Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 57337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
This whole thing must be rocking his world. I needed to remember that, and to cut him some slack if he ever got really uptight or if the stress of having us around blew up in some way. I’d had months to prepare myself; Jack hadn’t even had twenty-four hours.
Peter petered out on my nipple, and I knew he was done, so I shifted him up to burp and covered myself. Jack backed up but didn’t turn his eyes away from me. He was wearing an appreciative smirk, and I smirked at him right back.
I patted Peter’s little back until he let out the extra air. And some regurge—ah, the joys of infants. Jack was back to watching us from near the door and looked about ready to go back out to the living room when I shocked the hell out of him.
“Hey, come and take Petey so I can get up.”
“Whaa…no! No. I don’t do babies, Ellie.” He looked me straight in the eye and shook his head firmly. Yeah, that was not going to fly.
“Well, maybe you didn’t do babies before, but you do now, buddy. Come on. It’s easy. Just pick him up in your hands so I can get up. Only thing you need to be careful of is his neck and head; he’s not strong enough yet to support it himself, so you gotta make sure you have your fingers behind him, helping him out.”
“Fuckin’ hell.” He seemed suspended by the doorway, unsure whether to come back or run away.
“Come on, Jack. I need your help. It really isn’t hard. He’s not going to bite you, I promise.”
“I’m gonna crush him.”
“You’re not gonna crush him. Just pick him up under his arms, put your fingers behind his neck to support his head. Super easy.”
He did it. The hot huge badass biker came back over to the bedside, leaned down, and gently took Peter face-to-face from my outstretched hands. He held him in a dangle at some distance from his own body, with Peter clasped firmly in his hands just as I had described. He followed my instructions to the letter, which was great since beyond that, he showed absolutely no instinct for childcare.
I forcibly repressed a chuckle, not wanting to undermine his fragile ego. Once I got to my feet, I scuttled around the two of them and moved straight into the living room, not worried about how far behind me Jack would be. I could hear Peter begin to air grievances about the sudden loss of bodily contact, and Jack didn’t wait to air his own, either.
“Take him, already, would you?”
I used my empty water glass as an excuse to lengthen their time together, bringing it back into the kitchen for a refill. “Oh, calm down, Jack. Just sit down with him and let him lay on your chest. He just wants body contact. You’re fine.”
Jack’s face reflected his anxiety, but he reclined on the couch with his head propped up and did as suggested, and we were both rewarded with an almost immediate cessation of baby noise. Peter laid his cheek on Jack’s pec and settled right in. Jack’s face looked funny, as he peered down at the little one with a mix of distrust and bemusement. But when I reentered the room with my water and sat back comfortably on the other half of the couch, Jack pinned me with a piercing look, clearly nonplussed at my lack of maternal possessiveness.
From my vantage point, though, I was totally winning. The image of big tough hot Jack with my baby boy cuddled close on his chest was To Die For. It was so sexy and beautiful, and I just gazed at the two of them in a kind of blissed-out haze for a minute—or two, or three. Really, I have no idea how long it lasted.
Eventually, I felt a nudge on my leg, and I came to with a little jump.
“Wha—?”
“You went to la-la-land,” he said with a smirk. I blushed, knowing he must have been able to track the turn of my thoughts easily. He knew how good he looked. And now, he knew how good he and Peter looked together. We had both just learned that the combination, to me, was kryptonite.
I forced myself to look away, just to get my equilibrium back. Water glass to the rescue.
By the time I returned my attention to Jack, I caught him gazing down at Peter with a kind of wonder in his eyes. I might have even gone so far as to say adoration. Peter really was beautiful, in his way. He was soft and sweet and warm like a little bean, and he inspired love in everyone he’d come across to date.
Jack, it seemed, was just as susceptible as the rest of us. His face had softened, and his body had relaxed under the small weight and warmth on his chest, and his hands had naturally rested lightly atop Peter’s back, securing him in place. As proud mommy to my little warrior, I loved seeing it.