He was so wrong. Oh, so very wrong.
“Everything Idohas to do with them. I have to take them into consideration. Always. What happened in the hallway?” She swallowed the thick cotton in her throat. “I can’t lose control like that. They could haveseen.”
What if Brady or Kellan had come home early? How would she have explained what she was doing?
“You’re serious?” Travis asked, looking like she’d struck him with a smack of her palm.
For the first time that afternoon, his expression went distant. He dropped his hands from her.
Maybe they could just go back to bickering. That was so much easier than this.
“I’ve never been more serious.” She crossed her arms around herself again because…she had to.
“Rach…” He shoved his thumbs into the waistband of his slacks. “I…”
“Trav…” She needed him to understand.
He glanced up quickly, so many emotions flickering over his face.
“Fuck…” he said.
“Fuck what?” she asked, totally unsure of what was happening with him.
“You have never, not ever”—he lifted a palm to her jaw, stroking the pad of his thumb over the apple of her cheek—“called me”—he leaned in closer—“Trav.”
The fire in his eyes seemed to melt everything in her body.
“Really?” That couldn’t be true.
“I would’ve noticed.” He turned from her, paced to the wall in the dim room, and took a visibly deep breath.
Was that true? It must be. He’d always been Travis.
“Do you even know how long I’ve wanted you?” he asked.
“Travis.” She took a step closer to him, her body seemingly on a mission of its own to get closer to this man even as she resolved internally to stop the forward momentum between them so they could get back to where they were earlier. The comfortable in-between with no guarantees and just…friendship.
Abruptly, he turned back to her. “Don’t do that.”
She stopped, suddenly unsure how to get back to that comfortable spot she wanted, even as her body craved the opposite. “Don’t?”
He moved to her and shook his head.
“You give me Trav, then take it away. That’s who I am to you.” He grazed his lips against hers in a nearly there kiss that literally made her toes curl. “I’m comfortable. I’m a place you can relax. And you’re a place I can be serious. Don’t take that away.”
This man drove her batty. This man made her wet. Made her want. Made her need.
Her body hadn’t craved a man like this for years.
The question was, what was she going to do about it?
Chapter Seventeen
“Moms are like superheroes. We hide in plain sight until someone figures out that yes we do do it all!” — Janet, Florida, USA
Rachel
“Trav.” She pressed the length of her body to his, gripping the button-down cotton shirt.
