He had to get up, just for a minute, ease away from her just enough to function. She would be addictive. He already knew that and was past caring. He would crave her every day, every minute, but he had all the confidence in the world that he could make her feel exactly the same way.
When he’d managed to breathe away most of his hard-on, he winked at her and got up to pour himself a cup of coffee. He was just going to have to get used to the idea of walking around semihard all the time. It wasn’t a bad way to live, at least he knew he was alive.
He held up the coffee cup. Hot. Just the way I like it.
She rolled her eyes at him.
“If you two are finished making googly eyes at each other,” Malichai said, pushing himself away from the table, “I’ll do the dishes and get the kitchen clean while Grand-mere and Ezekiel go up to the attic.”
“Pepper, you should lie down for a while,” Nonny said with a small, telling glance at Wyatt. “I don’ think we have toys for the baby, but maybe she could play on your bed for a bit.”
“She wouldn’t know what a toy was,” Pepper said. “They don’t have the babies playing. Not like you mean. Everything they’re exposed to is to educate them. They’re learning six languages as well as sign language. It’s crazy the accelerated program they’re on.”
Nonny’s eyebrows shot up. “Surely they had playtime for them.”
Pepper shook her head. “Braden even had a martial arts instructor come in and start working with them. Everything they’ve been shown on the television has been instructional videos on hand-to-hand combat, weapons, or things like mathematics, of course the beginnings, but they know the alphabet or characters of all the languages and at night, not only are they read to, but the words, as they’re being read, are up on a screen.”
“That’s not right.” Wyatt glared at her as if she’d been the one to make the decision to give the babies only educational material. “What’s wrong with a little fun while they’re learnin’?”
He was asking her questions, but she had to stop using that soft, sultry, I’m-so-ready-for-bed voice. It didn’t help to think of her in bed – his bed. He stood across the room from her, just looking at her. Beautiful. A work of art. She was as perfect as a woman could get with her face and flawless body, with her brain and her courage. And the knife he knew she had on her right now.
Pepper frowned. “It wasn’t my decision. I was raised pretty much the same way. It definitely made me a good soldier, but when I got out into the real world, I had no idea what people were talking about. I didn’t know the movies they referred to or the characters in cartoons. I didn’t know fairy tales or anything but history and what Braden considered appropriate literature that would further my education. The lack of that made me feel socially awkward. I don’t fit in anywhere.”
Wyatt went very still. He felt a flash of her pain, of hurt – not physical, but a kind of anguish at the knowledge that she was different and would never be normal. She would never fit in anywhere. She felt absolutely alone, a terrible, almost emptiness that had been filled for a moment when Wyatt had poured himself into her. For that moment, she had felt whole. Content. Even happy.
He had been caught up in the way he felt. The sexual tension building between them. Fitting her into his family. Keeping her from tempting his friends so he wouldn’t be a fool and do something he’d regret. All about him. He hadn’t stopped to consider what she felt, trapped in his home, her child claimed by a man she didn’t know or trust. She was biding her time – waiting until she was at full strength before she made her move to leave.
He went to her, ignoring the others, and gently helped her to stand. Handing her the nearly empty bag of fluids, he lifted her into his arms. “I’m not goin’ to hurt you, Pepper,” he murmured softly, needing to give her reassurance even more than she needed to hear it. He couldn’t bear for her to feel afraid, or lonely or a misfit.
She pressed her lips together tightly and gave a little shake of her head. She knew what he meant.
“Look at me, baby. I want to see your eyes. I want you to look into mine.” He waited there, cradling her close to his chest. When she finally complied, very reluctantly, he held her gaze captive with his. “I’m not goin’ to hurt you, woman.”
She blinked back the tears that were suddenly swimming in her eyes, making the color more purple than black. The sight turned him soft inside.
“You can’t know that, Wyatt,” she whispered. “You don’t even trust me.”
He carried her through the house back to his bedroom. “I don’ know you – yet. But I intend to, after all, you’re the mother of my children. I think we owe it to them to get to know one another, don’ you? We’ll need to know each other so well that we’ll be able to read each other’s every move. We’ll have to be that close. I don’ think we have a choice.”
She leaned her head back against his shoulder, her eyes searching his. “Why? Why do you say that?”
“We’ll be the ones protectin’ them from men like Whitney and Braden. Who else is goin’ to do it? You know how dangerous and determined the men we’re dealing with are. It will take both of us. Maybe others as well, but we’ll do it.” He injected absolute confidence into his voice.
“Are you really going to help me take care of the children?”
He deposited her gently back on the bed, carefully laying her down on his grandmother’s homespun sheets. “Yes. I believe I’m their father and you’re their mother. They trust you. If they see you interactin’ with me, they’ll accept me more readily. The only person I really worry about is Nonny. She’s not so young anymore, and even if I were to manage to develop an antivenom, I would be afraid to use it on her.”
Pepper frowned. “There’s something about Nonny I can’t explain. It’s a feeling I get when I’m close to her. I know Ginger feels it too. It’s the same way we both feel when Ezekiel is close.”
Wyatt scowled at her, a dark shadow moving through him. “What the hell does that mean? Exactly how does Ezekiel make you feel?”
“It isn’t how he makes me feel. It’s how he feels to both of us. He has this energy of sheer calm. It’s very soothing and not a threat or a food source. I can’t explain it any better than that.” Pepper’s gaze searched his face. “You don’t have to be jealous, Wyatt. You give off that same soothing energy. Ginger would never have tried to bite you, but she thought you were a threat to me.”
“I am jealous, darlin’,” he admitted. He wanted her to know how dangerous it would be with her tempting other men. “You need to get it into your head right now, that there isn’ goin’ to be any other man for you. You aren’ goin’ to be usin’ your charms to seduce my friends or anyone else to get your way. You look to me if you’ve got an itch. I’ll take care of you.”
“How lovely. How does that make you different from any of the others?”
He swept back her hair, his hands framing her face. “I am different. I’m offerin’ you a family. A man who will work a lifetime to make you happy. To make us work. I’ll keep you happy in bed and out of it. But I’m no pushover. You’re not goin’ to be able to use sex to get your way.”