Page 12 of His Perfect Little Heirs

I puff, grumpily. “You don’t play fair.”

Of course, he doesn’t respond to my pouting. Even though it’s true, I undoubtedly feel better. Relaxed. All the pregnancy hormones have been figuratively licked from me.

We pass Kelly’s room.

I catch the way Max quickly checks our bodyguard, Carter, is outside our daughter’s door. Back in our master suite, with the open-plan bathroom that displays a raised hot tub, he lays me down on the mattress like a feature.

Before he can leave, I grip the back of his neck, feeding my nails through his hair at the nape, holding him to me. The scent of my orgasm and Max Butcher—poisonous and sweet—suffuses me as I allow my body to loosen.

“Stay with us.”

He stills. “I’m sorry, little one. I’m so fucking sorry; I’m a selfish bastard. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t—" He growls at himself. “I missed out last time, and this time…”

“I know.” I swallow down the memories of carrying our daughter alone, of his absence during the labour, his absence those first few years. And for someone like Max Butcher, who can only show his love with physical acts and service, he literally couldn’t love either of us for all that time…

“I love you, Max. You’re a wonderful father. You don’t need to do anything. I’ll do it. Just trust me, Menace.”

He tightens over me, and I soothe those parts of him that will never believe it by tickling his neck and up into his hair. I don’t expect to hear “I love you” in return.

I don’t want to.

Before Max went away, he promised me that when we start our life together, he would never say he ‘loves me’ because he would show me every day with his actions instead. It was a promise to never leave again. To be present. To be accountable. That’s the kind of promise a girl dreams about. It’s how Max lives. His actions need to have meaning. Words are so fickle. I accept him like this. The words… are just sounds, but his actions are ballads that melt and last, and it’s how we love truthfully.

I close my eyes, and time stretches with us like this—his heart beats above mine, and his breath fans down my face. The memory of his tongue hums through my body and warms me. My Max. My Menace.

After several long moments, I feel him move down the bed and lay on his side, careful to not put weight on me. He reaches out and covers our baby with his warm palm.

The hold is gentle and possessive.

Pinpricks hit the backs of my eyes.

He begins to speak, an emotional and deep utterance that catches my breath and my soul along with it. “I don’t know how to care for you when you’re in there.” Tears spill from the corners of my eyes, leaking down my temples. I wonder if he thinks I’m asleep. So, I keep them shut, stay still, and leave him with his unborn child.

“I can’t show you how I feel about you. Or how much you mean to this family. To your sister. My wife. Me. I’ll show you one day. If you can wait. Be strong. Be gentle with my wife. I can’t live without her. And when you get out and take your first breath, I’ll be there to hold you—first. I’ll be there to show you with my actions the moment you are born how I feel about you, and every fucking day after that. I swear it.”

He circles the small bump with his finger.

And I spill quiet, happy tears.

CHAPTERFOUR

bronson

6thMonth

I’m playing with my boy.

While the girls agreed to all wait until they’re born to discover the sex, I just know. This is my boy re-embodied. A little bit of her, a little bit of me. It’s him. The one that was ripped from us when we were teenagers.

My boy.

And I’ll hold him soon.

Resting on my elbows, I use my miniature finger-BMX and do skids down Shoshanna’s badarse stretch marks. Using the tiger stripes on her skin as a dirt track.

I make a screeching sound as the bike comes to a sudden diagonal stop at the boundary of her pubic line.

“Hazard ahead,” I quietly call out, and Shoshanna rouses from her slumber. “Looks slippery.”

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