I’m slow and deliberate with my movements, praying she doesn’t stop me. I inch my index finger along her skin until I find her hard nipple. Then I flick it, just twice, but it’s enough to make her knees buckle.
“I know why you put your children first, and I admire that,” I say. Lowering my head, I run my nose along her collarbone and inhale her scent until my lungs feel as if they could explode. Her entire body trembles, and I fucking love that I can do this to her. “But what you haven’t considered is how flexible I can be—how much I’m willing to bend to fit into your world. I don’t need all of you, Penny. I just need the pieces no one else has earned.”
She swallows, then tips her head back, and I take that opportunity to lick a line up her neck. The pads of her fingers flex against my skin, and it’s all I can do to keep my lower half from thrusting forward to reach her.
“You don’t need another person to take care of, sweetheart. What you need is someone willing to take care of you. I want—no—Ineedto be that man for you. And I desperately want you to see yourself as I see you.”
My hand falls to her hip, and I pull her flush against me. As expected, she gasps, and her eyes flash with longing.
“How do you see me?” The insecurity in that whispered plea sets my teeth on edge.
I’m on her in an instant, lightly grasping her face with both hands so she can’t look anywhere but straight into my eyes as I seal our bodies together.
“I see perfection. I see a mom giving everything she has to her boys. I see a woman so deprived of love that she’s forgotten how to love herself.”
She reaches up and cups my face, then gently slides her thumbs along my skin.
She reached—for me.
Knowing she needs to hear my words, I continue with a shaky voice that conveys my emotions. “I see a woman I can’t stop thinking about. I see a woman I vowed to keep in the friend zone, and yet I dream of her every damn night. I see a queen who hasn’t yet learned that she holds all the power, and I can’t wait to see you when you finally fix your crown.”
I expected her to pull away or even close her eyes, but she’s locked onto me beautifully.
“That is who I see, Penny Mulligan. Perfect in your perceived imperfections. Gorgeous in your self-doubt. Vibrant in a way that makes angels sing. Perfection. That’s who you are to me.”
With agonizing slowness, she inches closer to my face. Our lips are a breath apart, but I’m afraid to move and disrupt the magic of this moment. The moment she finally chose me.
Tears well in her eyes, and I want nothing more than to kiss away her sadness, but when I lean in a fraction of an inch, she turns her face toward the door. It’s like someone took an ax to my balls.
She tilts her head in an odd way, and that’s when I realize her attention isn’t on me but on a strange ringtone coming from my family room.
It happens in an instant. She turns away from me, tugging my shirt over her head, then slips out of the room and away from me.
“Hi,” she says, sounding breathless.
I lean against the doorframe and watch her. She’s flustered and desperately trying to pull herself together for whatever conversation is happening on the other end of her call.
“Did she say how long she would be gone?”
Silence.
“Did she even ask if I was home?”
The way her words turn shrill at the end has me standing taller even as guilt and fear invade my body.
“Jesus, Remy. I’m so sorry. I…” Her gaze flicks to me, and I watch her walls rebuild like the last round of Tetris. “I’ll get home as soon as I can. There’s formula in the pantry, and Kai should be able to help Lia with whatever she needs. I’m sorry,” she says again before nodding and lowering her phone.
“Dillon,” her voice is shaky and fragile, and each word feels like it’s slicing me in two. “My life doesn’t belong to me. I can’t start something when I need to give everything I am to my boys. Their father—he, he’s really hurt them.”
She looks away and lifts her jacket from my sofa. “I have to be their everything because otherwise, they have nothing. I’m mother, father, rule enforcer, Uber driver, maid, boo-boo kisser. My ex-husband’s girlfriend just dropped her two baby girls off with Kai without asking and without an explanation. I wish I could say that’s a first, but it’s not, and I have nothing left to give by the time my day ends.”
She takes a deep, shuddering breath before facing me again. “I—I’m sorry. You have no idea how much I wish things were different for me. How badly I wish my circumstances weren’t what they are. Or how often I think about what life would be like if I could…”
“If you could what?” The words sting as I say them. It’s like I’ve taken on all her pain, and it’s sliced me open from my heart to my throat. It burns.
Her guileless blue eyes find mine, and she stares with an open mouth. I want to know what she’s feeling. I ache for her to understand that being guarded with me is unnecessary.
“If you could what?” I ask again with more urgency as I involuntarily drift closer.
