His Queen (18+)

Chapter XXXV

THE LITTLE WHITE BOX

Have no mercy for the wicked

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CHAPTER XXXV

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LATER THAT DAY, I had settled on writing Travis an email to which he promptly replied to. Neither of us had made the effort to try call the other so I decided to leave it like that for the day. Instead, I focused on Teo knowing that I was probably going to have a busy day tomorrow with all the things I planned to do.

After feeding and bathing him, I set about the difficult task of calling him to sleep.

“Let's count sheep, okay?” I said, ignoring the fact that I wasn't going to get a reply from him. “Okay. One sheep. Two sheep. Three sheep— baby, no.”

I pulled him away from me as he tried to grap the loose hair at my ear and play with it, making his lips fall into a pout. “Mama,” he whined, making me roll my eyes and sit him down on my lap even as he struggled.

At some point, I had just given up, allowing him to get up onto his feet despite my best efforts to calm him to sleep. Victorious, he balanced himself on his feet, a smile stretching across his lips around his pacifier as his unruly curls fell messily around his face. Then he let his eyes fall on mine, the usual humour I had for his antics now replaced with complete exhaustion and as if understanding he concept, the smile fell from his face. His hands which had previously been on my shoulder to give him support, wrapped tightly around my neck as he pulled himself in and buried his face in the crook of my neck.

His hair tickled me skin and his scent filtered to into my nose, making me relax and pull him tight into my chest. No matter how annoying or bad mannered or naughty he was being, the child always found a way to make me forget everything and give him my unconditional love and affection. I was a sucker for this boy.

“You drive me fricking mad sometimes,” I muttered, before pressing multiple kisses to his cheek. He giggled, snuggling further into me as if I didn't already have a tight enough hold on him. “You don't understand how much I love you. You could literally get away with anything.”

I stood up from my chair, deciding to take advantage of this act of compliance and see if I could rock him to sleep disguised as me just walking around. I spoke as I paced the room because I knew he listened to me when I spoke. I kept my voice soft, staying away from any words he was familiar with that could spark excitement in him as he clung to me.

“It's a good thing we have your father now too. And Pablo,” I said, rubbing his back as I more rather spoke out loud than to him. “Since you're getting older, you would run my head in so I'm glad I'm not alone anymore. At least not like that.”

I spoke of many broad topics, from how my career was going to my plans for the next day and Mateo listened to it all, never minding the fact he had no clue what I was saying. It seemed to be another way he resembled his father. The both of them were very good listeners. Maybe not the best active listeners, but when you spoke they listened and not just heard. They took you serious and tried to the best of their ability to understand you even if you weren't making any sense.

“God, I love you so much,” I said before placing a kiss on his cheek, only to see that he was halfway to sleep. I was tempted to put him in his crib and call it a night but if there was only one thing I knew about my son, it was that he slept like a mouse. Especially in this stage, even the slightest sounds such as the wind blowing could possibly wake him up.