Mine To Honor (Southern Wedding Series Book 7) (Southern Weddings)
Mine To Honor: Chapter 20

I lie on the bed with one hand on my chest and the other hand draped over the pillow that sits in the middle of the bed, listening to the footsteps that are coming closer and closer to the bedroom. My eyes burn from being so tired. “Is she down?” I lift my head when Eva walks back into the bedroom.

She drags her feet toward the bed, collapsing on it with a big thud on her stomach, her feet off the side because of the angle. “Yeah,” she mumbles. I look past her head toward the monitor screen, seeing Cici is lying on her stomach but isn’t moving.

“Was she fussy?” I stop staring at the screen, laying my head back on the pillow, my eyes closing on their own. The burning only making it worse and I’m wondering why I feel like my body has been hit by a Mack truck.

“A little bit,” she relays and I feel the covers moving, so I know she is covering herself up. “I can’t move.”

My eyes open for a second as I look over and she’s turned her head toward me. She’s curled under the cover into a ball, her eyes closed with her hands under her cheek. “The light is on.”

“Not if you close your eyes it’s not,” she notes and I toss the cover off me to get up and turn off the light. I walk over to her side of the bed, turning off her lamp. “We should get the clapper thing,” she mumbles, her body not moving.

“We put her down at seven.” I walk back over to my side of the bed. “And since then she’s been up three times.” I lean down and touch my phone. “It’s now midnight.”

“Thanks for the update,” she snarks and I look over at her chuckling. “Hopefully, she’s down for the night.”

I crawl into bed, afraid to move and make noise to wake her up. Since I brought her home from the daycare, she’s fevered every four hours. You could tell when the meds would be wearing off. She would get extra cranky and we tried everything. I mean everything. As soon as we got off the phone with Stefano and Addison, I got dressed and headed out to Wal-Mart and Target, where I bought every single teether thing I could get my hands on. I couldn’t get over how many different teethers there were. I walked into the house an hour later with three bags full of stuff. I got a giraffe teether. I got a banana toothbrush teether, a pacifier teether, a glove teether, a couple of round teethers you put in the freezer. You name it, I bought it. If it had teether in the title, it came home with me. I don’t think I’m asleep for longer than ten minutes before I hear her crying again.

“This can’t be happening,” Eva huffs and it almost sounds like she’s crying in frustration.

“I’ll get her,” I offer, getting up and walking toward her bedroom. The whine turns into a full-blown wail, then a scream. I walk into the room and she is rolled over from her stomach and is now sitting on her bum. “What’s the matter, girl?” I say softly and she holds her hands up for me to pick her up. “What’s got you this time?” I ask as I put my lips to her head to see if she’s hot, and thankfully she’s not. She looks up at me and uses her fist to rub her eyes. “You tired?” I walk over to the rocking chair. “I think it’s because you have to sleep in order not to be tired.” I grab her pacifier that clips on to her pj’s. “Are you having trouble sleeping?” I ask, sticking the pacifier in her mouth. She lays her head on my chest as I start to rock her, putting my head back on the chair, resting my eyes.

“You are going to spoil her,” Eva accuses and my eyes flicker open. She’s leaning against the doorjamb, her feet crossed at her ankles and her arms folded over her chest. She is wearing another pair of booty shorts with a matching tank top. Her hair is loose around her face, and even though I can only see her silhouette in the semi-darkness, I can picture her face with a smile on it. It feels like someone is sitting on my chest, and it’s a lot more than the little girl who is on it.

“It’s just until she falls back asleep,” I whisper to her, my hand on her back and her bum. “She just needs a little rocking. Go back to bed.” She doesn’t argue with me, which means she’s past the point of tiredness. Usually, she would try to take over this, but not today. She turns and I watch her ass move as she walks back to the bedroom. I don’t even think she is trying to strut, but it’s happening and I’m full-on gawking at her.

I rock Cici until I hear her snoring softly, getting up as slowly as I can to not wake her. Even putting her in her crib, I try not to move her too much, putting her on her side. She whines a bit as soon as I place her down, but I gently tap her butt. She quickly goes back to sleep as I tiptoe out of the room.

I slide right into bed, my eyes closed even before my head hits the pillow. I hear Eva mumble something from beside me, but at this point I’m not even sure what fucking day it is. I’ve stayed up in college sometimes for days. I remember going out to party, getting home at six and then rushing to class at eight. Now it feels like I’ve been awake for over seventy-two hours. I think I mumble something back to her, but I don’t even have the energy to open my eyes. It takes me less than ten seconds to fall into a deep sleep.

I don’t know how long I sleep, if it’s ten minutes or six hours, before wails fill the air again. “This isn’t happening.” I hear from beside me and I feel something warm on my side, I also feel weight on my legs. I open my eyes not surprised I’m still on my back and haven’t moved, since I’m pinned down. Eva’s ass is against my hip and her legs are kicked back, intertwined with mine. I don’t think she even realizes that she’s gone through the pillow barrier, which is now in front of her stomach.

“I’ll get her,” I offer again, even though I don’t move.

“No,” she says, moving away from me, my side feels the coldness fall over it. “You got her last time.” She turns on the light as she sits on the bed, I guess looking at the monitor to make sure that she’s really up and we aren’t just deliriously hearing her wail. “She is definitely pissed.” She puts the monitor back down on the side table.

I sit up and touch my phone, showing me the time. “It’s been two hours,” I state, rubbing my face. “She might be fevering again. Fucking teeth.” I grab the cover, flipping it off me and tossing it onto Eva’s side of the bed. “I don’t think I’ve hated something this much in my whole life.” I turn to look at Eva. “I’ll get a bottle. She didn’t really eat much at dinner, so she might be hungry.”

She gets up off the bed, turning to look at me. Her eyes go huge on her face. “What’s that?” I look where she is pointing down at my shorts that clearly, without a doubt, shows her my dick.

“That would be my dick,” I inform her, too tired to even care at this point. Besides, it was partially her fault for putting her ass on me. How was my dick supposed to know we were both sleeping? How does my dick also not know she’s, like, off-limits?

She rolls her lips now. “Do you want to go and take care of it?” She points at the bathroom behind her. The eyes that were shocked two minutes ago are now twinkling with laughter.

“That isn’t how this works.” I put my hands on my hips.

“Really?” She cocks her hips to the side and folds her hands under her tits, pushing them up even higher. “So I’ve been jacking them off this whole time for nothing?” I glare at her. “I just figure once you know, you boom.” She uses her hands to emit fireworks. “Then it goes back to sleep.”

“It’s not my dick’s fault that it’s awake,” I explain to her, “your ass was practically on top of it. How was he supposed to know that you breached the barrier?”

She gasps. “I did not breach the barrier.” I tilt my head to the side, walking over to the bed and moving the covers to show her that the pillow is on her side of the bed, at the edge.

“Well, would you look at that?” My voice fills with celebration.

“I moved the pillow when I got up.” She throws her hands up, and all I can do is nod at her like, sure you did.

“Are we seriously discussing my dick while Cici is crying?” I ask. “It’s fine, it’ll go away.” I look back at her and my eyes roam from her face down to her tank top, which is loose but is now showing that maybe she isn’t that offended by my hard dick. “Stop staring at my dick, it’s getting your nipples all hard.” I point at said nipples, smirking at her as she looks down at her boob. “Do you want to maybe go take care of that?” I point at the bathroom, trying not to laugh at her.

“I’ll get the baby,” she huffs and escapes the room, almost as if it’s a race.

“I’ll get the bottle,” I call through the empty doorway, before looking down at my cock. “You are really barking up the wrong tree there, big man.”

As I walk toward the stairs. I can hear her talking to Cici.

“Oh my goodness,” she coos, “look at those big tears.”

“Does she have a fever?” I shout from downstairs.

“I think so!” she yells back and I put my hands on my hips and look up to the ceiling.

“We are taking her to the doctor in the morning!” I holler at her as I walk over to the kitchen and take a bottle from the fake plastic grass that helps dry them. Placing it under the machine, I press a button, and like every single time before, I’m amazed by how quick it’s done.

Walking back up the stairs I hear Eva, “You had a full diaper and now you are all clean and dry.” She stands her up on her changing table. “There is my happy girl.” Cici chews on her pacifier and her eyes finally come to me. She smiles so big her pacifier falls out of her mouth. “See, I told you he was coming with a bottle.”

I walk to her with my own smile on my face. “Is my girl hungry?” I ask as I hand Eva the bottle. “Did you give her Tylenol?” I look down at Eva, who nods at me as she walks over to the rocking chair. “I see you took care of your problem.” She looks at me and then down at my dick.

I look down at her tank top, folding my arms over my chest, not even trying to hide the smile. “I can say the same for you.”