Kidnapped Ch. 08

I'm boiling water for tea when long arms snake around my middle and I feel soft lips pressing into the crook of my neck.

"Mmm, baby, you smell good," Ollie's growl is sexy and has an immediate impact, making me gasp pleasurably as his hands seek my skin under my shirt.

"I smell like sweaty students," I grumble, letting my body sink back into him.

"Not long to go baby; you'll graduate in a couple months and then you can join me in the grown up world."

"Fucker," I whisper, jokingly elbowing his middle, and he lets me go with an exaggerated wheeze.

"You cut deep, baby," he grins. "Hey, Leo, you staying for dinner?"

"Yes, please Ollie," Leo responds -- always polite ever since Marcy got him into one of the best high schools in the city.

After all the stuff that happened a couple years ago, Marcy had been stunned at what we told her. And we told her everything -- no lies. To our shock, when we told her about the kidnapping she just shrugged and said it had turned out well, and that's what counts -- there was zero judgement. I mean, I'd always known she was nice, but I don't think I'd understood how intelligently pragmatic she was -- my father had managed to subdue that in her. Anyway, that was before we got the house, and she immediately offered to take Leo in. I was worried it wouldn't be enough; Marcy's only thirty herself and obviously wasn't a registered foster parent. But I'd not counted on high-price lawyers, and earlier this year, Marcy officially adopted Leo. I wasn't that happy when they had first told me it was happening; we'd been renovating the house and I'd always had it in mind that Leo would come live with us when it was done, but it was what Leo wanted so I faked happiness.

The happiness didn't stay fake for long. Leo has always got on with Marcy well, and he adores the twins, but something shifted in the best kind of way when she officially became his mom. He became relaxed and content, and it's easy to see it was the best thing for him. I still see him almost every day of the week, and any time I'm finished at school on time I pick him up from his and we spend the afternoon here.

Marcy became a very rich woman indeed at my father's death. Or, in fact, she always had been, she just didn't know it. It turned out a lot of my father's business interests were in her name -- some kind of tax dodge -- and the lawyers rapidly resolved everything and sold all the businesses at her request, just leaving her with a lot of properties. She decided they'd all be brought up to and beyond code, which my father had clearly never bothered with. So now she's a proud but distant landlady and regular purchaser and renovator of new properties, a venture that she leaves almost entirely in my hands while she focuses on what she loves, which is chairing and developing various children's charities, including turning the old mansion she lived in with my father into a safehouse for women escaping abusive situations with their children, after she moved with the twins and Leo to a comfortable but much more subtle place in a great suburb.

I like the work I do for my stepmom -- a boring business degree actually proving a lot more interesting when it's getting put to a practical application, and the renovations spark something in my creative side. Ollie graduated summa cum laude and, as a result, walked straight into a paid internship with a well-respected bio-diversity lab -- work that he loves and gives him vital experience for his long term goal of becoming a forensic scientist.

I'm brought out of my reverie by Ollie's hands on my shoulders as he turns me to face him.

"I love you, Seb," he murmurs, moving in for a soft kiss, which I joyfully sink into, parting my lips for his questing tongue, flinging my arms around his strong neck.

"I love you too," I pant, breathless when he's finally finished ravaging my mouth.

"When are you two getting married?" Leo huffs from the table, his eyes jokingly covered by his long fingers.

"Soon enough, pushy," Ollie jokes. "There are steps leading to that though."

As he ruffles Leo's untidy blond hair I hear a strange noise coming from the entrance hall. Turning to see what caused it, I'm met with a whirlwind; a fluffy yapping mess, barreling into my legs and dropping slobber on my knees.

"Who's this, Ollie?" I laugh, rubbing the puppy's floppy ears, looking into a pair of stunning blue eyes.

"He doesn't have a name, yet. Marcy's started volunteering at an animal shelter and I went with her today. You said you wanted a dog, baby, and I couldn't resist him. They think he's about six months old, a Husky Labrador cross. And ours, if we want him..."

"We do," I spare Ollie a quick kiss before crouching down with the pup to play. Leo soon forgets his homework too and the dark outside is ignored as we play with the bundle of innocent fun.

'There are steps' he had said. Yeah, this is one of them, and I grin widely at the fact that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with this incredible man.