Page 107 of Single Mom's Bodyguards
They know he was a bad father. I know it now too.
That was the hardest truth for me to swallow. For so long I convinced myself otherwise, told myself he was good to them even if he was cruel to me. But Sean, Wesley, and Huck were right. A man who brutalizes the mother of his children is not a good father. He never was.
It broke me to admit it. But in that break, something new settled in. Because now my kids do have fathers. Father figures, anyway. And they have me too.
My career is alive again. Friedburg’s film is a critical darling, and last week the nominations came out. My name is on the list for Best Actress.
An Oscar nomination. It doesn’t feel real.
The kids don’t care about it. They care that the pool heater’s been fixed, that their swim coach shows up twice a week, that Jessica makes mac and cheese better than anyone else alive. Right now I hear them in the backyard, their shrieks carryingthrough the open window, the slap of water echoing. Normal sounds. Happy sounds.
And upstairs, three men wait for me.
I pause at the bottom of the stairs and listen—Eli’s whoop, Maeve’s splash, Jessica’s calm voice counting off laps with the coach. The kind of ordinary I used to think I’d never get again. I close the slider, lock it, and turn the house to hush. My pulse climbs the way it does before a scene, except this isn’t performance.
It’s relief. It’s desire that doesn’t have to hide.
Halfway up the steps I can already feel them. Not physically—yet—but in the way my body recognizes their gravity. Sean’s controlled heat. Wesley’s quicksilver focus. Huck’s big, unruly tenderness. The hallway smells like laundry detergent and eucalyptus from the diffuser Sean insists helps him sleep, and beneath that, the trace of cologne and soap and us.
The bedroom door is ajar. I push it with my foot. They’re waiting. Not fanned out like a tableau, not staged. Just…here. Sean by the window, sleeves rolled, that coiled readiness he can’t turn off even now. Wesley on the edge of the bed, a nervous energy in his knee he’s trying—failing—to still. Huck propped against the headboard, bandage hidden under a soft black tee, his smile slow and shameless when he sees me.
“Hi,” I say, breathless for no good reason except that I want them.
Huck’s grin tips crooked. “Hi, yourself.”
Sean crosses to me first. He doesn’t ask if I’m sure. We’ve had that conversation a dozen different ways in a dozen quiet rooms.His fingertips find my wrist and press once, a question I know how to answer. “Color?”
“Green,” I breathe, the word loosening something low in me. The second word is for all of them. “Please.”
He nods. Wesley exhales, the tension in him unwinding in a visible ripple. Huck pats the mattress like he’s calling me over.
“Door,” Wesley says, already halfway there. He clicks the lock, pulls the curtains, sets his phone face down on the dresser like he’s putting his mind where his body is.
Sean takes my face in his hands and kisses me—slow at first. I open for him and everything goes hot. The stress of life evaporates under the press of his mouth. When he lifts his head, I’m dizzy. “Breathe.”
“Working on it,” I say, smiling, and hook my fingers in his shirt. “Don’t be gentle because you feel sorry for me. I’m not breakable.”
His eyes flick, proud and dark. “Never thought you were.”
Wesley comes up behind me, palms skimming the backs of my arms, featherlight. If Sean is heat, Wes is electricity, all attentive brightness that notices everything. He kisses the spot below my ear, and my knees remember what weakness is. “You’re sure,” he says, not a doubt—our ritual.
“I’m sure.” I turn my head and find his mouth. He tastes like mint and the stubborn sweet of a man who’s had too much coffee and refuses to admit it.
Huck clears his throat theatrically. “Gonna make me watch from over here, or am I allowed to kiss the lady who saved my life by threatening to end me if I ever scare her like that again?”
I ease away from Sean and Wes and climb up onto the bed. Huck opens his arms and I fit into the space like I belong there, because I do. He smells like clean cotton and the warm salt of skin. When he kisses me, it’s all gratitude and hunger. He’s careful of his chest—we all are. He’s still tender where the skin has healed. But he’s not careful with the way he pours himself into my mouth. My hands skate under his shirt. He catches my wrists gently and guides them higher. He murmurs against my lips, “I’m yours tonight.”
“Mine,” I echo, and the word burns in the best way.
Sean’s knuckles brush my ankle as he lifts my foot to slide off a shoe. Then the other. A small, precise service that makes my skin prickle. Wesley’s fingers peel the strap from my shoulder and heat rolls across me like summer. They’re not rushing. They never rush. They map me like I’m something worth learning, even though they already know the terrain by heart.
“Say what you want,” Sean reminds me, voice low, steady, a keel.
“Everything,” I say, because it’s the only word big enough.
“Greedy,” Wesley whispers, delighted, and his mouth traces the hollow of my throat. I arch. Huck’s hand cups the back of my neck and holds me there, anchored, while Sean’s palm slides slow over my thigh, a firm glide that coaxes my breath ragged.
The rope is on the nightstand. Not the rough kind that makes a mark for days. The soft braided silk that lives here now, coiled like a secret. Sean glances at me. I nod, heartbeat in my mouth. “Yes.”
