I pushed the door open, barely making it through before Kinsey was sliding down my torso and hitting the ground. Immediately she was off, running to her room.
She was getting almost too big to carry, but it wasn’t something we did often anymore. After daycare, she just liked the connection of being held after hours apart, but as soon as we were home, all bets were off.
I smiled at her before heading to the kitchen. Out of the refrigerator I pulled a small container of grapes and one of broccoli. The kid’s love for broccoli amazed me. I then pulled a pack of crackers from the pantry and set them on her little play table. After filling two glasses with water, I set the one with a lid down on her table, then took the other with me to the master bedroom to check on Roe.
The lights were off and the door was open a crack. There were a few slivers of light coming from the edge of the blackout curtains that lit up the room enough to navigate and to find her eyes on me.
“Hey, baby,” I said as I sat on the edge of the bed, placing the water next to her on the nightstand. My eyes adjusted to the dim light, and I brushed the hair from her face. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” she said, unable to lift her head up. It’d been days of this, and I worried that something was really wrong. She’d been feeling off for weeks and had waved off my requests that she call the doctor, but the last few days had beaten her down too much.
“Mommy,” Kinsey said as she ran in. She jumped onto the bed, but wasn’t tall enough to make it. Little grunts made me chuckle at her attempts to pull herself up.
I took hold of her waist and hoisted her up onto the bed. “Tanks, Daddy,” she said in her high-pitched voice before crawling across and into Roe’s arms.
“Hi, baby boo, did you have a good day?”
“Yes!” she squealed. “Can go to da park?”
Roe’s brow furrowed. “Mommy doesn’t feel well, but Daddy might be able to take you for a little while.”
Kinsey set her big round eyes on me, and I knew I was going to say yes. I couldn’t deny my girls anything.
And they were my girls, in every sense. Roe and I were married a year and a half ago at my family’s lake house in North Carolina, and shortly after we initiated the adoption of Kinsey. Both of us.
For the last three months, she had been officially ours—a Carthwright—and nobody could take her away. Mackinsey Ryn Carthwright.
“Your snack is on the table. Give me a few minutes to talk to Mommy and we’ll go, okay?” Thankfully, St. Catherine’s Park was just across the street. I didn’t want to be far in case Roe needed me.
“Okay!” she cheerfully squealed before wiggling out of Roe’s arms and sliding off the edge of the bed.
I looked back to Roe. “Did you talk to the doctor?”
She nodded and pointed to a piece of paper on the nightstand.
My hands shook as I reached out, my heart hammering to find out what horror had taken over my love.
I read the results.
Then read them again.
My eyes met hers. “Well, I guess that explains a lot.”
She burst out laughing and turned into the pillow. I leaned over and climbed onto the bed, caging her beneath me.
I moved my hand between us and rested it on her abdomen. “Why, Mrs. Carthwright, I do believe you have officially made all of my dreams come true.”
“Takes two to tango.”
“If you are up to it, I plan to tango all night long in celebration. But how?”
She turned onto her back and locked eyes with me. “My noon alarm wasn’t doing such a good job reminding me a while back.”
A while back? “How far along?”
“About ten weeks.”
Right around the time of the adoption. We were so busy between the adoption and all the paperwork that went with it. We visited Ryn where she was still in jail. I was ready for a fight, but Ryn simply locked eyes with her sister and said, “You have given her a life I’ll never be able to. I’ve messed up a lot of things in my life, but giving you my daughter is the one good thing I can do for her.”
Signing over her rights was a peace offering and belated wedding present for all that she’d put Roe through. She wasn’t going to fight it, and in the end, they hugged with tears in their eyes before we left.
Memorial Day weekend it was official, and we had a party to celebrate the adoption—a huge celebration with friends and family. Kinsey had no clue what it was all about, but she got presents, so to her it was like an early Christmas.
Getting pregnant was in our future, but we’d decided to make it past the wedding and the adoption before trying.
“Guess that whole trying thing is out,” I said as I leaned down and ghosted my lips against her neck, pressing them against her skin every few inches.
“Practice really does make perfect.”
“I love practice.”
She bit down on her bottom lip and smiled at me. “Me too. We can always practice for number two.”
A groan left me, and I ground my hips against hers. “You’re getting me worked up.”
“I like it when you’re worked up.”
“But you forget I’m about to take our daughter to the park. I’m going to look like a massive perv going down there with a hard-on.” I loved how her expression melted every time I called Kinsey “our daughter.” “And you’re tired.”
“I think you could perk me up a little bit.”
I growled against her neck and bit down on her most sensitive spot, earning a gasp from my beautiful wife below me. She bowed against me, her hands gripping my suit jacket hard.
“Such a tempting little siren. You know we can’t right now, and you’re just egging me on because you’re a teasing little minx who loves to see me suffer.”
“Only sexually.”
I pulled myself away from her and palmed my cock through my slacks as I stood. “This is your fault.”
“And I love it,” she said, running her tongue across her lips as she reached out for me.
I stepped forward and groaned when her tiny hand gripped my shaft. “It’s warm out. You should strip into something cooler.”
“You just want to touch my cock and get me even more insane for you.”
“Admit it—you love that I want you so much.”
I leaned down and pressed my lips to her forehead, then down to place a light kiss to her lips. Anything more, and Kinsey was going to walk in to my being balls deep in her mother.
And I really didn’t want a repeat of that. At least last time we were clothed.
“I do,” I said. Before things heated up even more, I stepped into the walk-in closet, giving me some space to try to calm down.
I pulled off my suit and changed into some shorts and a T-shirt. It was enough time that I was down to half-mast when I walked back into the bedroom, only to find my wife masturbating. One of her pierced nipples was exposed and her eyes were heavy and dark. It took everything in me to keep from pouncing on her right then.
“Fuck,” I hissed. “You’re going to kill me.”
I pulled the blanket from her body to find her panties pushed to the side, two fingers slipping in and out of her slit.
I focused on the sounds outside the room and found Kinsey happily singing, the tunes of one of her videos in the background. Probably focused on her snack.