22. Lincoln
We gotinto Phoenix around noon, having skipped the arcade because Grace was still warm and Lillian didn’t want her around other kids. For her own safety and theirs. It was something I would have never even thought about.
So as soon as Lillian got in and took Grace back to the bathroom, I pulled my phone out and ordered a few books. One about being a new dad, one on all I need to know about toddlers, and a third about raising girls.
It was something I did when I first asked Becca to move in with me when she turned eighteen. I wanted to know as much about bipolar disorder as I could and how best to support her while she is with me—however long that takes.
I wonder if Lillian would be open to reading that material.
Not that I’m asking her to permanently move in with me already. Even though she did finally admit she loved me still—or again—I’m not sure she’s ready for that kind of commitment just yet. As I think it, though, I know she would read everything she could if I told her I already had. The worry she already showed this week for Becca when we talked each night only reaffirms it.
Footsteps coming from the hall have me turning to see Lillian walk around the corner without Grace. I give her a questioning look, and she shrugs with a loving eye roll.
“She doesn’t want to hang out with us. For some reason she loves her bedroom.” There is a teasing tone to her words, and pride fills my chest at being able to make them both happy. I picked out everything in that room myself, and Grace loves it.
That feels pretty fucking great.
Lillian walks over to where I’m standing by the kitchen island and hops up on it inches from me. The movement pulls her shorts up higher, and I can’t help but reach out and grab her thighs. Everything about this woman is so goddamn sexy. Just as I glide my hands up the outside of her smooth skin, she opens her legs for me, and I step in between them.
Big blue eyes stare up at me with no small amount of love in them. Just to tease her again, but mostly because I’m greedy, I whisper, “Say it again.”
Her eyes spark with understanding, but being the brat that she is, teases me right back. My perfect match. “Say what?”
“You know what,” I challenge. Maybe I can persuade her…
I bring one hand up slowly until my thumb is hovering right over her clit. She tilts her hips up, giving me easier access, but doesn’t say anything. No three little words. I’m not being convincing enough. With the lightest touch, I graze over her clit, and her mouth pops open on a little breathy sigh.
As I pull back, she pouts at me. My only response is the raising of one brow. Waiting.
“Seriously?” she huffs, but I don’t say anything. “You think you can outlast me?”
Oh, baby…
With the gauntlet thrown down, I brush against her again, with a little more pressure this time, making sure she can feel it through the thin material of her athletic shorts.
She bites her bottom lip to hold in any other noise. Her eyes dart to the hallway. With the way noise echoes in the main rooms and hallways of this place, we’ll be able to hear Grace if she leaves her room. But just in case, I angle my body so I’m blocking the view of the hallway.
Then, upping my torture, I slide her shorts to the side and circle her core with my middle finger.
“Already worked up, Frasier?” I challenge as my finger slides into her soaked pussy with ease. She shakes her head, staying silent. “No?” I add my ring finger to the mix at the same time as I brush my thumb against her clit.
Her bottom lip slips free from the hold her teeth have on it, and I hear the smallest exhale. I work them in and out until I feel her start to tighten around my fingers, and then I pause. I keep my fingers inside her until I feel her relax and start again.
“You’re the devil,” she breathes.
“Don’t worry, I’ll give you what you need,” I promise in a low voice. Her eyes light up, but I’m not done. “Just as soon as you give me what I need.” The scowl returns.
I smirk at the look, but it drops off my face when her scowl turns to a mischievous grin. In a second, she’s got her small hand dipped into my sweats and wrapped around my aching cock.
“Two can play at this game,” she utters in a sweet, inconspicuous tone. The challenge roars in me, and I start pumping my fingers into her hard and fast again. Her eyes roll back in her head for a second, a soft moan slipping free, before she remembers herself and starts pumping me at the same pace.
The minx uses my own precum as lube, and soon, I’m thrusting up, meeting her for each stroke as we race to see who can make the other come first.
When I feel my balls start to draw up, I circle her clit with my thumb, and her hand stutters its relentless rhythm. My fingers slow as she squeezes me harder and harder until she shatters around me, her grip on me tightening as she does. It is just this side of painful, and I curl my fingers around the edge of the counter with my free hand as I shoot cum into her hand.
Our pants fill the kitchen while both our bodies come down from the high. Until Lillian pulls her hand out, looks at the cum coating it, looks at me, and then licks me off her without breaking eye contact.
My dick twitches impossibly in my pants, gearing up for a second round. Lillian’s eye go right to it, delight lighting them up as she hops off the counter. With one hand, she starts to stroke me in soft, easy motions. Flaccid and tired and satisfied, it shouldn’t be this easy for her. But with each motion, my cock grows under her touch.
Then she uses her other hand to drag my head down by the back of my neck, sucking and licking her way up my throat to my ear. When she bites gently on my ear, I moan, and she whispers, “I love you, Lincoln.”
Blood rushes south so fucking fast I get dizzy. I’ve got Lil turned around and bent over the island so fast she lets out a tiny shriek.
With Grace in the other room, I throw my right hand over her mouth, quieting her, and use my left hand to slip her shorts down, then my own sweats, and I thrust into her tight pussy, gritting my own teeth together to stop myself from grunting out in pleasure.
My hand vibrates as I block each of her moans and whimpers while pumping my cock in and out of her, owning her. Body and soul. Because she loves me. She’s mine.
I see her legs start to shake, and she’s trying to keep herself upright, but I can’t focus on anything except the feeling of her cunt squeezing the life out of me. It doesn’t take long before I’m bent over her back, breathing heavy against her T-shirt as jets of cum shoot into her.
Not wanting to push my luck any more, I pull out and get a sick sense of satisfaction at my cum dripping down her thighs as I do. I pull my shorts up and wet a washcloth from the drawer beside the sink. I want to clean her myself, but then the pitter patter of tiny feet sounds from the hallway, and Lillian ducks behind the island, shielding herself.
I run to the end of the hallway to intercept Grace. As she rounds the corner, I scoop her under her armpits and swing her around so she’s facing away from the kitchen. I tuck her head into my shoulder and rock her back and forth as I watch Lillian finish up, fix her shorts, and look around the kitchen frantically before just tossing the washcloth in the sink.
She glares at me when she looks up to see a smirk on my face. Only when she walks over to us and I refocus my attention onto Grace, do I realize she’s burning up.
“Do you feel hot, munchkin?” She nods and turns to her mom, which gives me a good look at her pink, runny nose.
“I’ll get her some more medicine,” Lillian says with a worried look. Just as she goes to walk away, the doorbell rings. With Grace still in my arms, I head over to answer it, confused, because the doorman in the lobby typically rings up if I have a visitor. Nobody has access to the top floor except…
Shit.
I look at Lillian, but she’s focused on pouring Grace’s meds, so there isn’t any time to warn her as a knock rings out this time.
I sigh but swing open the door to see my dad standing in the hallway, looking for all the world like he’d love to lay me out.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he growls out. It takes him all of two and a half seconds to register Grace, and the dramatic fuck jerks back like he’s been slapped. “What’s that?”
“I think you mean who is this. And this is my daughter.” I don’t know why I introduce her like that. Maybe because I know deep in my bones that if I don’t make a strong claim to her right here, right now in front of my dad, he’ll find a way to ruin it. By trying to run them off again or tearing them both down to prove a point. Besides, when the word comes out, it feels unbelievably right.
The look on his face makes me almost want to laugh. It’s half shocked, half disgusted, and one hundred percent pissed off. Probably because I was able to surprise him when he usually has a good grip on my life and who is in it.
“Your daughter?” he blusters. “Which bitch did you knock up? I thought I raised you better than to let yourself get trapped. She better know she’s not getting a penny.”
There are so many things wrong with what he said, but I cover one of Grace’s ears and push the other in my chest to block the noise as I hiss, “Watch your mouth. She’s four, for God’s sake.”
All he does is roll his eyes and try to push in the door. “We need to talk,” he says.
But I kick my leg out and brace it against the door frame, blocking his way in. “No. I’ve got company, and you aren’t welcome.” I’ve never been so disrespectful or so bold with him, but I’m feeling braver and braver each day closer to Becca’s birthday.
His face starts an ugly shade of puce, and I brace myself for the hate-spilled word vomit coming my way, but then I feel a small hand gently placed on my back. “Is everything okay?” Lillian asks me softly, not even bothering to acknowledge my dad, which I know is driving him mad.
I love everything about this woman. “Everything’s fine. Will you grab her for a second?” I ask and hand Grace over to her mom. Lillian gives me one last searching look to make sure I’m okay.
I nod.
Finally, she turns to my dad and gives him an unimpressed once-over before walking back to the kitchen. I stare at my two girls long enough to see Lillian coax some medicine into Grace before turning back to my dad.
Ahhh. I raise a brow at him and wait. It’s clear by his expression that he’s put two and two together and recognizes Lillian from years ago. “So she shows up after four years with a bastard child and you forget all your common sense?”
“Careful,” I warn him. He can say any awful thing he wants to about me. But not about Grace. Not about Lillian.
He laughs. “I think it”s you who needs to be careful, boy. Because this,” he lifts an irreverent hand and gestures behind me, “playing house—it’s going to get old. You’re going to realize what a drain kids are. Financially, emotionally. You’re going to miss your old life. Not being single, no. Because you can still fuck whoever you want, I suppose. But you’ll miss the freedom. Everything becomes about them. If you take two seconds to open your eyes, you’ll see that.” He looks me up and down with an infuriating smirk. “Then again, maybe you like playing house. You always did have a soft spot for pussy. Pathetic, really.”
I wait for a second. “Oh, you’re done? Good. Well, as fun as this has been, I’ve got to get back to my bastard child and ball and chain.” I go to shut the door in his face and then stop. For some reason, I have this itch to scratch; this need to get something off my chest after all these years. “My whole life you’ve made me feel like a failure, like less of a man, for loving my sister and treating women with respect. I won’t have your toxicity around my family. You’re no longer welcome here. Not in my life, or theirs, or Becca’s. So stay away. For all I care, you can go to hell.” I shut the door before I can get burned by the steam coming out of his ears.
I turn around to find Lillian alone, Grace nowhere to be found, and leaning against the kitchen island. Her face is blank, completely unreadable. Blood starts to thrum in my ears, nerves assault me, and I adopt a loose posture, hands by my side so I don’t seem as fucking on edge as I feel.
This is the first time she’s seen who my father is. Sure, she likely has an idea because I’ve told her they’re the reason I ended things four years ago. But hearing about it and seeing it firsthand are two totally different things.
I’m stuck between being completely mortified—that is the man who raised me—and nervous that she’s going to see me for the baggage I really am and leave for good this time.
We stand there staring at each other for what feels like an eternity before I break. “Say something. Please?”
Still with that unreadable, nerve-wracking face. She walks up to me slowly before stopping a healthy distance away. Right out of arm”s reach.
Fuck.
I try to prepare myself for anything. For the accusations and hate. She looks me square on, with those big blue eyes that have a way of tying my tongue and paralyzing me, and asks in a whispered voice, “Your family?”
My heart rate skyrockets at the vulnerability of this moment. The truth in the words. “My family. You okay with that?”
Please be okay with that.
Twenty more seconds of complete silence as she stares at me with the insufferably unreadable face before I spot the tiniest tilt of her lips. “Yeah. I’m okay with that.”