Page 24 of Baby for Stepmom

“That’s my good girl.”

TWENTY

DELILA

A part of me thought that the moment I showed Jax that positive pregnancy test, his infatuation with me would go up in flames; Jax was young, sexy, and hot-blooded. There was no way he would not wake up and realize that chasing me was a mistake. Some pretty young thing would catch his eye, and Jax would forget all about me.

A little voice in the back of my mind warned me that there was no way that this thing with Jax was going to last. I had blown up my entire life over a stupid crush. Not only that, but on the least appropriate man I could possibly want for myself.

Jax had his whole future ahead of him. Why would he want to get tied down to an older woman?

But the second he saw those two lines on my pee-stick, it was like a switch went off in Jax. Before it was clear that he wanted me—he was flirty and made me breakfast, like a perfect gentleman.

But now?

He was ravenous.

The way that he took me after I told him I was pregnant wasn’t making love—he was staking his claim. It was like he was trying to pound into me deep enough to erase the memory of any other man who had touched me before.

His possessiveness was off the charts, especially how he was acting about his father. It wasn’t just that Jax had shoved me onto his bed, forcing me to promise that I belonged to him… I had noticed that Jax was annoyed wherever his father was around. In fact, I’d actually caught him glaring when Ryan’s back was turned.

It was a bit Neanderthal. Jax was acting like he wanted nothing better than to hit me with his club and haul me back into his little man cave to be his woman.

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t hate it.

Except that it made a tension in the house that was becoming unbearable.

Jax gave a literal death glare to my bedroom door after saying goodnight to me—it was like he couldn’t stand the fact that I was going to go anywhere near his father.

He made me promise not to sleep with my husband anymore, and oddly enough, I went along with it. Things with Ryan were fizzling apart anyway—even before I started messing around with his son.

But the way that Jax was talking about his father now… it was like he hated him.

Was I the reason that their relationship was falling apart?

If that was true, it was worse than anything else I had done. Worse than this literal cheating. Somehow, coming between a father and his son felt more like being a home wreaker than being the other woman.

The front door slammed open.

My hands on the plate I was drying tightened.

When had I started to tense whenever my husband came home? Something told me that this had been going on long before I let myself notice it.

Jax ran into the room from the basement, covered in sweat from working out.

He crossed over to the fridge, opened it, and stared blankly.

Something told me he didn’t actually want to eat anything. This was another example of Jax staking his claim on me. Making sure that nothing was happening between me and my husband anymore.

Ryan crossed the kitchen without looking at me… as if I was just another appliance in the room. There were the cabinets, the fridge, and oh, right, the wife…

There was a point in the relationship when he used to greet me with a hug and kiss, like a normal couple. When had that stopped?

God, why had to let myself live like this for so long?

“What does a man have to do around here to get a drink?” Ryan snapped without looking at me.

Like muscle memory, without even thinking about it, my feet had already taken me across the kitchen until I was next to Jax by the fridge.