Right Side Up ((MMG Novella)) (6 page)

With a sigh, I picked at the food on the plate. When Mac started fussing, I used him as an excuse to escape.

“I’m going to change him. Be back in a minute.”

With that, I grabbed the diaper bag and headed inside to change the baby…and to get away from my gorgeous husband. On my way back out, Piper grabbed Mac. I almost wrestled him back, but decided that would be rude. As I stepped back onto the patio, I noticed Sue what’s-her-face had wasted no time cozying up next to my husband. Max was in the middle of taking a sip of beer and smiling down at her, as if she had just shined his knob seven ways to Sunday. It was a look he had once given me…before Dooley Shane took everything away. As I stood watching my husband flirt with a strange woman, I decided I’d finally had enough.

“Ellie,” Piper called. Our eyes met across the patio, hers were pleading, mine were…just…done.

“I can’t,” I whispered. Without a second thought, I scrambled over to my bag, picked it up and ran for the car. Piper was right on my heels with Mac.

“I didn’t know,” she said. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what she was referring to, but it didn’t matter.

“Well, now you do,” I clipped.

“Ellison!” Max yelled. The sound of his booming voice made me run faster. The next thing I knew he had me off my feet and in a reverse bear hug.

“Let me go!” I said between clinched teeth.

“Not until we talk,” he growled in my ear.

I froze in his arms. “Talk? You mean the thing I have been trying to get you to do for months? Why now Max? Did you finally get caught with your hand in the cookie jar? Is that it? It’s a lot harder to hide it once you’re busted, right?”

His body stilled, but he didn’t let me go. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he calmly asked. I completely lost my mind.

“Take her!” I gestured toward the patio. “You sure as shit don’t want me anymore!” We both knew this had nothing to do with the woman on the patio. Max released me and took a step back. I turned to face him. “What? You’re not running away? Why the hell not? You’ve had one foot out the door for two months, now. Guess what? I give you permission! Go for it! That’s if you haven’t already done so by now. Have. At. It!!!!” I yelled. “You won’t look at me, much less touch me anymore. Yet, you smile at some floozy sitting next to you like she the best fucking thing since bottled beer. Why the hell is that, Max?” My voice cracked on the last word and the tears started flowing. I was surprised they had taken this long to appear.

“I would never, in a million years, cheat on you and you know it.” His tone let me know he was pissed, but I didn’t care. I was past the point of thinking clearly.

“Dooley Shane tried to take everything from me, but he didn’t!” I slapped my hands over my stomach. “He didn’t take Mac, he didn’t take my ability to have other children and he didn’t take me! He is dead and buried, yet, you still let him destroy us! Shame. On. You. Now, I am taking our son and going home, to my home. You are no longer welcome there.”

He took a step toward me and, before I could step back, he stuck out his arm, yanked me to his chest and pressed his mouth against my ear. “I fucked up the other night. I know this. I have spent the past two days talking with your therapist about how to make it right. Give me the chance to make it right, please?” he pleaded.

Like that, the dam broke. I wrapped my arms around him and sobbed my heart out. He held me and kissed away my tears. When I was all cried out, he released me and whispered something to Piper, who was still holding Mac. She nodded and took the diaper bag from him. Then she glanced over at me and mouthed, “I’m sorry.” As she turned to head back to the party, Gage appeared and took Mac from her.

“What about Sarah?” I asked.

“Piper’s on it.” Max said. Grabbing my hand, I let him steer me to his truck and help me inside. When he slipped into the driver’s seat, he took my hand back.

Maybe it wasn’t too late after all.

Gage

‡

“P
rincess, you’re going
to wake him if you clomp any louder across the floor in those heels.”

“I’m taking them off,” Piper grumpily muttered. The huff in her tone made me smile.

Tonight, I had surprised Piper with dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant. After dinner, I took her by her favorite wine bar where we sat outside, drank a few glasses of wine and talked about our upcoming wedding. Not only had it been forever since we’d gone out just the two of us, it had been way too long since we’d both relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company.

“Is the coast clear?” she asked. Her huffy-turned-sultry tone gave me pause.
Why bother having deck sex when we were standing in a perfectly functional kitchen?
“Hey, you okay?” Her question shot me back into action
. If my girl wants deck sex, she’ll get deck sex.

I peered out the kitchen door onto the deck.
Empty.
Dillon was nowhere to be seen. However, the bottle of booze I’d left for him, his guitar and a bunch of papers were strewn across the deck. “He’s not on the deck, but his shit is,” I announced.

“Maybe he’s in bed,” she suggested.

Last week, Dillon came clean to Piper about killing his father when he was fourteen years old. He thought it was self-defense. His older brother, Adam, found their mother shot dead in their dining room and the loaded gun on the floor close by. When Dillon arrived on the scene, it looked as if their father was about to hurt Adam, so he picked up the gun and shot him. Dillon learned the truth about what really happened a few weeks ago when he went to Charleston to help Adam clean out the rest of their aunt’s things from her house. They came across their mother’s diary and police reports from the night his parents died. As it turns out, their dad didn’t kill their mother. She killed herself and their dad was trying to protect Adam from seeing it, not hurt him.

Learning all of this sent Dillon into a downward spiral. So much so, he walked out on Isabella and Amelia. Piper happened to call right as this was happening and talked Dillon into coming to the house, where he explained everything. After she learned what had happened, she drove him straight to her shrink, Dr. Parker. She also gave him a place to crash.
Our guest bedroom
. This series of events led us to our current predicament.
Where’s Dillon now?

“You check upstairs and I’ll check down,” I told her.

“This is silly,” she huffed and stomped towards the stairs.

“You’re the one who asked him to stay,” I called after her.

“Shit!” she exclaimed. “Found him!”

Piper was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking at something. I shuffled in beside her and tried not to laugh. Dillon was sprawled out on the stairs. In his drunken state, he had lost his shirt and shoes, but somehow managed to keep his pants on. I let out a low chuckle of amusement. After our night with Max at MMG last night, I was surprised the ole boy had it in him.

“I’m not amused,” Piper muttered.

“Give the man a break, Princess, his life sucks ass right now.”

“Do you want to leave him here? We can have deck sex another night.” Her fingers slid up my back and into my hair, causing my dick to swell in my pants.

“No, I want to have sex on my new deck tonight. In order to do this, I need him as far away from us as possible.”

“How do you propose we do this?” she asked.

I lowered my eyes to hers and smiled. “The fun way.”

The sound of Piper’s laughter filled me up. Ever since the kidnapping, I had been out of sorts. On the one hand, I should be thanking my lucky stars she was alive and in one piece. On the other hand, none of this would have happened if she’d never met me in the first place. Dooley Shane had been my boss. When I discovered everything he had done to her, I should have hunted him down and made him pay. Instead, I aired on the side of caution and let Garrett’s team handle it. This almost cost me everything. After the shooting, I had trouble letting Piper out of my sight. She was happy to let me take care of her, at first. However, once she was fully recovered, she started losing patience with me.

At Joss and Kurt’s pool party, when I watched a normally calm and complacent Ellie fall apart, I began to understand how bad it was. The kidnapping affected all of us in different ways. It made me feel hyper protective. What it did to Max was even worse. Watching two people I cared about falling apart at the seams rocked me to my core. I was not willing to let Dooley Shane get the final say. However, he would, if I continued to act like an overprotective asshole. I made a vow that day to either back the fuck off or get help.

Like me, Dillon Whitaker was a proud man…a proud man who was letting his demons win. As I stared down at his sleeping form, it hit me.
This could be me
. If I had not witnessed Max and Ellie’s driveway blow out, I would have continued down the same path and possibly ended up here…drunk and miserable, passed out on some poor person’s stairs. Dillon was going to have to figure his shit out in his own time.
I just hope, for his sake, it doesn’t cost him Isabella and his daughter in the end.

“Be careful with him,” Piper whispered.

“I got this baby,” I said, giving her a smack on the lips. The ceiling was too low to lift him up. Plus, Piper would flip her lid if I played pinball with his head, like I was tempted to do. The smart thing would be to place him on the sofa and let him sleep it off. However, I wanted private time with my fiancé in my own damn house. This drunk douchenoodle was not about to ruin this for me. With a smile on my face, I squatted down and grabbed both of his hands.

“Please tell me you are not doing what I thing you’re doing,” Piper said. This was more of a statement than a question, so I didn’t bother to answer. As I shifted my grip to his wrists, I thought about asking Piper to take a video. The look of worry on her face made me think twice. It did not, however, make me stop. With an inward chuckle, I dragged Dillon, face down, up the carpeted stairs, down the hall and into the guest bedroom. Once we reached the foot of the bed, I released his arms and turned to leave the room.
Mission accomplished
.

“You are not just going to leave him like that, are you?” The concern in Piper’s voice irritated me for some reason.

“If you think, for one second, Dillon would do any different if the tables were turned, yo-”

Before I could finish the sentence I was smacked in the face with a flying object. “We need to get him onto the bed and in this, so he doesn’t get cold,” she said.

I grabbed the shirt off the floor. “Princess, he’s a grown man.”

“Who doesn’t have his woman here to take care of him,” she clipped.

My princess could be a damned pit bull when she wanted. Grumbling under my breath, I not so delicately hefted Dillon up onto the bed. Jerking the tee-shirt over his head, I gave him a less than friendly pat and turned to leave. Piper was standing at the door with a big grin on her face. Her smile made me feel like a million bucks. As she turned to walk out of the room, I swatted her on the ass. Laughing, she took off running down the stairs. Of course, I chased after. The sound of her laughter as it rang through the house made it all worthwhile.

The next morning I woke to the sound of Piper singing in the shower. It took me a minute to recognize Taylor Swift’s
Blank Space
. When she hit the chorus, I tried not to laugh at how off key she was. My woman was great at many things, but singing was not one of them. Not wanting to miss showering with her, I hopped out of bed and padded into the bathroom. Opening the shower door, I stepped in and pulled her against me. She let out a gasp of what sounded like both surprise and delight when she discovered how ready I was for her.

“Good morning, Cowboy.” Her sultry voice made my heart race. Standing in my arms was the only woman who had ever managed to turn me inside out.

Lowering my head, I gently touched my lips to hers. She moaned and opened her mouth for me. Not one to waste time, I swept in and took what I needed, making sure I poured every bit of my soul into the kiss. A minute or so later, she pulled back. We were both breathing heavily. Her lust filled blues told me exactly what she needed, and I was going to give it to her, but first I was going to touch every inch of her gorgeous body. As I flipped her around to face the shower wall, I snagged the body wash from the overhang, squirted some into my hands and rubbed them together. Once they were nice and lathered, I ran them from her shoulders down to the tips of her fingers. Skipping over her breasts, I lathered up her stomach and upper thighs. Her shallow breaths told me I was getting to her. Reaching up, again, I grabbed the bottle and poured more shower gel into my hands. Then, I continued my path down her legs. After thoroughly taking care of her feet, I concentrated on the backs of her knees and her deliciously tantalizing ass, before making my way back up to her breasts.

“You’re killing me,” she huskily admitted.

I paused mid-stroke and teased. “That’s not my intent. Would you like for me to stop?”

“Stop now and I will Lorena Bobbitt your ass,” she replied. I couldn’t help but laugh. She rested her forehead against the shower wall and smiled. “It’s so good to hear you laugh again.” She said with a happy sigh.