As she crosses to the passenger side, I lean over and shove it open for her.
She stands there, clearly uncertain. “Did you mean it? What you said? Or was that just a…a…I don’t know. Like a come-on or something?”
“Some of both.” I watch her. “Get in.”
After a second’s hesitation, she swings into the truck and shuts the door, then just sits there, staring straight ahead through the windshield.
“I don’t need a husband,” she says, her voice low and tight.
“I wasn’t proposing.”
I feel the shocked little breath she lets out deep down in my balls. What is it about this woman? Every physical response from her draws one from me. Vague recollections hit me from science class, way back in the day. Newton’s law, was it? For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction? Funny. Here we are, I guess. Newton’s theory in action.
“Right. Of course. In that case, would you consider being a donor, without any contact?”
“No.”
“Wow. Okay.” She pauses, obviously considering. Which is far more than I expected. Not that I expected anything. Hell, Ishocked myself when I opened my mouth with the offer to knock her up. “What if…what if… Crap, I don’t know. What if it works and then you try to tell me how to raise my child and?—”
“I wouldn’t ask for shit from you.”
“The thing is, I don’t sleep with employees.”
I give her a look that saysAre you kidding me?We both know I’m not your regular employee. We also both know that there’s a term limit here.
She huffs out an unhappy sound. “I need a cook.”
“I’ll be out of your hair as soon as you find me a replacement.”
“Easier said than done.”
“No luck?”
She shakes her head, drops her face, and rubs her eyes.
“Once it’s…over, you’ll leave town? Stay out of our lives?”
“Absolutely. I’m not in the market for a family.” Not now. Not ever.
She nods, her sigh so heavy I feel the weight of it, of everything she carries around on those narrow shoulders. “Why the hell would you do this for me?”
With relief, I let the full truth out: “I’ve wanted to get my dick inside you since I first laid eyes on that face.”
Her laugh is high, shocked. “You’re a real prince.”
“Not even a little.”
“I’m getting that.”
I half turn and let myself loom, let her get how big I am, how it would feel to be crowded by me, show her what it’ll be like when I’m up in her space. “I’d make it so goddamn good, Kit. You’d forget there’s an endgame.”
She shifts and I swear she’s squeezing those thick thighs together. Is it wishful thinking or is she as excited by this as I am? “What if…what if once isn’t enough?”
It won’t be. I know that already. I also see how skittish she is when it comes to men. Not as though she’s scared of us, but like she’s been burned and figured out through firsthand experience that the best way to avoid it is to cut us out entirely.
“We’ve got a little less than five weeks to figure that out.”
“Right. Right.” She turns fully my way. “I make the rules.”
