The Brightest Sunset

My lips immediately thinned, and I allowed my gaze to drift over his shoulder to where Brady was standing, his shoulder propped against the doorjamb, a hard scowl aimed at me.

Shit.

I was in no mood to go toe to toe with Brady. I was happy, really and truly, for the first time in nearly a decade. And I refused to allow him to ruin that for me.

But just because I refused didn’t mean it wasn’t going to happen anyway.

“Hey, we need to talk,” he called out.

I groaned internally. “Go wait in the car, Trav. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Front seat?” he asked.

I gave him a side-eye. He asked that question every time we walked out my front door.

And, every time, I answered with, “Back seat.”

Poor kid was lucky I didn’t make him sit in a booster seat. Forget about riding in the front.

“Aw, man,” he complained and then took off toward my car.

With all the enthusiasm of a snail, I walked over to Brady.

“What’s up?” I asked, praying that Travis had been as good as I’d thought he’d been about keeping our little Porter secret.

Brady shoved a hand into the pocket of his jeans. “I want him overnight this weekend.”

My shoulders snapped back, and my body went on alert. “What? No way!”

He cocked his head to the side. “I’m not asking. You’ve had him every night since he’s been back.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared. “Yeah, Brady. Because he’s sick. He wakes up two to three times a night for breathing treatments and other medication. We both know I’m better equipped to handle that than you are. It’s best if he stays with me. Look, you can have him Saturday during the day, but he’s coming home with me on Saturday night.”

He caught my elbow and yanked me toward him. “Then teach me.”

“Have you lost your mind?” I hissed, snatching my arm away. “Don’t touch me.”

Shame flashed in his eyes. He raked a hand through the top of his hair and then cupped the back of his neck. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

And, as if Brady’s apology hadn’t been shocking enough, he lifted his gaze to mine, the grief and dejection almost knocking me back a step.

“I need more time with him. He’s not connecting with me like he is with you. He was here for all of two hours tonight. And an hour and a half of that was spent asking when you were coming back to get him.”

Guilt settled heavily in my belly. “Brady…I…”

“What am I doing wrong?”

Keeping him from Porter.

“It’s only been a week. Be patient.”

“It took him, like, ten minutes to warm up to you, Charlotte.”

I cut my gaze to the ground. “He’d seen me with Porter. It was built-in trust.”

“Jesus,” he breathed, tipping his chin toward my car. “He can’t get out of here fast enough.”

Following his gaze, I found Travis frantically waving for me to come on.

Suddenly, I felt like a heel.

Travis didn’t want to leave Brady’s; he just wanted to go home—to Porter’s.

I gave Brady’s forearm a squeeze. “I’ll talk to him. Okay?”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He waved, and before I even had a chance to move, he shut the door.

Every light in the room was on. My head was thrown back against the pillow, my hand in the top of Porter’s hair, his mouth between my legs.

It should be noted that, while bathroom sex was amazing, a bed definitely had its merits. The best of which being the ease in which Porter could trail his mouth over every inch of my body.

A strangled cry escaped my throat as his fingers roughly filled me while his tongue swirled over my clit.

“Porter, please,” I begged, tugging at his hair.

“Not until you come again,” he rumbled, the vibrations doing some seriously nice things.

“I can’t, bab—oh God.” What started as a whisper morphed into a moan when he twisted his fingers, curling them inside me.

When Travis and I had arrived at the house, a set of nerves I’d never even considered had exploded within me.

Porter had been waiting on the porch for us. But, while looking up at that two-story brick home, I found myself dreading getting out of the car. How was I supposed to walk into that house without feeling like an intruder?

That house was a portal to an entirely different dimension.

A gateway to the world in which my son had grown up.

A world where he called another woman mom.

The same woman who had taken him from me.

Numbly, I’d accepted a kiss from Porter before he’d guided me inside. One step through the door and I realized that it was worse than I’d feared. Images of my son covered the walls in a weird yet charming hodgepodge of frames. As much as I wanted to investigate, memorize, and absorb every one of those stolen moments from his childhood, I couldn’t bring myself to look.

What if she was in the pictures? Holding my son. Smiling with my son. Laughing with my son. Living and enjoying every moment she’d robbed me of.

I’d told myself that the past didn’t matter, but it still felt like a dozen copies of his deep-brown eyes were boring into me from all angles, taunting me with memories I’d never have.

So I pretended those pictures didn’t exist.

Only they became all I could think about.

Curiosity consumed me while self-preservation waged its war.

I smiled on cue. Laughed when something was funny. Held on to Porter as if he could make it stop. But I never opened my mouth to tell him why I was silently losing my mind.

It wasn’t his fault that Catherine had turned out to be a madwoman. But being there, where she had once lived, was smothering me.

After eating a takeout dinner from The Porterhouse—on dishes the woman I hated with every fiber of my being had probably bought—we’d spent the night on the couch she’d probably sat on, my legs tangled with a man who had once vowed to love her and my son playing—and fighting—with her daughter.

She had stolen my child and seamlessly slipped him into her dead son’s life.

Was I now slipping into her life?

During a movie the kids had insisted we watch, they had fallen asleep.

Porter did not delay in carrying them both to their rooms.

And then carrying me to his bed.

Or was it her bed?

Desperate for a distraction from the swirling tornado in my head, I eagerly welcomed his body.

Porter took me long and hard, until we were both covered in a sheen of sweat. But, even after we’d finished, I wasn’t ready to go back to reality.

In the shower, I guided his hands between my legs and pretended for a little while longer. Only I couldn’t silence my mind long enough to find another release. So, when the hot water had turned to cold, it had forced us, dripping wet, through his bedroom, where he’d planted me on the bed seconds before his mouth disappeared between my legs.

“Porter,” I cried as he worked me closer and closer to the edge. I fisted the sheets and rolled my hips against his mouth. My whole body was coiled tight.

Porter never slowed his torturous tongue or his magical fingers.

“Oh God,” I moaned as my orgasm finally sprang to the surface, demolishing me in its wake.

I fell back on the bed, my heart racing but every other muscle in my body going slack.

All except my mind.

How many times had he done that with her?

I slapped a hand over my mouth as the thought assaulted me.

Closing my eyes, I counted backward from twenty, trying to trick my brain into some sort of semblance of calm.

None was found.

“You feeling any better now?” he asked, collapsing beside me on the bed.

Folding my arm over my face, I hid from him.

He moved my arm and searched my face. “Do I need to turn the lights off for you to talk to me?”

“W…what?” I stammered, the promise of the darkness almost as exciting as it was terrifying.

He would have made me feel better in the darkness, but in order to get that, I would have had to confess the landfill of garbage in my head.

He scooted in close and rested his hand on my hip. “You’ve been stuck in your head all night.”