Begin Again (19 page)

Every pull of his lips she felt all the way down to her pussy.
Gripping his head in her hands her back bowed off of the bed. Her thighs were hugging his sides as he moved from one breast, back to the other. He continued his journey down past her stomach until she could feel his hot breath on her pussy. At the first swipe of his tongue she moaned, closing her eyes as he worked her over with his tongue. Paying special attention to her clit, she felt him wrap his lips around it, sucking it lightly. She was getting close to coming as she felt him push a finger inside of her. Pushing her hips up to grind against his hand, Journey felt him throw an arm across her hips, preventing her from moving.

***

Dylan could tell she was close to coming, but she was going to have to wait until he was inside of her. He gave her pussy one last lick before he pulled away and stood up. She was a sight to behold. Her body sprawled out on her bed, her hair fanned out around her head. The bedside lamp was on, so he was able to see that her skin was beautifully flushed. He pulled his shirt off and grabbed his wallet out of his jeans and pulled a condom out. Shucking his jeans quickly, he rolled the condom on and then crawled up the bed until he was between her legs again.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her up to take her lips in a kiss to show her how much he loved her.
He realized a week ago that he was in love.

They had been at his house. He had been outside with Abby, watching as she drew pictures of the trees in his back yard.
They had come back inside and the sight in front of him sealed the deal, or at least pushed him to admit what he was already feeling for her. Journey was asleep on his couch with Joey asleep on top of her. Abby had come up beside him and slipped her little hand into his. At the moment he knew that they were it for him and he’d give his life for them.

Easing inside her body slowly
, he swallowed her moan with his mouth. In an unhurried rhythm, Dylan thrust in and out of her body. There was no dirty talk and he kept a hold of the back of her head. As they looked into each other’s eyes, they both came together. Something powerful had moved through them and he knew she felt it too, if the love shining in her eyes was anything to go by.

He stayed buried inside of her until his cock started softening.
He held on to the rubber as he pulled out, “I’ll be right back.” He kissed her, got out of bed and pulled on his basketball shorts that were laying on the floor.

After getting rid of the condom and cleaning up he went
back to bed. Journey had thrown on a nightgown while he had been in the bathroom and was already fast asleep. He slid in beside her and turned her around until she was draped across his body. Kissing the top of her head, he smiled when she sighed and snuggled into him.

The next morning after breakfast
, Journey and Abby went to the store and he stayed at her place with Joey. They played on the floor with his toys while
The Wiggles
played on the TV. It was giving him a headache, but Joey seemed to love it since his little head was bebopping to the music. Joey picked up two of his trucks and started smacking them together. He looked back at Dylan and gave him a slobbery smile and shouted, “Dada!” He continued banging his trucks.

“Okay, little dude. Let’s stop with the banging
.” He grabbed the trucks from Joey’s hand. He knew he made a mistake when Joey’s bottom lip started quivering and let out the loudest wail.

“Well
, shit,” he muttered. Scooping Joey up in his arms, he tried to get his boy to stop crying. “Come on, Joey, no crying.” Joey’s cries slowly turned into hiccups and Dylan felt himself start to relax. Oh, he knew Joey was just throwing a tantrum, but it still freaked him out to see his boy cry.

“
All better?” he asked as Joey rubbed his face against his chest and sighed. With Joey in his arms, he sat down on the couch. Some song about spaghetti came on and Joey seemed to go into some sort of kid-trance. His phone went off and he pulled it out of his pocket.

“What’s up, bro?”

“Not much, I just wanted to see if you, Journey, and the kids wanted to come over for a cook-out tonight? We invited Bell and Luke, but his brother’s in town, so they’re going to be at Lola and Patrick’s place.”

He was going to have to check with Journey first, he didn’t want to assume that she hadn’t made plans already.
Now that he was thinking about it, her phone didn’t ring a lot. If it did it was usually Nan, Stacy, his mom or Bellamy. It’s not like he was monitoring her calls, but her phone rang so rarely, it was always jarring when it did.

“I’ll get a hold of you when Journey gets home.
I’m sure she’ll be all for it. What are you grilling?”

“Sounds good.
I thought I’d grill steaks for the adults and hot dogs for the kids. Just call me or text me when she gets home and let me know. Talk at you later.”

“Yeah, later.”

Dylan turned off his phone and put it back in his pocket. He looked down at Joey, who was fast asleep in his arms. Standing up gently, he carried Joey to his room and laid him down in his crib. He tucked him in and left the room. Making his way back to the living room, he went over to the tower holding Journey’s DVDs. Most of the movies she had were for kids. He found one that was labeled
Cheer competition.
He pulled it out and saw that it was from when she was in college.

He slipped it into the
DVD player and sat back on the couch. When it came on, he was immediately enthralled. She was easy to spot when her group ran onto the mat. Her hair was up in a high, curly ponytail. She looked sexy in her uniform and her body was really lean. When the music kicked on, he watched as she ran across the mat and did several backflips in a row. They did some synchronized flips as a team and they started doing a pyramid. Journey was in the front and then she was doing a back flip toward the middle of the pyramid. He watched in stunned silence as two guys caught her mid-flip and pushed her high in the air.

Dylan couldn’t believe how good
—no, great—she was. The whole routine was about two minutes long, but they were really good. When it was over he turned it off and put it away. It was right next to the movie of her having Joey. He watched it right after she had let him borrow it and had felt like a pussy when he had started crying watching his boy be born. Granted, it wasn’t the prettiest sight, but Journey hadn’t been lying when she said that he started crying as soon as his head was out.

His
son had definitely been a big boy and he couldn’t believe that she was able to carry a baby that large. He wondered if their future children would be that big too.
Future children.
Dylan was jumping the gun a little bit. He liked the idea of planting another baby inside of her and getting to watch her body change and her stomach grow as the baby got bigger and bigger inside of her. Getting to hold her hand through the whole labor and delivery process would be an amazing experience.

The sound of her car pulling up dragged Dylan from his thoughts.
He threw on his tennis shoes and went outside to help bring the groceries in. Abby was all smiles when she noticed him walking up.

“Hi
, Dylan,” she waved to him as she went to the trunk taking the bags Journey handed her. She smiled as she walked past him going into the house. When he reached his woman, he leaned down to kiss her lips and then grabbed the rest of the bags.

“How was Joey?”
she asked as she shut her trunk.

“He was good, although he did throw his first tantrum for me.” She looked at him
, raising an eyebrow. “He was banging his trucks together and I took them away from him. He sure knows how to work it, though. He had the wobbly lip before the tears started. I think he was just tired because he fell asleep pretty soon after.”

Following behind her
, he asked if she wanted to take the kids to his brother’s house for a cookout. She was quick to say yes, so he called his brother to let him know that they were coming. Dylan told Dustin they’d bring the dessert since everything else was covered.

He helped put the groceries away and helped Journey
make a light lunch when Joey woke up from his nap. Even doing nothing but domesticated stuff, Dylan couldn’t remember a time that he was happier than he was now. He was beginning to cherish the little things, like snuggling on the couch watching TV, getting the kids ready for bed, which included story time. Sometimes after the kids were asleep he and Journey would sit outside. At times they wouldn’t talk and others they’d talk for hours. She was like an addiction. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her, or the kids for that matter.

After lunch
, Nan stopped over and asked if she could steal Journey for a bit. Something was wrong; she didn’t seem like her normal bubbly self. Journey came over and kissed them all and followed Nan out the door.

***

Journey didn’t know what was going with Nan. She’d been acting funny since last weekend when she had gone to lunch with Ruth. She’d been worried that maybe the two women had a fight, but she knew that wasn’t the case when she saw Ruth at her dance studio the day before while Abby had been in her dance class. Ruth had sung Nan’s praises and how she was glad to have met the other woman.

She followed Nan into her house and silently led Journey to her dining room table.
She noticed that there were photo albums and loose pictures sitting on the table.

“
What’s all this?”

Nan took a seat and pulled at the chair next to her
. “Have a seat, sweetheart. This is something I should’ve shared with you a long time ago, but it just never seemed to be the right time. Ten years ago I lost my husband and daughter in a car accident. They were hit by a drunk driver while they were coming home from the grocery store.” Nan wiped the tears from her eyes as Journey reached out to grab her hand.

“Oh
, Nan, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know, I guess at first it was because you were strugglin
g and I just wanted to help you. You had so much going on at first that I didn’t want to burden you with my baggage, especially after you shared how you lost your parents. I never kept it from you because I didn’t want you to know, I just didn’t want you to ever feel like I was making you a replacement for my daughter. I do love you, Journey. I love you like you were my own flesh and blood. I love that those babies think of me as their nana.”

“How long were you married?”

“Tim and I were married for twenty years. Our thirtieth would be this coming January. Our daughter, Marie, was only nineteen. Tim was killed instantly and Marie died six hours later.”

Journey
picked up one of the pictures that was on the table. It was a younger Nan, a gorgeous man with dark blond hair and brown eyes, and Nan’s daughter, who had been beautiful. She looked just like her momma. It looked like it was her graduation. The three of them looked so happy. It made her want to cry. Life didn’t seem fair sometimes, but obviously she was dealing with the hand she had been dealt.

“They’re beautiful.
You need to hang some of these pictures up. I can help you if you want.”

Nan agreed and over the next hour they filled the empty frames that Nan kept in her closet.
They hung the larger pictures on the wall. At first Journey tried to take down the pictures of herself and her kids to make room for the others, but Nan insisted that there was room enough for both. She shared stories of when Marie was little and what it was like being married to Tim. They had been high school sweethearts who waited until after college to get married and start a family. Nan had always been a nurse and her husband was an architect. Her daughter was a freshman in college, taking her prerequisites before she started the nursing program herself.

Once they were done
, they sat on the couch together, admiring their work. “So how is it going with Dylan?”

“
It’s wonderful. I love him, but I’m afraid to tell him. What if he gets scared and leaves us? I don’t think I’d survive if it happened again.”

She knew it was stupid to
let the fear rule her from sharing her feelings with him, but she wasn’t just worried about herself. She had to worry about her kids, too. What if he decided to walk away from all three of them? Joey was still young enough that it wouldn’t affect him, but Abby was old enough and had already been abandoned once.

“Sweetheart, you can’t let fear rule your life.
If Dylan hasn’t gotten scared yet, then I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t get scared now. Has he said how he feels about you?”

Journey shook her head.
Nan was right, her life was crazy right now with both kids and he didn’t seem fazed at all by it. Hell, he jumped right in helping with both Joey and Abby, no questions asked.

“Well
, give it time. Men can be a little slow sometimes.” Nan laughed at her own comment.

“Why don’t you date?
You’re beautiful and any guy would be lucky to have you.” Ever since she met Nan, the woman never dated. She seemed to entwine herself in Journey’s life, for which she was grateful, but again, she didn’t have much of a personal life.