Page 8 of Loving at 40

“Rosie? Princess, can you put the gun on the table?” Archer continues in his syrupy tone.

Flicking my wrist at Talia, I motion at her to follow Archer’s orders. Talia steps back and closes the door, causing Rosie to roll her head on the couch cushion and look in the direction of where her sister disappeared.

In a movement nimbler than anything I’ve ever seen, especially from such a large man, Archer hops over the couch, slips the gun from Rosie’s hand, clicks the top of the weapon to open it, and then shoves the thing into the back of his underwear. Before I know what’s happened, Rosie is in his lap, his large hand pressing her head to his chest and his lips settling on the top of her blond curls.

My shaky legs give out, and I collapse to the floor with a sob of relief while my body trembles in shock.

My baby girl was holding a gun.

4

[Archer]

Fuck!

When Jenna fell to the floor, the wail of relief from her feels like having my skin peeled off by rusty, sharp nails. And with the fear on her ashen face, I’d have let someone torture me in such a manner if it meant I’d never see such anxiety in those dark eyes again.

I’d avoided Jenna as much as I could the day before. Our first encounter led to that disastrous decision in the kitchen yesterday morning when I agreed to allow her to stay in the apartment with me. Where I’ve placed myself in a personal torture chamber because her scent lingers, her stuff fills my bathroom, and my bed has never felt colder without her body heat underneath me.

I frightened her that first night, but she held her ground in the kitchen, squaring off with me, melting the steel cage around my heart just the slightest bit with her soft smile and cautious eyes.

But she’s clearly afraid this morning.

Setting Rosie beside me, I slip from the couch and crawl over to Jenna, wrapping her in my arms and tugging her to my chest. “Babe.”

“My baby had a gun,” she mutters on repeat as I hold her against my naked chest.

With my heart racing underneath my skin, I rock her. “She’s okay. You’re okay.” I repeat the phrase before adding, “I took care of everything.”

Her head shakes against my pecs while her body vibrates in shock. I rub her upper arms, hoping to warm the pebbled chill settling over her skin. “It’s okay now, babe. Just relax.”

Suddenly, she stiffens and pulls back. “I am not your babe.” Those dark eyes turn viper sharp. “And who the frick leaves a gun lying around?” Her use of frick would be cute if she weren’t so spitting mad, eyes ensnaring me in her anger.

“I—” I what? Forgot they were in the apartment? I came home late, drunk and mad at everything because I was sharing my place with a feisty raven-haired beauty and her two baby girls, and I’d had some thoughts of very unmotherly things I wanted to do to said beauty. Having energy to expel, I’d tossed my gun on the table after pulling the magazine and checking the chamber for any stray bullets. Then I placed a DVD in the old player. The performance did nothing to settle my raging hard-on and the fact a thin bedroom door separated me from a hot single mom I wanted to fuck.

And I couldn’t go there with her.

You don’t deserve to be loved. You’re a despicable human. The words still haunt me although they shouldn’t.

Then this morning, Jenna invades my dreams, giving me another stiffy to rival fence posts, sturdy trees, and sailing masts. Pick your pleasure for comparison. Her strangled voice calling my name interrupted the fantasy of that lush mouth of hers wrapped around my dick. But she wasn’t choking on my length or girth like I wanted in my own version of Naughty Teacher, the porn video I’d found. Her high voice was distressed, and I knew the difference between pleasure and peril.

Entering the living room, finding her eyes full of fear and her baby holding my gun had my heart racing like propellers on a helicopter. Though I was confident the gun was empty, Jenna’s panic-ridden eyes had me second-guessing myself. I’d never leave a loaded gun lying out in the open. Hell, I shouldn’t have left the gun lying on the table, period. But the same woman scowling at me right now had me all tangled up inside. I quickly remind myself I should not be interested in her for a multitude of reasons.

“It wasn’t loaded.”

“That’s not an answer,” she yells.

Flinching at the sharpness of her tone, I loosen my hold on her.

“I’ll put it in the safe.” There’s one in the main house. I have the magazine in my nightstand drawer, separating the bullets from the firearm, but the look on Jenna’s face warns me that anything less than removing all parts of this gun would be unacceptable.

“You’re a dangerous man,” Jenna spews, and she isn’t wrong.

Realistically, this is what I need. I need her to be afraid of me, keep her distance, and decide to get the fuck out of my apartment. I cannot spend two weeks with her. She’s burrowed into my head, and I need her to climb back out because I cannot fuck her out of my system like I want.

“I don’t like guns,” she states.

“You don’t say,” I sarcastically respond. She’s overreacting just a little bit. The gun was safely dismantled, but there is no point in arguing that Rosie was not in danger.