Kaleidoscope (20 page)

Then he said, “Need those kids’ names, man.”

“You got it,” Chace replied.

Emme’s voice came from behind them and they both turned to see just her upper body swung out the open French door, bare feet still firmly planted inside.

“Well, second priority, calling a cleaning service to clean your couch.” Her eyes moved to Chace, she smiled a sweet smile and her voice got soft. “First priority, getting Faye to the hospital since her water just broke.”

Deck’s eyes flew to Faye on couch. She looked like she was deep breathing and she had an arm wrapped around her belly.

She caught their eyes, lifted a hand and waved.

Chace was on the move and Deck watched Emme, still grinning at Chace, jump out of the way as he ran into the house.

Emme looked at Deck.

At the same time, they both smiled.

*    *    *

Five hours later…

“Jesus, does it take this long?” Deck growled.

“You’re a genius, honey, you know it does,” Emme replied.

Deck stopped pacing and looked down at his girl. She was sitting, looking up at him from her phone on which she was playing some game.

His eyes moved to Sondra Goodknight, Faye’s mother, who was sitting across the hospital waiting room, reading. Her daughter Liza, head back, eyes closed, headphones in, foot tapping, was sitting next to her.

Sondra’d had three kids. Liza two.

Then he looked at Silas Goodknight, Faye’s father, who was, like Deck, pacing.

“Sit down next to me,” Emme invited, bringing his attention back to her to see she was patting the seat beside her.

Was she insane?

“I can’t sit,” he told her.

“Pacing is not going to make the baby come faster,” she pointed out.

He knew that but his boy was in there. Chace. A man who went through hell and came out the other end walking straight into heaven. This baby solidified the destination of that journey. All Chace Keaton ever wanted he was about to get. A good woman in his bed. A job he was proud of doing. And a family.

But Chace’s luck had not been the greatest—case in point, to get his happily ever after, he’d had to endure his woman being buried alive.

“Jacob, honey, please sit,” Emme whispered.

He focused on her then moved close, crouching down in front of her.

“They’ve had some bad times,” he shared quietly.

She leaned close. “Those bad times, tonight, are officially over.”

“Shit goes south for Chace.”

Her eyes warmed, she leaned closer and lifted a hand to rest light on his cheek. “It’s going to be okay.”

“She’s past due.”

“That happens.”

“She was buried alive, baby.”

“Almost two years ago, honey.”

Deck fell silent.

Emme moved closer, touched her mouth to his and pulled back an inch before she teased, “I find it fascinating, and indescribably hot, that the most intelligent, most logical man I know totally loses perspective when his best friend’s wife is having a baby.”

He felt his lips twitch before he replied, “This does not bode well for you, Emme, we find a time when we’re in the same room and you’re pushin’ out my kid.”

Her eyes flashed, her head jerking and it wasn’t the usual flash of fire he got.

It was something different.

Before he could ask, they heard announced, “Faye’s fine. Jacob’s fine. Everything’s good.”

At hearing Chace’s voice, Deck straightened, feeling Emme come up beside him.

Chace was smiling huge, relief and joy plain on his face.

Deck held back, Emme sticking close, while Silas, Sondra and Liza rushed him for handshakes, hugs and happy tears. They received murmured encouragement from Chace to go to Faye’s room and in unison took off like a shot.

Only then did Deck approach his friend, Emme coming with but this time not sticking close. She was giving the men space.

Deck did not go for the handshake. He lifted his hand and wrapped his fingers in a firm grip around the side of Chace’s neck.

They locked eyes.

“Happy for you, man,” he whispered.

Chace lifted his hand and reciprocated Deck’s gesture. “Yeah.”

“Fuckin’ beside myself, Chace,” Deck went on.

Chace nodded.

“Bottom of my soul,” Chace stated, voice thick.

“Same,” Deck replied.

They held each other’s eyes until Deck rocked Chace back, let go and stepped away. Emme moved in for a hug but she let him go quickly so he could get back to his wife.

Chace didn’t delay.

“I’m going to go get coffees,” Emme told him. He felt her fingers curl around his and looked down at her. “Do you want to come with, give them some time and crash the party later?”

He didn’t answer. He pulled his hand from hers, caught her on either side of her neck and yanked her to him, moving her head at the last second so she hit his chest cheek first.

Her arms instantly slid around him.

Holding her cheek to his heart with one hand, Deck curled his other arm around her.

Both of them held tight.

*    *    *

One hour later…

It was Deck’s turn and he was hogging the action.

He just didn’t give a shit.

“You wanna let my wife hold her new baby?” Chace called from his place stretched out beside a tired but grinning Faye in her hospital bed.

But something made him turn his head.

When he did, he saw Emme, shoulders to the wall, removed from the folks in the room, likely because she didn’t know most of them and those she did she didn’t know well. But she had a grin playing at her mouth and her eyes on him.

No. Her eyes—warm, sweet, the look in them she gave him when she told him she really liked him but slightly unfocused as if her thoughts were a million miles away—were on Deck holding little Jacob in his arms.

His blood started running hot.

“Deck, my son?” Chace prompted, his voice vibrating with humor.

Such was her concentration, Deck watched Emme’s body jump with surprise and her head swung toward the hospital bed.

Deck looked there too.

“My namesake,” he reminded Chace.

“Yeah. We gave him your name but that doesn’t mean you get to keep him,” Chace replied.

Faye giggled.

Deck smiled and started walking toward the bed.

He was waylaid with a hand on his arm and he looked down to see Emme suddenly close.

She was looking at Chace and Faye.

“Two seconds,” she said softly. “I just want a snuggle. Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” Faye replied.

Her head tipped back to Deck and she held out her arms.

Carefully, he transferred little Jacob into them.

She curled him close, dropped her head to peer at the bundle she carried and murmured, “Hey, little man.”

When she did, Deck’s blood already hot, he felt his heart start pumping hard, his gut clench, his chest get tight and his throat closed.

But somehow, none of this felt bad. Instead, it all felt really fucking
good
.

Fuck, was that what she felt when she was watching him?

He didn’t get near as long to watch even though she didn’t take two seconds. She took more like twenty but then she moved toward the bed, bent in and gave Faye her son. But she touched little Jacob’s cheek before she moved away.

“Right,” Sondra started. “My daughter needs a rest. Visiting hours are over.”

“The matriarch has spoken,” Liza muttered, giving her sister big eyes and a bigger smile.

Chace slid off the bed for more hugs and handshakes as all said good night.

As Deck walked Emme down the corridor toward the elevators, arm around her shoulders, feeling hers tight around his waist, she remarked, “I have a feeling those chops you spent seven thousand dollars on aren’t gonna taste that great when we get home.”

Her feeling would be right seeing as he did nothing but turn off the grill, load his girl in his truck and follow his friends to the hospital.

He stopped them at the elevators, turned Emme into his front and she tipped her head back to catch his eyes.

She was smiling.

He was laughing.

Then he bent his neck and they were kissing.

*    *    *

One and a half hours later…

“Say it,” Deck ordered gruffly, moving inside her, doing it slowly, taking his time, feeling her snug and wet around his cock, her limbs wound tight around him, holding on, one hand in his hair.

Gorgeous.

“Say what, honey?” she asked, her voice breathy, eyes languid.

“You haven’t told me today,” he replied.

She tipped her hips up, bit her lip and her limbs got tighter.

She was getting close.

“Told you what?” she asked.

He kept moving, slow, sweet, building it, loving it.

But he wasn’t going to give it until he got what he needed.

He dipped his mouth to hers, brushed her lips and whispered, “How you feel about me.”

Her pussy clenched around his cock and her voice was breathier when she said, “Right now, I really,
really
like you.”

And right now, he
seriously
liked her.

Then again, he always had.

He slid in deep, stayed there and encouraged, “Say it like it is, baby.”

Her body squirmed under his. “I just did.”

“Say what you really mean.”

“Okay, I really, really,
really
like you,” she breathed. “Now will you go back to moving?”

He grinned down into her gorgeous face but slid out to the tip and stayed there.

Her eyes opened further, not full, but he had her attention.

“Say what you really mean,” he repeated.

“Jacob,” she whispered.

“Say it, Emme.”

She squirmed more, her limbs tightening further, her hips seeking his cock, her hand fisting in his hair. “I need you back.”

“You got me,” he informed her. “Tell me what that means to you.”

“Jacob, seriously, I was close.”

He was getting there too. And now it was torture but he slid in then pulled out to the tip and again stayed there.

“Honey,” she begged, her voice and limbs now trembling.

“Say it, Emme.”

“Please.”

His hand cradling one side of her face shifted so he could rub his thumb over her lips as he whispered, “I know you feel it, baby. Say it.”

She lifted her head, sliding her cheek along his until her face was in his neck.

“Please give me you,” she whispered against his skin.

So sweet.

Torture.

He turned so his lips were at her ear. “You got me, baby. You know you’ve got me. Tell me what that means.”

“I mean I want you to give me a specific
part
of you.”

He grinned even as his body pulsed to be buried inside her but he held onto his control, though just barely.

“Give me what I want,” he demanded.

“Honey.”

“Give it to me, Emme.”

She shoved her face farther into his neck then turned her head, her fist in his hair loosening as she slid it to the back of his neck and said so quietly, even as close as she was, he barely heard her, “I love you, Jacob.”

Fuck.

Yes.

Deck drove in deep and she gasped into his ear, her hand sliding back up to clench in his hair.

“You love me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she panted.

He pulled out and drove in again.

Exquisite.

“Look at me and say it, baby.”

Her cheek slid back until her lips were against his, eyes open and so fucking close, that fire in them that said what her lips were about to utter was shining right there. So bright, so heated, he thought it would scorch him.

“I love you, honey.”

He took her mouth, took her cunt and took both until he took them both home.

After, planted deep inside his Emme, Deck ran his nose along her jaw and when his mouth found her ear, he murmured, “Love you too, baby.”

Her limbs, still tight around him, clamped.

She liked that.

She wanted it.

So much she was holding onto it with all she had.

And this was it.

This was “hey, puppy” for the rest of his life. This was knowing he had in his bed a woman who wanted medicine socialized and not giving a fuck. This was good family, hers and his, mingling to make it better. This was working until he never saw that surprised look on her face just before she came. This was having something warm snuggle into him while he read because he didn’t sleep.

This was a kaleidoscope of beauty, the dials spinning, ever changing, but never anything short of spectacular.

Deck lifted his head and looked down at her.

Tears were pooling in her beautiful eyes and her lower lip was quivering.

He’d never seen anything as beautiful.

And the kaleidoscope spun.

“Wanna build a life with you, Emmanuelle,” he whispered.

“Jacob,” she whispered back.

“And Buford needs a momma,” he declared as a tear slid out the side of her eye and a trembling smile touched her lips.

Deck caught her tear with his thumb, swept it across her cheek and rubbed the wetness against her lips.

Then he dipped his head and kissed her like he made love to her. Slow and sweet and for a very long time.

When he lifted his mouth from hers, she said quietly, “Now that you’ve rocked my world and blown my mind on top of us having minor roles in the miracle of birth tonight, all of which, I’ll note, I endured without dinner, I need to clean up and get some sleep, honey. You may be able to exist on a genius’s ration of shuteye, but I’m not that lucky and I’ve gotta go to work tomorrow.”

He chuckled, liking the look the movement this caused put on Emme’s face since he did it on her and in her. Then he dipped his head, kissed her jaw and gently slid out and off.

She rolled with him so she could touch her lips to his chest before she slid out of bed.

Deck watched her ass and legs as she walked to the bathroom.

Buford jumped up to claim his lion’s share of the bed before Emme got back.

After Emme climbed over him and Deck pulled up the covers, she settled into his side and claimed the lion’s share of Deck.