He had almost hit the perfect spot when there was a commotion outside the door that knocked Emma right off her ‘hard on’. She hit ice cold so fast it made her head spin.
Gaelen was a little slower to react.
He had his ass in the air when Princess Bitch brushed the guards aside and marched in.
She looked Gaelen’s ass over with no appreciable sign of embarrassment—making it clear as a bell that she’d expected to find him there.“That you, brother?”
Gaelen let out a long suffering breath and swiveled his head on his neck to glare at her.“What the fuck?”
Valee shrugged.“I am assigned to wait upon the king and from the looks of things, that is a good thing because his ‘mama’ is preoccupied.”
Emma glanced from one to the other, unable to follow the conversation since they’d both switched to their native tongue. It seemed pretty clear, though, that Princess Bitch thought she had some dirt on Emma she could use to her advantage.
Emma forgot her embarrassment as that realization hit her like a snow ball to the face.
What had possessed her to let Gaelen make love to her—screw her—with the baby in the room?
Sure he was asleep and he was an infant besides—and if she’d been his real mother in a similar position she wouldn’t have thought it was anything to get too worked up about. He was too little to know what was going on if he’d woken up. If parents never took a chance there wouldn’t be any but ‘first borns’ in the world.
This was a completely different ball game, however.
She was already in a precarious position.
Valee didn’t like her any more than vice versa and Emma had a bad feeling she was going to use this against her.
The question was,couldshe use it to get rid of her? Not would she.
Emma didn’t think she would hesitate and she didn’t give a damn what it might do to Nye to have her torn away from him after all he’d been through.
She glanced toward Nye at that thought and saw that he’d sat up in his bed to see what all the commotion was about.
And he looked distressed because he could understand that there was a disagreement of some sort in progress.
Her first impulse was to leap up, but there were two problems with that. She was pinned to the bed by a very naked man who still had his cock in her and she was naked.
She didn’t think that would disturb the baby. He’d seen her naked.
The cabin was tiny and they’d lived under each other. She wasn’t inclined to stroll around naked, but … well, she hadn’t worried too much about him getting a peak if he woke up while she was looking for clothes or trying to change.
She looked at Gaelen, whose attention was still focused on his sister. “I need to get up to see about Nye,” she said quietly.
“I see to Nye!” Valee said at once and started across the cabin.
Emma was on her feet and reaching for the baby before her brain had fully calculated what it would take to dislodge Gaelen and get there.
Nye grabbed her around the neck when she lifted him and burrowed his face against her, clinging tightly.
Valee stopped abruptly, pursing her lips. “Gib bebe!”
Gaelen got up, grabbed his sister by one arm and forcibly marched her across the room.
Emma didn’t wait around to see what was going to happen next. She took Nye and headed into the tank room/bathroom.
When she’d bathed off, she managed to find a towel and dry herself and wrap up in it.
Thankfully, when she returned to the main room both Gaelen and his sister had left.
She wished that was enough to make her feel better, but it wasn’t.
Gathering Nye close, she rocked him until he fell asleep again and then settled on her bed with the baby snuggled against her.
Princess Valee didn’t return. Emma focused on trying to ignore the let down and empty her mind of what had happened. She didn’t want to analyze it. She was afraid of the conclusions she might draw from the actions of both members of that family.
Eventually, she was able to find sleep, but even that was disturbed by unpleasant dreams.
It was actually a relief when Nye woke her for a feeding in the wee hours—her least favorite time to get up and make a bottle—but that was short lived.
She couldn’t remember the dreams but the earlier debacle came back with a vengeance in excruciating detail.
Chapter Sixteen
Hauk set his plate on the table and settled in the chair across from Gaelen and Kadin, flicking a glance and a polite if absent nod at each. Gaelen snagged his attention, however. Generally way too fucking cheerful first thing in the morning than Hauk cared for, he was scowling at his plate and eating mechanically.
After studying his thunderous expression for several moments, Hauk flicked a questioning look at Kadin.
Kadin shrugged. “No clue. At a guess, I would suppose the gift was not received with quite the enthusiasm he had hoped and expected.”
The comment penetrated the black cloud hovering over Gaelen and he sent Kadin a resentful glare. “She received it well,” he growled. “She was happy with it. Very happy.”
Surprise flickered through Hauk and more than a little annoyance. He hadn’t expected the others to move in on Emma quite that fast and was not happy to find himself last man out. “What gift?”
“I found the clothing Emma was wearing when you kidnapped her, that the Sheloni took, and returned them to her.”
“I did not kidnap her,” Hauk growled. “I rescued her from getting her head blown off!”
Gaelen shrugged, as if to say it was splitting hairs when it damned well wasn’t! It was the damned truth! “You gave her her own clothing as a gift?”
Gaelen scowled at him for a long moment. “That was not the gift, gods damn it! I
