Lifting her, I walked her backward until we got to the kitchen island. Placing her on top, I took her legs and wrapped them around my waist. With her locked around me, I now had my hands free, and I thrust them into her hair, angling her head the way I needed it so I could taste more of her sweet mouth.
The familiar sound of a baby crying made me jerk my head up. Breathing hard, I glanced over at the baby monitor on the counter by the fridge. Doe was gulping in deep breaths, trying to replenish the oxygen I’d deprived her of. In a daze, she followed my gaze.
“Love Bug,” she whispered, then pressed at my chest. “I-I need to check on her.”
Sighing, I nodded, but I didn’t release her until I stole one more quick, hard kiss. “I’ll clean up. Do you want to watch a movie?” I asked as I helped her down.
She touched trembling fingers to her swollen lips, her lashes lowered sleepily. “Um… I…”
Grinning, I caught her around the waist before she could take an unsteady step. “Easy, little lamb.” I kissed her brow. “I’ll find us something to watch. Take your time tending to Love.”
5
Doe
I changed Love Bug’s diaper and then rocked her back to sleep. I sat there for several minutes after her eyes had drifted closed and her breathing had evened out once more, needing a moment to wrap my head around what had happened in the kitchen.
If my lips hadn’t still been swollen and a little tender, I might have convinced myself that being kissed by Jenner had been a hallucination. But the way they continued to tingle was a reminder that it was reality. Jenner kissed me. And what a kiss it had been.
He’d devoured me, as if he were ravenous for the taste of me on his tongue. The way he’d picked me up, as if I weighed no more than Love Bug, had been even more earthshaking. I wasn’t the type of girl a guy could just pick up. I wasn’t dainty or delicate. There was meat on my bones. Yet he’d handled me without even breaking a sweat.
But then again, Jenner wasn’t the average guy. He was a match for Luca, and he was six-five with enough muscle to take on some of the biggest players in professional football. Jenner could probably bench-press a tractor, so picking me up was nothing to him.
That imagery made me smile. Shaking my head at my ridiculousness, I put Love Bug back in her crib and then went downstairs.
Jenner was sitting in the living room. The smell of popcorn filled the air, and the lights were off, the glow of the TV the only light for me to see to get to the couch where he was waiting. He snaked his arm around my waist, pulling me down so that I was practically on his lap. Pulling my legs over his, he pressed his nose to my neck, inhaling deeply before pressing a gentle kiss just beneath my ear.
“Your skin is my favorite scent,” he husked.
“Weirdo,” I teased, making him laugh.
“I know you’re not a horror or gore kind of girl,” he said as he picked up the remote and pressed play. “So, I found a rom-com. One, because I don’t really plan on watching much of the movie. And two, because if, by chance, we do see something funny and it makes you laugh, I’m rewarded with my favorite sound.”
I frowned at his second reasoning.
“Your laugh, little lamb,” he murmured, sliding his hand between my legs.
My breath caught, but he stopped halfway up the inside of my left thigh. Leaving his hand there, he placed the bowl of popcorn on my lap and took a few kernels. Feeding me one, he stuffed the rest into his mouth while I chewed mine.
The movie started, but I couldn’t force my eyes off his face to even see what the title was. Without thinking, I touched my index finger to the scar on his right cheek. “How did this happen?”
He leaned into my touch. “Caught the edge of something sharp in the cage during a fight.”
“Cage?”
He shrugged. “I did some amateur MMA before and after I was in the marines. This happened when I was first starting out. There was a rough piece of the cage sticking up, and I got pushed into it. Judge, the guy who runs the Underground, was pissed when he realized no one had done maintenance on the cage that week to ensure it was safe for that night’s fight.”
“Was it very painful?” I asked in concern, disliking the thought of him hurting.
Grasping my finger, he brought it to his lips and kissed the tip. “For a minute or two. Then I got stitched up and it was fine.”
“MMA fighter. Retired marine. And now a professional bodyguard,” I listed off. “Tell me more about Jenner Carling.”
He took another handful of popcorn, feeding me a few pieces at a time. Each time he did, he would rub his thumb across my bottom lip as if he were fascinated by the feel of it. “I grew up in the system. Foster care from the age of six to fifteen. Then I ran away, and I did a few things I’m not proud of. It got me put in front of Judge, who is an actual judge, by the way. He saw something in me and introduced me to his best friend, Howler. Howler became my mentor and taught me how to channel my anger in the cage. So, I became a Son of the Underground.”
While I listened, I watched his face. As he spoke about his past, I could see he wasn’t comfortable retelling it, but he did. Because I’d asked. When he mentioned growing up in the system, his eyes had darkened. But talking about Judge, Howler, and becoming a Son of the Underground lit him up. I didn’t know who those men were, but I wanted to meet them for no other reason than they could make my man glow simply by remembering them.
Jenner fed me another kernel of popcorn just as that last thought filtered through my head. My man. I liked the sound of that, but was he really? Kissing someone didn’t mean they were yours, but that kiss had felt like he was marking me as his. With how his hand stayed tucked between my legs, he wasn’t pressing for more, but the way his fingers and palm felt against my jeans-covered flesh seemed awfully possessive to me.
“Why did you pick the marines over all the other military branches?”
“Everyone I knew who was in the military was a marine,” he said after a moment of considering my question. “Your dad is a retired marine, isn’t he?”
“He is, but he doesn’t talk about it. And when someone who doesn’t know him does happen to bring it up, he gets this look in his eyes.” My heart clenched remembering the few times it had happened. “He was deployed for most of his active duty, and I suspect he’s seen some things he can’t get out of his head.”
Jenner’s hand paused halfway to my mouth with more popcorn. “I’m sure he did.”
Sensing the same hauntedness in him, I cupped his jaw. I liked the feel of his neatly trimmed beard against my palm. When he leaned into my touch again as he had when I’d touched his scar, I moved closer so I could brush my lips over his cheek. “Thank you for your service,” I murmured. “I’m sorry you had to do or see the things you did. Just know that I’m grateful. For what you’ve done for your country, but mostly that you made it home.”
“Baby, if it meant protecting you, I’d do it all over again.”
I picked up the bowl on my lap and set it on the table behind the couch before straddling his lap. There was no missing the huge erection straining against his jeans, and I rubbed over it intentionally. This was all-new territory to me. I’d never done anything so bold in my life, but with Jenner, I felt safe. As if anything I said or did, he wouldn’t make fun of me.