Red Hot Page 8

  “She’s okay, Kael,” she assured him, looking out at the shadowed outlines of the trees as the full moon lit the sky.

  He said nothing and just nodded his head.

  “We’re doing what’s right. She has to learn to fend for herself. We’ll always be her safety net, but first she has to learn to fly,” Lisha told him softly. She looked up at his profile and felt her heart swell with the same love as it had when they were in their twenties.

  “I miss my daughter.”

  Lisha raised her hand beneath his T-shirt to rub his back. “And she misses you too.”

  He grunted before he notched his chin higher—a trait he passed on to their daughter. The thought of that made her smile.

  “She’s having a tantrum. That’s all. No different than that time she locked herself in her room and refused to eat for all of eight hours when we didn’t let her get her nose pierced at twelve. Remember?” she asked him in amusement.

  Kael chuckled and shook his silver-covered head. “Or the time she ran away to Kade’s, when we wouldn’t let her drive the four-wheeler alone at six,” he said.

  “Without a helmet,” Lisha added.

  They laughed together.

  “And just as we ignored her little fits and tantrums before, and she would come right around . . . she will this time too.”

  Kael looked down at his wife and smiled before he pressed a warm and lingering kiss to her lips. “We’ll see.”

  “Trust me, husband. Have I ever steered you wrong?” she asked, leaning back to gaze up at him as the moonlight reflected against the silvery glints in his hair.

  “I have something you can steer, wife,” he said with a suggestive wink of his brows before soundly slapping her buttocks.

  Lisha broke free of him and walked back into their bedroom. Moments later her nightgown came flying through the doors and across the air. It soared like a ghost before landing on his head.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Kael said, rushing into their bedroom and closing the double doors behind him.

  Garcelle eased their normally rambunctious son from her chest. She rose from the rocker to place Karlos upon his new toddler bed, which was built like a miniature horse stable, complete with linens that had horses on them. Knowing his routine, she pushed his favorite plush horse toy close within his reach and then covered him with a light blanket. She gave it a ten count and then dimmed the lights before leaving the room and closing the door.

  And her eighteen-month-old was good for the night.

  She crossed the hall and knocked before opening her stepdaughter’s door. Kadina was sitting in the middle of her bed, dressed for sleep but playing with her iPad. She looked up at Garcelle and smiled.

  “I know. I know. Not too late,” she said.

  “Sí,” Garcelle responded.

  “I texted Aunt Kat and she wants me to spend the weekend with her,” Kadina said.

  “Good. You will love how she turned a whole bedroom into a closet,” Garcelle said, winking.

  “That sounds like my auntie,” Kadina bragged, twirling the end of her fishtail braid around her finger.

  “Yes,” Garcelle agreed.

  “I’m gonna ask her to bring me to Grandpa’s around dinnertime, and see if she’ll stay for dinner.”

  Garcelle sighed as she came farther into the room. “We all want her back in the fold, but she’s a little angry, and sometimes it’s best not to meddle and press things. It can make it worse,” she said gently. Her Spanish accent made “little” sound more like “leetle.”

  Kadina looked distressed and shook her head. “I don’t want to make it worse.”

  “Talk to your dad before the weekend and see what he thinks,” Garcelle advised, turning to head for the door. “Dulces sueños, Kadina.”

  “Dulces sueños, Garcelle,” she answered, wishing Garcelle sweet dreams as well.

  Garcelle closed her bedroom door behind her and walked down the hall to her bedroom suite. She crossed the room and entered the en suite, pausing to pull her sports bra and T-shirt over her head. She pushed her bikini panties and wide-leg yoga pants over her hips to the floor as she eyed her husband lounging in their oversized tub. His head was tilted back against the rim of the tub. The steam from the water had the entire bathroom warm and made his full silvery curls flatten against his head.

  He opened his eyes just as Garcelle stepped into the tub with him. He instantly spread his legs wider so that she could kneel between them. His eyes eased over her nude body as he savored every moment.

  With a devilish smile Garcelle pressed her body against her husband’s and pressed her lips to his as they both got lost in the steam . . . and created quite a bit more.

  Kahron rolled off the couch when car lights flashed through the windows of his living room and onto the opposite wall. He padded in his socks and boxers to open the front door, where he watched his wife, Bianca, climb from her car like she carried the weight and worries of the world on her shoulders.

  As soon as she had gotten in from helping Kaitlyn move, she had received an emergency call for her vet services. He had picked their four-year-old son, KJ, up from his parents when he was done working his horse ranch for the evening. He prepared a quick stew and rice for their dinner.

  “Tired?” he asked, coming down the stairs to press a kiss to her neck, then surprising her by scooping her up into his arms. “I got you.”

  Bianca dropped her curly-topped head onto his shoulder. “Thank you, baby.” She sighed contentedly.

  He took the stairs with ease. Being a ranch owner who wrangled with horses and cattle for a living didn’t call for a weak man.

  “I know y’all trying to prove a point with Kaitlyn, but we coulda used the help today,” she said. “I didn’t even know there was an apartment complex down that road. Did you?”

  Kahron nodded as he carried her through the house, into their bedroom. “Yeah, it’s only been there for a couple of years. Don’t worry. Kade checked it out and filled me in.”

  Bianca raised her head from his shoulder as they passed KJ’s room and she spotted their four-year-old in bed, sleeping.

  “I thought he was still at your parents’.”

  “I went and got him,” he told her, his deep voice rumbling in his chest.

  “We’re a good team?” she joked, sleep filling her voice even as she chuckled at their inside joke.

  “Damn right,” Kahron said.

  He loved that he had been the kind of husband over the years where she knew she could trust and allow him to be her strength when she had to give in to a moment of weakness.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Jade said as she lifted the pan from the stove and used a spatula to lift a piece of grilled tilapia onto her husband’s plate.

  Kaeden looked up at her as he poured them both a glass of wine for the late dinner. “What?”

  “If Kaitlyn’s apartment manager, landlord, whatever, wasn’t married, he would be perfect for her,” Jade said, setting a bowl of salad and a bottle of fat-free salad dressing on the center of their kitchen table. “He. Is. Gorgeous. Oh, my God!”

  Kaeden frowned as he took a bite of fish. “I’ve seen him, and I’m sure Gucci is not looking for him for their next photo shoot,” he said mockingly.

  Jade paused in placing salad on their plates. She eyed him. “When did you see him?”

  Kaeden shrugged and made the move to push up the spectacles he hadn’t worn in a year. A nervous gesture he had never overcome, once he got the LASIK procedure.

  “I—I—I went by to see the place and check it out. Surveying the scene—”

  “With your gangster lean,” Jade teased, chuckling. “I’m just saying the man was nice-looking.”

  “Well, he’s married, and off the market for my sister . . . and for my wife,” he added in a dry tone.

  Jade eyed him and then rose from her seat to come around the table and slide onto his lap as she wrapped her strong, toned arms around his neck. She began to plan
t kisses along his square jawline. “I was thinking that maybe it’s time I took a little break from being an adventure guide,” she said, feeling his dick harden against her buttocks like steel.

  “Oh yeah?” he said, tilting his chin back so that she had clear access to his throat. “I thought you loved all that outdoors stuff.”

  Jade planted kisses from one side of his neck to the other. “Yes, but I want to make babies,” she said softly, leaning up to look down into his eyes.

  Kaeden’s eyes widened.

  “You want to make beautiful babies with me?” she asked.

  Kaeden smiled so hard that Jade could count every white tooth in his head.

  “Yeah. Hell yeah,” he answered. His voice was filled with emotions as he reached up to rake his strong fingers through her ear-length auburn hair. He brought her head down to capture her full mouth for a deep kiss, which soon led to their meal being swept to the floor as he made fierce love to his wife atop their dinner table.

  Kaleb stripped off his towel as he strode into their bed. “If Kaitlyn doesn’t at least bring her ass to Sunday dinner, I’m going to that little sardine can she calls a home and drag her behind to Strong Ranch,” he said, sitting down on the side of the bed.

  Zaria got on her knees behind him and began to massage the tension from his strong neck and back. “That would be one helluva cat—or Kat—fight,” she said.

  “I just don’t see how giving Mama and Daddy her ass to kiss makes any sense,” Kaleb said, thrusting his hand into the air as he spoke.

  Zaria kneaded his shoulders. “True . . . but I think you-all are not respecting the fact that your parents created this monster—”

  “Monster?” he snapped, looking over his shoulder at her.

  Zaria held up her hands as she dropped to her buttocks in her black sheer teddy next to him. “I’m just saying that she’s had over twenty-five years of them spoiling her, and just snatching it all away might feel to her like they don’t care anymore. And so even though you don’t agree, you have to understand her emotions right now. Everyone’s position, understanding, and experience in the same family can be different. So take it easy on her. That’s all I’m saying,” she finished lightly.

  Kaleb stared at her for a long time. “So wisdom is one of the pluses of marrying an older woman who is still sexier than most women half her age?” he asked.

  “Most?” Zaria asked as she climbed off the bed and stood before him as she did a full circle.

  “All,” he assured her, looking pointedly down at his dick hardening between his muscled thighs.

  Zaria straddled his hips and pushed his upper body down onto the bed.

  “The baby—”

  “Shush, he’s not here. The twins are babysitting at their house,” she said, speaking of her twenty-one-year-old twin daughters, Meena and Neema.

  Kaleb raised his strong arms over his head and let something way better than Calgon take him away.

  CHAPTER 7

  Quint sat up straight in bed. His heart pounded and a fine sheen of sweat coated his muscular frame. He looked around in the darkness as he struggled to bring his pulse rate down.

  It wasn’t an easy task.

  He dreamt that his daughter had run away to try to live with her mother and she never made it to Hawaii. She had gone missing.

  His heart still pounded, as it had in his dream, as he thought of all the scenarios, all the possible causes of her disappearance.

  Throwing back the thin sheet covering his nude frame, Quint sat up on the edge of the bed and rested his elbows on his knees as he ran his hands over his bald head.

  “Damn,” he swore aloud.

  Quint rose in the darkness and walked across the room into his bathroom. He flipped the switch to bask the small room with light as he positioned himself before the commode. As he relieved himself, he looked up; his eyes locked with those in his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t like what he saw. The truth was always hard to accept, and the emotions were clear in the lines etching his handsome face.

  It wasn’t fear but guilt.

  Quint bent down to flush the toilet, deliberately not looking back in the mirror as he turned off the light. He slid on a pair of boxers and left his bedroom to walk down the short hall to ease Lei’s door open and peek his head in. She was lying flat on her back, arm and leg hanging off the bed. Mouth wide open. She was completely asleep and unaware of her father’s worries.

  Easing the door shut, he made his way back to his bedroom. The clock on his nightstand read 2:28 A.M. as he climbed back into bed and pulled the sheets back up to his waist. He lay back and crossed his muscled arms behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling.

  Life had a funny way of going by so quickly that a person never saw the wrong turns, never acknowledged taking the wrong road at the fork. Not until it was too late.

  He hadn’t been the best husband—thus his divorce. He could accept that because his ex, Vita, hadn’t been the perfect wife either. But to admit that he hadn’t been the best father to his daughter was a difficult pill to swallow. Very difficult.

  In the last two weeks since Hurricane Kaitlyn landed at the complex, her influence and presence in his daughter’s life was unmistakable. Nearly every day Lei rushed to finish her homework and chores to beat a fast trail upstairs to Kaitlyn’s apartment, aka the fun zone. When she discovered Kaitlyn wasn’t at home, she would be visibly disappointed and steadily looking out the window until she saw that obnoxious-ass red car of hers parked in its spot.

  His relationship with his daughter had always seemed to be a good one; and although he knew as a father that talking about fashion and make-up or playing with dolls would never be at the top of his chosen to-do list, he hadn’t realized just how much Lei missed all of those girlie things and more since she came to live with him.

  Now Quint felt selfish, like he had put his life ahead of his daughter’s; and that’s not what being a good parent is about. He just pushed his head in the sand and assumed he was doing his part because he was there—unlike her mother. It should have been obvious that Lei needed a female presence in her life.

  He was there for his daughter every day. He took her shopping or to the movies or they just chilled at home. He talked to her. He questioned her. He loved her and admonished her. He thought it was enough.

  Now he knew that it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Not when she was stuck to Kaitlyn like paper to glue.

  Now, just two weeks after the new tenant had moved in, and Miss Kaitlyn was Lei’s favorite person:

  “Miss Kaitlyn is so smart.”

  “Miss Kaitlyn is so funny.”

  “Miss Kaitlyn is so pretty.”

  Miss Kaitlyn said this.

  Miss Kaitlyn said that.

  The last thing he wanted was for his daughter to be influenced by the person he believed Kaitlyn to be:

  Vain.

  Irresponsible.

  Lacking direction in life.

  Spoiled.

  Like Vita.

  His ex-wife’s selfishness led her to no longer want to be or participate in her daughter’s life because a man with a bigger bank account offered her a life of leisure on an island usually reserved for vacations. And Vita was so lost that when he reminded her that her daughter needed her, she was completely oblivious to the logic in that.

  “Even a dog raises its puppies.”

  Kaitlyn’s words flung at him in anger still rang with truth.

  He recalled the vision of her face completely lit with anger as she verbally served him his own ass on a platter. Even as her words had angered him, he had thought, She’s even prettier mad. An urge to kiss her quiet had come in a rush. And it surprised him.

  And when he grabbed her wrist to keep her from storming away from him, her skin had been soft and silky beneath his fingers. That had not surprised him at all. He figured a woman like Kaitlyn was soft and silky all over.

  Especially that ass.

  And in the last two weeks, they had m
ade a game—or rather a challenge—of verbally topping the other. Barbs between them were the norm. He enjoyed their back-and-forth. It was a challenge to see if he could top her, like a chess match.

  And there were plenty of opportunities, for the woman called him for the most simple things, which completely exasperated him. Changing lightbulbs. Asking if the complex offered maid services. Requesting he call the owner to have a pool put in. Stating her self-cleaning oven wasn’t working . . . when, in fact, it was just that she didn’t know how to do it. He had done more tasks and fulfilled more of Kaitlyn’s oddball requests in the last two weeks than all the other residents combined since his time there had begun.

  And the other residents loved ribbing him about Kaitlyn giving him such a hard time and keeping him on the go. The word had spread that they had started clashing, and everyone was sitting back to enjoy the fireworks.

  They just didn’t know he was two seconds from putting her over his knee to deliver the behind cutting she obviously never received when growing up.

  One of the older tenants knew her family. They were a wealthy ranching family from right there in Holtsville. She was the only daughter and the youngest child. Everyone who knew the Strongs knew that the baby girl got what she wanted and when she wanted it.

  That little tidbit offered to him plenty of insight on her attitude of entitlement.

  And Quint swore to himself that if she tried to tip him one more damn time, he was going to lay hands on her behind.

  An image of a nude Kaitlyn bent over a bed, with her buttocks high in the air, taunting in a sexy voice, “Go ahead and spank it, Quint” forced him to turn on his side and bunch up his pillow to force sleep.

  Kaitlyn already bugged the hell out of him in his waking hours. He refused to let her dominate his sleeping hours as well.

  Brrrnnnggg.

  Quint’s eyes popped back open at the loud and intrusive blaring of the telephone ringing. He snatched the cordless off the base before it could wake up Lei.