He nodded. “Just as much. We’ll just do what we said. Keep Milka at our house tonight, then try and sneak her back through the woods tomorrow.”Yeah. That insane idea.“Great,” I mumbled into my hand.Another night alone in the house didn’t appeal to me. It was too big, too creaky, too full of memories. I didn’t want to be there alone, not for a second. But I didn’t have a choice, it seemed.“Hey, you don’t have to leave her, y’know?”“Yeah? And where am I going to sleep?” I raised my eyebrows.“Well . . .”I looked at him flatly. “In your bed, really?”“I was goin’ to say Leah’s room.”“Sure. I believe you.” I turned away, ignoring the spark of desire that ignited in my lower stomach.“Geez, a guy thinks with his dick for five seconds and it’s wrong.”“Inappropriate! Not wrong.”“So you’re sayin’ I can think of you naked?”“Like you need my permission!” I snapped.“The shorts don’t help,” he admitted. “I try not to, but it’s hard.”“Oh, I bet it is.” I folded my arms across my chest

People say a little of something is better than a lot of nothing.They’re wrong. They’re so fucking wrong it’s unbelievable.A little of Chloe wasn’t better than none of her. It was the worst kind of torture, because a little always leaves you wanting more.A little of her, her lips across mine, her fingers digging into my skin, her legs around my waist, was worse than if she’d shoved me off her and told me she didn’t want me.If I hadn’t had her beneath me earlier, curled around me, making those tiny, happy noises into my mouth, I wouldn’t be burning with the urge to touch her and finish what we started.My fingers wouldn’t be twitching with the intense urge to rip her shirt over her head and see that so-called imperfect stomach. I wouldn’t be dying to run my lips over her breasts and down her body to her hips. I wouldn’t be so fucking desperate to pull those shorts down her legs along with her underwear and tease her until she’s wet and ready for me.I wouldn’t be so fucking turned

Maybe that was why I was so desperate to stop her from being mad.Maybe it was not for her at all. Maybe it was because I was too fucking selfish to see her hurt.But it wasn’t about me.It was about Chloe and Milka.Because of Milka, a part of Chloe will always belong to me. It didn’t matter whether that part lives inside our daughter or not. A part of her would always be mine, and it’ll always be living inside me, because no matter what she says, she’s mine.She can fight it. She can deny it. She can scream at me. She can walk away from me.It wouldn’t change that Chloe Hidson was irrevocably fucking mine.**************** *************** ***************************“Eight hours without talkin’. Did I say I’m impressed?”“You should be more impressed that it’s been eight hours after an argument and he hasn’t cornered me and kissed me yet,” I muttered in response.Leah raised an eyebrow. “I don’t want to know.” She jumped on her bed and bounced a couple of times before settling. “I f

It was not about hearing him sing.It was about feeling him.I knew the song. It was our song. It was an acoustic melody on the beach before it was an LA-recorded hit. It was his heart and my soul before it was America’s latest teenage jam.It was something.It is something.And I listened. As he told me his heart beats for me the way I breathed for him, I listened. As he sung to me how his skin vibrated at my touch, I listened to him describe how mine buzzed for him.And I was nineteen. All over again, I was a teenage girl, falling hopelessly in love with a guy with a guitar.I was just a girl, falling innocently in love with someone who was just a boy.I closed my eyes and fell away with the melody. He’d hum it so often. Finally I let myself remember. I let myself recollect how he’d hum random parts whenever our hug would last a minute too long. I let myself feel how he’d sing my name without saying it, and how every syllable of his unspoken words would cascade through me like a nev

Chloe sat next to me and hooked an arm around Milka’s waist. “Good cuddle?”Milka squeezed our necks. “Mama, Dadda hug My.”I met Chloe’s eyes and raised my eyebrows.“She wants us to cuddle like we were before.”Yeah, no. I didn’t fucking think so.“Okay, okay.” I wrapped one arm around Milka’s tiny waist and the other around Chloe’s.I tugged Chloe forward, and she stumbled, shrieking quietly. I laughed and slid my hand down to her ass once more. I forced her toward me until Milka’s practically squashed between us and hugged her tightly.A sense of rightness overcame me.This.This was how it was supposed to be.Both of them, both of my girls, wrapped in my arms first thing in the morning. Except they should be there last thing at night and every damn minute in between, too.I wanted to hold them, breathe them in, be everything they needed me to be. I wanted to be the guy that turns up with flowers for the woman and a toy for the baby just because. I wanted to be the guy that change