It’s been so long. So damn long, and it feels so good. “Please—” I beg frantically, rocking over him, seeking more. More.
He groans against me, working me harder with his tongue while I shift against him, seeking more friction where his hardness is pressed against my aching clit. That invisible string that connects what he’s doing with his mouth to the very core of me tightens, and I realize that I’m going to come. For the first time in almost a year, I’m heartbeats away from an orgasm that isn’t self-induced.
This sexy as sin man is going to make me come with just his mouth and fingers on my nipples, and I’m begging for it to happen.
Brazenly, wantonly begging.
Shame crashes over me like a tidal wave, reminding me of what I’m doing. I pull away from him with a cry, scrambling up off of his lap. My face is on fire—not to mention the rest of me that is internally screaming for stopping when I was so fucking close.
With shaking fingers, I yank my tank top up so that my breasts are covered again and back away several steps.
Xander’s breathing is harsh, his chest heaving. His cock is hard and tents the front of his gym shorts as he stands. “Teddy, what?—”
But I shake my head as tears well in my eyes. What am I doing? What am I thinking? Making out with my hot as shit neighbor while my kids and my dead husband's parents sleep just twenty feet away?
Fisting the folds of my robe in my fingers, I cross my arms over my middle, doing my best to shrink into myself. To hide. Shame burns through me relentlessly.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper miserably, raising my eyes to his. That blue is so expressive, so stunningly bright. “I shouldn’t have come over here.”
“Teddy,” he growls, though the sound isn’t threatening at all. He takes a step forward, his hands reaching for me, almost beseechingly. “Stop, please.”
“This was wrong,” I whisper, holding one hand up, palm out, and he halts.
He shakes his head, lips thinned into a hard line. “No, it wasn’t.”
His eyes blaze into mine, though there’s no anger, no resentment. Just a plea, and it breaks me wide open.
Turning my hand, I show him the back of it, spreading my fingers wide. The moonlight glints off that damn ring still on my finger. The ring that still connects me to my husband. My dead husband.
“I can’t take this off, Xander. I’m not ready to. I’m not…I’m notwholeanymore.” I sob once, rolling my lips in and clamping my teeth over them to keep another one from breaking out of me. “I’m so broken. I’m not ready to start anything new, and I can’t do casual. I can’t. You are so good and kind and perfect and I’m justbroken?—”
“Teddy, youare not broken,” he whispers, taking another two steps toward me. I don’t back up this time. He wraps his arms around me, firm but gentle, and gathers me against his chest. I let him as the tears tumble out of me. “You are not broken, sweetheart.”
He holds me until the tears stop, until the shaking subsides, and I melt into his warmth, drained and exhausted.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers against my hair, where I can feel his lips move.
My cheek is pressed flat against his chest, where I can both feel and hear his heart beating beneath his sternum. He smells amazing. Like citrus and cedar and smoke. I breathe him in, letting my body soften against his.
I don’t want to want him, but God do I want him so badly. I like Xander. Like,really like him.
As the panic and anxiety fade and I melt into his embrace, I let myself believe maybe… maybe starting something new with someone as kind and gentle as him wouldn’t be the end of the world I keep thinking it will be…
I can be brave, right?
I nuzzle against him and take a deep, shuddering breath in, at the same time he squeezes me tighter against him. All of these things that I’ve been missing so desperately. Being held, being kissed, being wanted… not being alone and so damn sad all the time. He sighs above me, pressing his lips to my temple and I squeeze my eyes shut at the way it just feels so right to be held like this.
Maybe… maybe it’s time. With someone like him, I can be brave. We could make this work, right?
“You’re right,” he whispers then, and I wonder if I uttered the last part out loud. But his words are quiet, sad, and my brows knit together in confusion. “This was probably a bad idea. I don’t domore. Ican’tdo anything more than casual, Teddy. My job…”
He trails off, and I don’t need him to finish the sentence, because I know what he’s not saying, what he won’t say. His job is dangerous and also the most important thing in his life. A relationship would complicate that. Something I have always known but let myself ignore.
But that doesn’t stop the way my chest constricts excruciatinglyat his words, making my breath stutter in my throat. He leans his cheek against the top of my head and it sends shards of agony ricocheting through me, but I’m frozen, unable to move.
He takes a deep breath in and then breathes miserably, “And I needed this reminder of why I don’t get involved with single moms.”
As my chest cracks open wide, I realize far, far too late, that my silly, naïve heart had already decided on wanting more. I’m not brave… and I was a fool for thinking I could be.
