Page 18 of Right the Wrongs (Broken Vows #5)

Chapter Twelve

Griffin - Past

It’s after hours, and once again, Charlie and I are the only two working.

I’m not even supposed to be at the Harriston location, but we’re short-staffed.

At least this time it isn’t because Liam is drunk, high, or in rehab.

He’s been back to work for almost six months now, but we’ve been very careful to make sure he doesn’t get overwhelmed.

The reason I’m helping out here is that our other employee, Julio, is on vacation with his boyfriend.

We’ve been talking to him about a promotion to manager of this location, and they wanted to celebrate Julio’s achievement before things get busy.

It certainly will, too, because Charlie plans to join me in Centralia once Julio is trained to run the Harriston garage.

Wren is still working at the Centralia garage so that Parker’s routine isn’t interrupted.

She’s also a lot more tired with this pregnancy than she was with our girl.

Even though the drive is less than an hour, she’s too uncomfortable to ride even this far.

That makes me more irritable that I need to work late, but I have to keep our businesses afloat.

“How did dinner go the other night?” Charlie asks, jolting me out of my head.

That’s a good question. One that I wish I had a simple answer to, like, good or even okay. Since there aren’t any concrete answers for me to give him, I simply shrug. It’s a step above grunting, so I’m evolving at least.

Charlie winces. “That bad, huh?”

“Eh, not bad really. Weird is probably a better description. It’s nice to see Liam doing well. He seems happy. Claudia told Wren that Liam proposed, but he hasn’t said anything to me yet,” I babble.

Charlie rolls his eyes. “He’s probably making sure to lock her down before he loses another wife to you.”

“Very funny, jackass. It’s not like I went out to fuck over my son on purpose.

You saw how hard I fought my feelings for her.

I couldn’t help falling for her any more than I could choose not to breathe.

Then my idiot son had to go and make her single, so what was I supposed to do? Loving Wren is just part of me”

Charlie holds up his oil-stained hands in front of him. “Calm down, Casanova. My god, you were less of a grouch before you started getting some on a regular basis. I’m just yanking your chain.”

I give him the side eye. Pissing me off is one of Charlie’s three favorite activities. Fighting, fucking, and fishing is pretty much the Charlie Storm version of living life to the fullest. Although to him, I think fishing just means drinking beer on a boat.

“Should I start asking really intrusive questions about Wren’s Aunt Hattie? I’ve seen her name pop up on your phone a lot since Liam’s six-month sober celebration,” I threaten.

“That’s no way to talk to your future uncle, asshole.”

“You’d be Wren’s uncle, dumbass,” I grumble.

Charlie nods his head. “That’s true. As a potential member of her family, I feel obligated to look out for her. I’m being real with you right now. How is she handling everything?”

I hesitate to answer, which I guess confirms something for him.

“That’s what I thought,” he mumbles. “C’mon, her life with him was shit, and then she gets to watch him getting it right with someone else?

Not only that, but this new woman got to do all the things that she wanted to do before Liam derailed her.

She went to college, started a career, and built the life she wanted before settling down.

Wren did everything to make Liam happy, and all he did was shit on her for it. ”

I look down at the floor. “She’s been really quiet the last few days,” I admit.

“Do you want my advice?” he asks.

“Will you be quiet if I say no?”

He snorts. “Not likely.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and inhale slowly. “Then spit it out.”

“Don’t force her to move on like you want. She’s pregnant, her ex is back in front of her face suddenly, sober, and doing all the things he could never get his shit together and do for her. Whatever you do, stay the fuck out of your own way.”

I narrow my eyes. “What brought all of this on? No offense, but your longest relationship was what, a month?”

He looks past me, eyes haunted by something only he can see.

“You’d be surprised about all the shit you don’t know, and I might just tell you someday, but for now you’re going to have to just trust me.

What you need to do is go home and hold her.

Sometimes words aren’t needed to tell her that you’ll always be there.

If she’s falling apart, no matter what the reason is, then it’s your job to hold her together. ”

I wipe my hands off on a rag and throw it into the hamper. “In that case, I’m going to head home. We’re not going to be able to finish this old junker tonight anyway.”

Charlie waves me away. “Go, Liam will be in tomorrow. We can’t baby him forever. If his sobriety is so fragile he’d relapse from working a few long hours, then he should go back to rehab.”

It isn’t the first time I’ve sacrificed my own needs, or even Wren’s, in a misguided attempt to help my son.

I know what I should do, but there’s this paralyzing fear that what is best for me will be the thing that pushes Liam over the edge.

This is what holds me hostage. To be fair, he hasn’t asked me to make these sacrifices, but while he’s done the work to make changes, I haven’t done shit to rid myself of these toxic habits.

I’ve been doing this since he was a child.

I think a part of me always knew there was something a little off with my son.

Looking back, I can see that what I used to think was hyper-fixation on one thing or another was his addictive personality searching for a fix.

For a while, Wren was the recipient of that extreme level of attention.

I don’t blame her for being swept away by it.

But, just like with everything else, eventually the object of his obsession stops producing the same high, and his eye starts to roam in search of new thrills.

Here I’ve been trying to love her through it, and really, all I’ve managed to do is be as overbearing as my son once was. I wonder if she is even able to tell that my love is different than the weak facsimile he gave her.

Charlie is probably right. I don’t need to do anything.

I just need to be there and hold her while she sorts this out.

I should probably also think about talking to a professional.

There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, and God knows that being raised by two selfish alcoholics, becoming a father at eighteen, and a single father at twenty has probably done a lot to fuck me up.

Then there’s all the shit heaped on top of that from my son stealing from my business, overdosing, and me using those things as a free pass to take his wife.

Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that it’s way past time for me to plop my ass down on a couch and start spilling my guts.

The drive from Harriston to Centralia feels longer than normal. Of course, every time I’m away from Wren it feels like it takes forever to get back to her. I have flashbacks to that long fucking drive to Florida when I wasn’t sure if she’d even speak to me when I got there.

By the time I make it home, Wren is curled up in bed. I kick off my shoes by my dresser, and strip down to my boxers. My clothes reek of oil and sweat. Wren is very sensitive to smells right now, so I shove them down to the bottom of the hamper.

Trying not to wake her, I carefully pull up the corner of the blanket and slip under. We haven’t even been together for two years yet, but still we move together like we’ve had years of practice. My arm slips under her neck, and the other pulls her back against my chest.

My hand rubs her growing bump. I just know that this baby is a boy.

Not because of some macho bullshit or anything, but because she’s bigger than she was with Parker.

Not that I’d tell Wren that. I guess it could be because this is her second pregnancy, but even still, this is going to be one big baby.

We’re going to find out in a couple of weeks when we go in for her twenty-week scan.

“Griff?” she asks in a voice still husky with sleep.

“Sorry to wake you, Baby Bird. I missed you today.”

“Mmm,” she hums and laces her fingers on top of mine. “I don’t like it when you’re away. Even though it’s only during the day.”

I move her unruly blonde waves away from her neck and kiss the soft skin beneath her ear. “I don’t like being away. My entire world is in this house with you.”

“Do you think—” Wren’s voice grows smaller, and she trails off mid-sentence.

“Do I think, what?” I push. Something tells me that this question is going to be crucial to learning the reason that she’s been so quiet lately.

She shakes her head. More like rocks it back and forth on the pillow, but the message is the same. It’s also one I’m going to play dumb and pretend I don’t pick up on. How else am I supposed to make her speak to me when she’s so dead set on holding all of this inside?

“Are you telling me no, Baby Bird? Is it okay to tell Daddy no?”

She huffs, not really in the mindset to play with me, but begging, bargaining, or even bribing her doesn’t get her to talk to me like when I barrel through her walls.

“It’s stupid, and saying it out loud will just make me sound like an insecure nutcase. Just forget it,” she says, but the slight warble to her voice betrays her real feelings.

She doesn’t want to appear insecure, but she is. That’s not some kind of accusation against her, but something I’m not doing right to make my girl feel safe with me.

I don’t have the words, and Charlie told me I don’t need them. That’s what I get for listening to the perpetual bachelor. But, without a better game plan, this is all I have.

Of course, he told me to hold her, not slide my hand down inside her sleep shorts and stroke her bare pussy. I am pretty sure my instincts are spot on when her ass grinds against my rapidly hardening dick.

I whisper in her ear, “Pull off your shirt and let Daddy play with your heavy tits.”

She might not want to do as she’s told and tell me what she’s thinking, but as usual, she’s quick to obey any sexual demand I make. That’s fine, I don’t want a completely submissive wife. I live for her fire just as much as her softness.

My arm under her neck reaches farther around her and starts gently massaging one very full breast. She’s so quick to arouse now that she starts to ride my hand as it teases lightly against her clit.

“If you won’t tell me what is going on in that head of yours, I’m going to fuck it out of you,” I warn her.

“Whatever you want, Daddy.”

“How hungry are you for my cock?” I pull my hand away when she doesn’t immediately answer, and I’m rewarded with a desperate whine.

“Sounds like you’re gagging for it. Is that what you want? Do you want to gag on Daddy’s cock?”

She whimpers in reply and starts to try and slip down my body to answer me a different way, but I tighten my hold on her pussy, just enough to keep her in place.

“I don’t want your mouth this time, Baby Bird. I want you desperate enough to come and bounce on my lap. If you want it so bad, come and take what you need.”

I push my boxers down, then pull her shorts and panties off as well. Then I wait to see if she’s going to be bold enough to ride me.

She doesn’t seem to understand just how sexy I find her when she’s pregnant.

Seeing her belly round with my baby, knowing a part of both of us is growing inside of her, it gets me hard.

Well, to be fair, everything about her, pregnant and not, makes me hard.

I do like knowing that other men will see her and know that she’s taken and well-fucked.

Wren doesn’t make me wait long before she clumsily crawls up my body. I hold my dick in place for her to lower herself down on it.

I expect her to start off slow, rock back and forth a little, but my teasing has her desperate for release. Her nails dig into my chest as she keeps herself propped up.

“Oh, fuck,” I groan as she rises and slams back down hard. It’s too good, and I won’t last long like this. Seeing her full tits swaying and her round belly, I almost blow just by the visual.

My head falls back, and I can feel all the muscles and tendons tighten in my neck. I try to will myself to last longer, but I can feel the electrical pulses growing in my balls, and I know I’m not going to make it.

“Slow down, Baby Bird. I want this to be good for you, but you’re really fucking good at this.”

I turn my face away from the ceiling to look at her, and I see that she’s lost to the feeling. She rises up, and I watch my cock go in and out of her pussy as she lifts and lowers herself. Something animalistic takes over me, and I lift my hips, slamming up into her every time she drops down.

Her hands leave my chest and go to her breasts.

Slowly, she rolls and tugs at her nipples.

Without her hands on me, it’s harder for her to rise and lower herself on my cock.

To help her out, I continue to buck into her.

When I reach between her legs and rub her clit in time with my thrusts, she detonates.

I’m talking her pussy clamps down on my cock like we’re forever fused together, and a low moan seems to pull straight from her chest. The pressure is so intense that I blow my load instantly.

I keep pushing into her, even though she’s locked tight around me, but I feel a feral need to keep filling her with as much cum as my body contains, and until my balls are completely empty.

When her internal convulsions stop enough to let my cock slip free, she falls down next to me.

She’s still and quiet for several minutes, and I think she’s gone to sleep.

It happens often when she’s pregnant. Her head is on my chest, and I slowly stroke her back, just enjoying this moment where that disconnect I was feeling earlier seems to have retreated again.

Then she whispers so quietly I almost miss it. “Please let this be real.”

I want to tell her that she and I are the most real thing on earth, but I think Charlie’s right. Nothing I say is going to fix this. I can only hold her through it, tonight, tomorrow night, and all the tomorrows after that until she believes that we are forever.

Knowing what to do is only part of it, because I still need to get to the bottom of why I need to convince my own wife that she’s safe with me.