Page 169 of The Sweetest Return

“I'm here.”

I kissed her.

I didn't do it for the people watching, but I also wasn't going to withhold affection because somebody might see. They’d have to get used to seeing me love on my woman.

My woman.

Possessiveness rose fast and hot inside of me. I wanted to spend my life showing her what being my woman meant.

When I pulled back, her eyes were sparkling with emotion.

“Come on,” I said. “Let me take you home.”

“To your home,” she corrected.

My mouth curved. “For now.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

One minute we were moving through Pittsburgh traffic, and the next Dre was turning onto a private road that climbed into the hillside, the lights of the city spreading below us in gold and white. I sat forward before I could help it, my attention moving from the view to the matte-black gate ahead, then to the stone columns, cameras, and keypad tucked discreetly beside the drive.

“Oh.”

Dre glanced over. “That good or bad?”

“I’m still deciding.”

His mouth curved as he lowered the window and entered a code without looking down. His fingers apparently knew the numbers well enough to work without him, and a few seconds later the gates opened.

The road carried us higher between trees beginning to turn for fall. Pittsburgh appeared in pieces through the branches, close enough to recognize and far enough to feel removed, and when the gate closed behind us, something in my shoulders loosened before I realized I had been carrying tension there.

Wealth was obviously part of what surrounded me. So was privacy, but underneath both I understood the necessity of protection. Dre couldn't simply choose a pretty neighborhood and expect the world to leave him alone because he asked nicely.

The house appeared at the end of the drive, all glass, stone, dark wood, and warm light cut into the hillside. I had no idea what I expected from Andre Jones’s home, but apparently some part of me had prepared for an expensive bachelor advertisement. Framed jerseys. Trophies in every room. Furniture selected by somebody who had been instructed to make everything masculine, impressive, and difficult to sit on.

Instead, when we stepped inside from the garage, I found warmth.

Dark floors stretched beneath soft lighting. Black art filled the walls in a way that looked collected rather than purchased by the square foot. Faces. Movement. Bronze, deep blue, gold. One large piece near the living room showed a body caught somewhere between motion and rest, and I stood in front of it long enough for Dre to notice.

“You like that one?”

“I do.”

“Found the artist in Atlanta a few years ago.”

I looked toward him. “You found the artist?”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am adjusting several assumptions tonight.”

He laughed and took my coat.

Beyond us, the living room opened toward enormous windows that gave Pittsburgh back to him through glass and trees. The house was unquestionably rich, from the land to the view to a kitchen that seemed to contain more stone than some museums, but what struck me most was how little Dre appeared to need any of it to make a statement.

Twenty-two-year-old Dre would have loved the proof. The gate. The house. The kind of view that could answer every person who had ever underestimated him without him saying a word. He had wanted the league, the tunnel, the noise, his name reaching beyond AWU and the Hill and every small expectation the world had tried to place around him.

I had loved that Dre. God help me, I really had.