Page 18 of Nothing to This (Nothing to… #8)

After Baxter disappeared around the corner, she forced herself to hail a cab.

The apartment was only a few blocks away, but walking felt like too much.

She didn’t want to think; she just wanted to be with her family.

Her kids always helped her feel better about everything, especially when the Earth was tilting on its axis.

Using her key to go into the apartment, she dropped her purse and scanned the mess in the kitchen. No sign of the kids, but she could hear something further inside. Heading down the hallway toward the sound, she ended up pushing JD’s slightly ajar bedroom door further open.

The trio were on JD’s bed watching a movie on the TV that shared a wall with the doorway she was standing in.

All their attention swung around to her.

Kye was lying across the foot of the bed, his head propped on his hand.

JD sat in the middle of the bed, in front of his pillows, hairbrush in hand, doing something with Sky’s hair.

Their daughter was content between her father’s legs, stretching a hairband.

“Momma,” Sky called. “Daddy’s making my hair wavy.”

“I called Brenna,” JD said, frowning at whatever he was doing to Sky’s hair. “I don’t think I followed the instructions right.”

Just like that, they accepted her. No one asked questions or needed explanations. No one accused her of anything or made demands.

Dragging her feet, she slipped off her shoes and climbed onto the bed. Forcing her boy onto his back, she held his cheeks in her hands and pressed a kiss to his forehead. That wasn’t all. Her gorgeous, precious boy got a kiss on each of his eyes before she kissed his lips.

Kye laughed when she moved on and did the same thing to her daughter. When she was done kissing Sky, she crawled up the bed some more and gave her daughter’s back a little push.

“Slide down a bit,” she said, taking the hairbrush from JD’s hand and climbing over his leg to sit between them to take over with Sky’s hair.

“Mommy saves the day,” JD said and kissed the back of her head before slouching against his pillows.

After removing the ties and pins to put them aside, she took JD’s wrist to pull him into a sitting position again.

“Watch,” she said to him. “Every good daddy should know how to braid his daughter’s hair.”

“In case of braiding emergencies,” he said, smoothing a hand down Sky’s hair as she brushed it. “Her hair’s as soft as yours.”

“I wish,” she said, putting the brush aside to run her fingers through the length of Sky’s tresses.

Within their daughter’s locks, JD’s fingers tangled in hers; his torso pressed against her back. Sky and Kye laughed at the movie on the screen ahead.

JD’s breath warmed the shell of her ear. “Everything okay?” She nodded and gave his fingers a squeeze before extricating hers to separate out the hair for braids. “Did he hurt you?”

Physically or emotionally? She hadn’t intended to be back home that night. The fact she was in the apartment at all told him something had happened. Tipping her chin toward her shoulder, she kept her volume low and continued braiding, so as not to draw their daughter’s attention.

“I’m not your responsibility,” she murmured. “I’m Mommy, you’re Daddy, that’s it.”

“Mommy,” Kye called out.

“Yes, sweetpea?”

“You should put your jammies on.”

“Yeah!” Sky exclaimed. “Can Mommy sleep in our bed tonight, Daddy?”

JD’s bed was communal property? That was funny.

Just like Sky to claim ownership. Kye scrambled up the bed, bypassing his sister and mother to wrap his arms around JD from behind.

She didn’t have to look to know it. Her boy’s hands caught in her hair as he threw his arms around JD to clamber up onto him.

“Watch the girls, buddy,” JD said, picking her hair from Kye’s hands.

“Can she, Daddy?” Sky demanded. “Can Mommy cuddle with us?”

“Thumb wrestles, Daddy,” Kye said.

Pushing Sky further down the bed to between JD’s feet gave her space to shimmy down the bed and the boys more room to play.

“Daddy!”

Kye’s exuberance tempted her to smile and peek over her shoulder. In demand, JD scooped their son around to sit on his torso and lay down, pushing his groin hard against her ass. Not that he’d notice, being too busy locking his hand around their giggling son’s.

“Daddy!” Sky screeched.

“Daddy’s playing with me!” Kye said. “You can’t talk to him!”

“Hey, don’t fight,” JD said. “You know the rules, you shout, and I send you to your own bedrooms.”

Sky whined. “But Daddy, you didn’t tell Mommy she could—”

“Mommy won’t fit in bed with us.”

“We can squish,” Kye said, then squealed and bounced on JD, moving them all with the motion. Kye pushed his back against his mother’s for extra traction. “Sky!”

She’d just put a tie in the end of Sky’s hair when Kye called to her.

“Oh, boy,” JD said when Sky jumped up.

Their daughter ran around to sit on her father’s chest, blocking his view and pushing on his thumb with both hands, holding it down so Kye could pin it.

Spinning on her butt, putting her back to the TV, she crossed her legs and watched her children overtake their father. Two tiny people, who spent large portions of their life whining at each other, could take down the great Jamison Dawes when they worked together.

Kye screamed. “I win!”

“My turn!” Sky called.

Both kids bounced on JD with such exuberance, she worried they might hurt him.

“Guys, be careful with Daddy,” she said, snagging her son to pull him back into her lap.

“Have to help Sky,” Kye said, wriggling away from her grip to help his sister triumph over their father.

The kids’ laughter reached new exuberance when JD roared and grabbed them both, tossing them onto their backs in a tickle trap, drawing them back if they tried to escape.

“Mommy!” Sky called through her laughing. “Mommy! Save us!”

“Mommy!”

“She can’t save you now,” JD roared like a comic book villain.

She laughed. “Oh yeah?”

Seemed he’d forgotten his vulnerability in only wearing boxer-briefs and a tee-shirt. With her nails, she caught the hair on the back of his thigh and gave it a tug.

“Ow,” he said, slapping a hand to the injury and twisting to scowl at her. “That hurt.”

“Try getting a wax,” she said, bobbing her brows.

“Mommy,” Sky screeched, struggling to get up.

Kye climbed up onto his daddy’s back.

JD caught Sky. The little one laughed and screamed simultaneously. Dragging his daughter back under him, he tickled her some more while Kye tried to sit up and balance on his father’s back like he was playing horsey.

When using the same weapon, plucking the hair on his leg, she didn’t expect JD to rear up. One of his arms coiled around to balance Kye on his back for as long as it took him to twist and bring the other arm around her waist to swing her around in front of him.

He took her so completely off guard that she fell fast and had to brace so as not to land on Sky. Shit, he swiped her body beneath his, and she curled on her side, sheltering her daughter who was rapt in hysterical laughter.

“Mommy, save me!” Sky screeched.

JD came down over them again on all fours; she guessed Kye was still on his back.

With her legs now between his, she pushed Sky under her body, using her weight to keep JD away from the little one.

Widening her legs between his, she wouldn’t let JD close his knees, and helped Sky wriggle downwards, creating an escape tunnel between her own thighs.

“Sky!” Kye screamed when Sky appeared from between their parents’ legs.

She flopped around just as Sky vaulted off the end of the bed.

“Cookies!” Sky called and ran for the door.

Like it was a call to arms, Kye threw himself away from his father and leaped off the bed to run after his sister.

“Guys!” she called and put a hand on JD’s braced arm, expecting it to move out of her way.

“Let them,” he said.

Still out of breath and underneath him, her eyes met his. Although he remained on his hands and knees, heat rose between them. Was that the humidity of their breath or… something else?

“It’s late for cookies.”

With a fingertip, he stroked her tousled hair from her forehead, drawing it down her temple. “If they win, they get a cookie before bed.”

She smiled. “Daddy relaxes Mommy’s rules.”

“Does he?” he asked, his fingertip continuing to her jaw.

Her rules for the kids… Was he on the same page?

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant… You can sleep with us tonight if you want. Like Kye said, we can squish. I just didn’t want to put you in an awkward position.”

Making a show of glancing around, she used her gaze to make a point of their current position with her on her back under him. “Didn’t you?”

“This isn’t meant to make you uncomfortable; I’m trying to look in your eyes.”

And that explained exactly nothing.

She smoothed a wrinkle on the seam of his tee-shirt. “Because?”

“Because then I’ll be able to tell if I have to ruin the bastard for hurting you.”