“Want me to read you a bedtime story?” Aurora interjects, and he nods emphatically.
“Can you read me the book you gave me?” Aurora’s present she brought for him was a children’s book about boats.
“I would be more than happy to, but only if you do what your dad says.”
Connor scrambles off her lap and runs down the hall singing the boat song.
“I really hate that song,” I muse, stacking dishes from the table to take them into the kitchen.
Aurora stills my hands with her own. “You know the rules, mister. The cook never cleans.”
I instinctively put the plates down and thread my fingers with hers. I hear her breath shudder and watch as her light blue eyes darken before she pulls her hand away.
Following her into the kitchen, I tell her, “You can just leave everything in the sink. I’ll get to it later.”
Propping a hip against the counter island, Aurora asks, “Do you miss it? Football, I mean.”
I mirror her pose, looking to the ceiling for an answer. “Not like I should,” I answer honestly. “I will always love the game, and the money didn’t hurt either. But no, I’m not sad I ended my professional career.”
She chews on that information for a minute. “Can I see?” she asks, motioning to the exposed tattoo on my forearm.
I got a full sleeve done four years ago. If she pays attention, she’ll recognize the interlocking designs and pictures, and the words ‘my sunshine’ hidden in the colors of the rising sun. I roll up my shirtsleeve past my elbow so she can have a better look.
“May I?”
In answer, I hold my arm out to her. She cups my elbow in one palm to hold it while the fingers of her other hand trace up and down the pictures on my arm. My body reacts to her touch like Pavlov’s dog and my dick instantly hardens, pressing painfully behind the zipper of my jeans. I crave this girl with every fiber of my being. I haven’t been with nor touched another woman since Aurora. I didn’t want to. So it’s no surprise that years of abstinence and one innocent touch from her has my cock hard as steel.
As she examines my ink, I ask her, “Did you ever watch one of my games?”
She shakes her head no.
It really, truly hits me for the first time how much I hurt her. Dustin said for the past five years, she refused to say my name or hear it spoken in her presence. I was the complete opposite. I basically stalked her online, pouring through social media, our hometown news, anything I could find. For being part of the famous Montgomery family, she has very little online presence. Aurora has kept her life private over the years and away from the leering eye of the media.
The pad of her thumb is tracing circles around my forearm, and I’m about to lose my fucking mind from how turned on I am. She tips her face up to look at me, her fingers still trailing lazily up and down my arm. I step a little closer to erase the space between us.
“I like having you here,” I remark.
“In your kitchen?”
“Yes, that too, but not what I meant. I like having you here with me, in my space—where you belong.”
“I’m not with you, JD. I’m with Knox,” she whispers, lips parting slightly.
“I don’t fucking care,” I tell her and pull her the rest of the way into my body, my hand sliding into her hair at the nape of her neck. “Tell me you don’t feel this,” I say. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
Aurora says nothing but the way her body is melting into mine tells me everything. Tightening my grip in her hair, I lean in to capture her lips.
Connor decides at that moment to yell for Aurora to come read to him. The intense sexual charge between us is broken and she presses her forehead to my chest, fingers gripping my shirt.
“Kids and their awful timing.” I kiss the top of her head.
Aurora steps away from me and my stomach plummets as I watch her walls come back up. She smooths her facial expression so I can no longer see what she’s feeling.
“I only promised we would talk tonight, JD. That’s all I’m going to be able to give you.”
Chapter 48
Somehow, after Connor finally falls asleep—five stories and two glasses of water later—I find myself sitting cross-legged on JD’s massive leather sofa, waiting for the talk he wants to have tonight. I’d rather eat broken glass. That’s what it feels like anyway. My nervousness kicks up a notch when he takes a seat on the floor at my feet instead of on the other side of the sofa. It’s like he’s wanting to cage me in just to make sure I can’t escape.
