Committed Passion (11 page)

As I’d done so many times in the past, I immediately put out my feelers and gauged his mood. Drunk? Angry? Sad? Apologetic? At ease and happy? I recalled the days when I’d had to pussyfoot around Clay’s rapidly shifting moods.

I didn’t have to do that anymore, I reminded myself, yet I still noted that Clay’s shoulders slumped in dejection and his eyes were clear as he watched Travis run to the jungle gym.
Not drunk, feeling guilty and nostalgic for what might have been.
 

“He’s amazing.” Clay’s voice sounded awed.

“Yes,” I answered curtly. “Look, we’re going to have to set some ground rules. You’ve already proved to us that you’re having trouble keeping sober. Jonah and I insist on supervised visits with Travis.”

Jonah, standing a few yards behind me, didn’t add anything, but I felt the strength and comfort of his presence at my back. He wouldn’t intervene. This was my rodeo. But he’d be there for me if Clay grew belligerent. Nothing bad could happen to me or Travis while he was around.

No temper tantrums that day. Clay’s head hung like a dog who’d stolen the Thanksgiving turkey. “I can understand that. I had a long talk with my sponsor, and he’s made me consider some things.” He flicked a gaze up to me. “I want to make amends and apologize to you for interrupting your wedding.”

Amends schlamends.
I imagined Clay would apologize often without ever really changing his behavior, but I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I nodded. “So… I guess we’ll go over to the playground, and I’ll introduce you to Travis.”

I’d rehearsed the moment a hundred times in my mind. I used to think it might happen some day, but in my mind, Travis had always been older, more capable of understanding what “bio-dad” meant.

“Honey, come here a sec,” I called him from the jungle gym he’d just begun to climb.

“Don’t wanna. I’m having fun.” He clung like a monkey and looked at me upside down.

“Only a minute. There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

Reluctantly, he dropped to the ground, kicking up a puff of sand with his landing. He made his way through the throng of munchkins swarming the climbing structure and stopped before us. He stared up at Clay with eyes so similar it was eerie.

I squatted to face Travis on his level. “Honey, you know how Mr. Wyatt is your dad now? We got married, and he adopted you?”

“Yeah.” Travis was already glancing over his shoulder, aware that other kids were having fun while he was missing out on precious seconds of playground time.

“Jonah is your dad, but Mr. Peters here is the man who—”
Gave you life?
The concept was ridiculous to try to explain to a four-year-old. “He was your
first
father, the man who was with Mommy when you were born.” Sort of. Clay hadn’t actually been anywhere near the delivery room.

Travis cast a mildly interested glance at Clay. I doubted if he remembered anything from the brief time he’d been around his father. Travis had been only two when I took him and left.

“He’s been gone, but now he wants to get to know you,” I continued to explain.

“That’s right, buddy.” Clay dropped to his knees to face Travis. “I’m your real dad, and I want to spend time with you.”

“Jonah is my real dad.” Kids have a bullshit detector way beyond what adults can comprehend. I could tell Travis’s antenna was up, as his eyes narrowed and he backed away. There was something about Clay he didn’t like.

Travis ran past me to wrap his arms around Jonah. “Play with me.”

Jonah lifted him up high, then gave him a hug. He spoke a few words quietly, his deep voice rumbling like a cat’s purr. I couldn’t hear what he said, but Travis nodded, and after Jonah set him down, he walked over to Clay and stuck out his hand to shake, as formal as a little gentleman.

“Okay,” Travis said simply. “Wanna see me climb the jungle gym?”

“Sure.” Clay grinned, and I could almost see a flash of the high school hero who’d once stolen my heart. “I bet you’re really good at it.”

They walked off together, hand in hand, and I felt a little sick and sad—yet kind of touched too. Hard to know what to feel when a man I now despised was back in my boy’s life.

Jonah came up behind me and put his hand on my back. I turned, slid my arms around his waist, and buried my face against him. “This is really hard.” His chest muffled my voice.

“Yeah, it is, but it’ll be okay. We’ll be all right. And nothing bad is going to happen to Travis. We won’t let it.”

I nodded without speaking, inhaling the scent of fabric softener from the shirt and Jonah’s warm body underneath.

“Better Travis know him starting now than later when he’s a teenager and wants to blame all his problems on the fact that he never knew his dad.”

I dragged my face away from his shirt to look up into his gorgeous dark eyes. “You are so wise.”

He smiled. “I’ve already dealt with teenagers. J.D. hated me and liked to believe our dad would’ve understood him better or cared more.”

“Ungrateful kid. Poor Jonah, having to be the dad when you were hardly more than a teen yourself. But you did a good job.”

He shrugged, uncomfortable as always when I praised him for raising his brothers. “Anyway, the point is, teenagers are going to find reasons to despise their parents. At least Travis won’t have the excuse that we kept his father from him.”

I nodded and turned to watch Clay talking to Travis while my boy clambered over the play structure. Then I looked up at Jonah again. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And to Travis. I’m so blessed to have found you, and I love you so much.”

His little smile turned into a big one that made his face practically glow. “I love you too. If I pay you five hundred dollars, will you come home with me and have sex?”

“You’re so not funny.” I bumped his hip with mine. “But yeah, I will. I’ll make love to you for no money at all, Mr. Wyatt.”

*

Jonah

The fine brown strands of Rianna’s hair slipped through my hands like water, smooth and cool and sensual. I combed my fingers through it again, simply enjoying the sensation, while she sighed and relaxed into my stroking hands.

“You sure you want to cut this?” I asked. “It’s so beautiful long.”

She glanced at me over her shoulder. “You don’t want me to?”

I didn’t want to come across as a controlling husband, so I shrugged. “It’s your hair, your body. I wouldn’t think of telling you what to do.”

Rianna grinned. “But you don’t want me to.”

“No. Not really.” I returned her smile and bent to kiss her bare shoulder.

We were lounging in bed, sleeping late, a rare occasion for us. Travis had spent the night at his new friend’s house, a boy who lived two houses down. God bless Mrs. Franken for supervising a sleepover. We’d half expected a phone call in the night asking us to come and fetch our homesick son, but that didn’t happen. Apparently Travis was having a great time with his pal Stevie.

I stroked the length of Rianna’s hair, and when she rolled onto her back, I arranged it around her head like a halo. “I like you like this.”

She scraped her fingernails lightly from my stomach up to my chest, making my muscles quiver. “And I like you like
this
. No clothes.” Her eyes twinkled as she gazed into my face. “How about we make an agreement? I won’t cut my hair, and you won’t put on clothes ever again. You’ll just trot around the house naked all the time.”

“Sounds like a plan, but only if you go naked too.”

“Too much talking, not enough kissing.” Rianna snaked a hand around the back of my neck and drew my face to hers. Our lips molded together, a flawless fit, and our tongues sought each other out.

Our early morning bedroom was silent. Every sound our bodies made as they slid together, every rustle of sheets and the wet smacks of kisses were amplified. Mrs. Franken didn’t know it, but she’d provided us with the perfect honeymoon moment—peaceful, calm, relaxing yet charged with sexual tension. I couldn’t have been happier in Tahiti.

I gave Rianna a necklace of kisses across her collarbones and presented a large pendant of a kiss between her breasts, then I nuzzled first one, then the other, moving slowly over each swell before finally drawing her nipples into my mouth. We had time for a change, time when we weren’t exhausted from long days at work or family time with our son in the evening. It was pure pleasure to take that time and work Rianna’s body relentlessly toward climax. I wanted her to remind her I viewed her as a sexy woman, not just a wife, a mother, or a life partner.

Rianna stretched and moaned as I moved below her waist and worshiped her there. Every lap of my tongue on her pussy brought forth another soft whimper, and each whimper swelled my own desire another notch. My cock throbbed with the need to be inside her. But before I could move there, Rianna took control of our lovemaking. She pushed me off her and switched places, sliding down to take my cock in her hands and mouth.

It was my turn to lie back and receive. I closed my eyes and let go, indulging in sensation. The sex was amazing, but when we were together, it was about so much more than that. I’d fucked nameless, practically faceless women in the past, hiring them so I wouldn’t be expected to care about them. Now I knew how deeply pathetic I’d been, because even with eyes closed I never lost sight of the fact that I was with Rianna. Her face was in my mind always, wherever I went, whatever I did. She was my center, the guiding force of my life.

When I trembled at the edge of coming, I stopped Rianna and invited her to join me up on the pillow. For a moment, we simply lay there, face-to-face, gazing into each other’s eyes. The clock ticked, but there was no hurry. And when we finally moved again, merging into each other, I still felt an odd suspension of time. Now. Later. Future. Past. It was all one.

Bad things might happen, wrinkles might ruffle the surface of our life, but as long as we were together, nothing was insurmountable. I’d spent so much of my youth struggling simply to get by, worried all the time, fighting to protect my brothers and myself from a world I saw as hard, cold, and cruel. I hadn’t had time to consider or even believe I was capable of love. All that changed with one pole dance and a pair of eyes that saw straight into my soul.

I gazed into those eyes now as I moved slowly and carefully, every thrust driving both Rianna and me closer to the edge. When we reached that moment, I paused again, shaking with the effort but determined to draw out the last shade of meaning from it. Then I came, she came, and it felt like a solemn pact and a mind-bending adventure all in one.

I collapsed with a long sigh, wrapped my arms around my wife and held on. My narrow, fearful life had opened to encompass the possibility of—everything, anything. I had Rianna, and I was vulnerable at last, but I wasn’t afraid to trust in her. In fact, I felt safer and more relaxed than I’d ever been before.

“
That
was good,” she murmured against my shoulder.

“That was perfect,” I agreed. I kissed the crown of her head. “And I’ll love how you look even if you shave your hair off.”

“Good to know.” I felt her smile against my skin. “And I’ll love you even when your six pack turns into one soft curve.”

“Not gonna happen.” I tightened my stomach muscles underneath her stroking hand.

“But we
are
going to grow old together,” Rianna said. “And I’m looking forward to that, to the years unfolding before us.”

I pictured them all. Having another kid. Going to the kids’ soccer and baseball games and on family vacations. Birthdays, Christmases, anniversaries. Teaching Travis to drive. Season after season tearing past us. High school graduations. The children grown and gone. Retirement years with only the two of us, Rianna and me rediscovering each other. Spoiling grandchildren. Sitting in rockers and using walkers. Always together until the end, whenever that came. A full, busy, happy life I’d never imagined I could have. If I didn’t make a joke, I was going to cry from the powerful emotion pouring through me up.

“I’m especially looking forward to changing your adult diapers. I love you
that
much, Rianna.”

She started giggling and then we both laughed so hard, we could barely breathe. After we caught our breath, we kissed until we were breathless again, and that was even better.

I thought of how much my life had changed in one short year. How much
I’d
changed, from drug supplier and closed-off loner to reputable businessman, husband, and father. I’d traveled a rough road to get to the point where I was willing to take a new route. Rianna had been like some brightly lit signpost that popped up at exactly the right time to point me in a good direction.

I was ready and eager to start the journey.

The End

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If you missed any of the previous Wyatt brothers stories, find them at Blind Passion, Dangerous Passion and Guarded Passion.

If you enjoyed the Wyatt Brothers series, you might like the Promise series. You can check out the first three books in The Promise Series for one low price.