Unchained (64 page)

She beamed.

“Come on then, wife. Let’s get dressed. I have a sudden need to see our son.”

Does it get better than this
, she wondered. Their unusual love story started when a brooding dark knight rescued a ponytailed virgin, and the rest, as they said, was history.

They were charting their future based on a legacy of love at first sight. Knowing how close they came to losing everything made this new chapter in their story even more exciting.

A page turned in their personal happy ever after, and they got dressed and went to get their son.

“To Justice,” Parker said with a shot glass held high. “I’m proud to be part of something so … unique.”

“Hear, hear,” the assembled group of men all drawled.

Clustered in a half-drunk group of grown men who should know better, Cam, Alex, Drae, Parker, Brody, and Calder clinked glasses and downed the oversized shots of single malt.

“
Mmm
. What is this again? Fucking fantastic finish. Sweet and peppery at the same time.

“Lagavulin,” Alex replied. Snorting a drunken laugh, he looked around at each of them. “Me and the wife are trying to find a drink we can agree on.”

“Glenfiddich will always be for pussies,” Parker chimed in.

“Eat my dick, Counselor.”

Calder started to chuckle. “Seems all kinds of wrong to be drinking with you twatsicles when my lady can’t likewise imbibe.”

Cam still had a hard time wrapping his mind around Stephanie being pregnant.

“That’s what you get for shtupping my mother-in-law.”

Deep, hearty bellows of laughter rang out at Drae’s dry comment.

“How’s the arm?” Brody slurred.

“Can’t feel shit at the moment.” Cam smirked with a chuckle. “Couple more of these,” he said holding the empty shot glass up, “and you could pull my wisdom teeth with no anesthetic.”

Brody’s amused bark bounced off the walls of the custom theater room. The one Drae had designed and built while he and Lacey were on their honeymoon. Cam had to grin. His life was pretty fucking awesome.

“Okay, gentlemen,” the dog guru exclaimed as he walked up to the pole Lacey had installed at the rear of the room. “Since none of you fuckers ever had the balls to do musical theater, that leaves me to instruct y’all with some dance moves.”

“Nothing that’ll put me on my face,” Drae sniped with a whiskey swagger as he moved next to Brody.

Parker approached Drae and threw a fake punch. The two pretended to tussle as Alex and Calder laughed their asses off. He and Brody looked at each other and smirked.

“Move out of the way,” Calder boomed. “I’m a fucking surfer. Got a good core and know where my center is.”

“This oughta be good,” Brody drawled.

Grabbing the pole after a little jump, it was hilarious when Calder was able to do nothing more than hang on as he slowly slid down the pole. So much for thinking this shit was easy.

“Seriously?” mumbled Brody, who was knee-deep in an epic drunk. Cam had to laugh. He’d never seen the guy so loose. “You were supposed to pay attention to the video. Do I have to ask Cam to show it again?”

“Nah, fuck that,” Drae said with Lagavulin-infused St. John cockiness. Hitching up his jeans like an eighty-year-old, he grabbed the pole and tried flinging himself around it only to land like a rock on the floor.

Big Daddy stepped up and sneered at them all. “Move away, little boys. Let the monster dick have a try.”

“Monster dick!” Parker and Brody bawled with delight almost at the same time.

Took only a few seconds for the big guy to also make a fool of himself. Cam was enjoying this immensely.

Only Brody remained, and he’d done so much trash talking that Cam couldn’t wait to see what he brought.

“The trick, ladies,” he sneered at his inebriated cohorts, “is to keep moving. Like a hula hoop.”

Okay,
Cam thought as he watched the insanely limber canine master do a couple of impressive muscle moves. But using the pole as a glorified chin-up bar sorta missed the point.

“You guys all suck,” he scolded with his best scowl after Brody hopped down and bowed to a smattering of applause.

Walking on a slight tilt—shit, that single malt was deadly stuff—he went to a control panel and tapped away until the sound system fired up and the catchy beat of a classic disco song filled the room. It was his wife’s favorite get up and boogie tune, “You Should Be Dancing” by the Bee Gees. Whenever he heard the song, he knew what his wife was doing.

His inner Tony Manero stepped up to entertain his grinning, laughing friends as Cam Saturday Night Fevered his way up to the pole. The next minute went by in a blur, despite his arm burning like the fires of hell as he swung and curled around the simple metal tube.

Leaving everyone slack-jawed, he showed them everything his ponytailed wife had taught him, and when his arm couldn’t take anymore, he hopped down and immediately disco danced his way in a circle until everyone else raucously joined him.

With the iconic disco song booming from the speakers, he and his band of brothers and friends drunkenly conga lined round and round, executing the best whiskey-soaked disco and country line dance moves of all time.

“C
AN WE TALK
for a minute?”

Tori turned, startled to find Draegyn standing in the archway to their dressing room. It had been a couple of days since Cam had returned and Lacey went home. Since then, she and her husband continued to cohabitate in the same house but with precious little interaction. Unless it involved Daniel, they didn’t seem to have much to say.

Swiveling on her vanity stool, she faced him and consented with a brief nod. The solemn look on his face was the new normal, and she hated it.

He stepped hesitantly toward her. Indicating the stack of brushes and makeup cluttering the vanity, he asked with a curious chuckle, “What’s with all that? You have a date or something?”

He was just being cute, but the words hurt her heart because she also hated the distance between them.

Playing with her hair as a way of acting like she was in control when nothing was further from the truth, she fiddled with an errant curl and half shrugged. “Just making sure I present well.”

“Sweetness,” he drawled. “You shine when everyone else just twinkles.”

God, this sucks
, she thought. Wanting nothing more than for a chance to rewind back to the night she brought up the mysterious Carol, Tori wished do-overs were really possible. The words she spoke in anger and the way she reacted to her husband’s shocking admission that he’d taken more children off the table with an unbelievably selfish move haunted her day and night.

Now that she was feeling better and wasn’t running around at Mach 2 hair-on-fire all the time, she was seeing things through less manic eyes.

Not communicating was their marital Achilles’ heel. But how did she hit the reset button when so much churning water was still rushing beneath the bridge?

“Thank you,” she said with a sudden blush. Lowering her head so he wouldn’t see how unnerved she was, Tori brushed invisible lint off her dress and tried not to let the anxiety overtake her.

Draegyn moved closer and pulled up an ottoman that sat in the middle of the space. “Here,” he said as he sat down. “I have something for you.”

A small red box dropped into her lap. “What is it?” she asked.

He softly chuckled. “Well, you have to open it to find out.”

Looking from him to the box and then back and forth, again and again, she took the surprise present and lifted the lid. Inside was a wooden nickel with the Justice logo burned onto one side. Slipping the odd round disk out of the box, she turned it over. On the back, the coin read:
Good for one belated tropical honeymoon
.

Gasping, she clutched the wood coin and stared at her husband.

“Draegyn, I don’t know what to say.”

“You can start by saying you’ll keep the wooden nickel.”

“Well, of course,” she mumbled. Emotion clogged her throat. Relying on a technique Meghan taught her, Tori breathed deeply several times and waited for the mad rush of overwhelming emotions to lessen. “But with the way things are,” she muttered miserably as she shrugged away the rest of her reply.

“Let’s not dwell on that, okay? Things aren’t always how they appear.”

She searched his face, confused by the words coming from his mouth.

“In the interest of full disclosure, baby,” he added. “I ditched the Lamborghini and put the money from the sale into Daniel’s savings account.” He snickered and made a face. “He can use it to buy his first car, although anything with the word ‘sport’ in the description will earn a thumbs-down from dear old dad.”

What was he saying? “Draegyn,” she whispered slowly in shocked wonder. “The Lambo? I thought you loved that thing.”

He made a wry face. “You’re right about it being a thing. That’s all. Just”—he looked around and shrugged—“a thing.”

There was a message in what he said, but she wasn’t sure what it was.

She sat with the wooden nickel numbly clasped in her hands and stared at him.

He touched her fingers with his then eased off. In a way, the simple touch felt like the first contact. Instead of pulling away, she wanted more.

“I only need one thing, Victoria, and that’s you. And our family.”

Continuing to search his face, she paused when he put such emphasis on the word ‘family.’

Words shot from her mouth, shocking them both. “I want things back the way they were. Before all of this,” she stammered with a dismissive wave. “Before life got in the way.”

“I want that too,” he answered gravely.

“How do we get there?” she asked in a frightened whisper.

She knew he was reacting to the fear in her question when he reached for her hand and this time held on. There was something about the way he looked at her.

“I know you feel as though you can’t trust me, Victoria, but you can. There are things I need to say. Things you need to know.”

She blinked, swallowed past the lump in her throat, and looked at the wooden nickel.

“Okay.” That was all she had at the moment.

“May I ask you a question?”

Hmm.
Put on the spot. She nodded jerkily and chewed on her lip.

“Did you mean what you said about not wanting another baby?”

She stifled a choked sob. “No, but it’s too late for that now.”

He surprised the shit out of her yet again when he kissed her hand, let it go, and stood up.

What? That was it? What the hell?

At the archway into the bedroom, he turned around and smiled. “I won’t let you down, Victoria. Ever.”

He turned around and left.

What exactly did he mean by that?