Breaking Conviction by Greer Rivers
Chapter Twenty-Six
There he went with that hot, confident male energy, zapping her cold, dead heart back to life. And damn him for that wink. It went straight to her clit every time and she was tired of the workout she was getting from having to squeeze her legs closed all the time.
Wes placed Thea back on her feet and tried to pick up the molten hot treat with his bare hand. Naomi slapped it before he could touch the hot pan and laughed. “Geez, trouble, I thought you were too smart to burn yourself twice.”
“If the prize is worth the pain, I’ll get burned as many times as it takes to get what I want.” His mischievous grin tugged a moan from her core.
Did he just imply that I’m a prize?
She snapped her mouth shut and swallowed, trying not to succumb to yet another innuendo that would certainly send her into a desperate, needy spiral. Instead, she went back to the drawers and pulled out the shittiest spatula she’d ever seen in her life.
“Y’all have a facility that probably cost over a million dollars, and yet—” She bent the flimsy spatula with one finger. “Y’all don’t have anything in your kitchen. I’m disappointed, really. You have to work hard to have this stereotypical of a bachelor pad.” She smiled as he scoffed in mock offense.
“Well, I guess you’re just going to have to remedy our bachelor ways, aren’t you? Yet another reason I’m glad you’re here.” The desire in his eyes went straight to her center and she placed a hand over her lower belly. She hadn’t felt the need pulsing through her since... Well, since the last time she was alone with Wes, but before that, when had it been... Ever?
“I’ll give you the black card tomorrow so you can pick stuff up on the way back from work.”
“Oh, no Wes, really I can’t accept anymore of y’all’s hospitality…” Panic jolted down her spine and she trailed off as her mind tried to analyze whether this was a trap.
Surely he wasn’t suggesting she spend their money so frivolously. What if he didn’t like what she bought? Or what if she chose something too expensive? Was this some sort of test? Was he trying to see if he could trust her and she really shouldn’t take the credit card—
“No, love. Don’t do that,” his voice was kind but firm as his hands caressed along her shoulder and up her neck to cup her jaw. “Don’t worry about the money, okay? It’s not a big deal and you don’t have to buy anything with our card if you don’t want to, but that’ll be your decision. I’m asking you to do us this favor and cure us of our bachelor ways. This isn’t a trick.”
“How do you always know what I’m thinkin’?” she asked before she could stop herself. His eyes bore into hers, seemingly searching for something as he opened his mouth, only to close it again.
“I just get it, is all.” He let her go and turned back to Thea. “Now back to the cookies, right Princess T?”
Thea’s eyes were narrowed at them, no doubt trying to make sense in her four-year-old brain of what was happening. But when Wes mentioned dessert again, she perked up and nodded in agreement.
Naomi huffed a laugh and shook off her nerves before she got out one of the simple white plates from the cabinet and began to transfer the treats from the pan to the plate, drizzling caramel over each one from the mason jar of caramel she’d made before baking the cookies.
“T, get your dinner plate from the table. I’ll put yours there but don’t touch it yet, it’s still hot.”
Thea did as she was told before going back to her seat at the table, likely to eat it in very small bites again, since bedtime was right after she finished her dessert.
Despite Naomi’s warning, Wes went in and grabbed his pick. Before even getting his hand around the molten hot cookie, he dropped it, yelping no doubt at his still sensitive fingers. Naomi picked it up, swirled more caramel on top, and blew on it before taking a bite.
“Hey, that thing was like lava! How come you can pick it up?”
“I’ve been burnin’ my hands since I was a kid and I’ve built up a tolerance to it.” Naomi shrugged with a laugh. “My momma and grandmomma taught me how to cook. Since my daddy had a sweet tooth, bakin’ stuck with me best.”
“That makes sense.” He nodded with a thoughtful look on his face.
She narrowed her eyes and scoffed. “Really? A woman in the kitchen joke?”
“No. Sheesh, always so quick to be hostile.” The hurt look on his face made her chest tighten.
“Sorry, that was snippy… I think I need to work on that.”
Thankfully, Wes was a damn saint and let her rude behavior roll right off him before he leveled his gaze at her. “It just makes sense because you smell like a sweets shop. It’s intoxicating, actually.”
Once again, she melted as the heat returned to his eyes.
Gah, he knows how to flip my attitude like a damn switch.
She leaned into him, drugged by the thought of his lips on hers, when all of a sudden he closed the gap between them and licked the warm caramel off the dessert in her hand.
“Ah! Off! I don’t want your tongue lickin’ all over my cookie!”
He howled with amusement and it took a second, but she realized what she said and groaned into a laugh of her own.
“I didn’t mean it like that. Obviously.”
“Oh, so you do want me to lick your cookie? Happy to oblige, love.”
Her cheeks warmed and she covered her face with her hands with a groan. Wes chuckled as he reached for the last cookie from the hot metal and yelped again.
“What is wrong with you?” She snorted. “Why don’t you learn?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Well, if I wasn’t persistent in life, I’d miss out on a lot of things I ended up really, really liking.” He gave her a pointed look and she darted her eyes toward the desserts like a coward.
She tested out the temperature of a couple of cookies on the plate before choosing the coolest one, twirling more caramel on it, and handing it to him.
“Here, try this one.”
His eyes were on her lips and she smirked before tucking a finger in her mouth to lick off some of the chocolate.
“There’s a thin line between persistence and insanity. Tryin’ the same thing over and over expectin’ a different result, and all that.”
“True.” He nodded at her before averting his eyes. “Insanity would explain a lot about me, actually.” The sentence was muttered in a much darker tone than any of his flirting, and she didn’t like the change. She scoured her mind to think of anything else to talk about.
“Well, except for the insanity part, tryin’ your best to make things work is better than just givin’ up, at least.”
He tilted his head, his lips in a thin grim line. “But, that’s not always true… is it? I think you know that now.”
His words brought that darkness in her life back to the forefront of her mind and she felt her good mood shutter closed. “Good point. Maybe I need to break free from that particular line of thinkin’. It nearly got me killed.”
It took Wes stilling beside her to realize what she’d said. The admission had surprised her probably just as much as it had him. She could tell that both of them were waiting for the other to speak, to figure out how to navigate the truth of her poor choices and misguided determination. After a moment of silence for the life she’d had, she finally spoke.
“I-I don’t think I’ve ever actually said those words... out loud.” She swallowed and collapsed back against the counter.
Wes’s arm curved around her back and he pulled her into his chest, closing the distance between them but giving her the emotional space to continue talking.
“I was with that man... Tryin’ with him off and on for five years. I hoped and wished for Thea to have the life I did… before my daddy passed.” She sighed. “He was my world, ya know? Momma’s too. When he was gone, so was the woman I’d grown up lovin’, and I got lost, too. So I always wanted the life my daddy gave me, for Thea.”
“What about you? What kind of life do you want?”
Naomi blew out an exhale. “Well, I want a good home for Thea. I want her to have two parents who love her and adore each other—”
“No, what do you want? For your life?”
Naomi blinked, so thrown off by the question, she answered honestly. “I… I’m not sure I’ve ever really thought about it. Definitely not since Thea was born.” She massaged her temple. “Honestly, ‘out of wedlock’ wasn’t really in the plan, so baby girl threw me for a loop.”
Wes nodded. “Same for my mom. I was a surprise... and an anchor.” His lips tightened and she suspected there was much more that he wasn’t ready to say yet.
“Well, I went to school for business, but had to drop out after havin’ Thea. Momma cut me off. My sins were too great, I guess.”
Wes growled, but she was over it. There was no love lost in that particular relationship. The mother she’d adored had loved her father more than anything. Now she only loved herself, even at the detriment of her own daughter and granddaughter, and Naomi would never understand that.
“As for what I want now… I like workin’ for Gail. She’s an incredible mentor. ‘Pre-T’ I wanted to be a CEO. I’ve always had ideas runnin’ ‘round in my head. But I guess they slowed to a stop when it wasn’t just me I had to think about.”
He nodded in a way that suggested he might truly know where she was coming from. “Family’s important, but you have to remember the oxygen mask.”
Naomi gave him a small smile.
“Mommy, I’m done.”
Naomi broke out of Wes’s hold. She wasn’t with Thea’s father anymore, had cut him loose a lot earlier than two and a half months ago when he’d beaten her so badly, but Thea was too young to understand. Naomi wasn’t ready for the “Wes is Mommy’s special friend” conversation.
“Take your plate to the sink and let’s get you ready for bed, okay?”
Thea groaned while literally dragging her feet and her teddy bear to the sink. Wes chuckled with his arms crossed as they watched her theatrics. As soon as Thea got the plate into the sink, she looked up at them with her big hazel eyes before shoving Angus under her arm and grabbing Wes’s hand in an awkward angle to accommodate the bear.
“I’ll go to bed, but I want Wes to read me my story.”
Naomi’s eyes widened. “Oh, so this is a negotiation?”
Thea nodded, although Naomi was quite sure the girl didn’t know what a ‘negotiation’ even was, but Wes just laughed.
“Fine by me, Princess T. But you gotta listen to your mom until then, okay? After you do everything she wants you to, I’ll read whatever story you want. Deal?”
“Really? ‘Kay!” Thea jumped up and down and grabbed Naomi’s hand too before the three of them and Angus headed to their room. Wes made a quiet noise of surprise and Naomi watched as he looked down at his hand clasped around Thea’s with a curious expression on his face. After a beat, Thea looked up at him. “You’re supposed to squeeze it back,” she whispered.
Before Naomi could ask them what was going on, Wes smiled and opened the door to their new apartment.
Throughout Thea’s bedtime routine, Wes joked around at the breakfast table in the small apartment’s kitchenette and talked to them through the cracked bathroom door. When they were finished, Thea ran to the bed in her Brave pj’s—the girl was obsessed—and jumped onto the bed. She patted either side of her, demanding Naomi sit on the left and Wes sit on the right during story time.
As Wes read, Naomi grew entranced by his soothing baritone and how much Thea adored him. She was sprawled all over Naomi while flush up against Wes, and it filled an ache in Naomi’s heart that she hadn’t realized was there.
No, I realized it... I just didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Wes’s voice trailed off, bringing Naomi back in the moment to realize Thea was out like a light. Wes held a finger to his lips and pointed to the door and Naomi agreed to his silent invitation with a single nod. They gently extricated themselves from underneath Thea’s wild limbs before Naomi followed Wes out the door. She turned off the light and paused before closing the door.
Thea’s red angelic curls spread out across the pillow, shining from the sliver of light coming from the hallway. Naomi’s heart squeezed with love before she closed the door and followed Wes.
