The Trouble with Bree (Spotlight #1.5) (5 page)

Chapter Ten

“Can Josh read me a story?” Landon asked, he’d been almost impossible to settle down once he realized Josh was coming back home with us. I knew we were going to pay dearly for those late naps after the museum. But hopefully not for asking Josh to stay.

I looked over to Josh, who was lying on the floor playing with Lucas, not sure what to say. “If he wants to?” I didn’t know if it would make him uncomfortable. Even though he’d spent all day with the kids, it was still pretty personal.

Josh sat up. “What’s your favorite bedtime story?”

“Pigeon!” Landon called out, his face brightened once he realized he was getting his way. There was a bunch of books about a sassy little pigeon who wanted to drive busses and eat hot dogs that I strongly encouraged every night because they were funny as hell.

“Those are the best,” Josh said. Of course he was familiar with the books. “But I can’t read anything to anyone who hasn’t brushed his teeth.”

Landon ran into the bathroom. I looked at Josh in disbelief. “Really? That’s all it takes?” I’d been lobbying to get him to do the same thing for a half an hour.

“Magic.” Josh turned back to Lucas and held up his hand. “Give me five.” Lucas slapped his hand, and then I scooped him up to bring him into the bathroom. It was always my goal to get the kids in bed at the same time.

Landon pulled on Josh’s hand to bring him into the bedroom once he passed my hygiene standards. I leaned in the doorway of the bathroom not sure what to do. “Can I come, too?” I asked.

At first I didn’t think Landon was going to say yes. He stopped, still holding Josh’s hand, carefully considering his options. “Can we sleep in your bed, Mama?”

Hell no. “Not tonight, baby.” He frowned. It wasn’t going to work. “Why don’t you show Josh what a big boy you are and sleep in your own bed?”
Because later, I wanted Josh to show me what a big boy he was by sleeping in my bed.
I laughed out loud at the thought. The three of them looked at me like I’d lost it, and they were probably right, but I just shook my head and followed them to the bedroom.

I lay in Lucas’ bed, and Josh sat with Landon, and we traded off reading stories until the boys passed out.

“Good job,” I whispered, easing out from under Lucas’ body.

“How do we get out of here?” Josh whispered back. He’d wound up next to the wall, and Landon was sprawled between him and freedom. Amateur.

“Very carefully.” I was already up, between the beds, and I held out my hand to help Josh step off the bed without falling on my kid or waking him up. I looked back to Landon before we left, saying a quick prayer that he’d actually sleep through the night.

We were still holding hands when I closed the bedroom door. Josh backed me up against the wall in the hallway and kissed me. This was our first time truly alone, that we’d planned, and it changed everything.

From the start of our relationship, we’d had to act like an old married couple. Don’t get me wrong, it was everything I’d ever wanted, but now that we didn’t have an audience, I had a feeling Josh was going to be a whole other fantasy for me.

He brought my hand up over my head, fingers still interlaced as he parted my lips, stubble scraping my chin. I tipped my head back and sighed against him as he ran his other hand down my cheek, falling to my shoulder, and settling on my breast. I pushed my body against his and he pinned me back to the wall by his hips, never taking his lips away from mine.

I gasped when he stopped, but his forehead still rested against mine. His eyes burned bright in the shadows, the heat of his body setting me on fire. “What do you want to do now?” he asked.

The room was spinning around me, this total shift in everything I knew Josh to be made me dizzy in the best possible way. Nothing I said would do this feeling justice. So many times, I’d fallen for a guy too fast. Daisy teased me that I could fall in love with anyone. But this was different. We’d done everything right.

My bedroom was adjacent to the boys’ room. I reached over, still pinned to the wall by Josh’s body, and opened the door.

Josh kissed me one more time before easing away from me. I led him into my room and sat at the foot of the bed. I usually did this the other way around. Screwed a guy and then tried to start a relationship. It never worked. And that’s why I was terrified, because what if going to bed with Josh was a ticking bomb, and everything we’d built was about to get destroyed?

He put his knee between my legs, and pushed me gently back to the mattress. Running his fingers over my cheek, he looked down at me, smiling. “I’m glad you invited me to stay tonight.” Leaning down and kissing me, he added, “I hope this is what you had in mind.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him in closer to me. His body crashed down on mine, and he fisted my hair in his fingers. “It’s exactly what I was thinking of.” I giggled, because I was terrible at trying to be sexy.

Josh leaned back, peeling off his T-shirt, then undid his belt buckle. I probably should have helped him, but I was enjoying the show too much. His body was lean but a little muscular, he’d never mentioned doing any sort of sport, but he looked like he could have. I took the opportunity to slide back to the head of the bed. Once he was down to his boxer briefs, he crawled up to me at the pillows, crushing his lips against mine. I ran my hands up and down his arms, and he moaned against my cheek before he moved down to my neck. I cried out when he hit the spot just below my ear that made everything in my body go haywire.

His hands were hot under my shirt, the air shockingly cool as he bared my skin, separating from me just enough to bring the shirt over my head. I covered my bra, forgetting until now I’d thrown on some crappy thing this morning when I had no idea I was going to do this. But then I remembered no guy in the history of sex ever cared about any of that shit as they were taking it off of a girl.

“This is what I’m talking about,” he said as he leaned down to take my nipple in his mouth, he flicked it with his tongue, bringing it to attention before he nipped it. His hand cupped my other breast as he sucked. I pressed him close to my body, nervous if he got a good look at me—when I sat up my boobs sagged from breastfeeding, I still had the belly pooch, branded with stretch marks—he’d run for the hills. If he had any objections, he was keeping them to himself.

I fumbled with my jeans, they needed to go. Josh rolled off of me, smiling as I tried to wriggle out of them. “I fail at sexy,” I said, pushing them down off my hips.

“No, you don’t.” Josh hooked his thumbs into my panties, and swept all the fabric away from my legs. He was going to say something else, but stopped when he took a look at me. I couldn’t meet his eyes. One arm was on either side of my body, and he brought his lips to my ear. “You are the most effortlessly sexy woman I’ve ever met.”

He looked down at my thigh, now fading to pink and yellow, and ran his finger lightly along the damage. “Does this still hurt?”

“Only if one of the boys crashes into it.” My breath hitched in my throat.

Josh slid his boxers off, his body ready for mine. The knee was back between my legs as he leaned back over me, tipping my face to his. “Don’t be shy, Bree.” One quick kiss before he pulled away.

“I guess you’d never believe I haven’t done this before?” I chuckled.

Josh bit his lip to conceal his smile, but it didn’t work. He glanced back to the wall we shared with my sleeping boys and then back to me. “Not for a second.” His fingers landed on my sex, massaging it until I was hot, slick, and writhing in rhythm with his touch. He slipped them inside me, and my muscles pulsed around him like crazy as he massaged my inner walls. A flame was building at my core, threatening to explode.

I took his cock in my hand, running my fingers back and forth along the length of his shaft. Josh squeezed his eyes shut and his mouth opened in an O. I circled my finger over the glistening tip, and then down to the spot that unglued every man. He froze, his fingers sliding out of me, and I flipped over, crawling to him on hands and knees. Then I pushed him back on the bed so I could take him in my mouth. Cupping his sack as I licked and sucked, I laughed as Josh moaned.

“Fuck, you’re good at that,” he hissed between clenched teeth, hands tangled again in my hair. I couldn’t answer him, for obvious reasons. Instead, I flicked my eyes up to meet his. He’d been watching me, slack jawed, and when our eyes locked, my body felt like it had been struck by lightning. When he pulled my head away from him, I kneeled beside him, and he sat up to meet me with a kiss, but then stopped. “My bag is in the living room.”

“Why do you need it?” My body was throbbing, needing him to come inside, and there was no fucking way I was letting him out of this room right now.

“Because,” he panted, “I like your kids a lot, but I think two is plenty right now.”

“Oh.” I laughed, leaning over with Josh following my body so I could take a condom out of nightstand. This girl knew better than to rely on her guests to bring party favors. I ripped open the packet before handing it to him. “You came to the right place.”

“And you said you’d never done this before,” he scoffed as he rolled it down over himself and then straddled me, leading my back down to the mattress once again. “Liar.” The words were crushed against my lips.

“I wanted to surprise you,” I said once I squirmed free of him. “Because then you wouldn’t have any expectations.”

Josh was holding himself up over me with a wicked look on his face. “I changed my mind.”

“What?” Fuck. I knew this guy was too good to be true. Instead of answering me, he flipped me over so I was straddling him, his cock hot against my stomach. He guided my hips up so my core hovered over him, and then let go.

I lowered myself down on him, relishing the beautiful burn as my muscles stretched around him, welcoming him inside me. Once he was all the way in, I steadied myself with my hands on his shoulders, and started moving back and forth. Josh thrust up inside me as my body pulsed and clenched around him, not wanting to let him go. The explosions started to go off somewhere deep inside me, my skin beading with sweat as I rested my forehead against his, my whole body going limp as the fire came to the surface, threatening to swallow me whole.

Josh wasn’t done, he flipped me over again like I was a rag doll and continued to thrust deep inside me as the world rained down around me. His shaft swelled inside me as he came while he kissed me, tiny little nips on my lips, my cheeks, and my eyelids.

He lay beside me, neither of us talking for a long time, but we still couldn’t take our hands off of each other like we weren’t convinced that really happened. Every so often, he’d lean in and kiss me. “I could never have anyone sleep over when I was a kid,” he said, breaking the silence, his eyes sad.

“Me neither.” My mother never wanted anyone in the house.

“I think it was better that way.” His face was close to mine, his fingers just below my lips. “Because I appreciate it more now.”

I nodded, putting my head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me and I was back in the place where nothing could ever hurt me.

Chapter Eleven

“Don’t worry about it. Anyone who thinks there’s no sex after kids is full of shit,” I reassured Daisy as I helped her get ready for the party this weekend. Party was a loose term. Everyone had been invited to Ev’s wedding, and the family decided to keep the day and use it as a memorial and a shower for her baby, JR, who was almost ready to come home from the hospital instead. Daisy’s parents thought that Ev would want her to take him, and Daisy was understandably nervous about everything. Finally, I was an authority on something. It was best to put her mind at ease about the easy stuff first. “If that were true, nobody would have more than one kid.”

“But the kids are always around.” Daisy said as she tied a ribbon around a mason jar, her eyes sad as she adjusted the bow. Ev had had a very specific vision of how she wanted this day to be, and we didn’t feel right changing anything. It didn’t make it any easier. “Doesn’t it make things hard? Or awkward?”

“No. It’s actually way hotter.” Josh had been sleeping over a lot since that first night, to the point that my wretched bitch of a neighbor wanted to know if he’d moved in. She’d like that too much. It would automatically be the end of my housing benefits. No such luck. “All those little looks and touches and things that you say in passing that you can’t do anything about in front of the kids add up, and it reaches a boiling point. As soon as the kids are asleep, we’re pretty much slamming each other against the wall because we can’t wait another second.”

“Nice.” Daisy laughed. I hadn’t been sure about her moving in with Cam because she’d only known him for like a month. I thought it was too soon, but I’d been wrong, it was just what she needed to move forward. Cam planned to stick around for the long haul, they’d been busy decorating a bedroom for JR in his house. “But you’re not worried about having Josh around the kids? I mean, you guys have only been together for a couple weeks.”

“I know. And I do worry. But if I hadn’t let him meet the kids, we were never going to be able to see each other. I haven’t talked to my mother since she asked me what I did to make Troy kick my ass, and then told me I needed to clean my house in the next sentence.” If Josh wanted to break up with me, I could handle that. But it would destroy the boys. They couldn’t stop talking about him. Daisy wasn’t the only one dating a rock star.