smaller purse from Russell that I didn’t need but instantly loved and started using anyway. The private jeweler who met with us last night, four days after Russell proposed, tried to talk me into a larger center diamond or a band with more stones, but three is what I wanted—one for each year I’ve known Russell. It wasn’t lost on me that Russell insisted on talking price with the jeweler privately, excluding me from the conversation, knowing I would balk at any price tag.
Cora sighs heavily as she cradles Gauge in one arm while blotting at the spit-up on her oversized pink T-shirt with the other. When I glance up after taking two bottles of water from the refrigerator, I find her staring at my hand, and she sighs again.
For the first time in years, I’m getting a solid eight hours of the best sleep of my life every night now that I’m sharing a bed with Russell, but Cora still hasn’t gotten more than an hour or two uninterrupted other than when I volunteer to babysit.
I raise a brow, finishing half of my water. “What’s up?”
“If I had a rock like that and was living in a house like this, I’d burn that dress and say good riddance.” She nods to my diner uniform with pursed lips.
“I’m not going to quit working just because I’m engaged.”
Russell’s hand comes to rest on my lower back, having walked in a few minutes after me. “You could if you wanted to—quit and finish your degree.”
I lean into the kiss he places on my temple, handing him the second bottle of water. “As tempting as that is, you know the answer is no,” I say mildly sarcastically, considering it would be a dream come true if it wouldn’t lead to feeling guilty for accepting his offer.
Cora rolls her eyes while shifting Gauge to her shoulder to burp him again. “You have no idea how good you’ve got it.”
“Yes,” I say in a low, firm voice, “I do.” Where Steven’s ring was a shackle to an exhausting, miserable existence of backbreaking work , as Russell put it, Russell’s ring is a promise of a beautiful life with a man who loves me, almost obsessively so.
Russell tickles Gauge’s cheek after he moves around me. “Hey there, little bub.” He winks when he catches me smiling dreamily at him. “Think he’s in the running to be my favorite nephew.”
I laugh because Gauge is my only niece or nephew, and I love that Russell already considers him family. “Elliott never wanted children?”
“Sure, he did.” When Russell doesn’t follow that up, his eyes cast down at Gauge, I figure there’s a lot more to the story he’s not saying, but I won’t pry in front of Cora.
Max’s bootsteps boom loudly as he crosses the living room from the side door that leads to the driveway. He grabs a soda from the refrigerator and closes the door harder than necessary. “Is that what you would do if we got married?” he asks Cora tersely, popping the tab and leaning against the counter. “Quit and expect me to continue doing everything for you?”
Unease slithers down my spine, and Russell pulls me away with his arm around my waist. “You’ll make plenty enough for y’all to get by on just your income. I would know since I’ll be signing your paychecks.”
The morning after we came back to the house, Russell asked Max how long they were planning to stay in town after, apparently, having been evicted from their apartment when they fell behind on rent— not sure —then what Max was planning to do for work— don’t know . Russell announced Max would work for him at the warehouse, starting the next day. When Max wanted to argue, Russell weaponized the very thing our dad drilled into both of our heads—working hard so as not to take advantage of other people’s hard work, and Max wouldn’t want to do that by living in our house for free, now would he?
“We shouldn’t have to live on one income,” Max says, draining his soda and leaving the empty can on the counter instead of dropping it in the built-in recycling bin beneath the sink less than a foot away. He pinches his lips before saying to Cora, “You haven’t even started looking for a job.”
Another thing that’s changed in under a week, other than Max’s quick one-eighty from the charming man who showed up on my doorstep? Finding it easier to speak up, especially with Russell lending me his strength at my back. “She just had a baby. She shouldn’t have to go back to work yet.”
Max scoffs. “Gauge is almost seven weeks old. If you could have kids, you’d be back to work within a week, guaranteed.”
I suck in a breath, hurt by both the casual mention of my infertility and also the implication that Cora lacks my kind of self-sacrificing work ethic, one imposed on me by our dad.
“That’s not a good thing,” Russell responds, his temper and ire easily growing day by day with Max.
“Whatever. I’m gonna take a shower.” Max treads up the stairs, stopping at the landing to give Cora a brow raised with expectation that makes the water in my stomach threaten to come back up.
Cora’s lips wobble when she holds Gauge out toward me. “Will you watch him?”
“You don’t have to go upstairs if you don’t want to,” I say, keeping my arms down by my sides, Russell rubbing his thumb across my belly.
“She’s right,” Russell adds, and I know he’s holding his tongue, his chest puffing out against my back with the urge to say more.
Cora’s arms shake the longer she holds Gauge in the air, and she forces a smile. “Of course, I want to.”
I give in, taking my nephew, and Cora bounds up the stairs.
“I don’t like this,” Russell states.
“I don’t either,” I tell him honestly, making my way to the couch and settling back in the corner of the sectional to lay Gauge on my chest. “I love Max, but the way he treats Cora…”
“It’s not right,” Russell finishes for me, and I nod. “But I don’t know if she’s ready to hear it yet.” He drops onto the cushion beside me, kicking his feet up on the coffee table after unlacing and pulling off his boots. “You know, it’ll be real interesting to see how everyone reacts to them when we go out tomorrow night.”
“What do you mean?” I pat Gauge’s back to help him fall asleep, his eyes drifting closed while he sucks his fist. The tension in the air can’t dampen my excitement, thinking about tomorrow. After Russell’s son comes into town, we’re planning a night out at a dance hall with all our friends to celebrate our engagement.
“You know how Wyatt and Davis are.” Russell scooches in close, slides an arm under my back, and then grabs the remote to flick on the TV. He turns the volume up on some detective show when Max moans loud enough for us to hear him in the shower on the second floor.
Though my friends’ husbands know Max through work, seeing him interact with Cora if he’s not on his best behavior will be different from seeing him with the other men at the warehouse.
“The only reason I haven’t kicked your brother’s butt is because I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but they’ll have no problem doing it if he so much as raises his voice at her.”
My heart thumps with a strange mix of emotions. On one hand, I naturally want to protect my little brother at all costs. On the other, I know Max isn’t a child. He’s a grown man, and some men only listen to other men. I fear he may be one of them, so it wouldn’t matter what I say, only what the others do.
I jerk awake when Russell lifts Gauge from my chest and hands him to Cora. Her hair is damp and hanging loose, and her forced smile is even less convincing now .
“Come on, darlin’.” Russell scoops me up with one arm under my back and the other under my knees, a big grin on his handsome face. “Our turn to shower.”
* * *
Russell
“What’s that for?” Layla asks, pointing at the tall plastic step stool in the corner of the shower after I walk her straight into our bathroom, stripping off her uniform over her head while the water heats up.
“Practice.” I strip out of my dirty work clothes, tossing them over the shower door before wrapping my arms around Layla’s back and pulling her against me, spinning us beneath the spray of water as steam fogs the glass.
“You got the stool for me, Daddy?”
I groan, kissing my way down her slick body, pausing to suck each nipple before moving lower. “For both of us.” I kneel and lift her right foot onto the stool, pushing her knee out, running my hands up to palm her inner thighs so I can stare directly at her center. “Been thinking of kissing your pussy all day, darlin’.” I flick my gaze up, finding Layla’s head tipped back against the tile wall with a breathy moan before I’ve even licked her. “Watch me, darlin’.”
Layla’s eyes spring open, and only then do I lick a line between her pussy lips up to her clit. She rocks her hips against me the longer I massage circles over her bud with a firm tongue, releasing soft little whimpers while I explore her opening with one finger .
“Let me know if anything hurts.”
Layla nods fast, her fingers tangled in my hair while her other hand stays on my shoulder for balance. “I will.”
Suctioning my lips at the top over her clit, I hardly blink, despite the streaming water, as I ease my first finger inside her. My hard dick bobs in the air when I’m as deep as my finger can go, and there hasn’t been a single flicker of pain on her face. The same happens when I add my middle finger on my next slow thrust, watching her intently so that I don’t miss it when Layla shudders with pleasure, her mouth dropped open on a long moan.
“That feels good, darlin’? Not too much?”
“Shhh.” Layla presses on the back of my head, and I laugh with my face buried in her pussy. Message received— less talking, more kissing .
And because Layla holds my head firmly in place, I can kiss her, thrust my fingers in and out of her, and stroke my dick at the same time. I almost finish in my hand when Layla cums around my fingers, jerking her hips sharply, nearly knocking me backward.
“Daddy, oh god!” She tugs on my hair. “Come here.”
I surge to my feet, catching Layla around her waist, and meet her lips while I grind my shaft against her little belly. “Front or back, darlin’?”
“Front.” She wiggles on her feet until she’s steadier and wraps her arms around my neck.
I stoop to line my cockhead up to her entrance, and I work my length inside her as slowly as I did my fingers, which weren’t as wide around as my shaft.
Layla makes an impatient sound when I stop at the halfway mark, just to be sure. “Deeper,” she begs .
The brief pause is as much for me as it is for her since I’m so close to cumming. Once I have myself under control, I push deeper, then deeper, and when my cock slides home, buried to the hilt inside my little darlin’, I can’t tell if the water that runs down my face is from the shower or from tearing up. After trying a new position each night except the nights when she only wants to cuddle, I think we’ve found it—the position that will allow Layla to truly enjoy sex from start to finish.
I drop my forehead against hers, savoring the delicacy of being fully sheathed within her lovely, warm body. “I’m all the way in, darlin’.”
“Yes,” she moans. “Now make love to me, Daddy.”
“I’ll go slow,” I say thickly, sipping the water from her bottom lip, bracing one hand against the wall behind her and cupping her bottom with the other. She moans and arches into me as I roll my hips, moving in and out of her with long, measured strokes, never thrusting too hard.
“Faster, please!”
“Are you sure—”
Layla drops her arms to grip my butt. “Yes,” she says, yanking me forward on my next thrust.
That’s all the encouragement I need to up my pace, our thighs clapping together.
“Oh god! I’ve never—it’s never felt this good!” Layla cries out, her hand now pressing against my lower back since I’ve found a rhythm she likes—one I will not deviate from unless she tells me to.
“You’re close again, aren’t you?”
“Mmhmm,” she moans, panting for breath.
“Thank god.” With my hand on her bottom, I guide her back and forth each time I fill her. “I’m gonna cum, darlin’. Gonna cum so deep inside you, your body will have to take it all.”
“Yes, yes, yes. I want it.”
“Then you have to cum for me first. Play with your clit.”
Layla shoves her hand between us, her little fingers moving fast and hard, a sob catching in her throat as her pussy clamps down around my shaft.
“That’s it. You’re so close. Let go and cum for Daddy.”
Layla’s back bows, and the minute her inner muscles squeeze my cock with her orgasm, I detonate, grinding against her to go deeper, if possible, when I cum.
“We did it, darlin’,” I say, breathing hard near her ear while my body vibrates with aftershocks of pleasure.
She turns to kiss me. “Think we can actually shower like this?”
“What? With me buried inside you?”
She shrugs, tipping her head back with a sated smile on her gorgeous face. “It’s worth a try.”
And it is worth trying, even when I slip and land on my back after stretching for the shampoo bottle, Layla wrenching my cock to the side when she falls on top of me.
“Stop laughing. My poor dick,” I groan with my own chuckle, Layla’s pretty giggles making my dick thicken again at the unnatural angle.
She kisses the tip of my nose and reaches for my shampoo, tugging my dick in the opposite direction but resituating herself in a more comfortable position for the both of us. She washes my hair, then hers, repeating the process with the conditioner. I don’t even mind it all that much when she gets soap in my eyes, stinging the crud out of them when she washes my face because I’m living the dream I thought would only ever remain a dream.
* * *
I whip open the door and yank Paul into my arms as if I haven’t seen him in years. It’s always like this—being overcome with relief and sheer joy to have my boy within sight.
“Glad to be home, too,” Paul says with a laugh, pounding my back.
I spend a good two minutes just hugging him before I get my emotions under control and finally let him go. “Come in, come in. We’re letting all the good A/C out.”
Paul rolls a carry-on suitcase into the house, stopping at the mouth of the living room when Max and Cora with Gauge follow Layla downstairs. She’s wearing a T-shirt that barely reaches her belly button and light-wash blue jeans. I love seeing her wear more than just her work uniforms, casual and comfortable in our home.
I curl her under my arm with a smile as big as the state of Texas. “Son, I’d like you to meet my fiancée, Layla.”
Paul chuckles. “Yeah, Dad, we’ve met about a hundred times before.” He bends down for a quick hug, swallowing her frame.
“I know.” I laugh, having taken Paul to the diner whenever he’s in town on his breaks from school. “I just wanted to say it.”
Layla tilts her head to the side when our families make introductions to each other, her nose wrinkling when Max drops his arm over Cora’s shoulder in a manner more territorial than prideful. Layla’s features smooth out, though, when Paul dips and tickles Gauge under his chin, babbling like a baby to get his attention, then asks Cora if he can hold him.
I poke Paul in his side when his face lights up and tease him when I say, “You’re too young to have baby fever this bad. ”
Paul laughs between cooing at Gauge and wagging his brows. “No, I’m not.”
With Paul in town for a week and Layla not as spooked by the dark with me by her side, we’ve moved back downstairs into our bedroom. I carry Paul’s suitcase to the second floor, dropping it on his bed.
Rubbing my hands together, I tell Paul, “I’ll let you get settled in. Then I was thinking we could fire up the grill and eat out on the patio with the weather this nice. Maybe jump in the pool if you remembered to bring your swimsuit.”
Paul nods, stretching his arms high above his head, his university’s mascot T-shirt riding up his front. “Think we could fit a workout in there somewhere?”
Having easily gained close to ten pounds since I haven’t spent nearly as much time at work or in the gym, what with everything going on, I nod. “You want to do that before we eat?”
“Sounds good.”
I clap my hands once. “Right. Let me know when you’re ready.” I turn to leave but can’t help myself when I swing back around and yank him into my arms for another rib-crushing hug. “So glad you’re here.”
* * *
Paul and I have just finished planning our workout, writing it out on the whiteboard hanging on the back wall of my gym, when Max strides through the open middle garage door.
“You joining us?” Paul asks with an amused expression, wrapping his thick wrists.
“That was the plan,” Max says, crossing his arms and glancing at the PRs we have listed on the right side of the board.
“Think you can hang?” I ask Max while Paul and I smirk at each other. This is gonna be good .
“Sure can, old man.” Max pulls his shirt off, leaving him in his athletic shorts and running shoes, flexing his biceps and abs as he begins his warm-up exercises.
“I meant hang with Paul.” I tap the cap of my dry-erase marker beside Paul’s personal record for the number of pull-ups he can do in one set—the only PR so far he’s been able to beat me at. The rest of Paul’s PRs have been catching up to mine, and it won’t be too long before he surpasses me if he keeps up with his workouts better than I have. I’ll be both proud and miffed the day that happens.
Max looks Paul up and down, stupidly arrogant. “Bet on it.”
“I’ll take that bet,” I say with a chuckle when Paul sheds his shirt and tosses it on one of the weight benches in front of the rack of dumbbells.
Despite having a similar build to mine, Paul is much leaner, appearing ganglier in his clothes than he really is. He exaggerates each stretch to flex his muscles, showing off, and I smirk again when Max works his jaw, trying to hold onto his arrogance as if my son isn’t about to whoop his butt.
Easy money , as Freddy would say.
* * *
“You’re not giving up that easily, are you?” Paul prods at Max, who hangs limply between us from the pull-up bars I have screwed to the wall.
“Eleven,” I count out loud when my chin clears the bar, rubbing salt into Max’s wound. “Twelve.”
“Thirteen,” Paul counts next, easily lifting himself without breaking a sweat. “Come on, Max. Fourteen. Don’t give up. Fifteen. We’re just getting started. Sixteen.”
“I’m not giving up,” Max says with a dry throat. “It’s just the heat getting to me.”
It’s a fair point, given that he’s already dry-heaved a few times while trying to keep up with Paul and me for the ten minutes we jumped rope. Not that I’ll tell him that.
Max eventually drops down when he fails his next pull-up, guzzling water from the filtered water cooler while Paul and I finish our set. He beats me by three reps.
It’s downright mean when Paul laughs after we move onto bench presses and Max’s limp noodle limbs can’t lift our warm-up weight higher than an inch off the rack. “How are you supposed to lift Cora and show that woman a good time if you can’t even lift the bar?”
Max goes ramrod straight, barely avoiding banging his head on the bar and giving himself a concussion. “The fuck did you say?”
I shoot Paul a look that he easily reads, and he holds his hands up. “You’re right, you’re right. I shouldn’t have spoken so crudely about her. I’ll apologize to her when we’re done.”
“You’re not saying shit to her,” Max says, standing up. “I’ve seen the way you look at her like you want a piece. She’s mine ‘til I say so, fuckface.”
Throwing his brows up, all humor flung out the window, Paul says, “You’re seeing shit that doesn’t exist. She’s a mighty fine-looking woman, but she’s not my type, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. Not from me, at least.”
If anything, that pisses Max off further. “You calling her ugly?”
“Get your ears checked, asshole. The only one here who’s ugly is you, you weak little bitch, and I hope for her sake she finds someone better than you.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Max spits, stepping forward with his hands fisted at his sides.
“Fucking make me,” Paul answers, straightening his spine to give him another inch taller than Max, rage mottling his already flushed skin from our workout.
“Ah, what the fuck, Paul?” Mentally scratching my head, wondering when my son developed my temper, I push in between them since this has taken a nasty turn, even if he is right about Cora doing better than Max. It doesn’t matter that Paul started it and could take Max down if it came to blows—I won’t give either of them the opportunity. “Either you boys drop this pissing match and finish your workouts, or you get the hell out of my gym. I’m not ruining this day for my darlin’, and I won’t let you two ruin it, either.”
The boys eye each other for another solid minute, but when I cut my son a look to take the high road, he clenches his jaw and eventually backs away…but not before I see the promise of violence in his eyes.