I'm In It (The Reed Brothers Book 18) Read online

  I grin. “It’s your birthday. We can do it as many times as you want.”

  So we do. We ride it until my neck is sore and my hands feel like they’ll never unclench from around the rails. Then we go and ride with Anna and Devon again. We eat ice cream dots and funnel cakes, and Mick devours a turkey leg. I’m still trying to figure out where he got that.

  At the end of the two hours, right before the park opens to the public, Mick pulls me to him and kisses me soundly. “This has been the best birthday ever.”

  Hand in hand, we walk out of the most magical place on earth, but I can’t help but think that we’re taking the magic with us. Or maybe we brought the magic. I’m not sure which.

  Back in the bus, the kids, exhausted, fall asleep immediately. Mick sinks down beside me, then pulls me over close to him. I pull a gift box out of my pocket.

  “You got me a present,” he says. “You didn’t even know it was my birthday until yesterday. And then you planned for us to use the park and you got me a gift?”

  “It’s nothing.” I nudge him. “Open it.”

  He opens the little box and pulls out a small handheld scope. It has a viewing hole on one end and a picture on the other. He lifts it to his eye and looks inside. It’s a picture of us, the six of us, from today at the park. The kids are smiling and Mick looks happier than I have ever seen him look. “Wow… Look at that,” he says quietly.

  He takes his keys out of his pocket and immediately threads the scope onto it.

  “You don’t have to put it on your keys,” I say.

  “Where else would I put it? It’s wonderful, and I’m going to keep it forever.” He takes my face in his hands and stares into my eyes. “You never cease to amaze me. Thank you for today.”

  Out of embarrassment, I dip my face and press it against his chest. He lies back and holds me for the next hundred miles, right up until we arrive at Patsy’s mother’s house.

  I feel like my guts are filled with lead when we stop in the street in front of the house. On the porch is a regal older woman, standing with the help of a walker and an aide. She shades her eyes with her hands.

  “We’re here, kids,” Mick says. Anna and Devon jump up onto their knees so they can look out the window.

  We let them out of the door, and they rush to their grandma. They obviously know and love her, and the feeling is mutual. I stand back and watch, holding Chase close to my heart, and my eyes fill with tears.

  “You okay?” Mick asks, palming the back of my head.

  I nod. “I’m fine. Just really happy.” I sniff the emotions back and walk up the steps of the porch. The woman wastes no time hugging me tightly and thanking me for helping Mick to bring the children to her.

  She invites us inside, and Mel and Alex help to unload their belongings, including the souvenirs they got today.

  After the children are settled and we’ve had lunch, she looks at me and says, “How long have you been in love with Mick?”

  We’re washing dishes in the kitchen, so Mick’s in the other room. “I’m not sure. It just kind of crept up on me.”

  “My daughter, she was never good at picking men. She is a loser magnet if there ever was one.”

  I laugh. “Well, I don’t have a great track record myself.”

  “Mick’s a good boy. You’d be lucky to have him.”

  I smile at her. “I know.”

  We finish the dishes, and I bring out the big cheesecake I bought for Mick’s birthday, since it’s his favorite dessert. He blows out the candles, we eat our fill, and then it’s time for us to go.

  Anna, the one I thought would be the least affected, is the one who clings to me for a minute too long. She grabs me tightly and holds me close. “My mommy will be home soon,” she says close to my ear, just like she did that first day we met.

  I brush her hair back from her forehead. “Your mommy is going to be so proud of you all when she hears about how mature and well-behaved you all were on this trip.”

  She nods. “She’ll be proud.”

  “Yes, and you be sure to tell your mother how proud you are of her when she comes home, okay?”

  “When she gets here, I’ll tell her.” She gets quiet for a minute and then squeezes me again. With her lips close to my ear, she whispers, “When I grow up, I want to be just like you.”

  I tug a lock of her hair. “When I grow up, I want to be just like you.”

  She wipes beneath her eyes and goes to stand beside her grandmother.

  Devon is much less restrained. He hugs me tightly. “Will you come and see us again?” he asks.

  “Of course, we will. And you can write to me, if you’d like.” I already gave my address and email to their grandmother. “I’ll miss you,” I say.

  “You don’t seem quite so sad as you did when you first came to our house. Did we make you happy?” He cocks his head at me like an inquisitive puppy.

  “You made me very happy,” I say, and tears sting my eyes as I blink them back.

  The baby—he’s the hardest one to give up. I cuddled him and gave him one last bottle, but I know I can’t keep him forever. Mick takes him from me and kisses him on the forehead.

  “Call us if you need anything at all, okay?” he says to his aunt.

  She nods, but she’s already ushering the kids into the house.

  “Would you rather fly back?” Mick asks as he takes my hand. We walk to the bus together, and I feel light and happy, lighter and happier than I have felt in a long time.

  “Would you?” I counter.

  He shakes his head. “I’d rather spend the time with you.” He kisses me.

  We sit at the window as the bus pulls away from Patsy’s mother’s house. The kids wave from the porch, and I watch them until the house is a tiny speck in the distance. Mick holds my hand tightly as I get choked by emotion I didn’t know was even in me. “They’re going to be all right, aren’t they? No matter what happens, they’ll be okay?”

  He brushes my hair back behind my ear. “Yes. They’ll be fine. She’ll take care of them, and she’ll take care of Patsy, too.” His thumb swipes the tear from beneath my eye. “Do you want some more cheesecake?”

  I smile at him. “Yeah, I do.”

  He rubs his belly. “Good, because I’m starving.”

  I elbow him in the ribs. “You’re always starving.”

  Throughout the day, Mick has gotten calls from his mom and dad and Ryan, and my sisters have all send him texts with birthday greetings.

  “Happy birthday,” I say as we settle at the little dinette table, with a piece of cheesecake between us.

  He grins as he shovels a large bite into his mouth.

  Mick

  I keep having to remind myself that Mel and Alex are at the front of the bus. For two nights, it has been like having constant chaperones. Sometimes Alex moves to the middle of the bus so he can watch TV while Mel’s driving. That puts him about ten feet away from us, with nothing but a thin curtain separating us from him.

  I’d hoped that once we dropped the children off, we’d have a little privacy, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. If anything, I feel like a bug under one of those glass magnifying lenses, and I’m just waiting for someone to tilt it toward the light and burn me to pieces.

  “I can’t wait until we get home,” Wren says as she pulls the curtain between us and the front of the bus.

  I lie back on the bed with my palms behind my head, looking up at her. She’s so damn pretty. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy jumble and she must have just washed her face, because it’s all clean and shiny.

  She picks up a bottle and squirts something into her hands. “What’s that?” I ask.

  She leans toward me and holds her palm close to my nose. “Lotion.” She pulls back and lifts her leg to the edge of the bed, bending her knee.

  “Wait.” I sit up and scoot close to her. I take her hand and scrape the lotion from her hand into my palm, and then I rub my hands together, getting it war
m. “Let me,” I say, grinning up at her.

  “You want to put lotion on me?” she says, her gaze doubtful.

  “I’d like nothing more.” I motion for her to sit, and she sinks down onto the covers. Tapping her leg so she’ll adjust her body, I lift her feet onto the bed and start at her ankles. I skim up the back of her calf, and look up to find her biting her lower lip as she watches my hands.

  “That feels really good,” she says softly.

  “Yeah, you do,” I reply. I smile at her, but she doesn’t smile back. She just stares at me, her gaze hot and needy.

  Ever since I told her about Nicky, I’ve felt like Wren has been a little more open. She trusts me a little more, and I feel like, deep down, she’s ready for the same things I am. She’s ready for a family. She’s ready for me. She’s ready to take me deep inside her. At least I hope she’s ready. We just have to find some privacy long enough to do it. Our time will come. I’m just not sure when it’ll finally be.

  I turn my body so that I can sit between her legs, spreading her legs around me as she lies back on the pillows. She stares at me sitting there, as I massage lotion into her skin.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask, my voice rough and abrasive even to my own ears.

  She grins. “Honestly?”

  “Yes, honestly. Tell me what you’re thinking.” I grab for more lotion and squirt it into my palm. I don’t think to warm it up and she squeals when my hand touches her skin. She laughs, and tries to push my hands away, but I stroke quickly until it’s warm, and she relaxes.

  “I’m thinking about…how much I want you inside me,” she says quietly.

  My heart jolts. “Tell me more.” I can’t look at her face, so I concentrate on her skin. She has a mole on her inner thigh, so I circle it over and over with my thumb, pressing and releasing.

  “I want to feel you move, inside me.”

  Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Me too. “What do you think it will feel like?” I ask.

  She lifts her foot and nudges my dick, which is hard as a rock and straining against my lounge pants. I move her foot away, because even her foot touching me is too much. It’s painful and wonderful all at once.

  She grumbles, but puts her foot back on the bed, flat, so her knees are bent but her thighs are open.

  “What will it feel like, when I’m deep inside you?” I ask again. I nudge her leg. “Tell me.”

  “I think you’ll slide inside me, nice and slow, and then you’ll stop, and you’ll wait, because the moment will be so perfect neither of us wants it to end. We’ll come together like we were made for you to be inside me.”

  “Do we have to come together that quick? Or can it take a few minutes?”

  She laughs and nudges my shoulder with her foot. “It’ll be quick the first time. You’ll push your way inside me until you can’t go any farther. Then you’ll stop and look into my eyes, the way you do. Sometimes I think you can see all the way to my soul, Mick, when you look at me. It scares me, but it’s good too, you know?”

  “I do know.” I know exactly what she means. “What’ll happen then, when I’m deep inside you, when I can’t go any farther?”

  “You’ll be buried so deep that it hurts. But I won’t mind. I’ll ask for it. I’ll wrap my legs around you and pull you in deeper with the heels of my feet against your ass.”

  My breaths grow shallow, and sweat beads my forehead. I lift my forearm to wipe it away.

  “Are you okay?” she whispers.

  “Fine,” I say. I get more lotion and slide farther up between her legs, getting closer to her center. I rub the insides of her thighs, and she begins to squirm, rocking her hips. “What do you need?” I ask.

  She laughs quietly. “You. Just you.”

  “Tell me more. What happens next, after I’m buried so deep I can’t go any farther, and you pull me in as far as you can with your heels? What happens then?”

  “Then you start to move.”

  Oh, God. She’s going to kill me with words like that. “Keep going.”

  “I’ll be slippery wet, and you’ll be hard and hot and…mine.”

  I let my thumbs sweep under the edges of the tiny shorts she’s wearing, swiping them below the elastic on the inside of her thighs. “Is this okay?” I whisper.

  She glances toward the curtain, and I know she’s afraid that someone will hear us, or that someone will know.

  “I just want to touch you.”

  Her thighs part ever so subtly, her legs falling open, her knees falling toward the mattress. “Touch me,” she whispers.

  I pull her little shorts and panties to the side, exposing her slit. Her lower lips are shiny and wet, glistening with desire. I’ve never touched her here, and I don’t know why I’ve waited so long. She’s perfect. She has a neat thatch of hair on her mound, and her clit sits at the top of her slit, swollen and hard.

  “Where do you want me to touch you?”

  “Everywhere.”

  I run my thumbs up her lips toward her clit, pressing gently as I rub up the sides of her slit, until I can feel the swollen bump at the top. I carefully stroke my thumbs up each side, not touching it, not really. I graze it, over and over.

  “Mick,” she says. She glances toward the curtain again.

  “Shhh.” She smells like sex, and the salty scent of her tickles my nose. She rocks her hips. “Will you lift your shirt?” I nod toward her chest. “Let me see.”

  Slowly, she lifts the tail of her shirt over her flat stomach, raising it inch by inch. The plump bottoms of her breasts appear first, and then she lifts the shirt over them. Her nipples stand hard and proud, her breasts pert but heavy enough that they fall toward the right and left like plump, ripe fruit.

  A sound I don’t even recognize leaves my throat. Wren looks toward the curtain again. “They didn’t hear me,” I say to reassure her. I look at her breasts as I rub my thumbs up and down her center, until finally I rub across her clit. She jolts and then stills as I press my thumb tightly against her nub. I don’t move. I hold it there. Her mouth falls open and she bites back a sound.

  “Shhh,” I say again.

  “Mick…” Her hips roll, and my thumb slides around in her wetness.

  “Is this what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  I rub a tight circle, my thumb slippery but firm. “Right here?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes fall closed. “Look at me.”

  “I can’t.” She squeezes her eyes tight. I pull my thumb back and her eyes fly open. “Please,” she says.

  “Keep your eyes open.”

  She nods and chews on her lower lip. I press against her clit again, drawing a small circle as I slide a finger inside her. Her hips buck.

  “I’m so close,” she whispers.

  “I know.”

  “So close—”

  And then she comes apart right under my thumb. Watching her come in the shower was a beautiful sight, but this…this is everything. Her flat stomach scrunches up as her body bucks.

  “Don’t stop,” she says, and she rides it out, her passion erupting and then slowing to tiny ripples, like a wave on a pond, strong at first and then smaller, and easier, and lighter.

  Her body stills.

  And so does the bus.

  Wren looks toward the curtain as the bus comes to a stop. My finger is still inside her, and her inner walls are still pulsing, but she freezes and stares at the curtain.

  A voice calls out, “We’re going to get a cup of coffee. Be right back.”

  “Okay,” Wren calls out, her voice shaking.

  “Do you want anything?” the voice calls again, and I can almost hear the amusement in it.

  “No, thank you,” she calls back.

  The door opens and closes, and I pull my finger from her heat, sliding her panties back over so she’s covered. But Wren pulls herself up, and stands in front of me, sliding her shorts and panties down her legs quickly.

  “What are you doing?” She’s na
ked, standing in front of me, and I have to ask that? Really?

  “I want you.” She climbs up to straddle me, reaching between us to pull my lounge pants away from my stomach, over my dick, and then she pushes my shoulders so I rock back on my hands. She pulls my dick away from my stomach. And then…then she sinks down on me, taking the head inside. She goes slowly, and I can’t stand it. I lift my hands and wrap my arms around her, bringing her down hard and fast on my dick, until she’s seated on top of me.

  “Oh my God,” I groan. I lift her shirt so I can pull her nipple into my mouth. She brushes my mouth away.

  “Just fuck me,” she says. “Fuck me now. Please.”

  I hold on to her hips and pull her down hard and fast on top of me.

  Almost immediately, I feel her walls clamp down on me. “Feels so good,” she says.

  It feels better than anything.

  “I’m coming,” she warns.

  I hold her close as I pump inside her, once…twice… and then, “I’m coming too.” I squeeze her hips, pulling her as tight against me as she can get, as I come inside her slick, wet, tight walls. She milks me and I can feel the tiny quivers inside her. She holds me tight, her hands in my hair, pulling until her orgasm passes. Then her hands gentle, and she softly rubs my hair, collapsing against me.

  And then I realize something’s off, because I feel her tense. “We didn’t…”

  “We didn’t what?” I want to hear her say it. I want her to tell me it’s okay.

  “We didn’t use a condom.”

  “I’m clean. I got tested the last time I gave blood.”

  “Me too. After the baby…” Her voice trails off.

  “Then we’re okay, right?”

  She lifts from my lap, standing up. She picks up her little shorts and her panties, and slips into the bathroom. A minute later, she comes back, all dressed like she was before. She’s quiet. Too quiet. And stiff. Too stiff. She won’t even look at me.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “I’m not on birth control,” she says.

  “And?”

  “And we didn’t use a condom.”

  I’m not sorry. “Is that okay?” I watch her face closely.