Slipping my key into the lock, I knocked lightly at Aly and Jared’s front door before I turned the knob and poked my head inside. “Hello?”
Shrill cries rattled from down the hall, and I chuckled a little with the sound of Samantha’s frazzled voice. “In the nursery.”
Yeah, I knew she was babysitting.
And no, I couldn’t stay away.
I strode in, flinging the door shut behind me as I headed straight for Ella’s room. Samantha was at the changing table, struggling with Ella’s flailing legs as she tried to dress her in a fresh diaper. Samantha gave me an exasperated look. “For one of the sweetest little girls in the world, she sure hates getting her diaper changed.”
I laughed outright as I crossed the room, loving every step that brought me closer to these two girls who absolutely owned me. Funny, their paths never should have crossed, and here I was, standing watching Samantha loving on my niece.
“Are you giving Samantha a hard time, princess?” I asked as I palmed the top of Ella’s head. She pushed into the movement, her tiny round head sliding back to look up at me with those big ol’ blue eyes. Distracted, she gave me her biggest smile with that adorable mouth and cooed against the fist she suddenly decided to start trying to eat. Samantha took the opportunity to quickly afix the tabs on her diaper.
“There,” she said with all kinds of affectionate pride in her voice.
Yep, man card no more. That fucker had been permanently revoked the night Samantha had fallen asleep in my bed, because between these two girls, I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. It’d been a month since Samantha and I had really reconnected, since she’d opened up to me about her brother, and in those moments I knew where we belonged was together. Sure, she’d flipped right the fuck out when she woke up next to me, but I knew that was only because she was feeling it, too, and she didn’t know how to reconcile all the shit I’d done with the obvious bond we shared.
We’d fallen into a tenuous friendship. The entire month of September had pretty much passed in a blurry whirl that had the two of us dancing through all the tension and pretending like we both didn’t want to decimate the boundaries that’d been set in place. We hung out a ton with Jared and Aly, but we’d also started texting a bunch, laughing over the inane bullshit that made up our days. Joking and messing around.
Crazy thing? It didn’t feel like we were getting to know each other in a new light. It was like we were remembering who we once used to be. I was doing my best to keep it cool, trying not to be so blatantly transparent about how badly I was dying to touch her. Because even though I’d resolved she was again going to be mine, I knew that shit was going to take some time. But the more time I spent with her, the harder that got.
Samantha pulled a clean outfit out of the drawer for Ella and began to dress her. “Would you do me a favor and get the bottle that’s in the warmer on the kitchen counter?”
“Sure.”
I grabbed the bottle in the kitchen while Samantha settled on the couch with Ella. She’d begun to fuss and cram her hand in her mouth with a little more vigor. I sat down close to them, couldn’t help the chuckle rumbling at the base of my throat when Ella began to kick when she caught sight of the bottle. Shouldn’t like this scene so damned much, but I did. “Somebody’s anxious, huh?”
Samantha accepted the bottle from me and situated Ella on her arm in a good position to feed her. Ella latched on like she’d been drowning and finally caught a breath of air. Samantha slanted me a smile filled with all kinds of yearning. “She’s the sweetest thing, isn’t she?”
Soft affection huffed from my nose, and I traced the pad of my index finger along the intense lines dented across Ella’s head as she voraciously sucked down her lunch. “Yeah, she really is. Never thought I’d fall in love with anything the way I did with her.” It was something pure and honest. No greed or selfish intentions.
Samantha hummed, a sound that seemed both agreement and a question. “I love kids. That was the main reason I wanted to be a teacher.”
“You gonna have any of your own?”
The second I asked it, I regretted it. That was the problem when I was with Samantha. Couldn’t keep my damned mouth shut.
She shrugged a delicate shoulder, that pretty face pinking up, but it didn’t seem in embarrassment. It was rather in more of the longing she always seemed to watch my niece with. “Hope so.” She lifted her shoulder a little higher and peeked over at me. “When the time is right.”
Agitation sifted through me, and I drove a flustered hand through my hair. Brilliant. Going there. Knowing it’d rip me apart.
And what did assholes like me do when they got all edgy and disturbed? They lashed out, and damn it all if I didn’t know better, but I couldn’t keep the scornful words from whipping from my tongue like a flog. “So where’s dickhead this weekend?”
Samantha winced and averted her gaze, discomfort fortifying all those walls that I wanted to break down.
On a regretful sigh, I flopped against the sofa back. “Damn it,” I muttered quietly as I scrubbed my face. I rolled my head to the side and caught Samantha peering at me warily. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Really, I wanted to say a whole ton more, to berate the asshole who I knew in my gut had always had it out for me, but what good would it be taking it out on Samantha?
“It’s fine,” she whispered with a short shake of her head. “I know you weren’t exactly his biggest fan.”
“And he wasn’t exactly mine.”
She laughed. “No. Definitely not.” She smiled over at me, and it was sad and small and like a confession. “Honestly, he can be a real asshole.”
Anger tightened my chest, a swell of protectiveness that had me wanting to wrap her up and never let go. “Does he know you’re here?”
“No.” She looked at me as if she was truly wondering if I wanted the truth.
I lifted my chin toward her, urging her to go on.
“He’d flip out if he knew. The couple of times I’ve mentioned Aly, he just about came unglued, and I really don’t want to deal with his judgment.”
“You scared of him?” The words were strangled, and I wasn’t sure I could handle the answer.
She swallowed hard. Blue eyes that had me all itchy and anxious settled on me. “Not like that.” Her voice lowered with the confession. “I’m scared that he’s not right for me. Scared that I’ll never love him like I should.”
Relief pounded another beat of hope into my heart. I’d known that night when I took her home that she didn’t love him. And now she sat five inches away, admitting it to me.
I struggled through a heavy breath and shifted to the edge of the cushions so I could face her. She was so close that she was filling up my breath. Drawn, I scooted forward. All I wanted was to eat her up. Consume her. Make her realize that she was always going to belong with me.
But there was this nagging inside me, her parting words from a month ago haunting me day and night. There was a piece of Samantha that was scared of me. Terrified really. I saw it there in the shift of her eyes, the way they flared with want and need, but darted away when she’d be hit with a flash of fear.
She sucked in a sharp breath when I pushed to standing and leaned over her. Her head dropped back, and I took that gorgeous face between my hands. Held it gently like the fragile treasure it was. “I need you to know something, Samantha.”
She blinked, and there was no missing the tremor that rolled through her body. I hovered close, my nose an inch from hers.
“These hands.” I squeezed her a little with the significance. “They won’t ever hurt you.”
That sweet mouth dropped open a fraction, the plump red flesh the greatest damned temptation I’d ever faced. But this wasn’t about lust or my fucked-up need. This was about a girl I’d done wrong. “That night I came to you? I stopped because I felt you. Even through the haze of my mind, I heard your heart, Samantha. I realize that now. I never would have pushed you over that line.”
A strangled sound worked its way up Samantha’s throat, and all I wanted was to swallow it down.
“The night last month in my truck?”
She gave a tiny nod of acknowledgment, still remaining in my firm hold.
“What did you mean, what you saw?”
Her expression immediately hardened, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when the front door suddenly flew open to a giggling Aly. She came to a standstill just as fast as she’d stumbled in, breaking through all the intensity that hovered thick in the air.
Shit.
In surprise, Aly looked between me and Samantha, who’d jerked out of my hands as if she was being branded by fire. She turned all her focus back to the little girl who’d fallen asleep in her arms. Aly cocked her head in question, and I glared across at her.
Perfect timing, little sister.
She shrugged and mouthed, What?
Over her shoulder, Jared smirked at me, scratching at his temple with his index finger, thinking he knew all too well what he’d walked in on.
If only it were that simple.
I turned back to Samantha, tucked my finger under her chin, and lifted it so I could latch onto those tentative eyes. “I mean it,” I said, not caring that we had an audience. “Wouldn’t, Samantha. You gotta know that’s not me.”
And yeah, we had a shit ton of unfinished business. So much that needed to be said and resolved. But if this was the only one we ever tackled – and we never got a chance to work through the rest of it? This was the one I needed her to know.
I’d never hurt her.
I cast her a pleading glance as I backed away.
Never.