COLE (Dragon Security Book 1) (10 page)

Cole

Amber disappeared into the nursery with the baby the moment we walked through the apartment doors. I made us something to eat, a little grilled chicken and vegetables, but she didn’t come down. With a sigh, I finished eating my own meal and put hers on a tray, taking it up to her.

“You need to eat,” I said, pushing the door open without bothering to knock. I should have knocked.

She was sitting on the bed, the baby draped across her chest. She was naked from the waist up, the baby suckling at one breast while the other lay uncovered, her thick nipple erect and aimed straight at me like a gun ready to discharge.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, turning to leave again.

“No. It’s fine.”

I hesitated, then backed into the room again, setting the tray on the top of the baby’s dresser.

“You can bring it over here,” she said. “Can’t really reach it from there.”

I hesitated again, then turned and set it on the bed, trying not to look at her nudity. But when I did, she’d pulled the baby’s blanket up to cover herself.

“Is he okay? Did he survive my mom all right?”

“He’s fine.” She brushed her hand over the top of the baby’s head. “They were really happy to have him, weren’t they?”

“They were. They’ve been waiting a long time to have a grandchild.”

I backed away, headed for the door.

“Why haven’t you or Megan gotten married?”

I shook my head. “I was in the military until about five months ago. And Megan…her story is a little complicated. She was with this guy, Luke Murphy, since high school. He was military, too. He got out a little over a year ago. They were planning this big wedding, flowers and a huge cake and all the bells and whistles. But then the morning of, she gets this letter from him telling her that he just wasn’t ready for commitment. He disappeared, and no one’s heard from him since.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. She took it pretty hard. If not for Peter…”

Amber tilted her head as she looked over at me. “The three of you were really close.”

She said it as a statement, but there was clear awe in her voice.

“Yeah. The whole family. My mom insisted that we respect each other. That we care about how our actions impacted everyone else. And she made us participate in game night every Saturday night.”

Amber’s face turned into something like a question mark. I leaned back against the doorframe, remembering all the times Mom and Dad teamed up to kick our asses at Monopoly or Risk. It was frustrating until the three of us finally figured out a system that allowed one of us to kick butt every week. I could still feel the pure joy that rushed through me the first time I won a game, one-on-one, against Dad.

“She insisted that it would teach us how to work together as a team. And it did. I suppose that was why we were so close, because we had to team up together to stop Mom and Dad from kicking our asses at everything.”

Amber looked down at the baby. There was a dark cloud that seemed to hover around her every time we talked about Peter or the family. I couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking, but I couldn’t imagine that the woman Megan had described to me as Amber’s mother would have been interested in playing Monopoly with her only daughter.

“I should let you take care of him.”

Amber nodded, her eyes falling to the baby. It was a beautiful sight, her with the baby in her arms. I wondered if she knew just how beautiful she truly was when she looked down at her son like that.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Megan and Amber and everything that had been going on as I showered. I stood under the pulse of the water and tried not to feel like a total waste of space for not being there for Megan when she opened Peter’s belongings. And then I wanted to scream with regret for kissing Amber like I did. She was clearly not in the same mindset as me, clearly not interested in beginning a new romance. And to do it just moments after telling her we’d work out some sort of arrangement for the clothes and things she now needed. It was completely the worst timing ever. It didn’t matter that that wasn’t what I was thinking when I kissed her. She didn’t know that. To her, I was asking for sex in exchange for everything I was doing for her. That wasn’t what I wanted, but it couldn’t help but look that way.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I whispered to myself.

I didn’t know what I was thinking. This woman…she was so beautiful and spending every day together was making it nearly impossible for me not to think about what it would be like to touch her, to bring her into my bed. Was I just one of those guys who couldn’t be around a woman without wanting sex? Had it just been that long since I’d been with a woman?

But it hadn’t. Not really. There was a girl just before Amber came walking into my life, a bartender I’d spent a couple of nights in the company of. So it wasn’t as if I was desperate. I’d gone longer without the company of a woman.

I was stupid. I was screwing this whole thing up. Megan would never let me take another case; Amber would never let me near her and the baby once she was on her feet. I’d fucked everything up, and I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do to fix it.

I toweled off, thinking about Peter. What would he think of Amber living here with me, of his son here in my home? What would he think of what I’d done?

I wished that Peter had told us about Amber. I wished that I knew how he felt about her. If he was in love with her…I couldn’t stab my brother in the back like that. Even if it was just a one-night thing, it was wrong for me to be having the thoughts I was having about her.

I pulled on a pair of shorts and climbed into bed, still so lost in my thoughts that I thought I would never get to sleep. I loved Peter. He was always the one who was first to my corner when I needed support, the first one to tell me I could do something that everyone else thought was too much. And this was how I paid him back.

I was a real asshole.

Almost as proof of that, I fell right to sleep. I was lost in dreams in less than ten minutes, dreaming of Amber and her beautiful body, of the taste of her lips. It was a fevered dream that did things to me nothing had since I was fifteen and having hormone-driven dreams of adolescence. Her hands were on my chest, her fingers playing with the elastic that held my shorts around my hips. Her mouth sliding over my throat, her tongue playing a little game over the rounded mound of my Adam’s apple. And then her lips touched mine, and I moved into her, kissing her like I was drowning and she was the only source of air for miles.

It wasn’t until I tucked her body down under mine, until my hands were sliding under her thin nightie—the one Mom stole from Megan to give to her—to touch those brilliantly created breasts, that I realized this wasn’t a dream. She was really there, her hands sliding over my near naked body, her tongue dancing a little dance with mine.

I pulled back—the hardest thing I’d ever done!—and untangled myself from her touch.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s okay. I want to.”

I shook my head, scrambling out of the bed and flipping on the light.

“Amber, you don’t have to do this. I told you, what happened earlier was just me being stupid.”

“You can’t tell me you don’t want to.”

I groaned, the need burning through my body likely palpable. I mean…
shit
, there were things I couldn’t exactly hide from her. Not now. Not dressed like this.

“I do. I so desperately want you,” I groaned, the sight of her not making this any easier. She was wearing the skimpiest little nightie I’d ever seen—with pretty pink panties peeking out underneath. And her nipples were hard, poking up against the silky material just begging to be touched. I’d have to be dead not to want her.

And that…Peter.

“It’s too complicated.”

She nodded. “But you’ve done so much for me, and I see the way you look at me.”

“You’re beautiful.”

She blushed, brushing a piece of her long, golden hair out of her face. “Where I grew up, when a girl couldn’t pay for what she needed, this was how—”

“No.”

The word came out before I could stop myself. I crossed to the bed and sat beside her, taking her hands into mine.

“You are not a whore. I won’t…I can’t let you think about yourself that way.”

Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away, turning her head until she had control of herself.

“I don’t know how else to think.”

“You had a shitty childhood. You lived a life that should never be allowed in a country as great as ours. But you did. I can’t do anything about that now.” I squeezed her hands. “But I can treat you the way you should be treated and make damn sure no one else treats you any less.”

She sighed. “You’re a lot like your brother. Do you know that?”

“Yeah?”

“He said something like that to me once. Told me that just because I didn’t have the opportunities I should have had when I was younger, it didn’t mean I couldn’t make new opportunities for myself now.”

“He’s right.”

She was quiet for a long moment. When she finally looked at me, her green eyes were floating in tears.

“The way you and your family cares for one another…I want that for PJ. I just don’t see where I fit in amongst all that. I thought, if I gave myself to you—”

“You do fit in, Amber. You’re PJ’s mother. You will forever be PJ’s mother. Nothing we do or say can change that.”

“But maybe he’d be better off without me as his mother.”

Fear rushed through me, and I had no idea what its true source was. But I knew I couldn’t allow her to continue thinking that way.

I grasped her chin and lifted it up, forcing her to look at me.

“You are not your mother. You are not the kind of person who would put her own needs in front of those of her child. Just the fact that you would think something like that proves just how much you love your son.”

Tears began to roll down her cheeks. She turned, hiding them the way she’d done so many times since the moment I met her.

“Maybe we’ve gone about this the wrong way. Maybe I should have handled things differently. But, believe me, PJ needs you, Amber. My parents, Megan, and I, we want to be a part of his life. But none of us can give him all that you can.”

She nodded, sniffing loudly and wiping at her nose with the back of her hand. I brushed the hair from her face, catching some of the moisture of her tears on my fingers.

“And let me be clear about something else. What happened at your trailer, that kiss? It had nothing to do with Peter or the baby or the things my family and I have done for you. That was just about you. It was about how beautiful you are. It was about the way you make me feel when I look at you. It was about the passion and the stubbornness that make up your personality. It’s about how frustrated you make me with your constant need to prove how independent you are. It’s about the fact that when it’s time to come home after we’ve been apart for a few hours, how deeply I look forward to seeing your face.”

She looked up, surprise radiating in her eyes.

I ran my thumb over her lips.

“I hate that you do this to me. I hate that I can’t think of anyone else. I’ve never—ever—had trouble finding a woman to warm my bed. But you…you’ve stolen all that away because you’re the only one I want.”

She groaned as she leaned into me, wrapping her arms around my neck as she kissed me with a new sort of enthusiasm. I pulled her closer, sliding my fingers into her hair, twisting her head around so that I could bury myself as deeply as I physically could. She crawled into my lap, wrapping her legs around my waist. I dropped my mouth to her throat, tasting her sweet skin, tugging at the front of her nightie with a single finger, exposing the top, rounded mound of one breast. She sighed as my mouth moved over that breast, as I captured a nipple through the nightie. She ran her fingers over my head, encouraging me to move further downward, a moan slipping from her lips as I pressed my face to the center of her belly, kissing that place that was so recently swollen with new life.

I needed her. I so desperately needed her that I could hardly catch my breath. I slid my hands inside the back of her panties, taking great handfuls of her ass for a second. And then I slid one hand around to the front, making her hiss between her teeth as I slid a finger between her lips, brushing against the swollen nub of her clit.

“Is it okay?” I asked breathlessly against her ear. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s okay. The doctor said whenever I was ready.”

I groaned, as I nibbled at her throat. I wrapped my arms around her waist as I leaned over and tugged at the top drawer of my nightstand, snatching a wrapped condom from the box that lived there. Amber tensed when she realized what I was doing, her eyes a little wide as she watched me tug at the corner of the condom wrapper. She tilted her head away when I looked at her, when I tried to meet her eye.

I was such a fucking idiot! Why would I assume she was experienced just because she’d had my brother’s baby? What about her behavior had suggested that she was comfortable with this or any other sex act?