Chapter 16 #2
I wrapped her in my arms and pressed her face against my shoulder, losing my hand in her soft curls. I had no right to hold her, no right to console her, but I couldn’t stop myself from doing anything less, couldn’t stand to see her sadness, her tears.
“We’ll get it fixed. It’s a great car. All isn’t lost, honey. If I can’t start it, I’ll call Triple A and have it towed to a garage.”
She lifted her face from my shirt, swiping at the evidence of tears, her blue eyes glistening. I knew she was upset about a lot more than the car. Knew we both might be talking about more than the car and I should be careful not to say that could be construed as a rash promise.
“You’d do that? Go to all that trouble?”
“Of course. You’re a damsel in distress. What kind of jerk would I be to leave you stranded?”
Loosening my grip, reluctant to let her soft warmth go even now, I crouched into the open driver’s door and took the seat.
A few cranks of the key and I knew it was the starter, knew it would need replacing and knew that would never happen today, on a Sunday.
My mind ran fast and headed for disaster, but I couldn’t see any other way, not if I wanted to live with myself.
Not if I wanted to see her again. I had to make it right. I couldn’t leave her in this state of distress. Not about the car and especially not about us. Yanking myself from the car, I stood and slammed the door shut, slipped my phone out of my pocket and found the number.
“It’s the starter,” I said to her with the phone on my ear. “I’m calling Triple A.”
The adoration that lit her face lifted my cock and made me smile, made my chest clench in a way that I’d thought had only been reserved for my girls. Fool. Do not behave like a fool.
“You’re too good to be true, Max Devon.”
My dick didn’t listen to the advice of my brain. It foolishly jumped at her words, at that look on her face, in her eyes. I was fucked.
“You mean except for that one minor defect—” I put up a finger when she would have argued. Triple A answered the call and I set up the tow. “They’ll be here in ten minutes to tow the car to a local garage.”
“Then what? How do I get home? What about—?”
“Did you think I was going to leave you here in the parking lot?” I put a hand on her face, had to stroke her impossibly creamy skin, had to feel her, make sure she was real, the way her expression worshipped me like I was the best man in the world, in spite of everything.
It had been a long time since I’d seen that kind of look from a woman, one who meant it, one who wasn’t a college groupie or a stripper—not that I went to a lot of strip joints either, but I’d been to my share of bachelor parties.
Or from someone who wasn’t my cheating wife.
That was unfair. Liz had been sweet and giving in the beginning, but maybe she’d been too young when we got married, too inexperienced, undeveloped.
She’d had no idea what she wanted from life and it wasn’t long after the twins were born that she’d started having problems, started getting depressed.
She’d been lost and needed to carve a life out for herself, according to her therapist, so she enrolled in college and found a new life and a new guy.
And that left me out in the cold.
Was it fair to compare Natalie to Liz?
No, this situation was different. Natalie was different.
There was raw genuine reverence in her eyes, a true appreciation from someone who knew, who’d been around the block and had met a lot of men.
I’d got the idea, without being a psychologist, that Natalie was starved for someone special to be the object of her affection.
I didn’t think she even realized how she looked at me, knew the want that shone in her eyes.
I took her luggage from her trunk and moved it to mine. The tow truck came and I gave them my card, ignoring Natalie’s protests. This was the least I could do for her. That, and give her a ride home. With absolute ferocity, I muscled aside the idea that someone else could give her a ride.
I opened my passenger door and she got inside.
I went around and got into the driver’s seat of the Range Rover.
It was a spacious car, but as I pulled the door closed behind me, enclosing me inside with Natalie, the interior felt more intimate than anything else.
Maybe I should have thought this plan through before I’d jumped.
But I shook my head, knowing that I would have done the same thing, even acknowledging the fact that I’d spend the next hour and a half in closed quarters with Natalie, the sexy, outrageous, warm and giving woman who I wanted desperately to make long sweet love to, who I wanted to fuck until she couldn’t walk, whose orgasmic face I wanted to see over and over until it was all I saw in my dreams every single night.
“You were leaving early,” I said.
“So were you.”
I smiled as I pulled onto the coastal road and headed south.
“I have to get back by noon for my girls. My ex-mother-in-law is with them and she has to leave.”
She nodded. “I’d love to meet them. I bet they’re adorable.”
Tension coiled and I didn’t look in her direction, kept my Ray-Ban-covered eyes aimed at the road and my expression neutral.
I should have told her that would be a bad idea.
With any other woman that probably would have been true, but with Natalie, I wasn’t as sure.
Based on how she reacted when she almost ran me down, I could tell She was an instinctive nurturer.
She had a natural warmth about her. She would know exactly how to behave and how to keep their little hearts safe from hurt.
“You never know,” I said.
She left it at that and turned on my radio as we turned onto the highway. The ride was going smoothly, if quietly, when we ran into a traffic jam on Interstate 95.
“Damn.” I said it under my breath but she heard me.
“You going to be late? How big a deal is it for your mother-in-law to stay later than noon?”
“She’ll have to,” I said.
“Where do you live?”
“In Marblehead. On the ocean.”
“Of course you do.” She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Mr. Millionaire Football Player.”
I snorted. “I earned every one of those millions in hard knocks and a broken bone or two.”
“I have an idea,” she said. “To save you time.” I said nothing so she rushed on. “You don’t need to drop me off—we can go straight to your house. That’ll save at least forty-five minutes.”
Blowing out a long breath as the traffic crawled, I weighed my options—until my phone rang. Answering it with the control on my steering wheel, I saw on the dash it was, of course, my ex-mother-in-law.