I’d been hit on at work before, but it didn’t feel that way with Walker. He hadn’t hit on me, not really. At the end of my shift, he’d asked me to a nearby bar, no pretense, no phony coaxing, and I’d said yes without hesitation. I’ve asked myself a thousand times why? What made him feel so safe?
Now I know.
It had been his eyes. They’d been so achingly sad and lonely. Not in a pitiful, I’ll be your female knight-in-shining-armor kind of way. More in an I’ve found my likeness in another sort of way. In his eyes, I saw my own loneliness reflected and for a moment, maybe I thought…it’s silly now, but maybe I thought he’d understand how that felt.
I wonder if he can read how much I want him in my eyes just as easily. The air between us seems to crackle with potential. Potential for heat. For more. Potential for heartbreak. The tension sizzles along my skin, taking with it what little self-control I’d cultivated.
Giving in, I lift my hand to his chest and nearly shiver at the mere feeling of his warmth underneath my palm. I’ve spent so many nights since he kissed me after the storm reliving the moment and wishing I’d let myself enjoy it more that my knees nearly buckle at the contact. Underneath my palm, his heart beats in an unsteady gallop and I wonder if he’s thought about touching me as much as I have him.
I look up and his blue-gray eyes have gone stormy dark. His lips are slightly parted and his chest lifts rapidly with each inhalation. My stomach clenches with the knowledge that I’m not the only one who has been tortured by the distance. I’m not the only one who has been suffering with needs long repressed.
“We should put the baby down for bed,” he says in a rough voice. “So she gets enough sleep for tomorrow.”
“She’s fine,” I say with a shake of my head.
“Avery,” he warns.
But for the first time in my life, I don’t heed the warnings. Don’t follow the rules. I lift up to the tips of my toes to reach his lips and kiss him like I’ve been wanting to kiss him since I first saw him. His hands come to my hips, but they don’t push me away. Instead, they grip and hold as though he’s afraid to let me go, too.
A bud of hope takes place in my chest as his lips part for me and his tongue flits out to caress my own. The hands at my hips tighten almost to the point of pain, but I don’t care. All I want is to drown in him for a little while longer. He retreats, but only to rub his lips over mine, to tease and tempt. I push myself up higher, riddled with need, which makes him laugh.
“Don’t laugh,” I say indignantly. “Just kiss me.”
“So impatient,” he teases and pleases us both by bringing his mouth back to mine.
This kiss is deeper and longer. It brings to mind tangled sheets and slick skin. If kissing him was a mistake, it’s one I want to make over and over and over again.
I don’t know who made the first move, but the next thing I know I’m beneath him on the threadbare couch. He feels so good on top of me it almost makes me want to climb out of my own skin because the wanting him is so intense. His hands are all over me, restless with his own urgency. My thighs part to bring him closer and I hiss my pleasure at the contact. All I can think about is that I want more.
The baby chooses that moment to start crying.
Walker freezes above me, his head popping up in disbelief. My body goes limp with frustration and I press my hands to my face to fight for some semblance of self-control. With careful movements, he gets to his feet.
“I’ll get her,” he says.
I’m grateful for the moment to myself to put the needy parts of me back together again. I’d been close, so close, to the edge and he’d barely even touched me. If I thought it would be easy to do this co-parenting thing without making it complicated, I knew now I was dead wrong.
Chapter Eleven
Walker
“We need to talk.”
No one likes to hear those words, but I’d been expecting them ever since we kissed the night before Christmas. We’d been able to toe around the tension between us while we focused on Gracie, but her kissing me changed everything. “I know. Did Gracie go down?” I ask.
“For the count.” Avery settles on the couch next to me. It’s two days past Christmas, but I couldn’t seem to make myself leave. Opening presents with Gracie, Rosie, and Avery had been the kind of holidays I’d never gotten as a child after my brother died. Maybe I wanted to soak up as much of it as possible, not that Avery seemed to mind.
Until now.
She didn’t object when I suggested I stay the night—on the couch—to help with Grandma Rosie once she caught a nasty cold after the holiday. In fact, part of her seemed relieved. Maybe she thought I’d run at the first opportunity. Maybe she wanted me to stick around. At this point, I didn’t know which option I preferred. Both equally scare the shit out of me.
“What did you need to talk about?”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Avery says directly.
I’ve learned since I’ve been around her that keeping things to herself is an aberration. She must have been truly scared to withhold the truth about Gracie for so long—not that that’s an excuse. In her day-to-day life Avery tackles her responsibilities head on which includes any confrontations. I won’t ever forget that she lied by omission, but I can understand her reasoning more. Or at least her state of mind when she did what she did.
“I’ve been less than twenty feet away from you for nearly a week.”
Avery rolls her eyes. “Don’t play dumb. It was the kiss, wasn’t it? Did it make it too weird? Look, I’m sorry for coming on to you if that’s not what you wanted. The last thing I want to do is to make this harder on anyone. Gracie is the only one who matters here and if you meant it about putting our parenting relationship first, then I’ll respect that from this point forward. I know you may not have forgiven me for what I did, I mean I understand—”
I press my fingers over her lips and bite back a smile. God, she loves to ramble when she gets all worked up. I didn’t know that about her. There are so many things I don’t know about her. So many things I wish I could learn about her. “I’ve forgiven you.”
She deflates a little, then says, “You have?”
Nodding, I drop my fingers and say, “I’ve seen how hard it is for you to work, take care of your grandma and take care of Gracie. You’re a good mom, Ave, and I can accept that you were scared of how I’d react. We never really knew each other, and it was a crazy situation to be put in. I can’t say how I’d react if something similar happened to me, so I have no right to judge you. I’m not going to lie and say it doesn’t hurt having missed everything, but I’m willing to work with you to move forward.”
“Wow, that’s not what I was expecting you to say,” she says with a laugh. “Thank you. I hope you know I mean that. You’ve done so much for us already and—”
“Stop, you don’t have to keep thanking me. I do those things because I want to.”
She gestures over her lips with a zipping motion.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about, too.”