Chapter Eighteen
Streeter had Bailey pinned against the wall of his shower.
Naked, wet and squirming against the wall as he slowly pumped his cock into her.
“Streeter. Please.”
“Please what?” he demanded, scraping his teeth across the slope of her shoulder, then sucking the water droplets from her skin.
She shivered.
She moaned.
He fucking loved how she responded to him. Every. Single. Time.
In the weeks they’d been together, he’d become better acquainted with her body than with his own. He’d earned every kiss, every sigh, every bite mark, every nail gouge, every sting of sweat dripping into his eyes as he learned how to be the lover she craved.
He attended to his daily studies religiously.
The rewards of being an eager pupil were the stuff wet dreams were made of.
Like this.
Her clawing, ripping need as he took her ass.
He’d never done that particular act—Danica had outright refused. She’d recoiled at the idea of ass play of any kind.
Not Bailey.
She’d reveled in initiating him into the pleasures of anal sex.
And what a fucking rush it was, from the extra time and care he used preparing her, to the mind-blowing sensation of slowly pushing into that unbelievably tight channel as he drove in hard and pulled all the way out.
Weeks of nearly daily fucking had given him the stamina and sexual confidence he’d lacked.
She’d given him that confidence.
And she’d benefited from his stamina.
Win-win all around.
Her cries echoed louder than the water pouring over them, loud enough to drown out the buzzing of the small vibrator resting against her clit. She couldn’t come from anal penetration alone, so he’d found a way to make her come.
“Don’t . . . please . . . don’t change. Move just like that,” she panted, her fingers clutching his hair so tightly his scalp stung.
“I got you, darlin’. You’re almost there.” He pressed his mouth next to her ear. “Even when I’m buried in your ass, I can feel your sweet pussy contracting when you come. It’s the sexiest thing ever, baby. Give it to me.” Then he sank his teeth into the magic spot below her jaw and she absolutely unraveled.
She whimpered as her clit pulsed and her pussy clenched, stopping movement entirely to feel the full force of her orgasm.
As soon as the tension in her body eased, she rested her forehead on his shoulder with a heavy sigh of satisfaction and said, “Ready.”
Streeter hammered into her without pause. Plunging deeper, straining his neck, his abs, his ass cheeks tightened to get to that point . . . and motherfuck, there it was. White-hot pleasure that rolled through him like a blast furnace.
He’d gone completely nonverbal, grunting and groaning as his dick jerked and pulsed against those viselike walls; his vision had gone hazy and he tried to stay upright.
After the last heated burst of come released, he lost his balance. When he tried to catch himself, his hips moved and his cock slipped out in one fast jerk.
Bailey shouted, “Ow, goddammit, that hurt!”
“Sorry.”
Four rapid knocks sounded on the door.
They both froze. They’d gotten so used to having the place to themselves on the weekend that they’d gotten carried away.
“Daddy?”
Shit. Fuck. “Uh, yeah?”
“Is Bailey in there with you?”
His gaze met Bailey’s—her eyes were round with shock. She mouthed, “Answer her.”
“Yes, she’s in here.”
“Why?”
Shit. Fuck. “I’m helpin’ her wash her hair. It’s kind of a mess.”
Bailey slapped his ass hard and hissed, “Seriously?”
A brief pause outside the door and then Olivia said, “I’m hungry.”
“I’ll be right out.”
“Okay.”
Before Bailey could chew his ass, he kissed her. Then he whispered, “Ain’t really a lie. I fucked your hair up pretty good this morning when you blew me.”
That earned him another slap on the ass.
Totally worth it, though.
Olivia was finishing her bowl of Frosted Flakes when Bailey entered the kitchen.
And for once, Olivia didn’t ignore her. She scrutinized her.
Bailey sent a WTF? look at Streeter standing near the coffeepot.
He shrugged.
“Your hair don’t look messy to me,” Olivia said.
“Well, that’s . . . because your dad did a good job of fixing it.”
And that was that.
Bailey shouldered her gym bag and headed for the exit.
Before she opened the door, she turned around and said, “Aren’t you forgetting something this morning, Olivia?”
Her eyes lit up. “May I please have my drums back, Sergeant B?”
“Not today, girlie, but I’ll let you play them later.”
“Yay!”
Bailey blew him a kiss and walked out.
Streeter glanced at the clock, then at his daughter. “After you make your bed and brush your teeth, we’ve gotta get movin’.”
“Where are we goin’?”
“To meet Grandpa Steve.” He paused. “At Trampoline World.”
The kid was so pumped she bounced all the way to her room.
Streeter wasn’t as thrilled, even when he’d called Steve for the meet-up.
Two hours later, Olivia was happily supervised, bouncing on every trampoline and bouncy castle imaginable.
He and Steve grabbed a seat in the parental observation area.
Danica’s father had always been a quiet man, but it’d been hard for him to get a word in with his overly chatty wife.
Streeter didn’t really know Steve well, despite being married to his daughter for a decade. He had nothing in common with the man; Steve was an accountant at a private firm. He didn’t hunt or fish. He golfed. He read. He did lawn care and household repairs. He hadn’t seemed particularly close to his daughter, but he was at every family gathering, dinner, holiday and party arranged by his wife.
Within two years of Danica’s death, Steve Joyce’s life had imploded. He quit his lucrative job to head up a nonprofit in Rock Springs. He left his wife. He bought a maintenance-free condo. He traded in his new Mercedes for an older-model Jeep. No longer was Steve the clean-cut guy in a suit; he wore jeans and T-shirts. He’d grown out his salt-and-pepper hair. And he looked old, much older than when Streeter had met him twenty years ago.
“I was surprised to hear from you, Streeter. Happy, but surprised.”
“I’m sorry for that. I’ve stayed out of the pass-off between you and Deenie on the weekends.”
“I’d stay out of it too, if I could.” He picked at the edge of his foam coffee cup. “What’s she done now?”
No need to clarify who “she” was. “About a month and a half ago I started seein’ a woman. It’s been low-key”—such a lie—“so I didn’t mention it.”
“And to be blunt, why would you?” Steve said. “It’s your life. But go on.”
“Bailey, the woman I’m seein’, and I were out for dinner this week and we ran into Deenie. It was an ugly scene, not as ugly as it could’ve been, but it ended with Deenie sayin’ she was done spendin’ weekends with Olivia so I could be with Bailey.”
“Goddamn woman.”
“Not to be a smart-ass, but it ain’t like Olivia’s gonna care if Deenie cuts her out.”
“Olivia didn’t ask why she wasn’t going to her grandma’s this weekend?”
Streeter shook his head. “I ain’t gonna beg her to spend time with her granddaughter. And I won’t apologize for livin’ my life.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“So what’s the best thing to do?”
“Where Deenie is concerned? Who the fuck knows.” He paused and rubbed his beard. “Sorry. Uncalled-for.”
“No worries.”
Steve sighed before he spoke. “Danica left us all in a helluva mess. I loved my daughter, and it pains me to admit I didn’t know her. I don’t think anyone knew her, and that’s where Deenie has always disagreed with me. She couldn’t accept that she didn’t see the signs for postpartum depression. Or she blamed you for not seeing them. Or she blamed you for hiding them from us. Every week she had a different theory on what ‘really happened.’ So for the first six months, I didn’t get to mourn my daughter. Deenie acted as if, if she could solve the mystery of Danica’s suicide, then we’d be allowed to grieve.” He sent Streeter a sideways glance. “You know some of this, but not all. She refused to go to counseling. For a while I had to lie to her about where I was going because she didn’t want me going either. We were a team with a capital ‘T’. And Team ‘figure out why our daughter killed herself’ did everything together. Bear in mind, we’d had separate interests the whole of our married life.
“I went along with all of it at first, figuring at some point the finality of the loss of our child would kick in. Then we could grieve together. Maybe learn new things about ourselves in the process. Because there are some serious fucking questions that arise about who you are privately and the public face you show to the world when everyone is looking at you like if you would’ve been a better father, your daughter would still be alive. Like you must’ve failed her. Like her life had to have been truly awful to end it in such a gruesome manner. A piece of myself will always take part of the blame for her suicide. Isn’t that what parents are supposed to do? Absorb the guilt? Was I so self-involved her entire childhood that I’d created that disconnect in her that didn’t allow her to bond to her child? What could I have done differently? And then the next day I’d be pissed off because I’d been the best father I knew how to be. I’d worked my ass off to give her a decent life. And it hadn’t been enough.”
Streeter closed his eyes. He’d dealt with all of those questions and issues himself. But while he’d been trying to sort the truth from the lies in his life, he had to take care of a child who didn’t want to be touched. Who screamed instead of laughed. It’d been easier for him to hate Danica. Not just for what she’d done to him but for the devastation she’d created for everyone in her life, including her parents. But somewhere along the way, he had moved on from his bitterness. He couldn’t claim he’d forgiven Danica for her actions, but he had accepted he’d never have an answer to the question of why and dwelling on that wouldn’t change anything. Now, he felt sorry for her because all she’d seen was despair when she looked at Olivia, and all he’d ever seen in their beautiful baby girl was pure joy.
“The final straw for me was Deenie’s insistence, probably nine months after Danica’s death, right around the time you and Olivia moved to Muddy Gap, that Danica hadn’t meant to kill herself.”
His gut churned remembering all of the blood . . . the absolute guarantee she wouldn’t survive with the use of a knife and a gun. “Why would she think that?”
“Deenie had gotten on a ‘survivors of suicide’ website and read testimonials from people who’d tried to kill themselves and lived to tell about it. Of course they were all filled with regret, warning others of the dangers of suicide, which is noble, but not helpful to people like us who were absolutely caught blindsided by it. No suicide note, no tearful final phone calls, no giving away of prized possessions. Deenie read those suicide survivor letters and swore if Danica had known the heartache her death would cause us, she never would’ve done it.
“That’s when I knew, in order for me to heal, I had to leave her, because Deenie didn’t want to heal. She was searching for an excuse, or someone to blame. Then she went through that psychic and medium phase, where she honestly believed Danica’s spirit was hanging around out of guilt because she hadn’t meant to do it.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “The part of me that cared about Deenie wished one of those con artists would tell her, ‘Yes, Danica is here, standing right beside you and she’s sorry because she didn’t mean to end her life and she’s begging for your forgiveness so you both can move on.’ But even on the off chance that happened, Deenie wouldn’t be satisfied because she doesn’t want to face a world without our daughter in it.”
They were quiet as they watched Olivia having the time of her life being a normal kid.
“I’m glad you’ve got someone in your life, Street. You’re a good man. You deserve it. Olivia has come a long way and it’s all due to you. You wouldn’t bring a woman into your world if she weren’t good for Olivia. You’re too damn honest not to bear all the struggles ahead. Olivia has a tough road and the more people who can keep her on the right path, the better. You won’t fail her.”
“I appreciate you sayin’ that, Steve.”
“As far as Deenie . . . she’ll pout and rant and curse your name, but ultimately she’ll contact you because she’ll miss Olivia. Despite Deenie’s failings, she loves her.”
“I know.”
“But she will try to manipulate Olivia. She’ll try to undermine your new relationship.” He sighed. “Christ, she was doing that before you started seeing anyone. Deenie didn’t bother to be sneaky during our handoff at the beginning of the summer, when she tearfully spewed all that crap about Olivia never needing another mother. She had her grandma, and just knowing that her mother had loved her more than, blah blah blah. I was about to let her have it when Olivia called her out on it.” He chuckled. “I don’t know if calling bullshit on her grandma’s bullshit is a good attribute for a five-year-old, but I was damn happy to see it.”
Streeter smiled.
“I don’t have to tell you that I’ll be in Olivia’s life as much or as little as you decide. And I’m always here to talk if you need it. I never offered before because we were all just so damn . . . wounded. It’s not an open cut anymore. For me it’s finally started to scab over and even heal a little bit.” Steve stood and clapped Streeter on the shoulder. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go bounce on that big trampoline with my granddaughter.”