Page 80 of Badd Daddy
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Sobriety celebration, and a reminder to never forget why I stay sober and healthy—my three boys. Remington did it for me. It was the start of us repairing our relationship.”
Her smile was small and tender. “So the work hasn’t just been physical.”
“Hell, no.” I had no qualms discussing the rest of what I’d been up to with her—not now, not anymore. “I actually started seeing a therapist three months ago—before you left. Started seeing him three days a week, and now I’m seeing him twice a month. Roman and I are…I don’t want to quite say we’regood, but we’re better than we’ve ever been. Ramsey and I are honestly great—I love working with him. He gets me in a way Rem and Rome don’t.” I paused, sighing. “Rem is the hardest nut to crack. His waters run real fuckin’ deep, and his resentment for who and what I was when they was kids is a bitter fuckin’ pill. We’re gettin’ there, though.” I indicated my tattoos. “These are the way we connect. He’ll talk to me while I’m under the needle in a way he won’t otherwise, so I keep letting him ink me.”
She was quiet a while. “Lucas…I don’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Ha, ha,” she said dryly. “Truly, Lucas, what you’ve accomplished in a couple short months is remarkable.”
My throat was tight. “You made me realize I wanted to be someone I could be proud of—someone my boys could be proud of.” It was hard to get the next words out past the lump. “Someoneyoucould be proud of.”
She inhaled slowly through her nose. “Lucas.” Her hand covered mine, resting on the console between us. “You didn’t have to do any of this for that to be true.”
I shook my head stubbornly. “Bullshit.” I met her eyes. “Donotbullshit me, Olivia. I was a mess. I wasn’t the kind of man you deserved. Don’t blow sugar and sunshine up my ass.”
She laughed gently. “Okay, you’re right—you weren’t. Youwerea mess, but I saw the man you were.”
“The man I could be.”
“The man youare,” she said. “All you’ve done is reveal him. He was always there.”
“Then you could see better than me. Took a lot of fuckin’ work before I could see that.”
Her hand rotated, slipped under mine—our fingers tangled, intertwining so naturally it felt like we’d been holding hands like this forever. “Drive us somewhere, Lucas,” she whispered.
“Where?”
“Anywhere. It doesn’t matter.”
I turned on the motor and pulled out, heading out of town. Away from the lights, away from the buildings, along a narrow, winding dirt road uphill through the forest . Her hand stayed in mine the whole time, the radio was off and I had the windows cracked open to let the cool night air blow past us. My headlights illuminated a wedge of the road ahead, but all else around us was dark, and wild.
After twenty, maybe thirty, minutes of driving, the road curved to the edge of a precipice, with a wide shoulder edged by trees, overlooking Ketchikan and the bay, before meandering into the forest again. I pulled off the road and onto the dirt shoulder, shut off the engine and the headlights. I smiled at her, held up a finger in a “wait a minute” gesture, and reached into the back seat. I kept a blanket back there for emergencies, along with a few tools, some water and food, and a few other emergency supplies. I grabbed the blanket and hopped out, lowered the tailgate and spread out the blanket on the truck bed, then went around and opened Liv’s door. She tiptoed across the dirt, her hand in mine, and then hopped up onto the tailgate to sit on the blanket.
I stood there for a moment, letting the cool air blow over my bare torso, just looking at her. “No wonder you wanted to get changed. Not sure I’ve ever seen anything as sexy as that nightie in my life.”
She ducked her head, and when she spoke, her voice was thick and hard to read. “I, um…this isn’t what I was wearing.”
I blinked, sidling over to sit beside her. My bulk lowered the tail end of the truck several inches; my thigh brushed hers, and I felt her shivering in the cool. “No?”
She slowly shook her head. “I just threw it on as I came out—it was the first thing in my pajama drawer. I haven’t worn it in…years.”
“Whatwereyou wearing, then?”
She ran her palm over her thigh in a nervous gesture. She swallowed hard, glanced at me surreptitiously, and even in the darkness I could tell she was blushing furiously. “Just underwear.”
I blew out a breath, and my eyes went to hers, and then slid down her torso—the wind blew the silk against her, flattening it over her curves, rendering her all but naked in outline. I could see every curve of her, the round swell of each breast, the hard points of her nipples, her diaphragm, her ribs, the ridges of her abs.
“So when you said you wanted to change into something appropriate…”
“I meant putsomethingon.”
I had to swallow hard, breathing slowly past the urge to gather her into my arms. “Jesus, Liv.”
She licked her lips and lifted her eyes to me. “What?”