Page 11 of Severed Rivalry
A solid tail wag and a smile—which is really just panting, but I can pretend—keep me going.
Now about Sariah. She’s a mom.A mom.
I can’t expect that she never touched another man after our split, but I always thought… Brass tacks, I always thought her children would be mine. My dark blond hair and her light brown would make a daughter who was brunette in the winter and blonde in the summer. Sons would be the same. My hazel-leaning-amber eyes and her deep blues might give us green, but would certainly give us stunning.
I didn’t care actually. I just knew that she balanced me. She was impulsive while I was planned. She was color where I was beige and white. She was laughter when I was serious.
I needed her, and she needed me.
And she left. Without a word and?—
Could it be?
I make a U-turn and ratchet up my speed. My feet pound, my heart races, and my breaths saw in and out of my lungs as I sprint home.
Eleanor keeps up step-for-step except for the moment she stops to shit all over the neighbor’s lawn. Great. That’s the last thing I need.
I get us home, grab a bag, and return to handle Eleanor’s poop. That’s what I get for hurrying home, pushing harder than either of us are used to. My body is screaming. Eleanor’s apparently was, too, but from her ass.
Bag deposited, I hit the shower, not bothering to shave, and redress.
I’m in the truck and hauling ass across the Denver suburbs before I can think better of it.
Is Renée my child? Did Sariah leave because she was pregnant? Did she withhold my daughter from me?
I screech to a stop on the street in front of a modest house near Green Mountain. We don’t live that far apart. How long have we been this close? How long has my daughter lived within miles of me and I haven’t known?
I knock on the door before I can think better of it. Knowing where she lives and showing up are two way different things. I’m not the stalker type. But if that’s my daughter?—
“Coming.” That’s not Sariah’s voice.
The door pulls open and in front of me stands a young teenage girl. She has her mother’s face, but her eyes are warm brown and her hair is a deep, rich chocolate. “Can I help you?”
“I—” I start but stall out.
Not mine. Why does that hurt even more than if she had been?
“Who is it, Renée? And what have I told you about opening the door to strangers—” Sariah skids to a stop in her socks, staring at me slack-jawed, before looking down at her mismatched pajamas. “Oh. What are you doing here, Cian?”
Cian. Damn.
“I—”
“You can come in if you want,” the younger of the two beauties says. “We’re watching a movie.” She turns and walks deeper into the house, not looking back as she goes.
“Ci.” Sariah looks around outside like she can’t figure outwhat’s real and how I’m here. “How are you here? How did you know where I live?”
Nothing prepares me for what I do next. I’d bet the same can be said for the woman in front of me. I lift my hands, cup Sariah’s face, and fall on her mouth like a starving man offered one last meal before he dies. I take and take.
My groan when she presses her body into mine is one I can’t stifle.
And I don’t want to.
I need this like I need oxygen.
It takes all the discipline I have to step back and to tell my dick to calm the fuck down. I focus on the former because the latter is impossible while looking into the face of Sariah— Well, fuck. “What’s your last name?”
“Come in, Ci. It’s time we talk.”
