Page 15 of Shielding his Legacy
“What?” asked Moto.
“Nothing. I’ve got to go. Let me know as soon as you’ve found something.” He disconnected the call, listening to the baby’s cries and wondering what he could do to help. Evawas attempting to get five minutes of peace, and he wanted her to have that, at the very least.
He took the stairs two at a time. The bathroom door was closed, the baby’s cries reaching a volume Gavin reserved for his favorite metal band, or the surround sound on the entertainment system when his mother watchedDancing with the Stars.
He scowled at the closed door, wondering if he was qualified for this shit and if Eva would even accept his help.You’ve taken out tangoes from a hundred yards, and you’re wondering if you can handle a baby?The absurdity was enough to make him wrap on the door with his knuckles. “Eva?” he called over Abby’s screams.
Eva didn’t answer.
He knocked harder. The baby, seeming to think it was a competition, increased the ferocity of her cries. “Eva, can I help?” Taking a step back, he stared at the door, put his hands on his hips, and waited for a response. When none came, he grew concerned, but didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, Abby’s cries stopped so abruptly, he imagined she’d wiggled her way out of the car seat and hit her head on the stone tile floor.
Truly worried, he threw the door open. Eva knelt on the floor, dripping wet and naked, leaning her chest over Abby’s car seat with one tit in the baby’s mouth. She gasped wildly, sitting upright and exposing both breasts to his view while the baby wailed anew. Eva’s right nipple was flushed a deep crimson from the baby’s suckling, her left one dripping white liquid down the curve of her breast.
Gavin stood there, mesmerized.
Milk. Her breast was leaking milk, and her mouth was screaming as she pointed toward the door.“Get out!”For her part, Abby squealed in righteous indignation, warring withher mother to see which female would dominate the conversation. At the baby’s increased cries, milk flowed from both of Eva’s nipples in a dribbling stream clearly meant for her hungry daughter.“Ooout!”Eva demanded.
He nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to get out of there, pulling the door shut behind him and causing the baby’s wails to take on a terrified quality. “I’m sorry,” he called through the closed door, unsurprised this time when Abby abruptly went silent. “I didn’t mean to barge in on you.”
Eva’s irate voice echoed through the thick wooden door. “What the hell did you think was going to happen when you opened the door on a woman taking a shower?”
Well, it certainly hadn’t been that.
If he lived to be a hundred and eighty, he’d never forget the sight of milk dripping from her sweet breasts and his desperate, even carnal desire to lap it up. He’d suckled those buds more than once, his mouth and tongue making her frantic with sexual need, and he couldn’t help but wonder if having her breasts suckled would still feel as good to Eva as it would be for him to taste her.
He put his hands on his hips and hung his head. He longed to change the actions he’d taken since first setting eyes on her in the HERO Force office today. He wouldn’t take her in his car, he wouldn’t have brought her to this cabin, and he sure as fuck wouldn’t have walked into her breastfeeding her child.
Their child.Abby wastheirchild.
Walking miserably toward his room, he longed to stroke himself through his pants to relieve the urgent need pressing against his fly, but he couldn’t do it. Pushing the thoughts aside, he groaned in frustration at the sight of hisbed covers thrown back and Eva’s bag on the floor in the middle of his bedroom.
There was an intimacy in those two things that stunned him like a taser to the solar plexus. The sound of his panting reached his ears, and he told himself to calm down, to stop making more of this than needed to be made. Eva and Abby were here for a few days at most. He’d make sure they were safe, then he’d limit himself to child support and the rare visit to see the baby. It wouldn’t be right not to see Abby at all. Shit like that fucked kids up, and he was damn sure going to try to stop fucking this shit up altogether.
You did a fine job of that by walking into that bathroom just now.
He ran both hands through his hair, crossing to the bedroom window as he acknowledged his stupidity. He wasn’t cut out for this parenting crap. He didn’t know the first thing about babies or crying fits or any of this stuff. Hell, he’d seen Eva give the baby a bottle at the HERO Force office, and he’d assumed that meant shewasn’tbreastfeeding. He’d even been grateful for that fact! Now his brain was fixated on the images he’d seen in that room, and he knew he’d never forget them for as long as he lived.
He shook his head, staring into the distance and seriously distracted by the vision she’d made. Any man who thought that wasn’t sexy as fuck had no goddamn clue what he was talking about. He’d never wanted a woman more than he wanted Eva right now.
The realization was sobering, a deepening panic making him sweat.
He had to get her out of here, had to get her safe and back to her regularly scheduled life as quickly as possible, before he once again took things further than he had any right to take them. She deserved so much better than that.She deserved a man who’d love her with the intensity Gavin had glimpsed in her arms. She deserved a man who wanted to feel those feelings, who’d welcome her into his life and hold her tightly by his side, come what may.
But as he tried to imagine that faceless man he wished would love her, a fierce surge of possessiveness rose up in him. For as much as his brain might understand his inability to be the partner she needed, his entire being refused to imagine anyone else standing in his place.
He leaned his head on the windowpane and closed his eyes. Just twelve hours earlier, he’d been thinking about leaving HERO Force behind, figuring all his problems would fall by the wayside. Now he knew there was no freedom in sight. His life had just gone off the rails, but good—and he had no idea how to get it back on track.
“Fuck me,” he said miserably, lightly bouncing his head against the glass before straightening.
He needed to call Marina. If ever there was a time to start seeing a therapist, this was undoubtedly it.
9
Eva braced her weight on the edge of the car seat as Abby drained the last of the milk from her breast. She was growing so used to contorting herself in an effort to feed her daughter, she was certain she could be a successful circus performer before Abby was able to eat solid foods.
Come to think of it, maybe then she’d be able to pay her bills and provide for her child. The thought was accurate and unwelcome, and she pushed it away even as it settled between the lobes of her brain, hanging on tight for the long road in front of her.
Her mind was all too eager to heed her call for a change of subject, remembering the shocked look in Gavin’s eyes as he watched the humiliating demonstration of her leaky post-partum state.
