Page 90 of Lamb

“Maybe you should.”

“Yeah, maybe I should,” he agreed, lowering his face and capturing my mouth in a kiss that was as possessive as it was comforting.

I didn’t know what it meant to feel…thatbefore now. Sure, I remembered what it was like to have my motherhold me close when I was little. What it was like to look to her for comfort as a kid. But that was different.Thiswas different.

This was understanding. It wasn’t loving someone because it was something you should do. Like a parentshouldlove a child. It was loving them despite everyone telling you that you shouldn’t. It was choosing them despite the horrors that surrounded each of you.

Or maybe it was because of them. Maybe those horrors were more of a comfort than anything else. Because they helped us feel less alone in the darkness we found ourselves trapped inside without any hope of climbing out.

EPILOGUE

MARISELA

ONE YEAR LATER

Ilooked over at my husband, the sound of his slightly-heavier steps drawing my attention from my computer screen up to him, before my eyes dropped to thethinghe was holding in his arms.

“What isthat?” I pointed a red-tipped nail across the desk, and Adrian’s grin just stretched wider over his face. A sign I wasn’t going to like whatever it was he was planning to tell me.

“This…” He shrugged his shoulders outward, pushingitcloser in my direction. “…is a small human, Marisela. Some might even go as far as to callita baby.”

“Right… And who does the small human belong to?” I couldn’t stop myself from scrunching up my nose. It wasn’t that I didn’t like children. It was just that…

Okay, fine, I didn’t like children.Then again, I really didn’t like anyone.

“Us. He belongs to us, little lamb. At least he does now.”

“What do you mean he belongs to us, Adrian?” I pushed up from my seat. Doing my best to hide the way my voice trembled. I wasn’t stupid. I saw the resemblance. The dark eyes, the darker hair. I’d done the math in my head as soon as he walked in. This kid sure as hell wasn’t mine but that didn’t mean he wasn’this. The man who’d promised to be loyal to me even though his brother never could be. “Where did you get it?”

My husband watched my face for a moment, shifting the kid higher on a shoulder and tapping a hand against its backside as if it were the most natural thing for him to do. “I didn’t fuck someone else, Marisela.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and pinned him with a glare as lethal as the knife I kept in my top drawer. “I know you didn’t. You wouldn’t be breathing if you did,” I countered.

“It is nice to know that you still care, though.”

“Enough with the games, Dr. Lambert. Whose kid is that and where did you get it from?”

“I’m not playing games, Mrs. Lambert. I already told you. Little AJ is ours.”

I quirked an eyebrow. I didn’t need to ask him whatAJstood for. Knowing this man’s ego, I could already hazard a guess. “Right, and where is AJ’s mother?”

He smirked. “I’m looking ather.”

I lifted a hand to stop him. “Nope. Nuh-uh. Not happening, Adrian. Are you insane?”

“I know the perfect place for us if I were…” He started to smile again, before his mouth dropped into a thin line. “His mother was part of a job. He wasn’t. I couldn’t just leave him there.”

“And why not?”I would have.If the kid survived, he’d be stronger for it. If he didn’t, well then, that would have been nature taking its course, wouldn’t it?

“I might be a murderer but I’m not a monster, Marisela. I’m not gonna leave a kid to starve to death. Would have been weeks before someone came looking for 'em.”

I shook my head, lowering myself back into my office chair and tucking my legs under the desk. “We are not a daycare. Drop it off at a fire department or something.” I waved a dismissive hand.

“And have them ask questions? I don’t think so. That’s a novice move and we both know it.”

“A novice move is strolling in here with an armful of evidence,” I mumbled under my breath. I loved this man. I really did. As much as I could love anyone. But that didn’t mean there weren’t times when I wanted to kill him. Times like now.

My husband collected people as if they were stray dogs. And I wasn’t a dog person either.

---