Page 26 of Carver (Satan’s Angels MC #8)

Carver

I wake up disoriented for half a second before my brain registers bright sunlight, a good quality mattress that doesn’t sag, feather pillows, a soft duvet, smooth sheets, and the uproarious giggles of my daughter as she closes her tiny fist around my big toe.

“Sorry, did we wake you up?”

Bronte first thing in the morning is a vision. I’ve seen her in every way a person can be seen, but her most private moments where she’s a little tousled and not so put together are always my favorite.

Her shit-eating grin tells me that this is my not so early morning wakeup call.

Bronte’s still in my t-shirt, but she’s added some pajama bottoms. She hasn’t done more than finger comb her hair, and the side she’s slept on has more volume at the roots from being pushed up against the pillow all night.

A deep inhale brings the warm scent of chai tea with it, and I don’t have to look far to spot the mug on the nightstand.

Bronte pulled back the blankets and exposed my feet, and Elowen is utterly fascinated by the shape of my toes. She likes closing her hand around each one and yanking, but even still, it just tickles.

I wriggle them, which gives her pause. She turns into a little statue before her eyes shoot to my face.

They’re hazel like Bronte’s, but the way she does it is a gesture I recognize in myself, and now I’m a statue too.

We both stare at each other until I wriggle my toes again and Ellie’s face creases with a huge grin.

She claps her hands and does that extreme baby rocking thing that they do where they’re in danger of flinging themselves totally one way or the other in their pure happiness.

She grasps my big toe with both hands before I can tug it away, but it’s not like I’m really trying.

I love how something this simple could make someone so delighted, and when I watch Bronte watching Ellie, my chest squeezes in around the edges.

“Curl your legs up.”

I do, and Bronte repositions Ellie in the middle of the bed.

She crawls up alongside her, but surges forward.

Her lips meet mine in a graze that’s little more than a flutter, but I still taste the cinnamon and vanilla cream of her.

This is our first kiss like this. It’s amazing that after knowing each other for so long, we can still have firsts at all.

I wriggle my toes for Ellie, and she screams, smashing her hands down on the blanket, rooting around to try and find them.

“Sorry I’m up so late.” I’m half embarrassed, but a little freaked out that I fell asleep so quickly. One second, I was with it, and the next, there was nothing until I opened my eyes.

I’ve never slept like that.

Ever.

“It’s not that late. I just got her dressed and made some tea.”

“Have you had breakfast?”

“You’d know if Ellie hadn’t. Hungry babies aren’t overly quiet.”

I sit up, meaning to curl my back against the headboard and reach for Ellie, but a jolt of pain in my right shoulder takes my breath away. My hand shoots there to try and ease it out. I don’t sleep on my right side, but something must have been a little off.

Bronte has her hand over mine immediately. “Lean forward. Let me massage out the knots.”

She’s so eager to help that I can’t be my normal asshole self and try not to let her. I need to leave that behind. That attitude about not having any weakness is the only weakness.

Bronte’s hands are magic. She finds the source of pain, which feels like it’s my entire shoulder.

She uses her fingertips, her thumbs, and her fists, all while playing peekaboo over my shoulder with Ellie.

She’s forgotten all about my feet in favor of babbling away while she tries to figure out what her mom is doing.

I watch Elowen closely, making sure that she doesn’t get any wild ideas about throwing herself off one side of the bed or the other. She stays right in the middle, but I have my hand ready just in case.

Bronte kisses my shoulder while she works lower, her hands kneading my bicep.

Am I mortified that she’s touching this part of me that doesn’t work properly and no longer looks or feels like the other side?

Yes, but I can practically hear myself admitting that to Dravin and him telling me that shit is all in my head, and that’s all it is.

Shit. Intrusive fucking thoughts. I need to learn how to think them and just let them go.

Think it, feel it, acknowledge it, but ultimately breathe out and just let it be so what?

Will I let my face and my arm make me less of a father?

If there was anything wrong with Elowen, would she be less of a daughter?

Even thinking that makes me want to roar with rage and fight the universe against anything ever happening to her, but I can also understand better how the people who love me see me.

That’s the short answer. I need to just get the hell out of my head.

It’s easier when Bronte sinks her teeth lightly into the junction between my shoulder and my neck.

“Bron,” I complain half-heartedly.

Her parents are very affectionate with each other without being gross about it.

They’re not afraid to hold hands or give each other a hug or a kiss, or light touches on the arm or the back throughout the day.

I found it strange earlier on, when I was still so new to touch and love in general, but now I just find it inspiring, that two people can know each other for so long and never lose that will to be with the other.

She studies the side of my face that I used to hate her seeing. “Everything the surgeon did is incredible, he’s an artist.”

I turn my face and kiss her, deeper than I did last night, until it hurts a little, but just a little. I don’t push it. Even so, Bronte still has that dazed look of a woman who was just fully kissed.

“What would you like for breakfast? Eggs? An omelette? Grilled cheese? A shower?”

“Is that a not so subtle hint?”

“I think we both know that I’m mad attracted to you no matter what. Sweat? Stone dust? Dirt? Yes, please. I’ll have that and a second helping.”

She scoops up Ellie after just dropping that on me.

I’m rock hard and have to somehow get out of this bed in just my boxers without it being apparent.

What age do children start actually remembering things?

Thinking about my hard-on problem only brings back all the vivid sensations from last night.

I get a pretty vivid image of Bronte splayed out on the kitchen table while I made a late-night snack of her pussy.

And seriously, what the fuck, because I never think about things in those terms.

“Do you want an omelette?” Bronte’s shy smile is one hundred percent, I know exactly what you’re thinking.

Elowen does that thing where she’s trying to figure out exactly what an omelette is. I’m learning what baby contemplation looks like. She decides that it must be a good thing, because she nods and waves her hands in the air like she’s at a rock concert and her favorite song is starting.

I nod, digging down at the side of the bed for my discarded jeans from yesterday. They’re not there, but Bronte walks over to the dresser and snatches them off the top for me. She’s folded them to perfection.

“Ham and cheese omelette and a walk with Ellie after? There are some good parks close by. I looked at a city map while she had her snack and milk this morning.”

“I knew I wasn’t half asleep when you said she’d eaten.”

“That was just her first meal. She needs at least five before lunch.”

I have a lot to learn, but I’m excited . I’m so up for the challenge. “Can we talk about the party after I shower?”

“I would love that!” Even if it was cloudy or pouring rain outside, Bronte’s enthusiasm would power this whole house. “We don’t have to do it on the actual day either. If we’re not ready. No stress.”

“Okay.”

She bends over the bed and grazes my cheek with a kiss. “Okay.”

Elowen babbles something that sounds an awful lot like that, but it’s followed up with squeals, hand waving, dancing in her mom’s arms, and a whole lot of excited chatter.

I don’t mean to sound surprised when I laugh, but hearing her carry on her own conversation is awesome . I can just imagine all she’ll have to tell us soon, when she finds her words.

Bronte sings to Ellie as they walk downstairs.

Her voice carries from down below. I stand up, shoving my legs into my jeans and adjusting myself so that I can zip the fuckers up.

All the pressures of this new living arrangement hit me all at once.

I’m a dad. I need to figure out a way to provide for Bronte.

I need to start sculpting again. The thousand ideas just waiting to be freed from my brain are starting to take up more space than I want to give them.

If I wait much longer, it’s going to be nearly unbearable not to sculpt.

I know that Bronte doesn’t have expectations about this, but of course she does. Doesn’t everyone? The whole, I want to get it right mantra starts to pulverize my brain.

I don’t want to go there. Shower. Planning a party for my daughter. Breakfast. A lovely walk with the love of my life. That’s what I want to focus on. The rest will fall into place, and if it doesn’t, then I’ll fix it.

Bronte is already in full omelette mode in the kitchen. It makes my throat tight and brings an easy smile to my face when Ellie waves at me like she didn’t just see me a few minutes ago. She’s in her highchair, distracted with a plastic dish with cut up banana pieces.

The bathroom is tiny and mint green themed. The tub, toilet, and sink are all mint, and so is the backsplash that wraps around the tub and continues on for another few feet to surround the sink.

It might be no bigger than a cupboard in here, but it’s clean and the shower has hot water.

Other than Dravin’s place, I never showered anywhere but at home.

Calling it that now makes me realize how much I hate that word because that farmhouse never felt like a home.

The water was always cold. I never had a hot water heater that worked growing up and after my dad and uncles were gone, I didn’t bother to replace it.

The hot water cascades over me. It feels incredible as it hits my stiff shoulder.

Part of me still thinks about turning the tap to cold, but I rest my forehead against the tile and let the water stream over me instead.

It’s still such a novelty that I take longer than I probably should, doing nothing at all.

A few minutes later, when Bronte knocks on the door, I crank the water off, guilt swamping me at the fact she’s probably going to tell me that I used all the hot water in the house.

“Dom?”

“Hey. Sorry, I—”

“What? Don’t be sorry,” she says, cutting me off. “Kael just called me and wants to know if we’d like to go look at a new studio space she found. She hasn’t liked anything so far, but she says she has a gut feeling about this one.”

“Are you okay with that?” I step over the edge of the tub and grab the black fluffy towel off the rack, slinging it around my hips. It used to be hard to do pretty much everything one-handed, but like everything, I have such a routine now that I barely notice.

“For sure!”

“But you wanted to go to the park.”

“We could still do that. She says she made the appointment for noon, but if we can’t make it, we don’t have to worry.

She’ll send video and call us after. She already sent me the link for the listing.

It was just posted this morning. I haven’t looked through it yet.

I thought I’d save that for you to do first.” She hesitates for a second to take a breath.

“Are you okay if I get you fresh clothes out of your bags? I noticed you didn’t bring anything down with you. ”

I turn around and grasp the sink as the craziness of our near fucking cosmic connection fully hits.

I really appreciate that Bronte respects my things and my privacy.

She never pushes or assumes. It’s a small thing and maybe it would be weird to other people, but right now, it means a lot.

It means even more that she notices everything .

She could have checked that link out, but it’s beyond sweet that she wanted to save it to do it together.

“Oh, and your omelette is just about ready.”

There’s no fan in the bathroom and I used so much hot water that the air is misty. I swipe a line across the mirror and stare at myself. Why did the universe choose to bless me, of all people, like this? This is my life. I can hardly fucking believe it.

“Dom?”

I whirl away from the sink and throw the door open, surprising the hell out of Bronte. She stands there gaping at me before she finally gives me a slow blink.

I sweep her up and tug her into me. She lurches forward, catching herself by slapping her palms against my bare, soaked chest. I turn my face and drag my wet hair over her cheek and mouth before I kiss her.

Not timidly. Deeply. Tasting more of that delicious chai tea on her tongue when I stroke hers with mine.

This time, I go past when it hurts. Nothing is going to stop me from holding her, from tasting her, from sipping those sweet sighs directly off her lips.

“I love you,” I breathe, dripping all over as I bow my head above hers. “That doesn’t answer any of your questions, but it’s the truth.”

Her smile is so wide that both her cheeks dimple. My heart crumples, but not like a wadded up piece of paper. Crumpling can be a good thing. This is. “That’s a really good answer to all my questions. Really, really good.”