A Stone in the Sea(53)

She nodded emphatically. “Uh-huh. I know for sure FOR SURE! It says so in my favorite book. You want me to read it to you? I got it right upstairs in my room.”

Shea cut in. “How about we read it another time, sweetheart? Breakfast is going to be ready in a couple minutes, and we need the table set if we’re going to eat.”

From where she stood at the stove, Shea pitched me an apologetic yet graceful smile, because I’d gotten sucked right into the whirlwind that was Kallie Bentley.

“Okay, Momma.” Kallie climbed down from the chair she was perched on. I tried to keep my attention trained on Shea wearing that robe and the insane body hidden under it, which wasn’t all that safe a subject to concentrate on. It was weird witnessing her here, taken out of the element of the bar, out of the atmosphere of her room last night.

There? Her skin simmered sex, that storm gathering from beneath the surface, like in the shadows it searched for way to be exposed.

But here?

Here she was whimsical and gentle and…and…a mom.

That fact fucked with my head.

My gaze slid right back to the little girl who pushed a step stool up against the counter and climbed to the top step. She carefully pulled down four plates from the cabinet above.

That wasn’t such a safe place for my attention, either, because I kept getting that agitated feeling wind up in my chest as I watched her make her way around the kitchen and back to the table. Her little tongue poked out to the side in concentration, her movements controlled as she focused on setting the obviously vintage purple plates safely at each spot.

She slid one in front of me and peeked up at me. “There you go, Baz.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled.

Shea and April set platters piled high with food on the center of the table. Tender fingers sent chills racing down my spine when Shea fluttered them along the base of my neck, leaning over my shoulder to place a cup filled with steaming coffee down in front of me.

We all sat down and shared a meal together. And it was relaxed and easy and terrifying.

I’d been a fool for wanting to lose control with Shea.

Because I didn’t know how I was going to get it back.



Arms crossed over my chest, I had my hip propped up against the counter.

Watching her.

Shea focused on pushing some buttons on the dishwasher, her attention trained away, intensity billowing around us, that invisible tether stretched taut.

Almost reluctantly, she stood to face me. Quiet filled her kitchen, the two of us just looking at each other, the water running through the pipes, and our confused breaths the only sound.

April and Kallie had just left to go to the park, and when they’d gone, it’d stolen all the relative ease. It felt a bit of an olive branch when April had looked at me as if she were making a tough decision, then made a quick glance to Shea, before she’d turned to Kallie and bent her voice in that way women always seemed to do when they talked to little kids.

“How about a trip to the park?” she’d asked, and Kallie had been all over it, flying up the stairs to her room to get changed and bounding back downstairs in less than two minutes. She’d jumped up and down, the ball of pure energy she was, clapping her hands and squealing, “All ready, Auntie April!”

Shea had knelt down and hugged her, murmured, “Have a great time, Butterfly,” while she brushed back some of that uncontrolled hair. The kid had gone and flung her arms around my leg, hugging me tight, saying something about me reading to her another time while I’d been completely struck dumb.

April had paused at the door and looked back at us, eyes narrowed. “Three hours,” she’d warned, obviously giving the two of us some time alone, because she wasn’t immune to the questions swirling between Shea and me, either.

Now Shea cleared her throat, redness on her cheeks. “I’m going to run upstairs for a minute. Why don’t you wait for me in the living room? The remote’s on the coffee table…it should be easy enough to figure out.”

“Sure,” I answered, though watching television was the last thing I wanted to do. What I really wanted was to follow her right back up those stairs and go for another round, to see her with the sun shining down around her, lighting up the lush lines of her body while I pounded into the delicious warmth of it.

Don’t go there, Stone.

Instead, I trailed her into the living room and watched her jog upstairs and disappear into her room with a quick, unsure glance behind her. I pushed out a strained breath from my lungs, wondering again what in the hell I’d gotten myself into.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Turning away, I wandered back into the middle of the living room, pulled out my phone to see who’d texted. I swept my finger across the face and couldn’t help my grin.