Stand By Me (28 page)

“Morgan,” Steve greeted apologetically, crossing the room setting down two cups of coffee on the coffee table in front of Morgan and Rick. She watched him turn his attention to Morgan. “I know we have a ways to go, but you have to let some of that hate in your heart go. You keep telling me you're okay, but you did some serious acting out because of me. Let me know how you feel.”

Morgan held Rick's hand their fingers threaded. Kenya smiled when she made eye contact and gave her a curt nod. Morgan said lips tight, “Every night you read to me and told me nothing could take you from your little girl...every night, Daddy”

“I know, Morgan,” he rubbed a finger across the bridge of his nose shaking his head. “Your mother was an amazing woman and losing her wasn't something I was prepared for. The blood clot in her leg dislodged itself moving up to her heart.” Kenya watched the memories slow his words. “Your mother went into labor and they couldn't save her.”

“I felt broken when you left us.” Steve got up and took Julian from Katherine swaying slowly making his way back to Morgan.

“A broken woman doesn't bring this kind of miracle into the world.”

Facing Morgan, Rick said, “Steve is here--now. Decide if you want him in our lives’ so you can move forward. If you say no, he'll understand.” He tipped a serious gaze up to the other man. “I'll see that he does.” Morgan sighed deep in her chest. “If you accept his apology we go from there as a family.”

Morgan held a hand out and Steve knelt before her and Rick. Kenya watched the love resurfacing for father and daughter and understood why Morgan couldn't see Brian for the creap he was until he'd hurt her. She'd missed Steve so much she just wanted her father back and Brian, in a twisted way filled that for her in a way Marcus couldn't.

People milled in and out of the library, and their time apart grew shorter with each smile she witnessed crossing her husband’s face staring at Ethan.

“Look at the way our son follows your voice when you speak, honey,” Kenya preened. Jonathan raised his son's little balled fist to his lips kissing his knuckles.

“I noticed that too. He's very alert,” he admitted touching Ethan's round face. They held the same features. Same eyebrows, straight and too close together. Ethan carried his father’s sinister guarded stare, reading your every move. On Jonathan, the stare could remove her clothes without her moving. It was sexy and scary and gotten her pregnant she was certain. On Ethan, the new love of her life, it was disturbingly adorable and she could feel money leaving her pocket in clumps at Toys-R-Us. Jonathan’s hand caressing her face had her bringing her face up leveling her eyes even with his. She watched him look at their son then down to her face.

“Ethan,” Jonathan said, tilting Ethan to see Kenya. “You have the bravest mother around.” He stroked his other hand over her cheek. “Get to know this particular face, son. Protect this woman with everything you are and have, because she turned her world inside out to include us in it and I'm proud to know her.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“Shh,” Jonathan motioned a finger pressed to his lips. “He's asleep, finally.” Easing the door closed to the nursery, he listened for the light snick, trying to avoid waking his son. A sweet scent arrested his attention. He sucked in a breath. His wife emerged from the bathroom, squeezing a towel over her thick dark hair, her face flush from the heat of her bath. Releasing the breath, he extended a hand collecting Kenya as she willingly moved into his embrace. He took another calming breath. His body tensed inside with the thought of taking his wife to bed. Jonathan hadn't cared that he had to wear a condom until after she stopped nursing. He wouldn't chance getting Kenya pregnant so soon after what he saw her go through in the labor room.

It's been close to a year, since they were married and shared their last night together. Now he felt like a wimp shaking like a teenager caught with an erection staring at his hot teacher.

Kenya stared up at him and her big brown eyes were wide and eager. To his shame, Jonathan felt the first slip of precum warm over the head of his erection trapped behind his zipper. Then a thicker flow erupted and he jerked back closing his eyes trying to suppress what was happening. Shit! You did not just prematurely come staring at your wife!

Kenya tilted her face lowering her eyes to the floor, and he knew she'd assumed wrong. Assumed he'd pulled away from her body because of the baby. She'd voiced her concern numerous times over the past six weeks and he never saw any flaws with her body. If anything, those thick hips bumping him at night drove him to the sofa two three times a week. Afraid he'd crawl on top of her in his sleep. Must be a woman thing.

“Give me your hand, Kenya.” He pressed her palm to his wet crotch and watched his wife glow under the affirmation that she was sexy as hell to him. “Feel that. Looking into your face made me come. Do you still doubt I find you attractive?”

“I just don't feel attractive right now.”

He lowered his mouth until it closed over hers in a warm gentle kiss. Cupping a hand beneath her round hips, he lifted her off the floor bringing his arms around her one at a time to hold her to his chest. Kenya's smile opened his face and his heart. He had a healthy son and a supple, beautiful wife, with a voluptuous body even curvier from giving birth to his child.

“I never wanna be without you, Kenya,” he confessed kissing a trail up the gentle slope of her nose to her smooth forehead. The peachy scent of her hair filled his senses. “Every time I look at you I see my future, and not just the next day or event, the way I saw life before you switched your blue panties into my world. And now I have a wife and a son.” He set her behind on the dresser watched her clutch the towel to her swollen breast. His son wasn't getting those tonight. “No talk of anyone but us tonight?”

“Thank you for keeping your promise to come home early so I could indulge in a hot bath. I've never craved bubbles and hot water with such a manic longing. I finally feel clean.”

He laughed. “You're always clean, Mo Ru'n and sweet.”

Kenya flexed her fingers in her lap nervously.

“I don't feel sexy, Jonathan, but you make me feel loved. That's sexier than anything you could do. It makes me horny for my husband.” Kenya tucked the towel tighter between her large breasts. “Mmm...you always know what to say,” she preened drawing the shirt from his pants until the wrinkled linen hung slack outside of his trousers. Jonathan tilted his head watching his wife, her slender fingers unbuttoning his shirt, pushing the small black buttons through the holes dragging the panels of his shirt off his shoulders. He'd rolled his sleeves back when he laid Ethan down for his nap and now the shirt floated to the floor behind him. He stood in his tank and she made short work of pushing it up over his head. Dropping the cotton to the floor Kenya drug her nails through the hairs on his chest before she eased her cheek over his torso her heavy breast pushing up to swell out of the towel. “This is what I missed since we got here in Ireland. Your lingering scent after you'd come by my apartment. Warm and masculine. I've missed this, missed you. And we'd never had a proper night since we got married.”

He dipped his head, heart beat racing as his nostrils filled with the sweet fruity scent of his wife. Brushing away the thick curl dangling over her left brow, Jonathan kissed it trailing down bringing his mouth to the curve of her jaw to kiss along her neck. Kenya's warm moist skin dimpled behind him dragging his teeth along her shoulder down the supple curve along the length of her arm. Lifting away following the soft moans escaping her lips he brought their foreheads together.

“Is it too soon? I mean...” Jonathan covered Kenya's back through the towel molding his moist sweaty palm to the new fuller shape of his wife. “Aye, I want you. Are you ready for me, Kenya?” They hadn't made love in so long, the anticipation coursed through him leaving his palms moist and shaky. Their son was officially six weeks old and here he stood trembling in anticipation with this amazing woman in his arms.

“I won't break honey,” Kenya assured him her hips doing a slow gyrate against his length growing under each stroke. “It's been almost a year since we've made love, foreplay is unnecessary.” Jonathan palmed her breast after Kenya lifted his hand to her tender flesh, “I'm swollen and slick and so need this inside me,” Kenya confessed unashamedly. He rubbed up and down her arms watching her unzipping his pants sliding her hand into his briefs, closing her fingers around his sex flexing, stroking the full length. Jonathan had to tell himself to take it slow no matter how much she wanted him. She'd given birth to their son; her body needed patience not his usual aggressive attack the moment her clothes hit the floor. “Oh, I've missed this.” Kenya bit his nipples making him jerk in the grip of her fist and he caught his hips pumping into her hand.

Shoving a hand into his pants, he had to stop Kenya's gripping him through his briefs fondling the wet head of his length. “Mo Ru'n if I blink too fast, that towel won't be enough to absorb what I have waiting for you. Let me at least be between your legs before I embarrass myself again coming prematurely.”

Kenya pressed her fingers to his lips shaking her head working the trousers down his legs with her other hand. He sprang from beneath his briefs when she skimmed the material down his thighs. She held it in her hand lowering her face she kissed the skin on his stomach.

Jonathan wanted to see her body, she’d kept covered since they'd come home from the hospital. Scooping her beneath her knees, he lifted her then crossed the room to the bed. The mattress dipped and he crawled to the center of the bed. Back on his heels, Jonathan closed a hand over the edge of the towel tucked between her breasts.

“Let me see you...all of you,” he urged barely hanging on to his restraint. The anticipation of touching her body ate at him. The bite of her nails dragging along his spine making him arc into her body where her muscles would grip him with the strength of a fist, taunted his mind. He wanted his woman. Want didn't cover the need pumping through his veins for his wife. He breathed through his nose. Get a grip. “Take your time.”

“I'm still carrying ten extra pounds and my stomach is soft, Jonathan,” Kenya complained holding the towel tight under her fingers. Her wet curly hair framed the insecurity staring out at him from her eyes darting around the room.

She needed reassurance he noticed and he would have no problem giving it to her. Down on the bed he crawled up between her shapely legs resting his chin on her left thigh as he slowly eased the cotton from her grip. The towel revealed perfection behind every inch of her skin it slipped over, giving him a renewed lust for his wife. “I know every mole and childhood scratch on your shin. This scratch on your knee,” licking his tongue over the hint of a scar he kissed the darker skin of her knee. “You got this when you thought the blood you found on the ground in the field was mine, the day Seamus was shot,” he admitted, easing the thick towel the rest of the way freeing his wife's supple breast. He caressed the sides looking up at her over the gentle swell of her belly. Tipping his chin, he kissed the one stretch mark below her navel, laving it evoking a moan from over his head. Stroking his thumb over the thin skin, he admitted proudly, “I'm the man that put the baby in your body that gave you this stretch mark.” Kenya eased up on her elbow and he leaned into her hand stroking down the curve of his head, her fingers tangling in his hair. Her lips tugging at the tip of his ear caused his erection to thump along the bed behind each nip of her teeth grazing the tender skin. He said, “You're amazing, sexy, hell, babe, you're so fucking sexy.” His words came out harsher than he planned, but she had no idea how anxious he'd been all day thinking of this moment, when he could lie in her arms again. He brushed the backs of his knuckles across the soft skin of her belly. “My son is strong and healthy and happy all because this body shielded him from the outside world.”

Her warm smile fed peace to his heart. “I'm just self-conscious, honey. The last time you saw me naked, I was...” He cut her off.

“The same as you are now, my hot and sexy wife,” he warned untangling the towel from under her hips, he grabbed three condoms from the night table he'd placed there anticipating this night for weeks. Kenya's eyes widened when he crawled off her to stand beside the bed. Holding out a hand, he just wanted to look at her, and got to his knees propping his elbows on the edge of the mattress. “Don't move, just lie there.” Her skin quivered behind his finger dragging between her breasts, tracing the curves around each breast. “Do I even possess the knowledge to appreciate so much beauty? Lying in my cell I could see this, your naked body, but I could never create the feeling in my head. There's no way to replicate the sensation of your breath catching and your skin doing that, right there, the trembling, the lower my finger travels down your body.” He raised his eyes. “No one breathes like you Kenya, easy and deep. No one can mimic your scent, or the way it changes throughout the day, taking on the heat of your body. That's what I missed lying in my cell, Kenya. Everything that makes you mine,” he finished.

“Being away from your touch was my battle.” She said, “Your hands in my hair, massaging my temples when you came over. The way you’d smooth your hand over my hip to step around me,” she admitted in a quiet voice. “No one could fill for me. No one’s touch held the understanding and comfort that yours did. That made the night especially hard, not just the sex, but the presence you hold in my day...was gone.”

She wound her arms around his neck as he tucked a hand under her knees and an arm beneath her back lifting her naked body off the bed. His erection bounced under her slipping along the crease of her slick behind. She was aroused and wet. “Aye, Kenya!” He paused to shift her in his arms allowing his body to swipe through the slick heat again.

“That's what you do to me,” she told him breathlessly.

“Mmhmm,” he moaned. He carried his wife out to her favorite spot, the window seat, where she'd told him she'd sat and waited, praying, to see the jeep pulling in bringing him home at night.