We Had Our Shit Tight

Addie

EVERYONE WAS GONE.

And I was standing in my bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror.

I’d unearthed another pre-Brooklyn part of my wardrobe, a little red satin nightie that barely covered my ass, had lace at the boobs that drifted in upside down triangles at the sides.

It was sah-weet.

And I was hoping it was sweet enough, it’d hide the fact that I took off my makeup and undid my hair.

Toby wanted me as he’d seen me earlier.

But I was Daphne’s daughter, and even if she had to use the oatmeal out of our kitchen, she took care of her skin and taught her girls to do the same.

If Toby fucked me silly, and I passed out, I couldn’t sleep in makeup.

No way.

But my hair looked better now. Modern-day Barbarella.

It rocked.

The kitchen was cleaned.

Brooks was down.

With the lights out downstairs, the inside of the house had that golden-red glow because Toby had set the outside lights to go off at eleven thirty and it wasn’t that late yet.

And Tobe had brought a bag and was right then in the bedroom either putting on pajamas (which would be a waste of time) or getting naked (which worked for me).

I needed to find another job.

Christmas was coming and my mom was dead and I always missed her during the holidays (or missed her more).

My son’s father was an asshole.

But life was awesome.

I was smiling when I made a move to leave the bathroom, and my eyes hit the bathroom accessories I had in there that we’d brought up from Tennessee.

I’d bought them on sale at Crate and Barrel.

White. Modern. Clean lines. Simple shapes.

But I didn’t care.

They worked and were no muss, no fuss. They could be cream. They could be black. They matched any towels.

They just . . . were.

I found this oddly fascinating and it was what was on my mind when I walked out to the door of the bathroom, opened it, shut out the light and saw Toby in my bed, bare-chested, comforter to his waist.

I got sidetracked by the chest (as any girl would be wont to do).

Though it was also hard to miss he looked good under my comforter, all that olive skin and dark hair. My bedclothes were something that also came up from Tennessee. The comforter was white with some gray bubbles in a design on it. And the sheets were white too.

It didn’t match Izzy’s bed, which was a miracle of curving and looping distressed iron.

But on its own, I liked it.

I stopped by the side of the bed and looked to Toby.

“I don’t care about bathroom accessories,” I announced.

His eyes, locked to my nightie, slid up to my face.

“Say what?”

“My bathroom accessories are white.”

He stared at me.

“They go with everything,” I went on.

He continued to stare at me.

“Same thing, kinda, with this comforter,” I told him, indicating the comforter with a movement of my hand. “I don’t care about home décor,” I declared. “It has to be functional, not ugly, and easy to mix and match.”

“How much do you give a shit that I don’t give a shit about any of this shit you’re saying to me right now?” Toby asked.

“If this works with us, I might be decorating our home, in this case, decorating it in a functional way,” I pointed out. “So you have to know.”

“Let me rephrase,” he said. “How much do you give a shit I don’t give a shit about any of this shit you’re saying to me right now standing by the bed in that fuckin’ amazing nightie, with your sex-bomb hair, when my dick is hard? But just to put your mind at ease so you’ll shut up and get in bed, I like to have space around me that’s nice so, when it comes down to that, I’ll be all over it and it’ll be functional, but it’ll also look cool.”

I had noticed his pad was pretty boss.

I thought about that a microsecond.

Then I thought about his dick being hard.

I looked that way.

“Babe, get in bed,” he commanded.

I looked to his face.

“I really think we have to have this home décor situation hammered out,” I teased.

He rolled, reached out a long arm, and I had to bite back crying out when he caught my wrist and yanked me into bed.

I landed on him, he rolled again so I was on my back and he was on me, and with barely a few moves we were tangled in each other and the comforter.

I looked into his ridiculously handsome face and shared, “You do know, with your modern-day caveman act of hauling me around, it’s so hot, we’re never gonna go slow.”

He grinned down at me. “You wet?”

“I was wet before I left the bathroom.”

His grin changed, his face changed, I felt both changes in my womb, and both got closer as his hands made moves, yanking the comforter out from in between.

“Let’s see,” he murmured.

Then he kissed me.

God, I loved his taste, the feel of his beard, the smell of him.

I slid my fingers into his hair.

And I loved his thick hair.

His hand found my thigh, skin to skin, which meant he had his target in reach.

He didn’t delay.

But his lips (and beard) slid to my neck as his fingers whispered over the damp gusset of my panties.

I sighed.

“You’re wet,” he murmured in my ear.

I bore down on his hand, turning my head.

He caught my mouth and hooked a finger in the gusset, tugging down.

He shifted to the side and I took my hands from his hair to help him pull down my panties.

I had to wheel my legs a little to get them off.

Toby pulled them free and they went flying.

Then I was on my back, he had angled his body away, yanking the rest of the comforter free. And when he succeeded in fully releasing me, his hands were at my hips, and he ended the kiss with his teeth sunk into my lower lip.

Fucking, fucking hot.

He slid my nightie up to my ribs.

Then one hand went down, the other slid up over my breast, my chest, neck. He released my lip and simultaneously hit my clit with a finger as he slid another finger in my mouth.

“Fuckin’ fuck,” he grunted as my eyes rolled back in my head, my hips rocked into his finger, and I sucked hard on the one in my mouth.

Half-mast, I gazed at him as I drew deep and rode the circles he was pressing into my clit, but mostly rode the sensations he was creating by pressing them there.

He pressed harder and I moaned.

His fingers slid away.

“Don’t stop,” I begged.

“Too late. Too hot,” he rumbled, gliding down my body.

A second later, one of my legs was tossed over his shoulder. He ran his hand up the back of my other thigh and cocked it high. He then dipped his head, and Toby and his beard were going down on me.

Oh, hell yes.

I arched into him, whimpering, “Toby.”

He dug in, sucking hard, dropping a smidge and then tongue fucking me.

Oh, hell yes.

Nice.

Both hands in his hair, again came my breathy, “Toby.”

On my back, I was riding his mouth, and he was driving me wild.

Too wild.

I fisted my fingers in his hair and warned, “Toby.”

He came up over me, rolled off, flipped me to my belly, hauled me up to my hands and knees and positioned in front of me, hands on either side of my head tipping it back.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This caveman shit rocked.

He took one hand away to grab his cock, and I lifted my gaze up to him as I felt the head touch my lips.

They parted for him.

His eyes burning down at me as he watched, me just burning, he slid inside.

I sucked deep.

“Fuck,” he groaned.

So.

Fucking.

Seriously.

The caveman shit worked for me.

He pulsed inside, and I drew. Our eyes locked as he face-fucked me and God, God, God, watching him get off on taking my mouth got me off . . . totally.

I was whimpering around his thick, hard dick, rocking into his gentle thrusts, my eyes drifting closed when he slid out.

My eyes shot open.

“Do not move,” he ordered thickly, twisted at the waist, reached to the nightstand, and came back with a condom.

Foil gone, I watched from close as he rolled it on.

He barely got it to the root before he was on his back and pulling me over his hips.

“Down,” he growled.

I moved down.

And he filled me.

My head fell back, and I could feel my hair gliding through the satin to my waist.

“Fuck yeah, Addie, now ride.”

I tipped my head forward and moved on him, slow . . .

God, all the gloriousness of him in my bed, staring up at me with that hungry look on his face, filling me with his cock . . .

Faster . . .

His hands at my hips shifted, one moving in to roll his thumb at my clit, one going up, and on a mini-ab curl he wrapped it around the back of my neck and pulled me to him as he settled back down so I was forced to plant a hand in his chest and angle into his dick . . .

Oh yeah . . .

Faster . . .

Eyes locked, he fisted his fingers in my hair and lifted his hips to meet my bounds, his thumb pressing hard, circling quick . . .

Faster . . .

“Toby.”

“Lose the nightie,” he grunted.

His hand left my hair as I yanked the thing off.

“Oh yeah,” he bit out, fingers back in my hair, gripping tight.

“Baby,” I breathed.

“Fuck me.”

“Baby,” I pleaded.

“Fuck me hard, Addie.”

I slammed into him.

His eyes moved down my body, up, his hips driving into mine.

My hand slid to his throat as it stopped being about me fucking Toby and became more me taking Toby’s fucking as he bucked under me and I held on with everything he had.

“Milk that cock, baby,” he grunted.

I held on tighter with everything I had.

“Tobe.”

“It’s okay, Addie, go.”

“You . . . you’re . . .”

I couldn’t speak.

He jerked my head down so his lips moved against mine.

“Just go.”

My neck arched, and I went.

Just him. Just me. Just his cock. Just my pussy.

That was all there was in my world at that moment.

And it was amazing.

He rolled me to my back, him on top, slammed into me, took my mouth in a wet kiss and ended it with a deep groan that surged down my throat when he went with me.

He didn’t do the slow glide after he came down this time.

He just slid in to the root and shoved his face in my neck.

The beard was working there, he was running the knuckles of one of his hands on the underside of my breast, and I was realizing just how much more awesome life could get.

“Go a lot slower, your sex-bomb didn’t explode the minute I got my mouth on you,” his lips (and beard) muttered against the skin of my neck.

“I will remind you it wasn’t just your mouth, but your hand was between my legs.”

He lifted his head.

I missed the beard.

Though seeing it with my eyes was almost better than feeling it against my skin.

And a thick hank of his hair had pulled free and was hanging down, and I’d been wrong. It didn’t go to his chin, it fell down to his cheekbone.

So that worked too.

“I barely touched you.”

I shrugged.

He grinned.

“Thought you were gonna suck my finger down your throat,” he noted.

“You taste good.”

He growled and his hips between my legs dug in.

I bit my lip.

Nice.

I let my lip go.

“I’m getting us caveman and cavewoman outfits. We’re totally role playing this mother up,” I declared.

He didn’t bite.

He shoveled it back at me.

“We do that shit, you’re the sexy cop and I’m the fugitive on the run.”

Creative.

I lifted my brows. “Handcuffs?”

“Only the ones the sexy cop foolishly let the fugitive get his hands on.”

I burst out laughing.

I kept doing it as he pulled out and executed another roll, so I was on top, looking down at him.

My cheek was in the palm of his hand when I quit laughing, and the look on his face made me forget anything was funny.

“I don’t care you’re not into decorating,” he said quietly. “I care you got zero time and a million things to do and people coming over, and you want me to get what you feel for me and that you think it’s as important as I do, so you put effort into making yourself even more gorgeous for me.”

Good God.

This man.

He wasn’t done.

“And I care you can end a great fuck bein’ sassy and laughing.”

That meant . . .

Everything.

“Toby.”

“Tonight was fantastic, Lollipop, and I don’t just mean you demonstrating you seriously get off on having your face fucked. Everyone got to feel a part of it by bringing food. I love it that you gave me that about your mom so I could have a mind to the state of you. You let Margot mother you, and she needs that almost as much as you do. And havin’ us all together like that just felt like Christmas.”

“Baby,” I whispered, dissolving into him and putting my lips to his.

He cupped the back of my head and gave me a deep kiss before the pressure he put there told me it was time to break it.

I lifted my head.

“Get rid of this condom and then sleep, yeah?” he murmured.

I nodded.

“Want your nightie?” he asked.

I nodded again.

“Panties?”

God.

This man.

This man was a good man.

I nodded.

“Right.”

He pulled me down for a lip touch and then I was rolled yet again.

Toby got my nightie and my panties and handed them to me before he hit the bathroom.

I had them on when he returned.

When he joined me, he took what I considered my side of the bed.

I did not quibble.

It’d take half a minute to find out it didn’t matter.

We turned out our lights and then he pulled me in his arms in the middle.

I snuggled in and Toby held me tight.

“Wish I could have met her,” he said into the golden-red glow of Christmas lights that lit the room.

“Sorry?” I muttered into his throat.

“Your mom.”

Oh boy.

He put his lips to the top of my hair. “I’ll agree, Gamble Men are the best. But Forrester Women are better.”

And there he was again.

Putting it out there.

I shoved my face into his throat, whispering, “Shut up.”

He settled in.

But after he did, he said, “Thanks for comin’ over to my house and verbally handing me my ass today, baby.”

“Thanks for tapping my ass after I did that, baby.”

There was a smile in his smooth, deep voice when he replied, “Shut up and go to sleep.”

“You shut up and go to sleep.”

“Okay,” he muttered, kissed the top of my head and again settled in.

I settled into him.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

Life was awesome.

“Say what?”

It was the next morning.

Toby’s ass was to a stool, leaning into Brooks in his high chair, spooning cereal into my kid.

His hair was also hanging down to his cheeks on both sides.

I’d discovered Toby’s version of a bedhead.

It was phenomenal.

I was standing at the counter opposite the island from them, making him and me toast.

And at his request, I’d just finished sharing my schedule for the week.

“I’m working a couple extra hours Thursday and Friday evenings, I took an extra shift on Wednesday, which was my day off, and Michael wants me for half a shift on Saturday morning, my other day off,” I repeated.

“The Christmas Fair is this weekend,” he told me something I knew.

“Dodo! Moomoo. Lala!” Brooks shouted, then threw a set of plastic keys across the kitchen.

Dapper Dan went to investigate.

Tobe turned his attention back to Brooklyn and shoveled more cereal in his mouth.

Okay, a hot guy, who didn’t fuck like a god, but fucked like a caveman god and didn’t mind me getting maudlin over my mother, but instead loved me sharing I did so he could have a mind to me, who also fed my kid breakfast with a natural ease was the most attractive thing evah.

“And, babe,” he continued, “I might wanna take my girl out on our first date.”

Oh shit.

I stopped reveling in how attractive Toby was as everything I’d been able to forget over the last day came crashing down on me.

I’d made some cards, not enough, but at least I had some to give Macy that day.

And I’d made a promise to Michael to take on extra hours.

I’d also gotten myself in a relationship that wasn’t new, since we’d essentially done the getting-to-know-you and mingling-families part for the last seven months.

But it was new.

And it was me who had to have a mind to that.

“I promised Michael, my manager,” I told him.

The toast popped up.

“Right,” Toby muttered and shoved more cereal in my kid.

I knew by his tone this didn’t make him very happy.

I took the toast out and started buttering it, saying, “I know you don’t wanna talk about this kind of thing, and you’re helping out, Johnny’s helping out, Margot’s helping out, but I still need money. But more, I made a promise that I’d take overtime through the holiday season, and Michael is depending on me.”

Toby didn’t say anything until I finished buttering the toast and putting more bread in.

Once I pushed the lever down, he spoke, “Okay, this is where I’m at, Addie.”

I looked to him to see his attention was on me.

He launched in.

“In order of priority, I wanna take you and Brooks to the Christmas Fair. He won’t remember it, but you and I will, and I want you on my arm. I want it known in town I’ve claimed you and Brooks. And I want us to have some fun, the three of us together.”

I was going to go get the jelly while he was talking.

I didn’t go get the jelly because I could no longer move.

He wanted to claim us.

Publicly.

And he wanted to have some fun.

Us three.

And again, he put that right out there.

Oh yeah.

Head over heels for this man.

“Second,” he carried on, “I wanna take you to The Star. A nice night out, just you and me. I don’t wanna take you some night where you just got off shift. I wanna take you when you’ve had a day to get shit done to clear your head, maybe relax a little, and now that I’ve seen the results, have time to do yourself up for me. Mostly, I want us to celebrate goin’ there with this and making our own memory about that. I also want time just with you to get to know you as you. Except for you at my place yesterday, the time we had last night, and right now, we’ve never had that. There’s always been someone around. And I love this little guy . . .”

He jerked his head toward Brooklyn, making his hair slant along his cheekbones, something I instantly memorized even if we were into something heavy, then he resumed talking.

“But even if he’s a kid, he’s someone and a distraction and I want time without anything distracting me from you, or you from me.”

One could say I wanted that too.

A lot.

And one could say I loved he wanted that.

A lot, a lot.

“And Christmas is coming,” he continued. “That’s makin’ cookies and watchin’ Christmas movies and wrappin’ Brooks’s presents and goin’ to parties, and you give that kind of overtime to the store, you’ll be beat and some of that can’t happen, but most of it’ll be done just to get it done instead of it bein’ done because it’s fun.”

He thought all that was fun.

Where did this guy come from?

He was totally surreal.

The good kind.

“Honey—”

“No pressure. You do what you gotta do,” he said. “I’m serious about that. I get it. Life is about doin’ what you gotta do. You just need to know that if I don’t get that shit, I’ll be disappointed. And I know that seems like I’m full of it and puttin’ on pressure. But for this to work, we have to communicate and you gotta know where my head is at and what I want. I want the same back from you. I get life is about disappointment too. But I’m not gonna get in this with you and sit on shit that disappoints me and let it infect what we got. We’re here.” He raised Brooklyn’s spoon to indicate just how here we were (and one could say I loved that too). “I’m good. That isn’t gonna make me stop wanting more.”

“I won’t take the Saturday shift,” I told him.

And God.

God.

The look on his face.

It was like I put a chest filled with treasure on the island and told him it was all his.

“I don’t want life to be about disappointment for you, Toby,” I told him quietly.

“Babe, your dad was a dick who beat your mom, so she had to put you in a car and escape him. Your husband was a deadbeat waste of space who cheated on you. My mom took off on my dad, who worshiped her, leavin’ a five-year-old and a three-year-old she’d carried in her own fuckin’ body, and no one knew why she pulled that shit. My brother fell in love with a woman and went all in, not hiding that. And she decided to go on the lam with her motherfucker of a brother who ended up kidnapping your kid and I’m still some serious pissed I didn’t get to rip his balls out through his throat, he did that. Life is about disappointment, Adeline. We got good now. We sail those winds. Because a different wind is gonna blow and it’s probably gonna blow soon. So we gotta take what we can get.”

I stood there, staring at him, hurting for him, and wondering if all this was why he’d spent the last decade and a half chasing experiences and adventure.

Maybe he wasn’t doing that.

Maybe he was running away from disappointment.

He had to get to the garage and I had to get Brooklyn to daycare and then get to the store, so I didn’t have time to get into that.

I knew one thing.

I needed money.

One could say I had a helluva cushion now. But ten thousand dollars wasn’t ten million dollars, and I needed to keep my eye on that ball for me and my boy.

But I also knew I was going to have a conversation with Michael that day about how bad it would be if I couldn’t do holiday overtime.

“You need me to get Brooklyn from daycare Thursday and Friday nights, get him home and do his gig for you?” he asked.

“That’d be great, honey,” I said softly.

“I’ll be on it,” he muttered, and turned back to Brooklyn, who, as I watched, decided in the time between Toby stopping feeding him and Toby starting again, he hated cereal if him giving Toby an ornery face and jerking his head side to side when Tobe tried to shovel some in was any indication.

“You done, bud?” Toby asked my kid.

“Gah!” Brooks replied.

Since I wasn’t even sure what “Gah!” meant, Toby tested it out and lifted the spoon hovering close to his face.

Brooklyn jerked his face away.

Tobe tossed the spoon into the bowl and muttered, “You’re done.”

Then he took Brooks’s bib and rubbed the cereal off his face, doing this also with natural ease, even if Brooklyn wasn’t helping and instead was jerking his head around and shouting, “Dodo! Nono! Fafa!”

Through this, I stood there and watched wondering how life had led me from what I’d had, which, outside my mother being a seriously boss bitch and my sister being the best big sister alive, wasn’t much, to starting things with a good, decent man one day and having him slip into feeding my son breakfast the very next morning like he’d done it since Brooks started eating semi-solid food.

And in that moment I knew Toby was wrong.

Life wasn’t about disappointment.

Life was a journey.

The journey of finding what I’d seen on my sister’s face the night before.

Finding your place.

Finding your people.

And settling in so when those cold winds blew, you had warmth to see you through.

Toby was going to understand that.

I knew it.

No.

I vowed it.

Because I was going to teach him.

“Hey,” Toby greeted when he picked up my call.

“Hey,” I said, on the trot back to the store at lunch after dropping the cards at Macy’s.

“You sound like you’re running,” Toby noted.

“I’m heading back to the store from Macy’s to eat the huge-ass roast beef sandwich you made me before hitting my register.”

“Ah.”

“I talked to Michael.”

Pause then, “Yeah?”

“He says he’s had about ten people come in and ask about a holiday job. He gave me the hours because it’s store policy to give overtime to current employees who request it in times like this. But if I don’t want it, he’s good and the store is covered.”

“Lollipop,” he said, low and sweet. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know I didn’t. But I want to go to The Star with you and make Christmas cookies and find a job that pays about three times as much as I make now, but I’d take double. I can’t get my résumé together, look for jobs, put in applications and explore the option of making some extra dough doing something I dig by starting an Etsy store if I’m working for bupkis at Matlock Mart.”

“A what store?”

“An Etsy store.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s about selling online craft projects, and I’m not sure with you having a penis that I could explain it in terms you understand.”

He burst out laughing.

I grinned and crossed the street.

When he stopped laughing, I shared, “Michael also put up next week’s schedule and I have Monday and Thursday off.”

“Workin’ the weekend,” he muttered.

“I know. Suck. But we could go to The Star Monday or Thursday night. I’ll ask Izzy or Deanna to babysit.”

“I’ll get a reservation.”

“Righteous.”

“You want company tonight?” he asked.

“Do I need to find time to cut up some faux fur blankets to make our cavemen outfits?”

He said through a chuckle, “No. But I’ll find time to hit that sex shop in Grayburg to get us some handcuffs.”

I experienced a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.

“Grayburg is fifty miles away,” I reminded him. “The city’s closer.”

“I got a lead foot and the shop in Grayburg is better than anything they got in the city.”

Hmm . . .

Intriguing.

“You’ve done this research?”

“Babe. Life’s about the adventure.”

It was me who was laughing at that, but I was doing it to hide he was turning me on.

I pushed through the doors to the Mart and head down, phone to my ear, listened to Toby ask, “You got a vibrator?”

Okay, I was a girl who could do anything.

Including, apparently, talk about vibrators in the produce section of a small-town grocery store.

“No, I have a selection of three.”

“Now, that’s righteous, baby,” he growled.

“Don’t turn me on by the package salads.”

Another chuckle before, “You’re off at four?”

“Yup.”

“See you at yours at five thirty.”

“Okay, honey.”

“Later, Lollipop.”

“Later, Talon.”

We disconnected.

I ate my huge-ass roast beef sandwich that Toby made me along with the Ziploc bag of chips and a pudding cup.

I felt over-full for the next hour, standing at my register.

I didn’t care even a little bit.

“Don’t come.”

“Tobe.”

“Do not come, Addie.”

I was fingers curled around the iron headboard, unable to move one hand since I had Toby’s fingers curled over mine.

I was also on my knees.

Toby’s other hand was engaged in pressing one of my vibrators going full vibe to my clit.

And Toby was on his knees behind me, fucking me hard.

His beard was brushing my shoulder, his breaths were heavy in my ear, this mingled with his grunts were an aphrodisiac that was a new definition of the good kind of surreal.

“Baby,” I moaned.

His fingers over mine left so he could plant his palm in the wall and get further leverage on the action.

God.

He started rolling the vibrator.

Gawd.

My head fell to his shoulder, arcing my back into a bow so I could keep my ass tipped to take his cock, this pressing my clit into the vibrator.

Oh . . .

Wow.

I took my free hand from the headboard, reached around, grabbed hold of his ass and started panting.

“Take more,” he grunted.

“I can’t.”

“More, honey.”

I couldn’t reply.

I cried out sharply then fell silent, the orgasm rolling over me, stealing my ability to do anything but feel Toby moving inside.

He dropped the vibrator, shifted his hands to my hips and held me steady, slamming into overdrive.

“Yes, Toby,” I whispered my encouragement.

He slid both hands up, cupping my breasts, the pads of his fingers digging in, shoving his face in my neck, the sounds of our flesh connecting through the power of his thrusts splintering through the room.

“Yeah,” I breathed, floating down, no longer about what I was feeling, what we were doing, now just about him.

I tightened my pussy around him.

“Fuck, Adeline,” he groaned, baring his teeth and scoring the length of my neck.

I put both my hands to the wall and reared into his drives.

“Fuck,” he barked, then came, his teeth sinking into the flesh where my shoulder met my neck.

Nice.

Very nice.

His thrusts tapered to pulses then to glides and finally he slid in.

Once in, his lips and beard moved on my neck, and after he found the vibrator, turned it off and dropped it back to the bed, his hands moved everywhere—breasts, chest, belly, ribs, sides, hips, the curls between my legs.

And that was beyond nice.

“How’m I supposed to make it about you when you make it about me?” he grumbled, low and gruff, in my ear.

This made me exceedingly happy for a couple of reasons.

“You’re just gonna have to deal,” I replied.

One of his hands swept up to my jaw.

He turned my head and kissed me.

When he was done, I felt his words against my lips when he said, “Clean up and sleep. Yeah?”

I nodded my head.

But he didn’t move away.

“You on birth control?”

He wanted to end it with the condoms.

Although it was messier for me the other way around, I wasn’t hip on any barrier between Toby and me, so I wanted that too.

But regrettably, I had to shake my head.

“I have a prescription,” I told him. “I just didn’t have the copay money to fill it.”

Or any reason to do it since sex with anyone but Toby (and I couldn’t have Toby) was the last thing on my mind.

“I’m payin’ for that too.”

“To—”

“Shut it.”

Then he didn’t exactly shut it for me, but he stopped me from speaking by kissing me again.

After that, he shifted away but touched his mouth (and beard) to the small of my back, a move that was so sweet, it made my molars hurt, before he got out of bed.

I located then put the vibrator on my nightstand.

Earlier, I’d introduced Tobe to my version of winter-warm bedwear, something he took off me about five seconds after I appeared in it. But right then, I reached for it where it was draping off the edge of the bed and tugged the cream, low V-neck nightie with the bell-ish long sleeves and slight slant hemline that went mid-thigh on my right, low hip on my left.

I found my panties and pulled those on too.

I did this ending it cross-legged and thinking.

I had to give him the copay.

I had to make that compromise.

He got more out of it than me, and not only the fact he didn’t have to buy condoms. I wasn’t a guy, so I didn’t know how much sensation wearing a condom took away. I just knew no guy who’d said, “Great! I get to roll on a rubber before doing you!”

This wasn’t, I told myself, about swallowing my pride. Taking a handout.

This was giving Toby something he wanted that I would not spend money on if I didn’t have a hot guy who wanted to fuck me.

So I had to chill.

I stopped thinking about this when the bathroom light was extinguished, and he came out naked.

I watched him go to his bag (precisely I watched his chest then his ass as he went to his bag), reach in and shake out a pair of flannel pajama bottoms.

He tugged them on and then strolled to me.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked when he spotted me sitting cross-legged in bed and not lying in it.

“How much sensation does wearing a condom take away?” I asked.

He stopped beside the bed. “You don’t want me to quit usin’ ’em?”

“That wasn’t what I said.”

He nodded once.

“Right. They suck. Most women I’ve been with, puttin’ them on, they take me out of the moment. You, I’m so in the moment, it doesn’t matter, nothing will take me out of it. They still suck.”

That was sweet.

But . . .

“Outside of taking you out of the moment . . .” I prompted.

“You ever had your fingers inside you?”

“Hmm . . .”

His eyes flared, and he muttered, “You’ve had your fingers inside you.”

He entered the bed on hands, then knees, and watching him do that, I wondered if he had more condoms right then.

When he got to me, he pushed up and sat on his ankles with his thighs splayed.

And I again hoped he had more condoms.

“You get really wet,” he said, taking my attention back to our conversation. “And there’s a lot of good to feel inside you. But just sayin’, I’m gloved, I not only can’t feel you like I should, that bein’ I mostly feel tight and warmth and friction, not a lot more, including your wet, you can’t feel me.”

“I’ve never noticed the difference.”

His eyes shut down.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“What?” he asked back.

“You just shut down.”

My open, out-there Toby, he didn’t make me work for it.

“I don’t wanna ask if you’ve had with another guy, especially the one you picked to marry, what you got with me,” he explained.

Two could be out there.

“I’ve never, not once, had with another guy what I have with you.”

His expression opened right up, he reached, caught me at the back of my neck and pulled me up to his mouth so he could kiss me.

He kept his hand at my neck to settle me back down and murmured, “You’ll feel the difference too. But if it’s too soon for you, we’ll wait.”

“I was just curious, Talon. Seriously.”

“All right.”

“I’ll get the prescription filled tomorrow at lunch.”

“Okay, baby.”

I understood shutting down when I had to ask, “Do you need to be, um . . . tested? Because I’ve had my annual exam since getting quit of Perry so I’m good. But . . .”

“Right, we’re here,” he muttered.

Oh shit.

Again, he didn’t make me work for it.

“I was into you the second I laid eyes on you,” he announced.

I felt my own eyes get big.

“I’ve always been careful with protection,” he carried on. “More like obsessive.”

“Well, that’s good,” I murmured.

“That’s not all.”

“All right,” I said.

“Never went that long without pussy, but didn’t want it, it wasn’t yours,” he continued. “So I haven’t been checked, but I also haven’t fucked anyone since I met you.”

That had been a really long time.

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

“Toby, that’s sweet,” I whispered.

But it wasn’t sweet.

It was . . .

It was . . .

It was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard.

“Mm,” he hummed.

“Really,” I stressed.

“Unh-hunh.”

I slid my hand up his chest, got on my knees, then pressed the rest of me to his chest and glided my hands in his hair.

“How did you go that long our first time if you haven’t—?” I started to ask.

“Baby, I got a hand and I’m not scared of lube, and you’re all that’s you and I got an active imagination. What do you think?”

I grinned.

His dark brows rose. “Those vibrators seen any action ’cause of me?”

“They’re named Toby One, Two and Three.”

His arms suddenly snatched me to him and he twisted, falling to his back in the bed with me on top.

“Actually, I should have called them Toby, Tobias and Talon, but I wasn’t feeling inspired in that way,” I shared.

He was grinning when he asked, “What way were you feeling inspired?”

“Let’s just say, in Toby and Addie Fantasyland, you’re addicted to my blowjobs.”

He burst out laughing and rolled us so he was on top.

But all of a sudden, I wasn’t feeling anything was funny.

“I’ve got some miles on me, honey,” I admitted.

“So?” he asked. “I do too. You got a problem with that?”

I pressed my lips together and shook my head, feeling the relief that Toby was all things Toby.

“You want me to get tested?” he offered.

“I think for you and me, it would be wise.”

“I’ll get tested,” he murmured.

“Toby?”

“Yeah?”

“Just to say, you’re pretty awesome.”

He smiled and lines formed beside his eyes when he did.

I’d probably noticed them before, but being all about that beard, those white teeth, his hair (and incidentally, his lips), I hadn’t taken in his eyes.

They were as awesome as the rest of him.

“Day one is done with us and we got our shit tight,” I bragged.

His smile got bigger and he kissed me.

When he finished doing that, he did this cute thing with rolling us this way and that to get us under the covers.

He reached for his lamp.

I reached for mine.

They went out.

But the glow from his Christmas lights outside filled the room.

He pulled me in his arms.

I settled there.

I gave it a while before I shared, “You should know, even with it being just after that ugly scene with Perry, the second I noticed you, it was you for me too.”

“I know, Adeline. You told me I was perfect so that wasn’t lost on me.”

I tipped my head back and looked at him through the glow. “I did?”

“Yeah, and I hadn’t even got the shot to be as perfect as I actually am.” His arms tightened around me. “So you might have lost your touch with that dick of an ex-husband, but you got your good instincts back when you noticed me.”

“Sadly,” I groused “cocky is hot.”

“I know that too.”

“You need to shut up and go to sleep,” I informed him.

He tipped his beard into his neck, brushed his lips against mine, and whispered there, “Okay, honey.”

Then he cupped the back of my head, shoved my face in his throat, his beard now brushing my forehead, and relaxed into me.

I stared at his throat.

And something struck me.

“You don’t have to feed Brooks in the morning.”

He gave me a squeeze. “Shut it.”

“Or take care of him until I get home Thursday and Friday. I can ask Iz or Margot.”

I found myself dragged up the bed so we were face to face.

“Makin’ this clear only once even though I thought I already did that,” he began.

Oh man.

I had Toby’s ticked-off growl.

“I get you come as a package,” he declared. “I picked that package. My choice. Nothing against how beautiful you are or funny or feisty or all the other shit I dig about you, but honest to God, don’t know if I’d be in this deep if Brooklyn wasn’t a part of you. So get over this and do it now because I want you and I want him and that’s it.”

And that’s it.

That was it.

“Okay,” I said shakily.

“You over it?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“You have another second to be sure about that.”

That second came as silence.

Then he asked, “You over it now?”

I really wanted to bust out laughing.

I didn’t.

I whispered, “I’m over it, Toby.”

“Jesus,” he muttered irritably, pushed me back down and then tucked me close again.

Being ticked and tucking me close was funny too.

I didn’t laugh.

I just pressed closer and remarked, “You Gamble Men really don’t fuck around, do you?”

“No, babe, we don’t,” he stated firmly.

I didn’t bother with beating back my smile.

I gave him some time to cool down before I said, “Goodnight, honey.”

“’Night, baby,” he replied.

Day one.

Done.

And seriously.

We had our shit tight.