At the door, I snagged her around the waist and kissed the ever-lovin’ hell out of her and when I stepped back to leave she giggled, her gaze scanning my body. When they locked on my manhood, it didn’t help the situation I had going on. The heat in her eyes only made matters worse.
But when Gemma’s tongue darted out and licked her lower lip, I about came unglued. A deep groan barreled up from inside me and I ran my hands through my hair.
“Maybe I should help you take care of that first?” Her words were whispered and shy, but my cock had heard them loud and clear.
“Love, you’re killing me.” I yanked her into my embrace and kissed her senseless again before reluctantly letting her go and moving into the hall. “It’ll go away,” I muttered.
Another giggle escaped her and I knew it was now or never. If I didn’t get going, there was no telling what would happen and I was trying to do the right thing by giving her time to come to the conclusion that what had just happened needed to not only happen again but also go so much further.
It was her call when she was ready for that.
I just prayed it would be sooner rather than later, but knew I’d wait as long as she needed.
“Lock the door behind me,” I said, firmly.
She rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated huff.
I chuckled and pointed at the lock. “Be back in a bit.”
Our eyes held one another’s for a moment and then I turned to leave but paused long enough to hear her shut the door, then click the lock into place.
The guys needed to talk fast.
* * *
All the menstudied me when I sat down late to the table.
“What the hell happened to you?” Braxton asked. “You look a little crazed.”
That was the understatement of the year.
Gemma had been driving me crazy since the second I met her. But after watching her fall apart in my arms and against my mouth not less than twenty minutes before I met the guys, my heart and mind weren’t firing on all cylinders.
Not answering the question because I honestly didn’t know how, I glanced around and my eyes landed on Kace. A slow grin spread across his face and he started to chuckle. “Well, well, well, looks like the old man has it bad for our little sister and requires a relationship intervention.”
“How do you know—” I stopped abruptly when I realized I was giving myself away and tried to change course but it was too late. “You don’t know shit.”
All the guys started to crack up.
“We knew it was only a matter of time,” Gyth said.
Braxton, Landon, Kace, Rowan, and Lyric too, all nodded their heads in agreement with the giant man.
“We want you both to be happy, but you need to be sure of what you want,” Braxton told me with a grim look. “She is, as Kace said, our little sister in every way that matters.”
Maybe I should have been a bit pissed that he was so concerned for Gemma when in fact he and I had known each other longer, but I couldn’t be. It was fucking amazing that he and the guys looked out for her and she had them in her corner. My face must have given away some of my thoughts because he added more.
“That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t say the same thing to Gemma. You have been through so much and deserve someone who is with you for all the right reasons. And not only you but your daughters too.”
I felt like a sap when my heart gave a little squeeze at his words but it was a good feeling to have friends like I did now that we’d moved. Back home, everything had felt distant, filled with sad memories, and strained with mine and Isabelle’s families because of everyone's sorrow over the loss of an amazing soul.
While I believed moving would help me, Peyton, and Piper, I never in my wildest imagination thought I would meet a woman who made me feel the things that Gemma did. Every time I was around her it was like being caught in a web of lust, desire, and happiness only she had brought into my life in so long. I was caught and never wanted to break free.
But there was still a little niggle in the back of my head when I was away from her that asked if I was doing the right thing for Gemma.
Could I ever be what she truly needed at my age and with everything I had been through? The amazing woman was meant to have it all, including children of her own. A shudder ran through me at the thought of ever fathering another child. Not because I was against children, I loved mine more than anything in the world, but because I couldn’t bear for what had happened to Isabelle to ever happen again to someone I cared about.
I thought these same things so many times in the last few months.
