Chapter 22
After arguing with Colleen and Kent about sleeping arrangements, I’d finally convinced them to stay in my bedroom while I sleep on the couch. They’re my guests, after all, and the sofa doesn’t pull out into a bed, so it just doesn’t make any sense for them to move from the queen-sized bed to a small couch. I have Bea’s bassinet set up next to me, and I’m comfortable with an extra pillow and a soft blanket. It’s just for one night, anyway, I’d argued.
Besides, I’m so keyed up from my encounter with Xander I can’t sleep. I’ve been staring at the ceiling for at least an hour. Scrolling through my phone. Listening to the sounds outside the slider door I’d kept cracked open.
It’s late. Bea’s already woken for her late feeding and is now down for the night, and I know she won’t wake again until close to five or six in the morning. I should be sleeping. But I can’t.
I’m angry at myself, at Colleen for pushing, at Xander for being so goddamn perfect and handsome and kind. I’m angry at Logan for leaving us, for putting me in this situation. And then the anger at myself starts all over again, because Logan didn’t leave us… I sent him out on that call and he died because of it. I sent him out and he never got to come home.
But the truth of it is, he’s not here. He’s never going to come home. The life I had imagined for myself is gone.
The most terrifying thing? Sitting there with Xander, drinking a beer and laughing and flirting—yes, I was flirting—I’d seen what a new life could look like… If only there weren’t so many things in our way. So many obstacles that will make any kind of future together impossible.
He’s a hotshot. He has one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and he loves his job, I can tell just by the way he talks about it. It’s in his blood, his soul, his heart. Every heartbeat is for his job, his crew, his passion…
And mine is for my kids.
How selfish would I be to put any of us through that kind of hell again? To start anything with someone that at any second may not come back to us?
Throwing my arm over my eyes, I groan as silently as possible so I don’t wake Bea sleeping next to me. But God, why is he so perfect? He’s thoughtful and kind and so damn good with my kids it’s not fair. Why couldn’t he be a boring accountant and the worst possible thing that could happen is a papercut?
My breath stalls in my chest when I hear the telltale swish of a glass slider door, followed by the slight rattle of the screen being pushed open, then closed. A creak and metallic groan drift through the darkened night beyond my own patio doors, and I can imagine him sinking into that old, weathered folding chair that looks like it’s straight from the nineties. The pop of a bottle top is all that my straining ears can make out.
As silently as I can, I climb off the couch, checking to make sure Bea stays sleeping. I’m dressed in short sleeper shorts and a nursing tank top in deference to the ever-present late summer heat that hasn’t abated yet. But I pull my flimsy robe up my arms, tying it around my waist, and then slip out the patio door .
Rounding the little partition, I see Xander sitting in that chair, bare chested and wearing only a pair of gym shorts. He’s got a bottle of beer in one hand, the other hand wrapped around the back of his neck, kneading the muscles there. The moon filtering through the trees above casts a silvery glow on everything, casting his face into sharp relief and deep shadows. His gaze seems nearly electric as he stares at me from where I stopped.
“Can’t sleep either?” I ask quietly, my voice nearly a whisper. He continues staring at me and I shift on my bare feet. I nod toward where he’s still massaging the muscles of his shoulder. “Is that still bothering you?”
He smiles ruefully and nods. “It’ll be fine. You should go back to bed, Teddy.”
But I move forward slowly, so that I can step up behind his chair. Brushing his hand aside and ignoring the zap of heat that rushes through me at just that little contact, I take a deep breath, then place both of my hands on his bare shoulders. He tenses, then grunts and twists his neck to one side. His skin is hot beneath my fingers, soft and velvety. The contrast between his darkly tanned skin and my pale fingers is thrilling. I don’t remember the last time I touched a man like this.
I start slow, massaging the back of his neck at the base of his skull, and work my way down. Across his impossibly wide, hard shoulders that are so beautifully made, ridged with tight muscle. He groans as I work on a particularly tight knot in the base of his neck that extends down his right shoulder blade, his head dropping forward until it nearly touches his chest. He’s braced his elbows on his widespread knees, allowing me better access to the broad expanse of his back and shoulders. His body is amazing, and I’m a little embarrassed at how turned on I am just by rubbing this man’s shoulders.
“Fucking hell that hurts,” he grunts through gritted teeth. I chuckle lightly, backing off my touch a little. He reaches his left hand up and covers my fingers with his, holding me there. His touch burns through me, heating me up from the inside. His hand falls away. “Don’t stop. Please.”
My fingers are starting to ache, but I keep going until he’s a pliant, mushy pile of goo in the chair before me. I smile in the dark as I stare at the back of his head, which is tipped down low. His dark hair looks incredibly soft, and I let myself slide my fingers up the back of his neck and into the hairline at the base of his skull, using my nails to scratch lightly. The strands of dark hair are like silk against my fingertips, and I do it again. Goosebumps flash across his shoulders and he shivers, a groan escaping him. Though this time, the sound isn’t one of that pleasurable-pain from massaging a sore muscle, but more guttural, more primal. Sexual.
The sound skitters through me, and I realize then that I’m damn near panting, standing behind him, my fingers shoved up through his hair. My heart is beating a frantic rhythm in my chest.
He raises his head and turns just the slightest, my hand following the movement, still threaded through his hair, until I’m staring at him in profile. The silvery, incandescent light of the moon highlights his features. He doesn’t look at me as he reaches down to set the forgotten beer on the ground, then that same hand comes up and takes hold of my wrist in a firm grip.
I’m shaking, trembling where I stand behind him as his warm fingers wrap around my wrist. My hand slides out of his hair to rest on his shoulder. He tugs lightly, guiding me around the side of the chair until I’m standing directly in front of him, then pulls me forward so that I’m forced to step in between his wide spread knees. The outsides of my thighs—bare to high thigh beneath the short hem of the robe and my sleep shorts—brush against the insides of his. The dusting of dark hair on his legs tickles the outsides of my thighs, a sensation I haven’t felt in so long, and it’s electric and thrilling. My fingers trace along the ridges of his shoulders, feather light, as my eyes collide with the pale blue of his. His gaze is hot, so fucking hot, as he stares at me, before those eyes drop to my mouth.
From where he’s sitting in the chair, the top of his head is level with the bottom of my chin. His fingers are still wrapped around my wrist, though his grip is light and tentative. Those fingers trail across the outside of my forearm from my wrist to my elbow until he’s cupping the outside of my bicep in his palm.
I stop breathing altogether when he turns his head and presses his lips to the inside of my wrist, where I’m sure my pulse is practically galloping beneath my skin. He kisses the sensitive flesh and my breath rushes in and out as heat envelopes me from head to toe, and it has nothing to do with the summer temperature. His short cropped beard tickles the inside of my wrist, and I shiver.
“Teddy,” he whispers against my flesh, his lips moving almost imperceptibly, his voice coming out low and husky. Just this man’s voice is an aphrodisiac to my starved libido.
His eyes meet mine again, hot and so intense it stuns me with the way he sees me. Like he really sees me. It’s alarming and disarming and God I’ve missed being looked at like this.
At some point while I’d been massaging his shoulders, my robe shifted, and the top folds of it hang over the tie at my waist, revealing the tank top beneath that’s barely covering my breasts. His other hand moves slowly, almost as if he’s trying not to spook me into running, and tugs at one of the ties of the belt until it falls away, letting the sides of the robe drop open entirely. All that covers me now is the thin tank top and the barely-there sleep shorts that have bunched up around the thick part of my thighs.
He groans out a quiet sigh, pressing his mouth into my wrist again while his eyes travel over me, and then the fingers that just laid me open slide over the curve of my waist beneath the robe, palming my hip. I can’t help it, my eyes flutter closed and my fingers tighten where they’re clutching his hard shoulders. The heat of his hand through my tank top is like an inferno, so hot it’s melting me from the inside out. That same palm slides around my waist to my back, urging me closer, and I don’t think… I just do.
I step closer, bringing my chest nearly to his cheek. I’m practically panting now, my chest rising and falling with heavy breaths, and my heart is pounding in my chest like a jackhammer. Xander turns his head, his lips leaving the sensitive flesh at my wrist and his mouth grazes the curve of my breast through my tank top. I let my head drop back so that I can stare up at the stars through the trees above us, my panting breaths the only sound in the silence of the night.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispers, his voice wrapping around me at the same time his arms do. Pulling me closer, until our bodies are pressed against each other. My fingers slide into his hair again, clutching his head to me as he presses kisses to the curves of my breasts, which are aching and I so badly want to feel his mouth on me but I’m too terrified to ask. “ So fucking pretty, Teddy .”
His hands are hot as they travel down my hips and over my ass to the backs of my bare thighs. Fingers digging into the V between my legs, he smooths his palms up and down my legs again and again. Clamping my teeth over my bottom lip, I squeeze my eyes shut, embarrassment wracking through me as this adonis of a man slides his hands over the softness that is everywhere on me.
I’m not fit. I’m not small. And this man is stupidly, outrageously attractive.
I gasp when those fingers dig in between my thighs, spreading them wider, and then he’s pulling me forward again, spreading my legs over his to straddle his thighs. I land on him with another sharp gasp and immediately try to stand, to raise my weight off of him. The chair creaks in protest of our combined weight and I’m mortified all over again. “Xander, let me up?—”
But his hands are at my waist again, sliding beneath the hem of my tank top and holding me in place. “You’re right where I want you, beautiful.”
“But—”
“Shhh,” he whispers, reaching up to thread his fingers into the back of my hair, lightly, gently. His eyes are intense on mine, his breathing ragged, chest heaving. His thigh muscles bunch and shift beneath me and I can feel just how hard his abs are. God this man is gorgeous. “I’ve wanted to feel you against me. You feel fucking perfect right where you are. Fuck, Teddy, this is all I’ve wanted. All I’ve thought about.”
“Xander,” I whimper, my eyes bouncing between his. I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t done anything like this in so long, and not with anyone other than Logan… well, ever. But I want this. I’m aching between my thighs, low in my belly, and I think I’m damn near desperate to finally feel his mouth on mine, to taste him… The fingers in the back of my hair tighten, tilting my head toward his.
“I don’t want to do something you don’t want,” he whispers roughly, his eyes dropping to my mouth. “But goddamn, I want to kiss you so fucking bad right now, beautiful.”
A stuttered, shaky breath escapes my parted lips, and I nod.
No part of me is prepared for Xander’s mouth on mine, though. He slants his mouth over mine hungrily, lips parting almost immediately, tongue darting out to tease the seam of my lips. I gasp sharply and it allows him entrance, and the first touch of his tongue to mine is like a lightning strike to my nervous system.
My entire being is on fire, and the only thing that I want right now is Xander’s mouth on mine.
Holy shit, he knows how to kiss. I’m a melted puddle in his lap, and he presses me against him, gathering me close in those big, strong arms that I could get lost in. His hands are sure and steady as they roam over my body, touching me everywhere as we kiss and kiss until we’re both breathless. His palms slide over my biceps, urging me to wrap my arms around his neck, so I do and lean into the kiss. I’ve never been kissed like this before. It’s like he uses his entire body, and it’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever experienced.
Those hands slide down my back to land on the full curve of my waist, fingers digging into the fleshy part of my ass, kneading roughly, then gentling his touch to soothe the little hurt. I rock against him and he shifts beneath me, sliding down in the seat, at the same time adjusting me over him, spreading my thighs wider over his. I’m burning up, trembling against him. My desire for him is all encompassing. I’m so far out of my element, but I don’t want to stop, either.
“Holy fuck,” he rasps against my mouth as he digs his fingers into my hips again, grinding me over him, and with the new position, I feel him; hard and heavy between my thighs, pressing against the very center of me. Groaning roughly, he grasps my face between his hands and rolls his forehead across mine, our mouths barely brushing as we gasp together in the dark.“ Goddamn, Teddy . You feel so fucking good. You taste so fucking good.”
His fingers smooth across my cheeks, pushing my hair away from my face, and then he’s kissing me again like he’s a man on death row and I’m his last meal. I’ve never been so turned on by kissing. The man is incredible at this and I never want to stop. I never want this feeling to go away. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed being desired so deeply there’s no stopping it, no holding it off for later.
I flit my fingers down over his shoulders, across his naked chest. There’s a smattering of dark, crinkly hair across his broad chest and a strip that leads down the center of his abdomen. The ridges of his abs call for my touch, and I let myself indulge in this. Logan was a good-looking guy in that good guy next door kind of way, and he took care of his body better than I do mine—he didn’t carry two nine-pound babies and one seven pound baby in a body that refuses to ‘bounce back’—but he wasn’t nearly as cut as Xander is. Xander has muscles on top of muscles, and I desperately want to run my hands over every solid inch of him. Shit, I want to run my tongue over every inch of him. Lick him like a damn popsicle.
I flush hot all over at that thought. Thinking about what’s pressing up between us right now, about how badly I want to see it, to touch it, taste it.
He growls low in his throat as my fingertips continue to wander over his skin, the tips of my fingers acquainting myself with every dip of his ribs, the ridges of his abs, the muscled swell of his pecs. His heart is hammering beneath my right palm where it’s pressed flat against him, and I revel in the knowledge that he’s just as undone as I am right now. I’m still trembling, like my body is so keyed up I physically can’t contain the rioting emotions and sensations combusting inside of me.
One of his hands cups the side of my face gently, his fingers tunneling through my hair, brushing it away from my face. His eyes are so clear, burning so brightly in the moonlight that continues to filter through the trees above us.
“You are exquisite,” he breathes so quietly I almost miss it. My heart nearly climbs its way out of my throat, and my nose stings with unshed tears. The sincerity in his tone nearly does me in. But I still don’t entirely believe it.
“I’m not,” I whisper in return, climbing my hands up to his shoulders again. A much safer spot. He’s just too damn gorgeous. There’s no way this is real, that he really wants me, not like this.
He shushes me with another deep kiss, those strong, capable hands bracketing my head again to hold me to him. When he breaks the kiss, he whispers, “I told you to stop doing that. You drive me absolutely crazy, Teddy. You have since the first time I saw you.”
A stunned, stuttered laugh escapes me. “You can’t be serious. You don’t mean that. ”
Brushing my hair away from my face again, he smiles gently at me and my heart does that flip flop thing in my chest all over again. “I do mean that. I thought you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
I shake my head in awe at his words. “But I was?—”
“Married. I know,” he whispers, his eyes searching mine. My face goes hot and I avoid glancing down at the silver band that still encircles that finger. “Your hair was longer and you didn’t curl it like you do now. You had different glasses back then.”
I swallow hard, staring at him. I mean, I’d noticed him, too—I’d been damn near struck stupid with how handsome he was. Even happily married, it had been impossible not to notice him any of the times I’d seen him when I’d been around Cal.
“Even married, even pregnant with another man's baby, I still wanted you. And fuck I hated myself for it,” he rasps brokenly. The breath that pulls in through my lips is ragged, emotion fraught. “You have dominated my thoughts for years, Teddy.”
My head is spinning. It’s all so much to take in, to process. Years. He’d noticed me for years. I let my fingers drift up the sides of his neck, lightly, just my fingernails dragging against his skin. His eyelids flutter and he groans low in the back of his throat at the same time goosebumps break over his skin. “I think about you a lot, too.”
“Yeah?” he asks, tipping his head to the side to graze his mouth along the underside of my jaw. I can feel the small smile that tips up his lips where his mouth is pressed to my skin. I tip my head back a little, giving him better access, and it’s my turn to shiver as he drags his teeth over the sensitive skin there. I nod brokenly and feel his lips tip up in a grin against my skin. “What do you think about, Teddy? Do you think about this?”
“Oh god,” I whisper up to the night sky above us. “Yes.”
“What else do you think about?” he murmurs, lips moving directly against me.
“How unfair it is for you to be this attractive. ”
He chuckles, wrapping one arm around my waist to draw me closer against him. The chair groans beneath us and I bite my lip in apprehension. I’m going to either break him or break the chair?—
He stalls the worry by whispering darkly, “That thought is mutual, Teddy. What else do you think about, sweetheart? Tell me.”
His mouth fastens onto my throat, just above my collarbone and I can’t help the moan that escapes me, or the roll of my hips against him. He growls against my skin, thrusting his hips up. The friction is perfect. The way he presses against me feels so damn good. God, I want to be so full of him.
“You know what I think about,” I whisper breathily.
“I want your words, sweetheart. Tell me what you think about when you touch yourself,” he breathes raggedly, and my eyelids flutter closed. “ Fuck , Teddy. I need to know what you think about when you come with my name on your lips.”
“You. I think about you. Like this. About what it would feel like to have your hands on me. Your mouth,” I whisper into the night, keeping my eyes closed.
“Where do you want my mouth, Teddy?” he rasps, deep and growly. I clamp my teeth down on my lower lip. The dark roughness of his voice is skittering over every nerve. The man could voice audiobooks and women would swoon.
“All over.”
He brushes his lips across the exposed top slopes of my breasts. My nipples are hard beneath the thin fabric, but embarrassment and nervousness won’t let me say the words out loud. That was a no-touching zone for Logan after I had Dalton.
“Here?” he asks, trailing his fingers along the edge of my tank top, pulling it down slightly. I nod frantically. I’m so wet I’m aching. If he touches my nipples, I just might combust. They’ve always been sensitive, and they’re so neglected?—
He flicks one through the thin material and I gasp as the sensation ripples through me, all the way to the center of me. I can feel my body clenching around nothing; I want more. I haven’t had more in so long. And when his mouth closes over it through the material, laving it with his tongue, I clutch his head between my hands, my own head dropping back while I try and fail to stifle the whimpering moan that cuts through the night around us.
His other hand works its way under the fabric, pulling it down so that the material is bunched beneath my breasts now, and then his mouth is on me again while his fingers pluck at the other.
It’s been so long. So damn long, and it feels so good. “Please—” I beg frantically, rocking over him, seeking more. More.
He groans against me, working me harder with his tongue while I shift against him, seeking more friction where his hardness is pressed against my aching clit. That invisible string that connects what he’s doing with his mouth to the very core of me tightens, and I realize that I’m going to come. For the first time in almost a year, I’m heartbeats away from an orgasm that isn’t self-induced.
This sexy as sin man is going to make me come with just his mouth and fingers on my nipples, and I’m begging for it to happen.
Brazenly, wantonly begging.
Shame crashes over me like a tidal wave, reminding me of what I’m doing. I pull away from him with a cry, scrambling up off of his lap. My face is on fire—not to mention the rest of me that is internally screaming for stopping when I was so fucking close.
With shaking fingers, I yank my tank top up so that my breasts are covered again and back away several steps.
Xander’s breathing is harsh, his chest heaving. His cock is hard and tents the front of his gym shorts as he stands. “Teddy, what?— ”
But I shake my head as tears well in my eyes. What am I doing? What am I thinking? Making out with my hot as shit neighbor while my kids and my dead husband's parents sleep just twenty feet away?
Fisting the folds of my robe in my fingers, I cross my arms over my middle, doing my best to shrink into myself. To hide. Shame burns through me relentlessly.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper miserably, raising my eyes to his. That blue is so expressive, so stunningly bright. “I shouldn’t have come over here.”
“Teddy,” he growls, though the sound isn’t threatening at all. He takes a step forward, his hands reaching for me, almost beseechingly. “Stop, please.”
“This was wrong,” I whisper, holding one hand up, palm out, and he halts.
He shakes his head, lips thinned into a hard line. “No, it wasn’t.”
His eyes blaze into mine, though there’s no anger, no resentment. Just a plea, and it breaks me wide open.
Turning my hand, I show him the back of it, spreading my fingers wide. The moonlight glints off that damn ring still on my finger. The ring that still connects me to my husband. My dead husband.
“ I can’t take this off , Xander. I’m not ready to. I’m not…I’m not whole anymore.” I sob once, rolling my lips in and clamping my teeth over them to keep another one from breaking out of me. “I’m so broken. I’m not ready to start anything new, and I can’t do casual. I can’t. You are so good and kind and perfect and I’m just broken ?—”
“Teddy, you are not broken ,” he whispers, taking another two steps toward me. I don’t back up this time. He wraps his arms around me, firm but gentle, and gathers me against his chest. I let him as the tears tumble out of me. “You are not broken, sweetheart. ”
He holds me until the tears stop, until the shaking subsides, and I melt into his warmth, drained and exhausted.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers against my hair, where I can feel his lips move.
My cheek is pressed flat against his chest, where I can both feel and hear his heart beating beneath his sternum. He smells amazing. Like citrus and cedar and smoke. I breathe him in, letting my body soften against his.
I don’t want to want him, but God do I want him so badly. I like Xander. Like, really like him .
As the panic and anxiety fade and I melt into his embrace, I let myself believe maybe… maybe starting something new with someone as kind and gentle as him wouldn’t be the end of the world I keep thinking it will be…
I can be brave, right?
I nuzzle against him and take a deep, shuddering breath in, at the same time he squeezes me tighter against him. All of these things that I’ve been missing so desperately. Being held, being kissed, being wanted… not being alone and so damn sad all the time. He sighs above me, pressing his lips to my temple and I squeeze my eyes shut at the way it just feels so right to be held like this.
Maybe… maybe it’s time. With someone like him, I can be brave. We could make this work, right?
“You’re right,” he whispers then, and I wonder if I uttered the last part out loud. But his words are quiet, sad, and my brows knit together in confusion. “This was probably a bad idea. I don’t do more . I can’t do anything more than casual, Teddy. My job…”
He trails off, and I don’t need him to finish the sentence, because I know what he’s not saying, what he won’t say. His job is dangerous and also the most important thing in his life. A relationship would complicate that. Something I have always known but let myself ignore.
But that doesn’t stop the way my chest constricts excruciatingly at his words, making my breath stutter in my throat. He leans his cheek against the top of my head and it sends shards of agony ricocheting through me, but I’m frozen, unable to move.
He takes a deep breath in and then breathes miserably, “And I needed this reminder of why I don’t get involved with single moms.”
As my chest cracks open wide, I realize far, far too late, that my silly, na?ve heart had already decided on wanting more. I’m not brave… and I was a fool for thinking I could be.