Captive (24 page)

“Is Brody’s mom a stranger?”

“No, because we know her. It’s okay to talk to her.”

“She said Ryke’s a piece of candy.”

I furrowed my brows at her. “Brody’s mom said that? When?”

“Last time we came here. You were talking to that other lady, and I heard her say you’re married to a piece of man candy. What’s man candy?”

I widened my eyes at my mom, begging for backup.

“It means he’s sweet, honey,” she said to Melody, who took off for the playground, apparently satisfied.

“She reminds me of a certain someone,” my mom said, laughing. “Always full of questions.”

“It’s funny how I’m still getting to know her, but already I’d walk through fire for that little girl. I didn’t know motherhood would grab ahold of my heart so deeply.”

“It does,” my mom said. “That time you were in the hospital with pneumonia when you were six was the worst three days of my life. I was beside myself until we knew you’d pull through. And seeing you hurt over the babies you lost … I’d have given anything if I could’ve hurt instead of you.”

“If I turn out to be a good mom, it’ll be because of you,” I said.

“You’re a great mom. I’m proud of you. And … even though I know it hurts, I hope you’ll give yourself a chance to feel like this baby’s mom, too.”

She brushed a hand over my bump.

“I don’t know if I can think of it as a baby right now,” I admitted. “It’s just … too much to risk.”

I craned my neck, trying to locate Melody, who’d disappeared around the side of a slide a few seconds ago. She darted out, giggling at the boy who was chasing her.

“Katie,” Mom said, “Our hearts are on the line from the moment the pregnancy test comes back positive. You’re finding that out already. If something happened to Melody, would it hurt any less because she’s already in the world?”

“I can’t even think about it.”

“All we can do is love our children and take care of them the best we can. Some things are out of our control. You can’t let worry hold you hostage.”

“I am like a hostage,” I said, realization dawning on me. “I’m a prisoner of my own worry. Without Ryke and Melody, I’d be out of my mind right now.”

“I know we can’t do anything but cope sometimes.” Mom reached for my hand and cradled it in her own. “But it’s hard to see you feeling this way. What would you tell a counseling client who was going through this?”

I sighed deeply. “Probably something like, ‘You hold the key. And you can keep it in your hand for as long as you need to. But there will come a point where you’re ready to use that key to break out of the jail you’ve put yourself in. Only you can set yourself free.”

I knew my words were true. What I still hadn’t figured out was how to do it.

I kept my palm on Kate’s round belly even though the baby had apparently gone to sleep. The steady kicks and punches I’d been feeling had dwindled and then stopped.

Kate was curled against me, her back to my chest. “That last one was a right hook,” I said in her ear. “This kid’s practicing for hockey fights already.”

She laughed and turned her head back to me. “You’ve got your heart set on a boy, don’t you?”

“Not at all. I’d love another little girl just like Mel.” I moved her hair aside to kiss her neck and resumed exploring her new curves with my other hand. The tank top she was wearing to bed was already pushed up to allow me access to her belly, and I slipped my fingers beneath the bunched-up fabric so I could feel her rounded tits. They’d gotten bigger over the past few months, and I found myself constantly staring and wanting to play with them.

I’d been staring at them over dinner tonight, remembering the days when I could feel Kate up in the middle of our kitchen if we were home alone. Since we’d adopted Melody, we were rarely alone at home. But I kind of enjoyed the burn of being forced to wait. Seeing Kate with our daughter made me fall even deeper in love with her. She was patient and protective, and it gave me hope that she’d feel the same way about the baby when it was born. So far she was still keeping an emotional distance.

I squeezed her nipple just hard enough to make her groan softly. The sound made my cock stiffen and mold against the crack of her ass. This was my favorite part of being in the offseason. I got to go to bed with my wife every night, and rarely did we fall asleep without fucking in one of the creative positions we’d discovered to keep me from putting weight on her stomach.

Her sigh of pleasure when my hand traveled lower made me hum with amusement. I ran my fingertips over her hip and down her thigh, then back up and around to her swollen belly. When I pulled on her earlobe with my teeth, she groaned with frustration.

“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked innocently.

“You know what’s wrong. Touch me, Ryke.” Her insistent tone made me grind my cock against her ass, and she sighed again.

“I am touching you.” I trailed my fingertips back down her hip again.

“Ryke …” Her whine of frustration made me want to flip her on her back, hook her ankles over my shoulders and fuck her hard. But that was off limits for now.

“Hmm?” I said.

“Come on. Please. You’ve got me all hot and bothered now.”

“You want me between your legs again?”

“Yes.”

I gave in to her pleading tone, spreading her open with my fingers and easing one inside.

“Mmm, Ryke. More.”

I already knew what I wanted tonight. I wanted her to ride me backwards so I could play with her ass when she was starting to come. It sent her into a deep orgasm every time, and she’d taken to pressing her hand over her mouth to muffle her screams so Melody wouldn’t hear.

When I slipped another finger inside her, she groaned again, and I pushed them in deeper. She pressed her hips back, trying to get more. I hoped like hell this constant horniness wouldn’t disappear when she had the baby. Sometimes she wanted it in the morning and then again at night. I loved it.

As soon as I pulled my soaked fingers out of her, she moaned her disapproval. I moved my hand back a few inches and traced a wet finger over the rim of her other hole. She gasped loudly.

“Ryke. God, yes. Please.”

There wasn’t just pleading in her tone, but
need
. I couldn’t tease her this time. Since the first time we’d done this, I’d learned just how far I could go to turn her on without hurting her. I brushed my lips against her shoulder and pushed two fingers in. Her moan of satisfaction made my balls tense up eagerly.

“Such a tight little ass,” I said in her ear. “And all mine. No one but me’s ever been here, have they, baby?”

Her words came out in a gasp. “No. Only you. It feels so good.”

This time I growled against her ear, her panting and bucking hips making me wild. I wanted to move her on top of me in a minute, but I needed to get inside her now to relieve my aching cock. I eased my fingers out of her and shoved her panties down around her knees. It only took me a second to free my raging hard-on from my boxers, and I slid it right into her wet pussy.

“Oh, Ryke … God, yes.”

I wrapped an arm beneath her neck to pull her back against me. No way was I stopping to switch positions. This was fucking perfect. I pumped my hips, working my cock in and out of her, and she whimpered with satisfaction. The moment I pressed my thumb to her clit she’d come apart in my arms.

“Kate … Fuck, baby.” I groaned against her cheek, wanting to pull just a few more seconds of bliss from her.

“Ryke!” The sound of her saying my name so desperately about pushed me over the edge.

“Kate? Are you okay?”

We both froze at the sound of Melody’s tiny voice.

“Yes, sweetheart!” Kate said, frantically reaching down to pull her panties up. “I’m here, is everything okay?”

“What’s happening? I thought someone was hurting you.”

A stab of guilt shot through me for making her worry. I’d forgotten to close the bedroom door.

“No, baby,” Kate said, pulling her tank top down and sliding out of bed as smoothly as she could with her bulky center. “We were just, um, snuggling, you know? Ryke likes to … play wrestle sometimes, but he would never hurt me.”

I forced down the discomfort of my still-stiff cock and still-full balls. “Want me to come read you another story, Mel? Tuck you in again?”

“Can I lay with you guys?” she asked softly.

“Sure you can,” I said, sliding away from Kate’s warm, smooth back. I pulled my boxers back up beneath the covers while Melody padded over, sliding out of bed with my back to her to conceal my hard-on.

“You want Stanley?” I asked.

“Yes, please.”

I went to the closet and pulled on some shorts. By the time I left the bedroom to get a glass of water in the kitchen, my boner had receded. Good thing, cause it wasn’t getting any more love tonight.

The dog was curled up in a ball by the couch, and I scooped him up with one hand and tucked him under my arm. Kate was smoothing Melody’s hair back when I climbed into bed.

“I think Stanley had a bad dream,” I said, setting him on Mel’s blanket-covered chest. “He looked scared when I found him. Better give him some extra lovin’.”

“Oh, Stanley, it’s okay,” she said, smoothing his hair back like Kate was doing to her hair.

Kate had turned the bathroom light on while I was gone, and now there was a dim glow in the room. She met my eyes over the top of Melody’s head and mouthed, ‘I’m sorry’. I smiled and leaned across to kiss her.

“We’re gonna finish wrestling in the morning, you know,” I said against her lips.

“I’m counting on it.”

With Melody sleeping in our bed, it would probably be one of those mornings Kate and I had to shower together to have enough privacy for sex. Mel would be none the wiser as she ate breakfast with Mimi. But shower sex was getting more and more awkward as Kate got bigger. I couldn’t just slam her against the wall and fuck the shit out of her like I’d done before she was pregnant.

My erection resurfaced as I remembered a day a couple weeks earlier when I picked Kate up beneath her thighs from behind and used my arms to slide her body up and down on my cock. I got to have hot sex with her and get a kickass arm workout, all before breakfast.

Kate’s eyelids were falling closed, and she let her head sink into her pillow.

“Can we have happy face pancakes for breakfast?” Melody asked.

“Hmm?” Kate said. “Mmm-hmm, sure.”

“Can I go ice skating with you tomorrow?” Melody asked, turning to me.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Will you take me in the Jeep, with the top off?”

I smiled, remembering how much she liked the wind blowing her hair all over the place. “Yep. And we can have lunch with Luke if you want to.”

“Lukey? Yeah!”

Melody had wrapped Luke around her little finger the first time they’d met. She had that effect on everyone.

“I think Kate’s asleep,” Melody whispered.

“She was pretty tired,” I whispered back. “You should go to sleep, too.”

“Will you rub my back?”

“Yep.”

She turned around and I rubbed my palm in circles on her back. A couple times I’d sat next to her bed and did this to help her fall back asleep after bad dreams.

“How long until the baby’s coming?” she asked. It was a question she asked almost every day.

“Three more months. 13 weeks.”

After a few seconds of silence, she spoke again. “Are you guys gonna get rid of me when you have your own kid?”

My hand stopped mid-circle. “What? Mel, look at me.”

She turned onto her back and gazed at me, her hazel eyes big and sad.

“We’re never getting rid of you. Remember the day the adoption was finalized and we told you you’re our daughter now?”

“Yeah. But I thought you might change your minds when you have your own baby.”

A wave of protectiveness surged through me. “We’ll never change our minds. We love you. You’re not any different than the baby to us.”

“I wish you were my real dad.” She whispered it so softly I barely heard the words.

“You’re my little girl now,” I said. “That’s real.”

Her tiny head nodded in the darkness.

“I want to tell you something,” I said, sitting up so I could look down at her.

“A story?”

“No, not a story. This is something real. Before I met Kate, I had another wife. Her name was Maggie. And like your first mom and dad, she died. I was sad for a long time, but then I met Kate and fell in love with her. She’s my wife now, and just because I was married before, that doesn’t mean Kate’s not my real wife. It’s like that with us. Families are made in lots of different ways. But that’s what we are, Melody. Me and you and Kate and the baby are a family, and that lasts forever. Okay?”

“And Stanley,” she added.

I grinned. “And Stanley. How could I forget him?”

Her lips curved up into a smile and she nodded again. I sighed, relieved. Kate was much better at all this than I was. It would’ve broken her heart to hear Melody ask if we were getting rid of her.

“What if I wanted to call you daddy? And Kate mommy?”

My throat tightened. Hearing this would’ve made Kate giddy. She’d told me about her hope that Melody would one day want to call her mommy, but she didn’t want to say anything to her that would make her feel pressured.