Juliet didn’t get angry at him for breaking the mood. “I’m on long-term birth control,” she said with a kiss. “I won’t get pregnant unless I get the IUD removed.” Her fingers weaving through his hair. “I promise.” A pause. “Unless you have super sperm. In which case, I might have to rethink this entire relationship.”
Dropping his head to the curve of her neck, Jake found himself chuckling, then laughing so hard that he almost dropped her. She grabbed hold of his shoulders, and he pressed her against the door once more before lifting his head to kiss her again and again. “My pants are stuck halfway down my thighs.”
“Sexy.” A big smile. “Let’s get in bed before we injure ourselves. I do not want to end up in the ER with a sex injury.”
He released her and got naked, dove under the covers. They lay facing each other, and he realized he’d laughed more with Juliet than he had for years. It wasn’t over either, because she was still smiling and he felt his own lips curve in response.
“I’m clean,” he told her, because after Reid, she had to worry. “We get physicals all the time, and I’m not exactly a man about town.”
“Me too.” Juliet sank her teeth into her lower lip. “After I caught Reid cheating, I got myself tested for everything. It was so horrible, not knowing who he’d been with while he was supposed to only be with me.”
Jake cuddled her closer. “So, we can be naked with each other?”
Stroking her hands up the sides of his body even as a flush heated her skin, she nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.” A ducking of her head, her slight shyness in bed another part of his Juliet that he was discovering. “Feeling you inside me, the heat, the wet… I like it.”
Groaning, he shifted so that he was fully over her, his cock nudging her entrance. “Talk dirty to me some more.”
She looked utterly mortified, so he started the dirty talk.
Rocking against her, the head of his cock rubbing over her clit, he told her how beautiful he found her breasts, how he loved the sensitivity of her nipples and the way her pussy clamped around him in spasms when she came.
Perspiration on her skin, she ran her nails down either side of his spine. “You are so hot, it’s not fair.” She arched her body against him. “You could get me to do anything you want in bed.”
“What I want is to see you come apart for me.” Pushing into her again, her muscles tight and wet around him, he took it slow, his eyes looking into hers.
They held the eye contact until the very end, until he’d spent himself inside her body. It never occurred to him to question her promise that she was on birth control. Because this was Juliet.
Loyal and honest and his.
Jake didn’t know what had woken him, but he jerked awake to see a sleepy Esme climbing into the bed from the end, Mr. Mouse held close to her chest. He’d gotten up to open the door last night after he and Juliet began to fall asleep.
Almost back asleep already, he lifted the blanket so Esme could get in—and realized he was buck-ass naked. He usually wore boxers to bed for this very reason. Since his daughter was mostly asleep, her eyes closed, he managed to use a foot to drag his boxer briefs over from where they lay on the floor and pulled them on under the sheet. Yawning, Esme curled herself to Juliet’s bare back.
And fell back asleep.
Jake looked at his two girls fast asleep and rose to kiss them both on the cheek. Then he located his T-shirt and left it on Juliet’s side of the bed. She’d never woken up with a little person snuggled up to her, would likely get a shock.
Glancing at his bedside clock, he saw it was six. He’d managed to get in some training in New York, popping into a local gym for an early-morning hour each day while Juliet kept an eye on a sleeping Esme, so he wasn’t out of condition. But he’d take it easy on his jet-lagged body today, do only an hour or two later in the day.
As Esme also had the day off school to recover from the trip, he decided to lie back and just relax. It felt good, his happiness a deep and warm thing. Oh yeah, except for the blinding terror. He’d spent most of his life fighting not to be an overprotective and suffocating parent. Now he’d have to fight the same urges regarding Juliet.
The idea of her being hurt in any way…
A stirring on her side of the bed. He saw her go motionless a moment later. “Jake? Are you awake?” It was a panicked whisper.
“Yeah.” He leaned over Esme to kiss a sleepy-warm Juliet on the temple. “I put my T-shirt by you.”
She reached down to grab it. “How do I…?”
He moved Esme away from Juliet’s back with gentle hands. His daughter grumbled in her sleep but settled when he put her against his chest. Meanwhile, Juliet shimmied into the tee, then turned around to face him. “I’m going to have to remember not to sleep naked.”
Esme yawned against his chest at the same moment. Her eyes fluttered open a second later. She just lay there for a while; his daughter wasn’t a morning person. But today she was excited enough about something that her eyes were suddenly bright.
Flipping over to face Juliet, she said, “You slept in Daddy’s bed.”
Juliet sent him a “help” look, but Jake winked and left her to it.
“Yes,” she said. “Is that okay?”
“Yup. Can we have waffles for breakfast?”
Juliet still appeared shell-shocked half an hour later when they sat down to breakfast. He’d pulled on his sweatpants but nothing else while she’d found her pajama bottoms in her suitcase and pulled them on. But she was here and she seemed happy under her shock, and the day passed in a hazy, happy way that left him rejuvenated for the next one.
Juliet expected chaos the next morning, but Jake and Esme had a well-oiled routine.
For a moment she felt awkward and out of place, then Jake said, “Jules, can you make Esme’s lunch while I make sure she has her flute and Phys. Ed. gear?” He told her what his daughter normally took to school. “Her lunchbox is sitting in the cupboard above the sink,” he said as he entered Esme’s room to grab her backpack.
Juliet had never made a little girl’s lunch before—except for her own—so she took care with how she put everything together. Spotting a cookie cutter in one of the drawers she’d opened while looking for a knife, she cut Esme’s sandwich into the shapes of stars, then arranged grapes and blueberries together in another section.
Lastly she added two cookies, and on a whim cut a piece of carrot into the shape of a flower and put it with the fruit. “Where are you two?” she called out when the kitchen remained otherwise empty.
“Daddy’s braiding my hair!” Esme shouted back. “And he couldn’t find my fwoot.”
“That’s because you put your ‘fwoot’ in the drawer with your socks,” Jake grumbled. “Be there soon, Jules.”
“Issa safe place,” Esme argued in a stubborn voice. “I just forgots it was there.”
Smiling, Juliet started the coffee, then located the stuff Jake put in his smoothies and whipped him up one. She’d seen him order smoothies more than once in New York, and it was an easy thing to replicate since he had his nutritionist-suggested food list pinned to his fridge. It also made her feel part of the morning routine.