Him calling her adorable hit a chord on her emotional strings that she’d never heard before him and wanted him to play again and again. Growing up, people had told her she was pretty. In fact, she’d been told she looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor more times than she could count. She’d never really paid them much attention because her appearance had been the last thing she’d had time to worry about. She’d been too busy taking care of Matt and Shelby.
Then, the moment that phase of her life had ended, she’d gotten pregnant with Trevor. She’d still had people telling her she was pretty or beautiful, but she’d only seen herself as a mom. Also, those two words had always felt hollow and empty to her. Impersonal. Unlike Brynn, she was no psychologist, but if she had to take a wild guess, she’d say the reason for that particular word association stemmed from hearing so many people describe her mother, who she was the spitting image of, the same way.
Instead of beautiful or pretty, Sara had always wanted to be the cute or adorable girl. Those were personal to her. The closest she’d gotten to it had been Grandma Betty, who’d called Sara her cutie pie.
Sara hoped the fact he’d struck a deep emotional nerve with what she was sure he’d meant as an offhanded remark wasn’t evident as she cleared her throat and lifted her computer. “I was just going to, ah, work.”
“Great minds.” Austin motioned down to his paperwork. “There’s plenty of room.”
Well, great.
Looked like all of her avoiding today was for naught. Her only options were to make up some stupid excuse as to why she had to leave, or to be a mature adult and stay.
She mentally stared at her fork in the road. She could take Stupid Excuse Lane and leave. Or Mature Adult Way and stay.
Austin lifted the mug in front of him. “I made coffee.”
Mature Adult Way and stay it was. “Okay. If you’re sure I won’t be bothering you.”
“You could never bother me,” he said with the grin she was sure made more females swoon than Sinatra’s eyes and voice combined.
Intellectually, Sara knew what he’d said was a common response. Her brain was very clear on that point. But the rest of her was reading it as a very intimate, very personal statement. Like he’d actually meant it was about her. And that was making her weaker in the knees than the girl’s in SWV.
Rolling her shoulders back, she hurried across the room to set down her computer, hoping her noodle-knees would hold her up long enough to make it to the table. She was in such a rush she didn’t notice Austin had stood, and she ran right smack into him.
At the impact of slamming into the brick wall that was Austin’s chest, her computer and the baby monitor flew from her hands. She let out a small squeal as she reached out, grabbing onto whatever she could to steady herself. Her eyes squeezed shut out of instinct, as she tried to prepare herself for the shock of pain she was sure to experience when she landed flat on her backside.
When that didn’t happen, and she realized her feet were solidly beneath her, she opened her eyes and the reality of her surroundings rushed through her like a raging river. Her hands were gripping what she could only describe as satin-covered steel—Austin’s shoulders. Her face was pressed up against a very naked, very muscular chest. Her pulse raced, and it was not alone. She could feel the fast thudding of Austin’s heartbeat beneath her cheek.
There were so many competing thoughts and emotions flooding through her from her current predicament, but the one that was louder and stronger than all the others was…home. For the first time in Sara’s life, she felt all of the things she’d never had but always associated with that word. Safety. Belonging. Security.
As much as she’d have loved to stay just like that for as long as humanly possible, a thought struck her: Her computer must’ve crashed to the floor. Pulling away, Sara looked down, expecting to find her MacBook and baby monitor. When she didn’t, she glanced up and saw Austin held both in his right hand.
“Holy shit,” she heard herself whisper. “You caught those?”
“Good reflexes.” He shrugged as he set her things on the table.
Yeah.
Good reflexes. Good body. Good smile. Good eyes. Good Lord in heaven.
***
Austin knew ifhe spent one more second standing this close to Sara looking up at him like he’d just saved her children from a burning building, he was going to do something he shouldn’t. Especially now that he knew how amazing she felt in his arms, like it was where she belonged.
“Sit. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.” He hadn’t meant for his instruction to sound so harsh, but he was on the edge of a steep cliff. And Sara in cutoff sweats, a gray tank-top—that was thin enough he could see she was definitely not wearing a bra—and her hair pulled off her face in a ponytail was about to push him right over that edge.
Stepping away from her before he lost his footing and fell, he made himself busy pouring her a cup of coffee. He’d seen the look in her eyes when he’d sweetened the deal and told her he’d made a pot, that and the dark circles beneath her baby blues told him she needed the caffeine.
“How do you take it?” he asked without looking over his shoulder.
“Black is fine,” her voice was a little breathy, and Austin wanted to believe he was to blame for it.
When he turned back, he found her sitting at the table staring at her computer screen. She looked a hell of a lot more composed than he felt. He set the mug down, and before it even hit the table, she was reaching for it. As he stood, he watched her take the first sip. Closing her eyes, she moaned in a way that instantly caused his shorts to grow snug.
He quickly sat down so his body’s reaction wasn’t staring her in the face when she opened her eyes. Even as a pre-teen and teen, Austin had never had an issue with popping wood at inappropriate times. He had a friend who’d fallen asleep one time in class and woken up with a woody. And he had another friend who’d been walking down the hallway and saw a girl bending over in front of him, causing his basketball shorts to tent right there in front of all the kids heading from one class to the next.
At the time, Austin had thought it was hilarious. He’d even given his friends a hard time about it back then. Now, after experiencing his own body going rogue, he felt bad he’d done that.