My Song for You: A Pushing Limits Novel (17 page)

He started walking toward the couch. I grabbed his arm. “Logan doesn’t know yet, so don’t say anything. I’m waiting for the right time to break the news to him.”

“Well, I suggest you don’t wait until just before we leave on tour. And don’t worry, I won’t mention it to anyone.” He mimed locking his mouth shut and tossing the key, then walked away to join Logan and Nolan.

“So…who’s his mother?” Tiffany asked.

“You don’t know her.” True enough.

“Are you seeing her?”

I came close to saying yes, but since Callie and I had agreed to keep our relationship a secret for now, I wasn’t about to break my part of the agreement. Telling Tony earlier that she was dating someone didn’t count. It had been done for the greater good. “It’s complicated.”

She must have understood “it’s complicated” to mean no because she responded, “Good. Does he live with you?”

“Nope. He still lives with his mom.”

Tiffany stepped closer. Less than a foot separated us. “How come you never told me you have a son?”

“I didn’t know.”

She frowned. “Then how do you know he’s yours?”

“You mean beyond the part where he looks a lot like me? I had a paternity test done.”

“So you have joint custody?”

“Not yet. I wasn’t listed on the birth certificate, but my lawyer is working on correcting that.” Well, he would be as soon as I decided if I wanted to share custody with Callie or if I would seek to have full custody of my son. There were pros and cons with either choice.

“Wouldn’t it be better if the mother had full custody? You’re on the road a lot, and if you decide to settle down one day, it would make things easier for everyone—especially Logan—if you weren’t bouncing the poor child between parents.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

She laughed. “What gave you the idea my parents are divorced?”

“You just seem to know a lot about it.”

She inched closer to me. I stepped back. My hip bumped against the counter.

“My parents are happily married,” she said. “They just weren’t around much. They were always traveling for their careers, which meant I was raised by nannies. No kid should live like that.” She shrugged. “You said Logan isn’t even aware that he’s your son. Why tell him now? From the looks of it, his mother’s doing a great job raising him. How do you know he’s not better off without you—especially given your career?”

The thing was, I had no idea if he
was
better off not knowing that I was his father. But I did know that he wanted me to be his dad. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been so excited about the idea when he caught me kissing Callie.

“Are we practicing or what?” Kirk called out. The four guys and Logan were watching us, bored with waiting for Tiffany and me to finish our conversation.

“Sorry,” I called out. “I’m ready.”

“Can I stay and watch?” she asked.

“Sure. You can sit with Logan.” I gave the apple juice box to Logan and introduced her to him, then removed his auditory processor from under his hair.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Logan is deaf,” I said and signed. “This”—I pointed to the device in my hand—“helps him hear.” Yes, I signed that too.

“But don’t think for a second it means you can say ‘fuck’ around him,” Mason said as he fished a dollar from his wallet. He handed it to Logan and winked at him.

Logan grinned, but at least this time he didn’t repeat the word…which he had recently learned to lip-read. Mason owed me big-time for that new skill.

“I thought you said he can’t hear,” Tiffany said.

“He can’t. But he can feel the vibrations when we play the music.” I grabbed my guitar and signaled to Mason to start our first song.

The band had been practicing for two hours when we finally took a quick break. Before I had a chance to see how Logan was doing, Tiffany sashayed up to me like she was on a catwalk. She swooped in so fast to kiss me, I didn’t see it coming until it was too late.

“I’ll see you soon, love,” she said, then quickly left before I had time to react. But what I did see was Logan looking at me, frowning. Shit. Between Callie, Tiffany, and the girl at Disneyland, he must be confused about why so many women were kissing me. And he didn’t even know the half of it. How the heck did I explain this to him?

I turned around in time to catch Aaron and Kirk each hand Mason twenty dollars. Mason appeared smug behind his drums.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The losers bet me that you wouldn’t get back together with that fine piece of ass. I, on the other hand, knew you couldn’t resist it. No one can.”

I glared at them. “You seriously bet on my dating life?” And with Mason of all people. They should’ve known better, given his past gambling addiction.

“What else do you expect us to do for fun?” Aaron said, chuckling.

Any other time I would have flipped them the bird, but the last thing I needed was for Logan to learn that gesture. I could guarantee it wouldn’t have impressed anyone at his school. Nor would it have scored me any points with Callie.

“You can give Aaron and Kirk back their money,” I told Mason. “Tiffany and I aren’t dating.”

Mason laughed. “Sure. Whatever you say.” He didn’t give back the money. Instead, he flashed them a look that said it all:
You just wait. Jared will be fucking her in no time.

Before Jared and I had taken our “relationship” to the next level, sitting next to him on my couch to watch a movie had been hard enough. Now it was doubly so with Logan sitting between us. No touching or kissing of Jared was allowed. I just had to channel my inner nun.

Too bad I was as close to being Catholic as I was to being a mermaid.

I glanced at the wall clock. Ten more minutes before Logan’s bedtime. And then what? When I’d woken up this morning, I rather rudely discovered that the wonderful dream, in which Jared realized he loved me and always had, was nothing more than a delusion. In reality, he hadn’t been able to get away fast enough during the night.

He had surprised me, though, when I returned home to discover that he and Logan had cooked dinner. I’m not talking macaroni and cheese or frozen pizza. They had cooked fettuccine Alfredo, with chicken and vegetables tossed in.

My foot bounced, counting down the seconds until the movie ended. Three. Two. One. I jumped up off the couch. “Bedtime,” I said rather hurriedly as the closing credits came on.

The corner of Jared’s mouth tugged up into his sexy smirk.

After we got Logan to bed following what had become our new routine, with Jared reading Logan a bedtime story or three, we stepped into the hallway and I partially closed the bedroom door. We didn’t move beyond that, staring at each other, uncertain what to do next.

Jared was the one who made the first move. One second he was staring at me; the next his lips were against mine. I didn’t hesitate to open my mouth and let him in. I’d been dreaming about his kisses for the past few years—and there might’ve been some fantasizing while at work earlier that day. I wasn’t about to waste time with chaste kisses.

My fingers knotted in his hair and I tugged the soft strands.

“Oh God, Callie,” he moaned against my mouth. I took it as a good sign that he was rooting for an encore of last night.

My brain demanded that we waited until Logan fell asleep. My body outvoted it. But at least we waited until we were in my bedroom before the clothes came flying off.

The kisses suddenly went from hungry to languid. Jared wrapped his arms around me, and we swayed to the song playing in his head. His hard, thick length pressed against my stomach, leaving my girlie parts begging to get reacquainted.

But while they might’ve been in a rush for that to happen, Jared apparently wasn’t. He traced his fingers up and down my back, an explorer on a mission. Then they changed their movements, and instead of exploring my body, I was a musical instrument and he was playing
me
.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Creating a song.”

“I don’t know how it sounds, but it feels good.”

The answering grin knocked my breath away.

He led me to the bed and I lay down. We continued kissing, focused on nothing but each other. Our hands continued exploring and teasing, bringing each other to the edge, but never letting it go beyond that. Not yet, anyway.

Jared’s fingers eventually slipped through my slick folds. “God, you’re so wet.”

I started to respond at the same time his ultra-talented fingers found my clit and circled it. Once. Twice. The words I thirsted to say came out as a moan. That was okay. It pretty much summed up what I wanted to say anyway.

He broke away from my lips long enough to reach into the drawer of my night table and pull out a box of condoms.

I laughed. “Wow, you must have magical powers. I don’t remember putting those in there.”

“I have many talents.”

I grinned. “So I’ve noticed.” Without asking, I took the foil package from between his fingers and tore it open.

Jared scooted back so I could sit up. I slipped it on over Jared’s tip and carefully rolled it down his length.

His thumb traced circles around my nipple, his dark brown eyes locked on my gaze. “Christ, Callie, I want to be inside you. Preferably sooner rather than later.”

“Sounds good to me,” I whispered before his lips were on mine again. He pushed me back on the bed, spread my thighs wide, and inch by inch sank into me. My inner muscles craved to consume all of him. They clutched at him, pulled him in deeper.

Like his earlier kisses, he moved slowly at first, the strokes executed with tremendous control on his part. But after a few seconds, I didn’t give a damn about his control. I hungered for him to move harder, faster, deeper.

I grabbed his ass and hinted quite clearly what I wanted.

And that’s exactly what I got.

It didn’t take long before the earth-shattering tremor rocked my body, sending me careening over the edge into a complete state of bliss.

Jared joined me in euphoria just as I was returning to earth, my body limp and completely satisfied. He kissed me deeply one last time, then pushed himself off the bed. After disposing of the condom, he returned to bed and gathered me against him.

I relaxed in his arms and closed my eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered. The steady
thump thump thump
of his heart lulled me into that fuzzy zone between being awake and asleep.

Neither of us said anything. If it hadn’t been for Jared drawing lazy circles on my lower back, I would’ve guessed he’d gone to sleep. Part of me longed to ask him what he was thinking, but the other part reasoned it was probably just as well that I didn’t know. Might as well let me live with my delusions for as long as possible, before reality bitch-slapped me in the face.

I had no idea how long I’d been asleep when the warmth I was cuddling shifted. Somewhere in the depths of my foggy mind, the sound of a child crying nudged me awake.

I sat up with a start. Jared was pulling on his jeans and was out the door before I had a chance to scramble out of bed. I grabbed my yoga pants and T-shirt from the chair and shoved them on.

By the time I entered Logan’s bedroom, Jared was sitting on his bed, hugging him. The bedroom light wasn’t on, but there was enough light spilling in from the hallway to illuminate father and son. I turned on Logan’s lamp, with a soccer ball as the base, so that he could see me when I signed.

“What’s wrong?” I signed to him.

“Bad dream,” he signed back. He pointed to his ear and signed, “I want to talk.”

Jared watched us, clueless as to what we were saying.

“You want the processor back on?” I signed. Logan could talk without it, but it was still hard to understand what he was saying because he couldn’t hear himself speak.

“Yes. Want Jared to sing to me.”

“What’s he saying?” Jared asked.

“He wants you to sing to him,” I replied. Then to Logan I said and signed, “Jared doesn’t sing. He plays guitar.”

“That’s okay, I’ll sing.”

I flashed Jared a soft smile. The man never ceased to amaze me as to what he would do when it came to his son.

I attached the processor to Logan’s cochlear implant. Once I was finished, Jared started singing. My mouth dropped open. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never heard Jared sing.

I recognized the ballad from the band’s first album. While I would never admit this to Nolan Kincaid’s face, Jared was just as good a singer as he was—and I’d always thought that Nolan was an amazing singer.

Jared finished the song, which was about finding your way when you were lost. Logan wouldn’t understand the meaning behind the lyrics, but that was okay. The melody was soothing, and that was more important than anything else.

Logan clapped.

“Why have I never heard you sing before?” I asked. “You’re amazing.”

Jared’s cheeks reddened. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him blush. “Thanks.”

“No, really. You could seriously be a lead singer.” Which was great if Nolan ever decided to leave the band.

“No, I couldn’t. It takes more than a good voice—”

“Great voice,” I corrected.

“There’s more to it than just standing onstage and singing. Nolan’s a born front man. He knows how to get the audience excited. He lives for being the center of attention when he’s onstage.”

“You don’t want to ever sing lead vocals?”

Jared shook his head. “Why would I? I’m perfectly happy playing guitar and letting Nolan get all the attention.” He chuckled. “And Mason, if he has his way.”

That was too bad, I thought. The world had no idea what it was missing.

I removed Logan’s processor and we stayed with him until he fell asleep again, cuddling the toy dog Jared had bought him this afternoon.

Jared left the room while I watched Logan sleep for another minute or two. Tears blurred my vision. Even though Logan had no idea that Jared was his father, Jared was becoming more important to him with each passing day. What Jared and I had was temporary. I could feel it in my bones. Eventually I’d lose them both—and there was nothing I could do.