4. Tacos, Temptation, and Terrible Life Choices
4
Tacos, Temptation, and Terrible Life Choices
OLIVER
“Ahhhh, that’s better,” Leighton sighed contentedly, flopping onto the couch beside me in her oversized Bombers hoodie and a pair of cheeky shorts I was adamantly trying not to look at.
I’d known when she asked me to come inside for a movie that it was a terrible idea. But she flashed that magazine-worthy smile that brought those damn dimples to life—and I caved like a dollar store lawn chair under a linebacker.
Had anyone ever been strong enough to tell this girl no?
Stupid.
This was so stupid.
All that tan skin on display, and now her eight-seat sectional felt way too small without her siblings or my feral children running interference.
The instant we got inside, Leighton scrubbed off her makeup and traded her red wig for a pile of chaos on top of her head.
What does it say about me that her sloppy messy bun is somehow even more appealing?
A dark, wavy strand fell loose across her forehead.
The fantasy was nice .
The real thing was infinitely better .
And what the fuck was wrong with me?
“What’cha in the mood for?” I asked, jerking my gaze to the mounted flatscreen and leaning forward to grab her chaotic plate of mix-and-match tacos.
“And who the hell likes fish with their Picadillo?”
“I didn’t stick ‘em in a blender,” she complained. “Variety is the spice of life, Hart.”
“ Spice is the spice of life,” I countered, carefully lining the perfect trail of hot sauce across my carne asada tacos, keeping my eyes firmly glued where they belonged.
She snickered.
“You look like you’re solving a calculus equation. Need help there?”
She elbowed me between the ribs.
Of course, I needed help.
It was taking every ounce of self-control not to touch her. Not to take that kiss and raise it to NC-17. Not to act on every crazy thought pounding through my head.
Clearly, I’d overcorrected when I stopped working through the model circuit, because celibacy was making me a lunatic. That had to explain my obsession with the one woman most definitely off-limits.
Hell, Greyson would kill me if I added any more complications to his life. If he didn’t get the chance, her five older brothers sure as hell would.
But that kiss…
Hottest goddamn moment of my life.
And the crowd had been too sloshed to notice us duck out.
Well—except Jax, Greyson and Alice’s bodyguard.
Him, I’d owe an explanation to.
When her nudge didn’t get a response, she opted for jamming a finger into my ribs.
“You having a stroke, Hart?”
“Listen,” I said, wincing, “you don’t grow up this close to the border and not learn a thing or two about salsa to cilantro ratio.”
She snorted.
I, however, jammed my eyes closed as my brain caught up to my mouth.
Salsa. To cilantro . Ratio.
Jesus Christ, I was off my game.
“Just pick a movie, Trouble.”
“I’m feeling nostalgic.”
“Half your body weight in vodka will do that.”
“Just making sure I get my veggie intake.”
“What?”
“You say potatoes, I say vodka. Tomatooo, tomahhhhto,” she sang.
Smirking, I shook my head, finally forcing myself to look at her, and wishing I hadn’t. Beautiful. So fucking beautiful when she smiled like that.
Hell, I’d waited my whole life for Carly to look at me like that—light and overjoyed, just living in the moment—and looking at me like my ability to deliver tacos ranked me as king of the hunter-gatherers, rather than a pre-punched ticket to the upper echelon.
“So what’s nostalgia mean to Leighton Rhodes?”
Yes. Good. Say her full name. Fully grasp who you're talking to.
Twenty-three .
Permanently entangled in your life.
“Mmmmm,” she hummed around a mouthful of fish and pico.
The woman even swallowed sexy.
God, she would swallow sexy, the idea of her on her knees?—
Pull yourself together, man.
Jerking my gaze to the TV, I watched as she navigated through apps.
“I’m thinking The Mummy .”
“No way,” I laughed, pouring a mountain of spicy sauce over my skirt steak, shoveling down an entire taco just to create a five-alarm fire in my mouth. Maybe then my brain would stay where it belonged. “I hear nostalgic, and I think Casablanca or When Harry Met Sally .”
She nearly choked, slapping a hand over her full mouth to contain it.
“ What? Didn’t peg you for a closet romantic.”
“Rude,” I muttered as my eyes watered, nose burning in protest.
“Please. What guy suggests a Meg Ryan movie?”
“She was—” I gasped, “—America’s sweetheart when I was a kid.”
Leighton cackled, passing me her cherry cola.
Gratefully, I chugged it down even though it failed to extinguish the fire burning my tongue.
“Did you know spice isn’t a flavor?” she chirped. “It’s literally just pain.”
“Delicious.”
“Masochistic.”
“Maybe,” I allowed, blinking through the burn.
When I finally caught my breath, she pointed at me with her taco.
“I was mocking you for your taste in cinema.”
“Mock away. I have no shame.” That much was evident. “Mom loved her,” I said without thinking.
“Aww,” Leighton crooned. “Well, fuck me, that’s cute.”
Smirking, I jerked my chin at the TV. “Pick a movie, Leigh.”
“Okay, so you like Meg. Not Courage Under Fire or Proof of Life ? You went full chick flick?”
Another shrug. “Carly liked it. And after we had Mattie... She had colic, and I spent a lot of nights rocking her to sleep—went faster with some background noise.” I tried to ignore the weight of her watching me, focusing on my plate until finally meeting her curious gaze.
“What?”
“She’s an idiot,” Leighton said flatly.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“No, she is, Ollie. Do you know how few men could even say what you just did? You’re a great dad.”
“Maybe that was the problem.”
I love that you’re a devoted father, Ollie, but God, I just don’t know where I fit in your life these days.
The memory twisted my chest.
“I let them consume me, you know? Everything became about the kids. Workload is heavy. It got easier when Grey came home, but man...” I shook my head. “It’s easy to fall into being a stage parent. Especially with a kid as demanding as Mattie. That little girl became my whole world.”
“You say that like that’s a bad thing, rather than a natural rite of passage.”
“It is a bad thing if you neglect their mother.”
“I highly doubt you neglected her,” she scoffed.
“You weren’t there.”
“No. But Greyson was. And if he nicknamed her after a Disney villain, I’m inclined to think you’re being too hard on yourself.”
I snatched the remote from her limp hand, earning a squeaked protest.
“You snooze, you lose,” I said, aiming for playful, but missing the mark. I didn’t talk about this shit. Harts didn’t dwell on our emotions, and we certainly didn’t air our dirty laundry for somebody else to exploit. Clicking through tiles until I found that familiar front cover, I started the film and returned to my tacos.
“Was she always... you know...”
“ Cruella? ”
Leighton nodded.
“No,” I said honestly. “At least, not to me. We were young. Stupid. Hormone-fueled. Had a little too much fun—and then along came Mattie.”
“You got married.”
“Yep.”
“What then?” she asked, with no regard for the intro happening on screen.
I set my plate down on her coffee table.
Another resigned shrug. “People don’t always grow in the same direction. I wanted a family. She didn’t. I wanted to pursue the legacy. Preserve it so Matilda had something worth holding onto.”
“She didn’t?”
“Eh,” I sighed, wishing we could talk about literally anything else. Famine in third-world countries would have been more warm and fuzzy. At least I was no longer sporting an erection. “She said she was supportive.”
“But?”
“Jesus, you’re like a detective on a trail.”
“Just trying to understand. My bad.”
“No,” I sighed, palming my face. “You’re just... persistent.”
“Chalk it up to eleven brothers and sisters. If you don’t pry information out of them, it’s all too easy to lose touch.”
Grinning, I nodded, setting my hand on her knee where she sat crisscrossed beside me, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “I’m just not used to anybody giving a shit.”
“You and Grey holding your life close to the vest does not equate to nobody giving a shit.”
I cleared my throat uneasily. “Point taken.”
“So? ”
I shook my head, staring at the screen without a single image registering. “The late nights add up. Empires aren’t built—or maintained—on standard hours. The demand takes a toll.”
“So she said she’d support you, but couldn’t actually deal?”
“We didn’t last six months after Mattie before it got rocky.”
“Hmm,” she hummed thoughtfully, shaking her head. “Her loss, Ollie. You’re like... pretty decent. Most of the time.” Her dripping sarcasm took a hammer to my anxiety.
There wasn’t pity churning behind those gunmetal-blue eyes. None. Just understanding. Empathy. Somehow, that was validating in a way nothing else ever was.
“No point in dwelling on the past,” she said cheerily, tucking her back against my arm. I opened for her, wrapping my arm around her shoulders, tugging her closer—and wondering how on earth she could feel so perfect against my side.
“Know a lot about that?” I mumbled, settling my cheek against the top of her head.
“It would be pathetically easy to live in what-ifs. What if my body didn’t betray me? What if I’d made it through college into pro ball?”
“Volley?”
“Foot.”
“Like powderpuff?”
She snorted, laughing as she shook her head, her frizzy hair tickling my nose.
“Soccer.”
“Hmm. You get hurt?”
“Something like that.”
Before I could press further, she added lightly: “But there’s no point in living there. You know? It happened. I’m okay. The path changed, and frankly, I don’t have a single clue where it’s leading now.” She shrugged. “I was only going to college to play, but ended up staying because I didn’t know what else to do. And I didn’t want my family mother-henning me more than they already were—when there are a million of them, it’s super overwhelming.”
“I can imagine.”
“So,” she continued, “we forge ahead. You have two incredible kids, Ollie. They love you to the moon and back. And a brother who would do anything for the three of you.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, trying not to sound bitter. The truth was—seeing him tonight had reopened that wound. I fucking missed the asshole. He’d dragged our family into the sights of monsters with his need for control—his god-like alter ego—and I couldn’t even stay mad.
“You loved it?” I asked, desperate to shift the focus back to her.
“Lived and breathed it.”
Nodding, I thought about that scar, always peeking out of her shirt. I was about to ask about it when she added: “But it’s in my past. It’ll stay there, too.”
“Still. Sucks though.”
She gave a little huff of a laugh. “Yeah. But here we are.”
“Here we are,” I agreed.
After a long moment, she sighed contentedly, relaxing against me.
Voice uncharacteristically soft, she said: “'Here' is not so bad.”
“No,” I whispered against her coconut-scented hair, notching up the volume to an even number. “No, it’s not.”
We watched the movie in silence.
Not the weighted silence of burdens shared—but the ease I’d come to expect from Leighton.
Because Leighton existed in a bubble without expectations. She was just... easy to breathe around. Easy to be around. I didn’t have to have my game face on. Didn’t have to mind my p’s and q’s. Didn’t have to worry about what the press would say about me, or my status, or my family. Leighton couldn’t have cared less if she tried.
And for the first time since the accident, I felt myself truly relax.
Right up until Leighton’s laughing fit about halfway through the film, when Meg Ryan faked an orgasm in a crowded restaurant.
“You enjoyed that far too much,” I observed, grateful she couldn’t see how broadly I smiled at the sound of her unashamed cackling.
There was nothing refined about Leighton. She laughed with her whole body. She sang and danced and loved and fought with everything she had.
She was the polar opposite of my doormat of a mother, or my image-obsessed ex-wife.
Not once had I seen her make herself smaller to fit into someone else's box, or quiet herself for fear of waking the neighbors at half past midnight because she was laughing so hard she might piss herself.
I was a tremendous fan of her shamelessness. If I were honest, I envied her too.
A sentiment that only amplified with her next statement.
“The perk of only ever sharing my bed with a trusty silicone vibrator is I’ve never had to do that ,” she giggled, sighing as she caught her breath.
Every muscle in my body went on high alert, like I’d misinterpreted what she just said.
“Been a while?” I hedged, squeezing her shoulders.
“Pffft,” she scoffed. “Throbby Wand Kenobi serves me well whenever I please.”
“Throbby—”
“You heard me.”
“Is that?—”
“My vibrator? Yes.”
“Jesus Christ, Trouble.”
“I’m gonna start taking shots every time I make you say that.”
“You’ll never walk straight again at this point.”
“Good thing I’m stone-cold sober.”
“Pretty sure you’d go into immediate liver failure.”
“At least the ending would be swift.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“That I’ve never bothered with a man when silicone can do the job?”
“Not Anakin VibeWalker?”
She burst out laughing, hands flying up to cover her mouth. Of everything that just came out of it, that was the thing that embarrassed her?
Fuck, I needed to see what shade of pink painted her skin when she was really riled.
“Hold on,” I said, nudging her out of my arms and pausing the movie. I just couldn't move past this.
Hell, I didn’t know girls that made it through high school with their virginity intact.
And here she was—twenty-three, drop-dead gorgeous, a mouth like a sailor—and somehow…
“Leighton, what are you saying right now?”
“That between fighting for my life and getting Tillie out of the water after the accident, I had the terrifying realization that I might die a virgin? Yes. Yes, I did.”
Fuck. Me.
“You’re joshing me.”
“ Rude .”
“You’re telling me the woman who marched up to me at a crowded party and gave me the hottest kiss of my life is?—”
“A little Virginia. Yep.” She blinked, as if challenging me. As if every snap of those lashes said: what of it?
“Jesus Christ, Trouble.”
“That’s two.”
I couldn’t come up with a single damn thing to say.
I just sat there, staring at her. Studying her. All tan skin, dark features, and those gunmetal-blue eyes that drove me fucking crazy. Gradually, her amusement carved deep dimples into her sun-kissed cheeks.
“You gotta stop looking at me like that, Ollie.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to say something life-altering. Frankly, it’s terrifying.”
I cleared my throat. Still, no words would form. “ You kissed me .”
“Yep.”
No regret. No hesitation. No second-guessing.
“Why?”
“I wanted to.”
“That simple?”
For the first time, she looked almost...perplexed. “Do you not kiss the people you want to kiss?”
“Valid point. But…”
“ But ?” she prompted when I trailed off. “You’re even cuter when you panic.”
“You’re…”
“I never said I hadn’t locked lips, Ollie.”
“Yeah. But…”
“Breathe.”
“Did you—did it—are you—we?—”
“Good job. That was sentence-adjacent.”
I finally managed, “Did it mean anything? Your—um—the kiss?”
“Do you want it to?”
“Not the question I asked.”
“Nope. It’s the one I did.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes rounded. “Yes?”
“What would you say if I did? What would you say if I told you I’ve wanted to do that since the moment you confronted Greyson?”
“I’d probably tell you I’ve wanted to do that since you took me out for sushi to conspire together after we left.”
“This whole time?” Equal parts elation and terror clogged my windpipe.
She felt like skydiving. Like BASE jumping without knowing if you packed the right chute.
“I told you,” she said coyly, her smile twisting into something devastating. “I’ve always wanted to know what it was like to kiss Oliver Hart.”
“That wasn’t an accurate representation,” I protested. “You blindsided me.”
“ Kissing Oliver Hart,” she clarified. “Not being kissed by you.”
“Oh, so the plan was always to shock the shit out of me?”
“Maybe,” she said playfully.
“And what if I’ve always wanted to know what it was like to kiss Leighton Rhodes?”
“I’d say you’re painfully slow off the mark.”
“Ouch.”
Only once I was done miming being shot—earning a trill of nervous laughter—did I smirk back at her.
On one last steadying breath, I scooted forward. Raised my hands to her cheeks. Relished in the slide of our skin as I shifted to hold her neck. In the breathy little sigh that poured from her, as her lashes fluttered closed and her full lips parted.
I held steady, just a hair’s breadth away from her mouth. Not out of hesitation. But just to draw it out. Just to savor the dream-state I was clearly trapped in.
She moved first. Of course, she wouldn’t wait for me.
But I smiled, shifting back, grinning when her eyes flew open in surprise.
Slowly, I grazed the tip of her nose with mine. Traced the peak of her mouth with my lower lip. Smiled against her skin as her breath caught in her chest.
And then—with all the tension of the last five months burning through my veins—I finally claimed her mouth.
There was no slow start.
No tentative tiptoe into the shallow end.
The moment my lips touched hers, Leighton unleashed herself.
Her hands slid under my hoodie, heat flooding every cell in my body. Mine found their way into her hair, the other pinning her jaw up so she couldn’t take over completely.
It was a power struggle. A battle of wills. I licked into her mouth, and she chased my retreat, tasting me just as hungrily. This woman didn’t have the word submit in her vocabulary. It was half kiss, half war. And I wanted every last second of it.
Gingerly, I worked my palm down over her breast, drinking in the sharp gasp she gave in return.
Meaningless sex, I knew. But touching Leighton could never— would never —be meaningless.
Slipping beneath her oversized hoodie, I found smooth, heaven-wrapped skin. I eased her onto her back, peeling our mouths apart only when her hands fisted my hoodie up over my head.
I let her work it off, eyes snapping to the strip of skin above her shorts.
Fuck, she’s mouthwatering.
But I wanted to take my time.
It was supposed to be just a kiss.
Just a kiss.
Her hands scraped over my skin as our mouths collided in desperate, coiled up anticipation. This whole time. This whole time I could’ve said something— done something—and we’d both held back. Her hand found my throbbing cock through my jeans, and I groaned, clamping her lower lip between my teeth.
Easing away, I shook my head. Even as my instincts screamed to take more, feel more, serve more.
“You gonna remedy that for me, Ollie?”
Fuck. I could show her pleasure so consuming she’d toss that damn toy in the trash.
“We shouldn’t,” I breathed.
She laughed and leaned up to kiss me again. I turned her head aside with my nose, trailing kisses along her jawline instead.
“You were drinking.”
“Hours ago.”
“Still. I should go.”
“I’d blow into a breathalyzer for you,” she teased, “but that’s not the kind of blowing I had in mind.”
“Jesus, Trouble.”
“That’s three.”
I snickered—but my mind was warring with my body.
“Why me?” I whispered.
“Stop over thinking. Do I seem like a woman who is uncertain?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Then don’t tell me what I want.”
“Leighton.”
“It was a lack of time. Not some virtue signal.”
Panic warred with the scrape of her fingers over my skin, the buck of her hips, the feel of my cock painfully pressed against the zipper of my pants. I needed her more than my next fucking breath. And that feeling wasn’t new. It had been there. For months.
“At least you give a shit about me. I trust you, Ollie. More than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“You want me ?” Washed - up single dad . Married to his desk.
She snatched my hand in irritation, and slid it down her soft stomach. Dipped it below her waistband and guided me straight into heaven. I groaned as my fingers slid through her soaking wet folds.
Soft.
Perfect.
“You tell me.”