“I love your kids. That’s not a complication.” I shake my head vigorously. I know it will be a long time in the future, that this thing between me and Chad is only the very beginning, but being Scarlett and Zoey’s mom someday doesn’t scare me at all. It excites me.
Chad’s thoughts obviously mirror mine, but with more trepidation. “My girls already lost their mom. I know it’s too soon to ask you for a permanent commitment, but I’m a dad, first and foremost. I’m their only parent. They have to come first, and I can’t introduce the possibility of more trauma if you’re not ready for … something real.”
I place a hand on his knee and lean toward him. “I wouldn’t have let you haul me in here if I wasn’t.”
His eyes twinkle. “You’re injured. I didn’t give you much choice.” And though he’s making a joke, there are nerves to what he’s saying that tell me it means something more than that.
Oh.Oh.He thinks he’s pushing me into a relationship? The way he feels he had to force Shelby?
“You said the other day that you weren’t interested in relationships.” His tone is vulnerable, and it makes emotion swell in my chest. He stares at me, searching my face for the reassurancehe needs that I’m different from her. That he can trust me with his heart.
If Chad and I have a future, I will have to learn to forgive her as much as Chad needs to. To be at peace, as he put it, with the role she played in his life.
But how will I ever forgive her for how badly she mistreated his heart? For how gently I need to hold the pieces she left behind?
“I did say that,” I say quietly. “And I get that after Shelby, it might be hard to trust my intentions. That’s okay. But I just took a break from relationships the last six months. I never gave them up entirely. After everything that happened with Malcolm and then with Caleb, I needed to figure out some things aboutme.” Now I reach up to cup his face with one hand. The light stubble brushes the inside of my palm and sends a shiver up my arm. I lean in a little closer. “It was about being ready to find someone who wanted all the same things as I did in my future.”
He draws in a deep breath, one hand coming to my waist, anchoring me next to him. “And what is that?” he asks, his voice low and husky.
“Commitment. Family. Partnership. Trust.” I study him for a moment. We’re both wrapped up in the headiness of this moment, the expectation of what’s going to happen next, but I need some reassurance too. “Shelby’s not exactly the distant past,” I say, confessingmyfear. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
“I can’t be sure of anything,” he says, but there’s a smile edging his lips that soothes my worries. “Neither of us can be. But we both know we’re going to show up differently than we did in the past. I can’t be certain of an outcome, but I can be certain of my feelings, and my feelings for you say that you’re a surprise, but I’m ready for it.”
His words draw out my own smile. Despite the seriousness of what he’s said, what it means for us, there’s a hint of teasing in the way he said it. Like all my best friends, he’s throwing what I would say right back in my face.
And I like it.
I lean in even closer, my lips millimeters from his. “Very wise, Chad.”
“I learned from the best,” he murmurs, closing the distance between us. Our lips meet in a soft brush at first, and my other hand comes up to hold his face to mine. Chad deepens the kiss, then sweeps an arm behind my back, pulling me into his lap. His arms tighten around me, holding me against him. I slide my hands down to his chest, fingers clutching the soft Pumas sweatshirt that he’s wearing.
It’s possible that having not kissed anyone in a while is influencing my perception, but I’m pretty sure it’s the best kiss of my life. We pull away from each other, breathing for a moment, eyes closed and foreheads pressed together. I want to soak in every second of this. Make it last a lifetime.
Then our lips are pressed together again, unable to resist. Chad shifts so that one arm is around my back and the other slides up my spine, and though there’s a thick sweatshirt between his hand and my back, fire trails up behind it anyway. Then his fingers slide into my hair, and I give a soft gasp. The arm Chad has circled around my back tightens, and his lips slip to just below my chin, and then he’s trailing kisses along my neck. Each one is gentle, and then they slow, and he presses his face into my collarbone and breathes.
I press my cheek against the top of his head, reveling in how perfect this feels, wrapped up in him. I don’t know how many minutes pass before I’m craving the taste of his lips again. I turn toward him, kissing the side of his jaw, and then using my hands to guide his face toward mine.
I could kiss him forever.
“Wow …” I whisper when we’ve pulled away again, inhaling and exhaling long and slow together.
He brushes his lips over mine again, as though it’s impossible for us to disconnect. “Mmmm-hmmm,” he replies in a low tone that turns my insides to soup.
A throat clears in the doorway, and I whirl to see Carlie standing there with an expression I might interpret to mean something along the lines ofyou definitely stayed open to the experience, heavy on the smirkiness of it.
“I knocked,” she says, probably in response to me glaring at her wide-eyed for whatever she might have just seen. “Several times.”
My entire face is on fire. Not in the good way from a few moments ago.
“The lack of response might have been answer enough …” Chad mutters. I arch an eyebrow at him. His tone—more amused than anything—and the grin on his face are hardly a reprimand for Carlie’s interruption.
“As much as I would have liked to walk away, it’s been over thirty minutes since we sent you off for a—” She clears her throat again. “—talk. Dinner is ready. The girls are done swimming, are dressed, and asking where you are, and I knew if I told them you were somewhere with Ivy, that would only be incentive for some kind of hide-and-seek game, since they’re only slightly less obsessed with her than you are.” Carlie delivers all of this with a smile and an innocent tilt to her head.
I still glare at her. She chuckles and closes the door again.
Chad turns to me, still smiling. He leans in and kisses me gently, then pulls away. “I don’t want you to read into anything I’m about to say,” he begins, and I blink at him in surprise. He laughs and kisses me again. “That sounded ominous,” he hurries on when he’s pulled away, but since his lips leave me pretty much breathless, I can’t respond anyway. “I just mean that we can’t be like …this—” He gestures with his head to the way I’m sitting in his lap, pressed up against him. “—in front of the girls.This,” he says again with so much innuendo in his tone that my cheeks heat again, “is a lot of fun. That kiss was …” He stares at me instead of answering. “But until we know that this is forever, I have to think of them, and how difficult it would be for them to lose you.”
This time I lean in and brush his lips. “You don’t have to explain,” I say against them. “This is how I know I’m falling hard for you too.” I lean back enough that I can stare at him meaningfully. “I want to protect them too.”
