The Redo (Winslow Brothers #4) (74)

God, he tastes good. Like sunset and sex and all of the things my body forgot I love to feel.

A moan slips from my throat when he flips me onto my back and settles himself between my thighs. His hands are in my hair and his tongue is in my mouth and his cock is pressed against me, grinding against the one spot that aches and throbs for him.

I pant and writhe beneath him, desperate for more of whatever he has to give. My hips follow his movements, and I silently wish we had a lot fewer clothes on than we do.

He leans back and slides his big hands over my breasts and begins to unbutton my silk blouse, and I do the same with his sleep-wrinkled dress shirt, my hands shaking with intensity as I bumble to remove it.

In a flash, our shirts are gone, and he’s licking and kissing at my exposed skin.

I moan, writhe, pant, my body begging him to keep going.

His mouth creates a path down my breasts and all over my belly. His fingers undo the side zipper of my skirt and move the material down my legs as his mouth goes lower and lower and lower.

I ache and throb, and my hips move of their own accord at the feel of his lips against my skin. I feel overheated, oversensitive, like a woman who will only be satisfied if she can crawl inside Remy’s body while he manages to do the same thing with hers.

He grips the waistband of my panties, and he deftly moves them down my legs. I’m completely bare now, and his gaze is on me, staring at my exposed flesh. “Fuck. You’re beautiful.”

His words make me moan and my legs fall open and my back arches as his strong, skillful hands slide up my thighs.

His face hovers between my legs, just inches from where I need him to be. Just a breath away from his mouth touching me there. And I feel crazy with the need for him to close that distance. Put his mouth on me. Slide his tongue across where I ache and throb for him.

But something happens.

Like a needle to a balloon, the moment is popped by a singular sound—Izzy’s little cry.





Remy

One minute, my hands grip Maria’s thighs, my mouth greedy and eager to taste her, and the next, I’m a fucking statue. Hell, so is she.

Both of us are frozen, intently listening, and wondering if the cries of a baby we’ve heard are real or figments of our imagination.

Two sharp wails crack the air, followed by a full-on hiccuping sob, and our debut as stone sculptures is nothing more than a memory.

Maria jumps out of bed and furiously pulls on her discarded robe from the ottoman at the confirmation of Izzy’s cries, and I take off down the hall in nothing but the black dress slacks I fell asleep in.

Gentle but swift, I push through Izzy’s bedroom door to find her writhing in her crib, arms and legs kicking and squirming outside of her no-longer-intact swaddle. In full distress, she has her little pink mouth screwed up into a frown that pinches the delicate skin between her eyes, and her cheeks are mottled with red splotches.

I feel absolutely terrible for her.

Once I undo the Velcro on the disheveled swaddle, I scoop her out of her crib and boost her up to my shoulder, patting and rubbing at her back in an effort to help her calm down. This is the most upset I’ve seen her, and the earnest sharpness of her cries stabs me like a knife to the pit of my stomach.

“It’s okay, Iz. I’m here,” I comfort, swinging her from side to side and falling into a bouncing motion without thought or planning.

Maria trails through the door behind me, having stopped briefly to grab Izzy’s favorite pacifier from where it got left behind in the living room last night, her eyes wide and alert as she gets a load of just how upset Izzy seems to be. This is a true cry of some sort of pain or discomfort, not the softer lull of her normal complaints.

But even her favorite pacifier appears to be a useless endeavor.

“Oh my goodness, you poor thing. You’re even too worked up for your binky,” Maria whispers and reaches out to gently caress the skin at Izzy’s cheek and forehead. She looks like a mom who is equal parts worried and eager to calm her sweet baby down. “She doesn’t feel like she’s running a fever or anything, but she seems really upset. You think I should get her a bottle? Even if she’s not hungry, maybe the sucking sensation will soothe her?”

“Worth a shot.” I nod, and she turns to quickly head out of the room, but I call out to stop her. “Wait, Ri!”

She spins quickly to meet my eyes.

“Warm it a little extra.”

She nods fervently and then disappears down the hall to take action. It’s one of the most prominent parts of Maria’s personality—the action. She’s not a wait-and-see kind of gal. She’s a doer. She needs to feel like she’s trying, even if she’s spinning her wheels.

I look down at Izzy’s tiny features all scrunched up and rub at her back and sides, hoping to ease the pain. Her current state reminds me of Lexi and how a trapped gas bubble used to make her miserable when she was a baby.

Surely that’s what this is, a gas bubble stuck in her teeny torso, and without the ability to understand the mechanics and whys of it, she’s traumatized.

Ironically, I don’t think she’s the only one. Maria’s face as she jumped out of bed, putting a pause button on our unexpected but well-appreciated activities, didn’t tell a story of a woman who was confident in her understanding of what was happening between us.

And I can’t say I blame her. Because I don’t really understand it myself. One minute, we were falling into bed with exhaustion, and the next, we were…not exhausted.