Page 97 of Free to Fall

She nods. Then she bites her lip before a determined look drifts over her face. “Liam ...”

I roll her to her back before kissing her breathless, stopping her words with my lips. My hand rests on the space between her bare breasts. I lean down and kiss the scar left over from her bullet wound. The pounding of her heart is reassuring, knowing how close she actually came to dying. “You, Laura Lockwood, have an enormous heart. I’m just grateful you found your way into our lives.”

Her face softens before a devilish gleam enters her eyes. “Is this your way to butter me up so I suck you off?”

I shrug, but I can’t deny the hardening of my cock at her earthy words. God, the idea of her kissable lips wrapped around my shaft has brought me to full erection. “Maybe.”

Laura pushes at my shoulder. “Then maybe you should let me take a closer inspection of your condition, Mr. Payne. After all, I am a medical professional.”

As Laura brushes her lips down the center of my body, I whisper, “Apparently you’re excellent at your job.”

I don’t know how true my words are until her mouth wraps around me and I end up shouting her name while she drains me with her lips, her hands massaging my testicles. Just before I doze off, Laura wrapped up in my arms. I can’t help but wonder if what I endured in Bailey’s early years was so I’d be grateful for this.

For finding Laura.

Otherwise, I’d be afraid of doing something to screw us up.

From the Journal of Dr. Laura Lockwood

If being in my life is dangerous, loving me would be sheer idiocy. I can only imagine what the threat is for those I love.

I should run, leave my family, Bailey, Liam ...

Did I just write that?

Oh, God. I did.

I love them.

I need to protect them.

I need to talk to my father. He has to understand. I can’t leave them unaware, in danger.

He’ll protect them.

I know it.

Chapter

Fifty-Three

It’s been weeks of this, of uniting what I feel for Liam with what I feel for Bailey. Of falling in love with each of them individually and together as a family.

Of finding that special place my mother always told me she found the minute my father came through her front door the first time they had dinner together in the house I grew up in.

Home.

In the warm glow of the kitchen, with the lasagna cooking in the oven perfuming the air, I couldn’t help but let the happiness we’ve been living bubble over me.

We’ve been together every night, Liam, Bailey, and I. At first, my cousins were concerned with the speed with which this relationship was progressing. But then they were included in our outings and gave me two thumbs up a piece—or in the case of Grace since she had a spare one in her purse, three.

Bailey found that a riot, so Grace let her keep it with the promise she’d help out on Bailey’s Halloween outfit this year.

Liam’s “Just don’t give her an extra eye or something, Grace. They might freak me out too much” not only told me he was cool with my family, but he, too, saw us together at Halloween.

And hopefully well beyond.

Stirring the extra sauce, I think of each of our weekend adventures. We explored a famous Connecticut seaside town, laughing over the feral way Bailey became obsessed with blue crabs. We taught her how to tell the difference between a good and bad clam. We wandered in and out of seaports, museums, and stores.

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