Chapter 5
DONOVAN
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I had a raging hard-on. The second thing I noticed was the rancid smell of hot dog breath being panted in my face.
I cracked one eye open and almost jumped a foot in the air when I was confronted with big brown eyes staring into mine, just an inch away. As gorgeous as those eyes were, they weren’t the ones I would have liked to be staring into mine first thing in the morning.
“Hey, Barney,” I murmured, my voice husky with sleep. I lifted my head to look around Rosie’s living room to see that it was deserted. Everyone must’ve still been in bed, though it wasn’t a shocker, seeing as we stayed up late.
After me and DJ ate our meatball subs (which were fucking awesome by the way), we all drank coffee and hot chocolate and talked.
Rosie’s kids were great. They were smart and funny, and they’d both adopted the same laid-back sense of humor as their mom.
They were confident but self-deprecating at times, and I thought it was cool.
DJ was definitely part of the in-crowd, but it was clear that he used his popular teenage stud power for good.
Gabby was sweet and pretty and clearly not part of the elite like her brother, but still, the fact that she was DJ’s sister pushed her up the social ladder enough to have an easy time with the other girls, mainly because they all crushed to fuck on him.
They told me all the high school gossip, including the Kai and Sunny saga (Kai wouldn’t go there even though he clearly liked her, and her him, but nobody knew why.) Instead, Kai scored with every other girl in school, and Sunny reeled the boys in right on back, just to make him lose his shit.
Gabby and Sunny were best friends, and therefore Gabs had a ringside seat to the goings on, and fuck me if I wasn’t invested.
In fact, even if I didn’t like their mother (which I did a whole damned lot), I’d have had to keep seeing her just to get the next installment of the real-life teen drama Rosie had already named, Heartbreak at Hambleton High. I swear it was more entertaining than most of the shit on TV.
By the time one A.M. hit, I’d yawned so hard that Rosie offered me the couch for the night.
It would have taken me all of ten minutes to drive home, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I may have initially been slow on the uptake when it came to Rosie Woods, but I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.
Somehow in the space of one day, I’d developed a king-sized crush of my own, and it wasn’t just about the red, lacy dress that showed her ass and cleavage to perfection. It was the way she was with her kids. I loved how laid-back she was and how she tried to see the good in every situation.
Maybe the seed had been planted three years ago because I’d never forgotten her. She’d been on my mind every day since, and perhaps that had ignited something deeper, because I was drawn to her in ways I couldn’t explain or even understand.
Barney hauled his front paws up onto my bare chest and let out a little whine.
“You need to go out, bud?” I asked him.
He replied with a soft woof.
I swung my legs out from under the sheet and reached down for my pants.
After pulling them up, I made for the kitchen with Barney dancing excitedly next to me.
I opened the door, letting the dog into the yard, and left it ajar for him while I wandered back over to the Keurig, loaded it with a pod, and placed a cup underneath.
“Hey!” a soft voice said from behind me.
I craned my neck to see Rosie padding into the kitchen.
Jesus, fuck.
I had to hold back a groan at the sight of her makeup-free face covered by huge black framed reading glasses. She wore tiny PJ shorts and a matching tank top, and her long, glossy hair was tied up in a messy bun with little tendrils falling down over her face and neck.
I leaned my ass back against the countertop and folded my arms across my chest while I eyed her appreciatively. “How the fuck do you look like that this early in the morning?”
“Like what?” she asked, her gaze dropping to my chest.
“Like a dream,” I muttered.
She pointed at me and twirled her finger in the direction of my torso. “Says you with all the chest.”
I flexed my biceps and pecs, making my man titties dance. “You mean this chest?”
She laughed, and I couldn’t help smiling at the joyous sound wrapping around my bones.
Holding my hand out, I softly ordered, “Come here, baby.”
She stared at me, biting the inside of her cheek nervously. “You’re bossy.”
I dipped my chin, keeping my arm outstretched, and repeated, “Rosie. Come here.”
She rolled her eyes, and I heard her quietly snip, “Oh, alright,” before moving across the kitchen toward me.
Health and fitness had always been a big part of my life. I’d trained from an early age and boxed for my unit in the Army. I ran most days and lifted weights, so a lot of my time had been spent in gyms. Therefore, I’d seen a lot of women with the so-called perfect body aesthetic.
But not one of them was a patch on Rosie.
She was tight, toned, and curvy with a little bit of jiggle in all the right places. Her ass was big, as were her boobs, and she had a rounded stomach and thick thighs with no gap to speak of.
And I loved it.
If I could think of one word to describe Rosie’s body, it would be lush.
I knew from experience that she was soft and sexy, and I’d fantasized about our night together more times than I cared to admit.
Rosie Woods had top billing in my wank bank, and looking at her at that moment in her skimpy PJ set that left very little to the imagination, it was clear why.
My hand snaked out and wrapped around the back of her neck, and I gently jerked her into my chest. Everything about her made my senses take over because I ran my nose across her throat and cheek, breathing in her expensive, musky scent.
Rosie tilted her head back to look at me, her pretty brown eyes full of confusion, and she asked, “What’s going on here?”
I kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m fucked, is what’s going on here.”
Rosie’s eyes flared slightly, and I smiled.
Okay, so I may have been laying a lot out there, but I was far too old to fuck around and find out.
Throughout my life, I’d never needed much. I wasn’t materialistic. I liked nice clothes and sneakers, but I didn’t covet anything, and that went for women too. The girls I usually ran with weren’t the settling-down types. I liked having fun with them, but I got bored pretty quickly.
But lately, that had changed, and if I had to pin down exactly when that change began, it was a few years before, when I spent the night with a certain curvy and very beautiful brunette with exotic eyes and a body that turned my brain to mush.
I’d always said I wasn’t the two-point-four kids and a dog type, but something about Rosie Woods caught my attention and held it steady, which was why recently, I’d done my usual flirting routine and even had a couple of make-out sessions, but none of it had felt right.
I squeezed her nape. “I wanna explore this.”
Her eyebrows knitted together. “For how long? And to what end?” She smiled gently, bringing her hand up to run her fingers across my jaw. “I like you. My kids like you. My family and friends like you. My mom would love you, but we tried this before, remember?”
“We never tried shit before, Posy,” I argued. “We slept together and ever since, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head.”
She let out a humorless snort. “Not long after, you were making out with another woman.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she pressed the tip of her fingers to my mouth.
“Let me finish, honey.” She paused briefly to smile and murmured, “It was okay; we had one night, you weren’t my boyfriend, and you made no commitment to me.
I’ll even let you off the hook and say it was for the best at the time because I had to leave town soon after, and you had to go back to your unit.
But real talk now, D. I liked you, and it hurt more than it should have.
It made me realize that the next guy I got serious about would be the one I spent the rest of my life with.
I haven’t met anyone since who measured up to that, which is why I’ve been single for so long.
..” Her words trailed off, and she took a fortifying breath.
“I guess what I’m asking is, are you ready for that? ”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but something stopped me.
Was I ready?
To be honest, I didn’t know, but how was I supposed to have all the answers when we hadn’t even been on a date yet?
I knew I liked Rosie and her kids. I also knew the woman I eventually did end up committing to would be exactly like her.
Still, I also didn’t own a time machine, so I couldn’t beam into the future and take a sneaky peek.
“I don’t know, Posy,” I responded. “But I’m not gonna lie to you and make predictions that I don’t know are true.
I like you, and I want to get to know you better.
You make me feel things I’ve never felt before, and I want to explore that further.
I also know I’m more ready than I’ve ever been to get serious.
“I have two kids, one who looks up to you a lot,” she explained. “If I bring you into his life, I need to know you’ll have a care for him.”
“That I can promise,” I murmured. “We’ll keep DJ and Gabby out of our relationship. I’ll be his buddy, even his employer, but when it comes to you and me, we don’t involve them. It may be a good idea to sit them down and tell them the score. They’re not kids, they can take it.”
“I can do that,” she agreed.
“So does that mean you’ll go out with me tonight?” I asked.
“What about the bar?”
“Adam’s in. He can manage the place for a couple of hours while we go out to eat. As long as I’m back by closing time to cash everyone out, we’ll be good.”