Down on Me (Club 24 #7) Read online

  Down on Me

  By Kimberly Knight

  Copyright

  No portion of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The subject matter is not appropriate for minors. Please note this novel contains profanity, explicit sexual situations, and alcohol consumption.

  Down on Me

  Copyright © 2016 Kimberly Knight

  Digital Edition

  Published by Knight Publishing & Design, LLC

  Cover art © Knight Publishing & Design, LLC

  Cover Photographer © by E. Marie Photography

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  For all the Brandon lovers who wanted more.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Note from the Author

  Books by Kimberly Knight

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Spencer

  I stared at my baby boy while he slept. He was a part of Brandon and me—God’s gift to us both. And he was perfect. Ten toes, ten fingers and big brown eyes like both Brandon and me.

  The moment he was born, I fell in love. It was instant and pure. I’d never experienced such joy until the moment he was born. I had a gorgeous husband and now a beautiful baby boy. All my dreams were coming true.

  I assumed I was prepared for motherhood. I’d read all the parenting books and watched our friends prepare and care for their own babies.

  Becca and Ryan were fantastic with Jason Jr. and Abby. They seemed to have everything under control. Becca was balancing motherhood while taking over my job at Better Keep Jogging Baby and Ryan was sometimes a single mother while Max worked late at his law firm. They never once told me how hard it was or how scared they were. Just being home with Kyle for a day was stressing my out. Keeping up with his feedings and changing his diaper was hard. Even though I had my parents and Brandon, I wanted to do it all myself, but I was tired and I was scared out of my mind.

  I thought I was ready to be a mother. The nine months we spent preparing for Kyle to arrive, I was ready. I was so ready.

  But I wasn’t.

  I was freaking the fuck out.

  Chapter One

  Spencer

  “You okay?” Brandon asked as he kissed me on the shoulder, both of us staring down at our three day old baby.

  We were now responsible for a living, breathing life form and it wasn’t Niner, our golden retriever, whom we could stick in the backyard when we needed to run to the store or something. No, it was Kyle, a cute, baby boy with his perfect hands and toes that I wanted to eat, with skin that smelled so fresh I wanted to bottle the scent and never forget it, and with a smile—fuck my life, Kyle had his daddy’s smile that was heart stopping.

  I kept my eyes on Kyle as I spoke. “I just can’t believe it, you know?”

  “Yeah,” he breathed. “Can you believe we created him?”

  I nodded, not able to speak.

  We had created another human and I had everything I ever wanted in life: the perfect husband, the perfect job, the perfect home and now the perfect son. We’d fought hard to get to this point because Brandon’s past had tried desperately to tear us apart.

  Christy, Brandon’s ex-girlfriend, tried to kill me because she wanted Brandon back. Then Trev—Michael (his real name) and his friend Matt (aka Colin) kidnapped me for ransom. Michael had a college grudge against Brandon that he couldn’t let go and when he learned that Brandon was buying his foreclosed gym in Seattle, he decided to go after me to get his money.

  The three of them were now in prison and Brandon and I were living our lives peacefully. Through it all we’d stuck together and now we had everything I wanted in life.

  And I was scared shitless.

  I wrapped my arms around Brandon’s waist, not saying anything. I just wanted to take everything in while I watched Kyle sleep.

  Everyone but my mom and dad had gone home. They were asleep in the other room and I knew they would help me instead of returning to Los Angeles. Brandon’s parents would help us if we’d asked them to stay in town as well. They each raised two kids and even though Blake and my sister were still trying to figure out shit in their lives, Brandon and I turned out good and I knew our parents would have sound advice.

  “Let’s get some rest while we can,” Brandon spoke after a few minutes. He grabbed my hand and led me to the bed a few feet away from the bassinet.

  We crawled underneath the covers, me facing Kyle with Brandon behind me. I’d missed the feel of him wrapped around me when I was in the hospital. He was my savior, my protector.

  As I watched our son, I closed my eyes, finally succumbing to sleep.

  *

  I was certain I’d just fallen asleep when I heard the screeching sound of Kyle crying.

  “I’ll get him.”

  Before I could move, Brandon was out of bed and walking toward the bassinet.

  “Thank you.” I yawned as I sat up and adjusted myself to breastfeed.

  “Two hours of sleep—not bad.”

  I chuckled. “You’re joking, right?”

  “At least we’re doing it together.” Brandon kissed the top of my head after handing me Kyle.

  “Babe … What if I forget what the nurse told me about overfeeding him?” I looked down at Kyle crying in my arms and suddenly I feared I’d mess up.

  “Then maybe he’ll sleep longer than two hours.” He grinned.

  That wasn’t the answer I was looking for. I was worried I was doing the mother thing all wrong.

  “It will be okay, baby,” he continued. “Feed him until you think it’s enough. I’ll put him back to bed and then we’ll get more sleep. In a few more hours, if you’re still worried, we can ask your mom.”

  Everyone had talked about how little sleep we’d get after the baby arrived and they were right. I was tired—exhausted. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to sleep for days, but after we put Kyle back to bed and Brandon was quietly snoring beside me, I wasn’t asleep. I was wide awake, my brain refusing to shut off as I remembered everything I read that could go wrong with my baby. Now that I didn’t have a nurse to help me, or a doctor to save Kyle, I was terrified he would stop breathing.

  I slipped from the bed and over to the bassinet, lightly pressing my hand to his stomach, waiting to see if I could feel him breathing. A second later I felt his tiny belly raise and I was put at ease.

  I crawled back in bed, trying to tell myself that Kyle would be okay and I should get some sleep before he woke and wanted another feeding. My eyes never closed as I stared up at the dark ceiling again, listening for any sounds to come from him. My heart was pounding.

  It felt as if hours ticked by but every time I looked at the clock on Brandon’s side of the bed, it was only a few minutes that had passed. After another thirty minutes, I crawled from the bed and placed my hand on his tummy again. He was still breathing.

  As I stepped back to the bed, Bran
don turned and reached for me. “Spencer?” He sat up, looking around the room for me.

  “I’m here.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  I should have told him that it wasn’t. Everything wasn’t okay. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be a mother. I couldn’t even make it through one night without freaking out. No one had told me it would be this hard. But I didn’t want to worry Brandon. He needed sleep. He needed to be the rock. He was the protector and if anything was to ever happen to me, he could protect Kyle.

  So I lied.

  “I went to the bathroom.” I crawled back into bed and into his arms.

  He pulled me close, kissing the back of my neck. “He should be up soon. We’ll do what we did last time and then get a few hours of sleep again.”

  I nodded and waited, not going back to sleep. My mind was still racing with everything that could go wrong with Kyle. Could the blanket suffocate him? Was it possible for him to turn on his belly? What if he got too hot? What if it was something we didn’t know about like an infection, something genetic, something with his heart …?

  Every possible scenario was running through my head as I lie in bed. When I heard Kyle start to cry, I slipped from Brandon’s arms as fast as I could without waking him.

  “Shh, Mommy’s got you,” I cooed as I picked him up.

  I hurried to the rocking chair in the corner of the room near the bassinet, peeking at Brandon. He didn’t stir and I was thankful. I was drained, running on fumes and worried sick that I wouldn’t be a good mother, but I was going to try.

  After nursing Kyle, I placed him back in the bassinet. In the hospital there were lights and I could see him, but in my room, it was pitch black. I didn’t want to turn on the light and wake Brandon because I knew he was tired, too. Instead, I went to my closet, opened the door a crack and turned on that light. Then I wheeled the bassinet to my rocking chair and watched Kyle as he slept.

  *

  Kyle started to cry and I woke with a start …

  In my bed?

  What the hell?

  I went to get him but Brandon came out of the bathroom. “I got him.”

  I smiled and scooted back against the headboard. “Thank you.”

  “You didn’t wake me the last feeding.”

  I looked up at him. “You needed your sleep.”

  “We’re doing this together. That’s why the bassinet is in our room, baby.”

  “I know,” I sighed. “I was awake when he started to cry—”

  “And you fell asleep in the rocking chair.”

  “I was watching him sleep and I must have fallen asleep, too.” I wasn’t used to lying to Brandon. He was my best friend. But this … I couldn’t tell him how I was feeling. I wasn’t even certain what I was feeling. I just knew I was confused. One minute I was scared and worried about being a mother, and the next I felt as if I had everything under control.

  “Just wake me next time. I want to help you.”

  I nodded as he handed Kyle to me. “Thanks for putting me in bed.”

  He chuckled. “You weren’t there for long. I’m going to let Niner out and start breakfast.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He kissed me lightly and then kissed Kyle’s head before he left the room.

  *

  While Brandon and my dad took Niner for a walk, my mother and I stayed home with Kyle. If anyone could give me insight on how I was feeling, it would be her. She’d gone through first nights home alone twice with both my older sister Stephanie and me, so I knew she’d let me know if what I was feeling wasn’t normal.

  “How many times did Kyle wake up last night?”

  I look up at her from across the room. “Three.”

  She grinned. “That’s great for the first night.”

  “Yeah, but I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking he was going to stop breathing.”

  “Oh, honey.” She stood and then sat next to me, patting my leg. “You’re a new mother and caring for another person. Of course you’re going to have fears.”

  “But I watched him sleep almost all night. Is that normal?” I stared down at Kyle as he slept in my arms.

  “I did that with your sister.”

  I looked over at her. “You did?”

  She nodded. “Being a new mother isn’t easy. It’s a learning process and you’re not going to know it all from reading books. You’re going to worry and have fears and things will go wrong …” I tensed at her words. I didn’t want anything to go wrong. “But you have Brandon and your friends, and I’m only a phone call away. If you want me to, I can stay for a few more days.”

  I shook my head. “No. Dad needs to go back to work. We’ll be okay.” She was right. We were the last of our friends to have our first child, so if anything happened, I knew they would help us.

  “I’ll miss you guys.” She rubbed Kyle’s bald head.

  “I know. We’ll miss you too.”

  Chapter Two

  Brandon

  I felt guilty returning to work.

  It had only been three weeks since Kyle had been born but I needed to make sure Club 24 was still standing. I knew Jason was handling things but I had handled things alone when Jason Jr. was born and I knew how hard it was, so I felt obligated to at least work half days.

  After booting up my computer, the first thing I did was check my emails. Even though I had a vacation message on that stated I wouldn’t return to the office for three weeks, I still had over two hundred messages to go through. I was tempted to delete every single one of them. They were mostly from vendors wanting to meet with us about stocking their brand of coffee in our café or to change the shampoo and conditioner we offered in our locker rooms.

  At first glance, none of the emails were urgent. Instead of checking my voicemails, I left the suffocating office I’d once fucked Spencer in and decided to walk the property. I needed to see familiar faces. Luckily, one of those faces wouldn’t be Teresa Robinson. Since she had done the deed with Blake—on my fucking desk—Teresa’s membership was revoked and she was no longer a member. Blake was suspended and after a few months he moved back to Houston and then we opened a Houston location. Blake had pulled through and was managing his time between Houston and his bar that was attached to our San Francisco location.

  I was convinced he was better at giving up control than I was. With each location, it took me and Jason at least a year before we moved on, but Blake was in and out in months as if it were a woman. Come to think of it, it probably had something to do with a woman. Fuck—I’d kill him.

  As I made my way down the stairs and to the break room, every bone in my body didn’t want to be here. Club 24 used to be my home away from home. And if it wasn’t for the long hours I’d once put in, I wouldn’t have met Spencer and I wouldn’t be a father to Kyle, so I wasn’t sure why I felt this way. Fathers went back to work all the time. I’d heard stories about how they couldn’t wait to get a free moment to themselves, but I had this feeling that I needed to be home. Maybe it was because of my long commute. If something happened, it would take me almost forty-five minutes to get to Spencer.

  There were times I thought about how on two different occasions I could have lost her. Our past was always in the back of my mind even though everyone was in jail. But did that mean we were safe? Michael had years to come up with a plan to get back at me so who knew if he had more than Matt working with him. Nothing had happened in the two years they’d been locked up, but nothing had happened in the twelve years prior. Was he simply waiting to make his next move?

  When I entered the break room, I put a smile on my face as I greeted everyone. They asked about Kyle and I showed them pictures on my phone. Everyone was excited to see all the pictures and it was nice to show off how handsome my baby was. I still couldn’t believe that I’d help create another life. It was crazy.

  I called Spencer on my way back to my office to see how she and Kyle were doing without me there.

  The phone rang …
>
  And rang …

  And rang …

  My feet stop mid-step and my heart began to race. Had Michael planned the perfect kidnapping on the day I returned to work?

  It rang again …

  And then it went to voicemail.

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw my phone. I wanted to run to Spencer, but I was too far away. Instead, I ran toward my office to get my keys, took the stairs two at a time, and came face-to-face with Jason.

  “What’s wrong?” he questioned.

  “I tried to call Spencer a minute ago and she didn’t answer her phone.”

  His hands gripped my shoulders, steadying me. “So call her back.”

  I blinked at him. “Call her back,” I repeated. He was right. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Instead of calling her, I’d let a few minutes tick by as I ran to my office and then stopped to talk with Jason.

  He scrunched his eyebrows. “What’s really going on?”

  “Let me try her again.” The phone rang three times and she answered. “Oh my God,” I breathed when I heard her voice.

  “Sorry, I was in the bathroom. What’s wrong?”

  I walked into Jason’s office and sat on his couch while he followed and closed the door. “Nothing. How’s Kyle?”

  “He’s sleeping finally. Been crying all morning since you left.”

  “Try to get some rest while he’s sleeping.”

  “I will.”

  “All right, I love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  After we hung up, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

  “So?” Jason prompted.

  I chuckled. “I feel like an idiot now.”

  “Not the first time I’ve seen you act like one.” He grinned as he finally sat at his desk.

  I rolled my eyes. “I was thinking earlier about Michael. What if he has more people working with him other than Matt and he’s just waiting for me to return to work so he can hurt Spencer and Kyle?”

  Jason was silent.