I couldn't help but smile when Jude burst into our apartment shouting his happy news about lattes and love. In his young mind, what else did anyone need? Come to think of it, he might not be so far off the mark. Throw in some good books and life was perfect.
"That's exciting news!" I said as our boy threw his arms around my legs and hugged me as I smoothed my hand over his head. "I get a caramel latte and Daddy still loves me!"
My comment may have been directed to Jude, but I was looking and laughing at Tanner, who was staring right back at me, grinning, eyebrow cocked. Not embarrassed in the least that his son had obviously outed a previous, private conversation between father and son. Jude had no concept of secret or private.
"Well, that should be rewarded," I declared, and I was about to prove I wasn't the same girl Tanner had been married to. Through therapy, I'd grown up, learned about what I actually wanted from my life and what I should expect. I'd learned I needed to be vocal about my needs and not just passively move along, following someone else's lead, accepting whatever.
So, without hesitating, for the first time in our lives, I initiated a kiss with Tanner. Just walked over to this man and pressed my mouth to his in a very hot, not-safe-for-work kiss. A kiss little eyes should probably not see. Tanner, however, didn't seem any more worried about it than I was and the instant my mouth touched his, his free hand grabbed me by the back of the head, entangling his fingers in my hair so I couldn't back away, even if I'd wanted to.
I didn't want to.
Vikings plundered, pirates looted and Tanner took my mouth captive and did both. He took over the kiss and returned it with an intensity that made me wish I'd taken the initiative more often. Damn this man could kiss. His tongue stroked against mine, his hand remaining at the back of my head, keeping me in place. He pressed me closer, our kiss wet and hungry...and then my daughter's little hands were pushing at my face.
"No, mama!"
I leaned back from Tanner, who now had both of Liora's little arms trying to reach all the way around his neck, her head burrowing into her Daddy's chest, staking her claim.
"Someone didn't like that," he murmured to me, and although his mouth may have been grinning, his eyes were seriously heated and intense, clearly ready for more. Those beautiful lips pressed a kiss to Liora's head, still not taking his eyes from me.
"She's going to need to get used to that," he decreed.
"Maybe," I murmured, shrugging, batting my eyes at him.
His eyes gleamed with mischief at my teasing.
"No maybe about it," he said. "I'm going to keep kissing you like that until you stop seeing other men and only see me. And then I'm going to keep it up to make sure you keep seeing only me."
"Well, if that's your intent, you're going to need to step up your kissing game. It wasn't bad," I said sweetly, and I knew I was guilty of gross understatement, "but I see a lot of room for improvement."
His lips twisted into a smile. "A lot of room?"
"For improvement. I'd rank it a solid...four."
"Four out of five isn't too bad," Tanner mused.
"Four out of ten, Tanner," I clarified the rating scale for him. "Like I said, definitely room for improvement, but not too shabby this early on. Good enough for now, and we'll see if there's significant improvement on our next date."
"Ez, this weekend when we go out, I'm getting to ten," he promised. "I'll show you significant."
"We'll see," I said simply. "It's good to have aspirations. A goal to work toward, Tanner."
Laughing at me, he talked me into spending the day together -- it actually didn't require much persuasion on his part at all -- and the four of us went to the park, had pizza for lunch, took a bike ride and then I sat with Liora on a blanket while she napped and Tanner taught Jude how to throw a Frisbee. We had hamburgers for dinner and then while Tanner bathed Liora, Jude took a shower (he thought it made him so grown up) and I cleaned up the dishes. We put two very tired children to bed after book time. Tanner and I wandered out to my living room after they both had fallen to sleep.
"Do you want to watch a movie or something?" I invited him to stay.
He was suddenly in front of me, his hand cupping my jaw and his thumb running lightly over my lips.
"I'd love to stay and watch a movie with you, but I'm not going to."
"Why?" I'd been hoping for him to show me some significant improvement.
"I'll tell you why," he said, his voice low. "Because we'd start out watching the movie, but then I'd start shooting you glances. Pretty soon, I wouldn't even be watching the movie because I'd be watching you. You'd look over and ask me why I was looking at you."
He pressed his chest to mine. "And I'd tell you that there's nothing I'd rather watch more than you. You're so gorgeous, Esme, that I wouldn't be able to resist stealing a kiss, and you'd kiss me back, and pretty soon you'd be straddling my lap and our mouths would be so hot together we'd be melting into one another. Wanting more. But not yet, Ez. Not yet. That's not what this is about right now. So I'm going to go home, wrap my hand around my cock that's been hard for you all day and while I'm thinking about you, I'm going to jack --"
"Who's Jack?" my son asked, rubbing his eyes with his tiny fists. "I'm thirsty."
I looked at Tanner, and we burst out laughing.
Saturday morning, Tanner had Liora and Jude, and I had two lattes on the kitchen table, ready to get to the bottom of Big Daddy's mood lately. He burst into the apartment when I opened the door to him, but he lacked his usual swagger.
"I don't understand you bitches," Big Daddy said to me after taking a long drink from his mocha latte. He looked like the kind of man who would take his coffee bitter and strong, the kind of coffee that would grow hair on your chest, but no. He had a weakness for fluffy, sweet lattes. "You make no sense. None."
If I were to plug that statement into Google translate and ask it to interpret from Male speak to Female, it would have popped up How could my behavior possibly be something a woman could take exception to?
"What happened, Big?" I sighed, glad for my emotional support caramel latte.
"Need you to know that even though I'm an asshole, like I told you before, this is not my fault." He grimaced. "Met her. Met the one. Shy, awkward as fuck, sweet as honey, tall as hell, off-the-charts smart, thick all over, a walking wet dream."
Yeah. Needed to change his focus. Immediately. "How'd you meet her?"
"My brother's got a boy in school. Had to go pick Elijah up for fighting since Orion was away on club business. Walked in the boy's fucking classroom and fuck me, she was standing next to 'lijah like a fucking dream. Don't think I could speak for a minute; I was just staring at her with my tongue hanging out."
"So far, so good," I encouraged him to keep going.
"Went right back to the club with 'lijah and told my one brother that I was done playing around with his girl and him. Found my one, was going exclusive with her and giving up my old ways. Then, started taking her out. Never dated before. That shit is great. Found out she was even more perfect than I thought, so I decided to take her to the clubhouse after just a couple of dates for one of our cookouts. Prez's wife started making them a monthly thing."
He just stopped talking as if that was it. Left it right there. Didn't say another word for five solid minutes.
"And?" I finally asked. I hated cliffhangers with a passion so my voice may have been impatient.
"And that one brother and his girl came into the clubhouse. The ones I always directed and joined in with for years. But she hadn't gotten the memo from her man. So she came up and kissed me on the mouth. And I didn't even think about it, Little E! It was fucking muscle memory! That's all it was. But my girl was across the room and saw me kissing her back. Then, my girl comes over and my brother's girl asks my girl if she's going to make our threesome a foursome. Said it'd been a while since we'd opened up the threesome and was looking forward to some pussy action."
Oh, no.
"How'd that go over?" I asked, but I knew. I just didn't know how bad it was.
"She's a fucking preacher's daughter, Little E! Plays piano at their church and teaches a teen girl Bible study. How the fuck do you think it went?" he exploded. "She stormed out of the clubhouse and that was a month ago and she hasn't even called me or tried to see me since."
"Um, Big," I said gently, a million questions racing through my mind. "Haven't you tried to call her or see her?"
He looked confused. "Why would I? It wasn't my fault," he insisted. "She didn't even give me a chance to explain. I've been waiting for her to get in touch with me."
I looked at my phone. I had eight hours before my date with Tanner. That wasn't going to be enough time to explain women and life to Big.
But it had to be since I had something important to tell Tanner.