31. Who’s The Real Mr. Incredible? #3
“Thank you,” I whisper, and when my voice breaks, these four amazing women throw themselves at me, wrapping me in a hug that fills me all the way up.
And all four of us freeze at Carter’s shrill shriek from inside.
“ Ollie
! Come quick! It’s an emergency!”
We race inside, sagging with relief when we see the boys standing in the kitchen, piles of Fruit Roll-Up wrappers in front of them, half-eaten snacks clenched in their hands.
Carter holds his rainbow snack up, eyes alight with excitement. “It does tongue tattoos!”
“Jennie!” Garrett shouts excitedly, running over to her. He sticks his tongue out. “Wook at mine!”
Carter rushes over to Olivia, the whole Fruit Roll-Up hanging off his tongue. “Wook! Are you weady? Watch!” He pulls it off, proudly displaying the blue Yoda left behind. “It’s woda!”
My gaze slides to Adam, and pink blotches his sharp cheekbones as he smiles shyly at me. Slowly, he sticks his tongue out, showing me the unicorn tattooed there, and it’s so fucked up that the only thought in my head right now is how badly I want to take him into a bathroom and mount him.
* * *
“I want to ask you if you had fun, but you won’t stop smiling and you keep dancing down the street, so I think I know the answer.”
I spin around in the cool night air, then dance my way back to Adam, gripping his bicep as he tows a sleeping Connor and Bear along in the wagon. “I had the best time.”
“They didn’t scare you off?”
“Not even a bit.”
“Are you sure it’s not the alcohol talking?”
I giggle, inhaling the fresh, crisp air.
“Don’t you love that smell? God, it makes me so happy, the smell of fresh air.
Did you have a clothesline growing up? We did.
In the spring and summer, my mom always put my bedsheets outside to dry, and climbing into them at night was the best feeling in the world. ”
Adam pulls out his phone, tapping away at the screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a note to install a clothesline.”
“Why?”
“So you’ll be this happy every night when you crawl into our bed. Happy wife, happy life, and all that.”
I giggle-snort, and I’m so tipsy, I don’t even care. “You really think you’re gonna marry me one day?”
“Sure as shit do.”
“What if I say no?”
“You won’t.”
“Cocky,” I murmur as he opens his garage, picks Connor up out of the wagon, ushers Bear and me inside.
“No. Just sure about you and me.”
Beyond all the alcohol running rampant in my system, it’s a funny, wonderful thing to hear those words, to know someone is so certain about your place in their future, and the entire walk up the stairs, with him looking at me, I can’t stop the heat from rising to my cheeks.
“You’ll have to sleep here tonight,” he says, showing me to one of his spare rooms. “I took the bed out of Connor’s room.”
“Connor’s room?”
“Yeah.” He opens the door to the room where the playpen is always set up, and my heartbeat trips when I step inside.
The once taupe walls are now a misty gray, with white clouds and black birds painted above, snow-capped blue mountains and midnight evergreens below.
A dresser sits on one wall, a gorgeous bookshelf filled beside it, and on the other side of the room is a wood-framed bed, shaped like a house, with gauzy white material draped over its roof.
Hundreds of glow-in-the-dark stars dance on the ceiling above us, just like my heart dances in my chest.
“It’s a floor bed,” Adam says. “The mattress sits on the floor, so Connor won’t hurt himself. He was scared of the playpen, so I thought he might like this.”
“When did you do this?”
“This week. Do you like it?”
My eyes burn, because believe it or not, alcohol makes me a hundred times more emotional, but goddammit, I’m determined not to cry tonight. “You did this for him?”
“For you both, Rosie. I want you to feel like you have a place when you’re here. Like you’re…”
“Home.”
“Yeah. Like you’re home.”
Connor stirs in his arms, rubbing his sleepy eyes with his fists. “Dada,” he whispers, smiling up at Adam. He looks around the room, eyes widening, wriggling until Adam sets him on his feet. “Whoooa-ho-ho! Birds!”
Adam follows him to the wall. “And trees and mountains too.”
“Ma-tins?”
“You got it, bud.”
He spies the bed, then makes a run for it, climbing onto the mattress. “Bed! Big bed! Whoooa, big bed!”
“I think he likes it,” Adam murmurs, looking back at me. He smiles softly when he sees the tears running silently down my cheeks. “Connor, go give Mama a hug goodnight, and then I’ll read you a book in bed, okay?”
He wraps his tiny body around mine, pressing a sloppy kiss to my mouth. “Lub you, Mama,” he says, and then dashes to the bookshelf to pick a book while I escape to my temporary room, swatting the tears away.
I listen as Adam reads Connor story after story, as he tells him goodnight and that he loves him, as the bedroom door clicks shut behind him, and his shadow pauses in the light streaming beneath my own door.
And when I climb into bed, I listen to the sound of my own breathing, shallow and staggered, the frantic thump of my heart that wants nothing more than to be in the arms of the man I love.
When the house is quiet and dark, and I’ve given up on sleep, I tiptoe down the stairs, into the kitchen. Moonlight streams through the patio door, and the kettle boils as I root through Adam’s pantry for my favorite tea.
I curse Adam’s height as I struggle to reach the mugs, the cool air kissing my bare thighs as I press up on my toes, nearly nabbing it.
The cool air disappears, replaced with a sizzling heat that scorches through the thin T-shirt I wear as a body presses up against my back, warm breath kissing my ear. A strong hand grips my hip, pinning me between his body and the counter as he reaches above me, pulls a mug down.
“Imagine your height was above average,” Adam’s husky voice whispers. “Then you’d only need me for things so much more fun than tea in the middle of the night.”
Oh Jesus Christ
.
He releases me, midnight eyes casting me an even darker stare as he fills the mug, dips my tea bag inside, and all I can focus on is that he’s wearing only a pair of boxer briefs, those flawless abs and those drool-worthy thighs on display beneath the fractured moonlight. “What are you doing up, Rosie?”
“I-I-I…I couldn’t sleep.”
“Why?”
“I was thinking about…about…why does Carter call himself Mr. Incredible?” There ya go, Rosie. Much better than telling him you were thinking about sneaking into his room and asking him to fuck the sober back into you.
“’Cause he thinks he’s got the biggest dick.”
See, this is where the alcohol gets me in trouble, because instead of nodding, I respond.
“Okay, well, I’ve seen— everyone
has seen—the outline of his dick, and is it big? I mean, sure. Yes, of course. But I’ve had yours in my body—more places than one—and I know
yours is bigger, so, who’s the real
Mr. Incredible?”
Adam laughs, a deep, rumbly sound that settles low in my stomach, tingling between my legs. “I like you a little drunk.”
“You like me all the time.”
“This is true.” Slowly, he stalks toward me, and my eyes dip down his body, settling without my permission on the bulge in his underwear as he cages me in against the counter.
“I like you in your vet scrubs. I like you in the purple leggings you wore that second hike, the ones that clung to your ass.” He grips my waist, hoisting me onto the counter, spreading my thighs and stepping between them, hands on my knees, searing my skin.
“And I like you in this, my T-shirt and nothing else, with your legs on display and your hips begging me to slip my hand underneath and grab hold.”
My brain stops working and my heartbeat drops to my clit, throbbing with need as Adam drags his rough palms over my thighs, taking the hem of his T-shirt as he goes.
Dark eyes collide with mine as he pushes that material higher, until it pools around my hips, and my breath gets lost in my throat with no way out.
He drops his gaze between my legs as the air kisses the warm, wet spot between my legs, and a heavy breath escapes him.
“I knew it,” he tsks, dragging his thumbs over the apex of my thighs, so close
, and yet not close enough as he smears my arousal, wrings a whimper right from me as I lean back on my hands. “I could smell you the second you walked in here.”
“What do I smell like?” I whisper as he brings one thumb to his mouth, sucking me off him, a sight that makes me absolutely feral.
He dips his head, lips finding the hollow spot in my collarbone before trailing up my neck, to my ear. “You smell like trouble, and you taste like it too. Now get back to bed, before I get myself into a whole fucking pile of it.”
He steps away, watching as I scramble to my feet.
Heady words stop me at the edge of the kitchen.
“And Rosie? If I find you in my kitchen in the middle of the night again, I’m fucking you right there on that counter.”