“Hoss,” I sob, tears rushing to my eyes.
I expect him to drop the clipboard in his hands and open his arms. Embrace me. But he doesn’t. Instead, he takes several steadying breaths and lifts his head, looking at me briefly out of the corner of his eye, his knuckles turning white around the clipboard. “Not Hoss anymore. Daniel.” His chest rises up and shudders down. “Don’t come any closer. I thought I was ready to see you, but I just…I need a minute to get myself under control.”
The last part of that sentence is spoken in a rasp, his hand pressed to the center of his chest, rubbing furiously. What is going on here? I don’t understand. “Get yourself under control?” I sob, wiping at my eyes.
“So I don’t scare you again,” he explains, dropping the clipboard and bracing his hands on the cinderblock wall. “I can’t fuck this up.”
I’m trying to process everything at once. His words. The changes to his appearance. He has bulked up, become huskier. Grown a beard. Instead of his usual T-shirt, he’s wearing a button-down that strains around the swell of his muscles. My panties turn damp just looking at him, remembering the pleasure that body gives mine. Relentlessly.
But he isn’t touching me now. Why?
I can’t fuck this up.
My heart twists at the realization of what’s going on here. He scared me last time he arrived without warning. For the last two months, he’s been planning this. He’s been transforming himself with a new identity, preparing this shop in my honor, trying to get himself normal again so he could be right for me and the baby.
Now he’s afraid of breaking.
He’s holding parts of himself back because I wasn’t ready before and he doesn’t want to drive me away again. But I’m ready now. Not only have I been given the time and distance to know I don’t want to live without him, I know he would never be anything but good for me. For our child. The kind of man who would make this grand of a gesture is a king.
That’s how I want to treat him.
Like he’s the king to my princess.
“Daddy,” I whisper. He buries his mouth in the crook of his elbow and groans. Great shudders pass through him and he pounds a fist into the wall, but I’m not scared of him. Not anymore. I advance on Hoss…no, Daniel now. And I fit myself in between him and the wall, framing his face with my hands. “You did all of this for me?”
“I’d do anything for you,” his breathes raggedly.
I trace his cheekbones with my thumbs, along with his bottom lip. “You’ve been watching me.”
“I keep my Tatum safe.”
“You got me fired with six months’ pay.”
“When you walked home that night, I could tell your feet were hurting. I had to…drink myself unconscious to keep from breaking down your door and making you better. It wasn’t time yet. I had to learn how to be normal again. For you.” His hands lift and cradle my stomach. “For the baby.”
My chest is packed so full, I can barely draw breath. “I missed you. Every second.”
His eyes betray his inner turmoil. “I could say I missed you, too, but that wouldn’t even begin to cover the hell I’ve been living in without you.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. The name is perfect. Comeback Comics. It’s perfect.”
“All for you,” he says, kissing my forehead hard. “Everything for you.”
My fingers go to the button of his jeans, unsnapping them. Carefully lowering his zipper over the part of him that is already huge and hard. Ready. I reach inside the opening and mold my hand to his thickness, massaging it while he moans, his hips rolling into my grip.
“No, baby,” he grunts. “Not yet.”
What? My brain refuses to understand. “No?”
Teeth gritted, he circles my wrist and tugs it away from his lap. “Please, I have to show you the rest before I lose myself in you, Tatum. Having a plan and sticking to it…that’s how I’ve learned to keep my hunger for you leashed. To control my rage at the world for having the nerve to be dangerous while you’re living in it. I’m barely holding on, but I can do it for you. I’d do anything for you. I just need you to trust me. Feel safe with me.”
“I do—”
“No. No, you’ll see the home I made for us first. I need to show it all to you. I need you to understand how much I love you, so you don’t send me away again.” He reaches down and cups my womanhood beneath the loose skirt I’m wearing. Encompasses all of me in his calloused grip. “Because the next time I’m buried in this, I want you to have confidence in me. I want you to be fully aware of what I’ll do to make you happy. You’ll be proud to have me as the father of your child.”
“I am.” The regret that has been building up inside of me for months breaks free, along with my tears. “I should have held on tight to you. I will now. Just let me.”
“I’ll let you do anything you want with me,” he breathes, cautious hope flaring in his face. “As soon as we’re home. I want you to see everything I’m offering before you give yourself to me. Your body. Your heart and future. You need to be sure.” A light of madness flickers briefly in his eyes, reminding me of the night he left. “Because God help me if you ever change your mind, Tatum. God help everyone in my path. Do you understand?”