“What is it with you and asking me to talk all the time?”
“If you talked to me, I wouldn’t be asking.”
“Christ, you’re like Emma,” he whispers, still not looking at me.
“I look like your wife?”
“No. But you are like her,” he says after a moment, softly. He’s quiet, and I think he won’t speak again, but then he says, “She was your age when I met her. So pretty. Innocent. Kind. With a core of steel after the foster system had spat her out.”
I wait for more, but it’s as if he’s run out of steam. He also looks much younger from this close, his gaze vulnerable, his eyes red-rimmed, his mouth soft and uncertain.
God, I’m so sorry for him. And for his kids. My heart’s breaking for them. I want to ask more, about her, about her death, when it was and how it happened, but I hold back.
Not a good time. But how can I ever help him, or his kids, without knowing?
“Are the kids okay?” he asks, his voice raspy, and I wonder what his nightmares were about. If they change, or if the same one returns to haunt him.
“They’re fine. Having breakfast. Worried about you.”
He grimaces and shakes his head. “I keep fucking up.”
“You don’t.”
I don’t trust myself around him when he’s like this. Not to open up and let him hurt me when I don’t expect him to.
How weird. I don’t trust this truce to last, and yet I can’t stay away and save myself.
I approach him slowly and sit down beside him. I put a hand on his thigh, over the thin cotton of his sweats, shocked at the thick muscle shifting under my palm, and feeling strangely hot and excited.
Warmth wafts off his body. I can smell his shampoo, his soap, and underneath it all, his scent of powerful male.
I feel drunk.
I feel disconnected. Is this what they call an out of body experience? Although I can feel my body, kind of distantly, aching sweetly, throbbing. Needing.
It’s his touch I need. On my skin. His mouth. Skimming over my
lips, over my cheeks, down my neck, and lower.
“You’re so damn young,” he mutters, his gaze on my hand. I slide it up, toward his groin, and his breath catches.
I can’t seem to draw a proper breath, either. I think the bulge between his legs has grown larger, but I’m not sure.
“You’re not that old,” I whisper.
“I’m turning thirty this year.”
I nod, too absorbed by the way his solid flesh shifts under my hand. I trail my fingers toward that fascinating bulge.
He catches my wrist, stopping me. His cheekbones are flushed. “Did you hear me? I’m almost twelve years older than you.”
“I heard you.” And I don’t frigging care.
Is it a bad thing? It only makes me more excited. He’s older, hardened, grounded, and so hot. He’s not a boy. He’s all man.
I lift my hand to his arm, tracing the dark ink he has winding around his thick biceps. What am I doing? What are these thoughts? I shouldn’t be sitting here, touching him. I should be downstairs with the kids, looking after them, doing my job.
But I can’t tear myself away. I’m in a trance. Can’t ever remember feeling this way before. It’s like I want to climb on him, plaster myself all over him, lick his skin, bite his flesh.