My mouth was almost on hers when she whispered, “Hayden.”
My name sounded soft in her voice, and it did something brutal to me.
Then, with color deepening across her cheeks, she added, “Helena is inside.”
That should have stopped me. It should have dragged sense back into my head and reminded me that this home was not only hers anymore. My daughter was inside. Christmas Eve was waiting behind her. A gift bag hung from my hand, and I hadcome here to introduce myself properly, not to put my mouth on Edwina the second she opened the door.
But she stood there trembling under my gaze, cheeks flushed, lips parted around my name, and every decent thought in my head went straight to hell.
I did not kiss her mouth. Instead, I turned my head and brushed my lips against the edge of her cheek before lowering them near her ear. Her body trembled before I even spoke.
“Then don’t look at me that way,” I said.
The words came out rough, intimate, and far from innocent.
She drew in a breath. “I’m not—”
“Bullshit,” I whispered, close enough for my mouth to graze the skin beneath her ear. “You open the door trembling under my gaze, breathing like that, saying my name like it still belongs in your mouth, and you expect me to act like a decent man?”
“Hayden,” she said again, quieter this time. There was warning in it, but there was heat too, and that was the part that made me want to forget every reason I had come here angry.
Then she pulled herself together with visible effort and said, “Enough.”
The word came out breathless, and that made it worse.
I looked at her mouth first, then her eyes, and the little bit of control I had left nearly went to hell. She kept one hand on the door, trying to look irritated, trying to pretend she was not still flushed from the way I had spoken against her skin. Edwina had always been good at pretending. Her body had always been shit at helping her.
“Did you come here to flirt with me,” she asked, “or to meet Helena?”
That almost made me smile.
Instead, I stayed where I was, close enough to make her remember I had not moved away because I wanted to. She had left herself in reach. That was her mistake. If Edwina was goingto stand in front of me with that blush on her face and ask a question that stupid, I was going to make her regret it a little.
“Both,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “Hayden.”
“What?” I asked, letting my gaze drag over her face. “I came to meet my daughter. I also came here with half my sanity gone because you opened the door looking like sin wrapped in cream wool and tried to act innocent about it.”
Her blush deepened, and fuck, that sight did things to me I had no business letting it do. My cock was rock hard, straining against my pants. I wanted to bury it deep inside her sweet, tight pussy, feel her warmth envelop me as I thrust in and out. I craved to taste her cunt, lick and suck her clit until she was writhing and moaning in ecstasy. I tightened my grip on the gift bag because it was the only thing keeping my hands from going somewhere far less decent. I bent closer, my mouth near her ear. “If Helena weren’t inside, and if you gave me one honest yes, I’d have you against this door with my mouth on every place that still remembers me.”
She inhaled sharply. I felt it. Every sweet, guilty little tremor.When I straightened, she looked warmer than before, more flustered, and I let her sit inside it for a second. The blush. The breath. The way her body had answered me before her pride could catch up.
Then she narrowed her eyes, though the look would have worked better if she did not still look ready to fall apart under my gaze.
“Go inside,” she muttered.
I took my time answering. “You’re inviting me in now?”
Her stare flattened. “Do not test me.”
A dark smile touched my mouth. “Too fucking late.”
She made a small sound under her breath, somewhere between irritation and disbelief, before stepping aside to let mein. She gave me one last warning look as I passed, as if I had already said too much and she knew damn well I was nowhere near finished.
I brushed past her slowly, close enough for my shoulder to almost touch hers. Her perfume caught under my skin, and the tension in her body told me she felt the same pull. Because apparently I had no fucking mercy where Edwina was concerned, I dipped my head as I passed and murmured, “We’re not finished yet.”
“Hayden,” she warned.
