I stood at the bottom of the escalator next to baggage claim anxiously waiting for Chloe and Tanner. I’ve never been more nervous or excited to see a woman in my life. I’ve squeezed the hell out of the stress ball that I’ve carried around the past couple of days just to keep myself from growing crazy. As their arrival time got closer, the reality of their visit started to sink in.

I cursed under my breath and ran a shaking hand down my face. The idea of having them both here on my home turf made me think more about what life would be like with the three of us together. I worked myself to the bone all week in order to free up time to spend with them.

I scrubbed down my apartment last night, went to the corner market and stocked up on Tanner’s favorite cereal and snacks, made sure I had Chloe’s favorite bottle of wine and squeezed in a last-minute haircut with my barber. I was running out of things to do, which meant I had nothing else to do but think.

I wiped my sweaty palms down my pant leg and checked the status of their flight on my Delta app. I upgraded them to first class and purchased a TSA precheck membership so they wouldn’t have to wait in long lines going through security. Whatever I could do to make things easier on them, I did.

My phone chirped in my pocket. There was a message from Chloe:

Just landed. I can’t wait to see your face. :)

Just seeing her name and knowing I was actually going to be with her in a matter of minutes sent that warm, familiar feeling passing through me. At first, I thought it was just infatuation and just a passing phase, but my desire and my feelings were stronger than ever.

After almost twenty minutes of pacing the crowded airport, her beautiful face finally came into view. I swallowed, trying to eliminate the lump in my throat. She and Tanner were coming down the escalator with a rolling carry-on beside them. Her eyes locked on mine as the airport bustled around us.

My legs ate up the distance between us. Chloe leaned forward with a grin. “Hi.”

My hands grabbed her hips, effectively pulling her against me. “Welcome to New York.” I pressed a kiss to her mouth. “I can’t believe you’re really here.” She smiled up at me while I looked down at her. She looked gorgeous in a simple green jacket and black leggings. Her tight, white tank top gave nothing away and everything at the same time.

Tanner laughed like a typical seven-year-old. “You guys are so gross.”

“Hey bud, how was your flight?” I asked, stepping away from his mother so I could playfully ruffle his shaggy brown hair.

He looked around, his eyes wide with excitement. There was a guy in a business suit typing on his phone and not paying attention to where he was walking. He accidentally bumped into Tanner, and I instinctively grabbed his arm, so he didn’t get knocked to the ground.

If I had to guess, it was probably the first time he had seen so many different people in one place at the same time. The fluorescent lights were bright, and the hum of the crowd was loud with, clicking heels, and overhead pages for passengers late to board their flights. He looked so damn curious at the chaos around him, like he was observing life on another planet.

“Riding in the jet was awesome!” he said, shoving his hands inside his front pockets. “I got to drink soda, eat junk food, and watch a movie in those big, comfy seats in the front.”

I laughed. “Sounds like fun. You ready to see where I live?”

His eyes lit up like I had just told him we were going to Disney World. “Heck yeah.”

I grabbed Chloe’s hand and walked them both over to baggage claim. Once we grabbed everything, we headed out to the parking lot and loaded up my car. As we made the drive to my apartment, I kept glancing in the review mirror. Tanner was sitting in the back seat with his mouth hanging open while his eyes bounced from buildings and bridges to the crosswalks filled with hundreds of people making their way through the concrete jungle. He was used to quiet towns with beaches and green lawns. Imagining the city through a seven-year-old’s eyes for the first time was pretty damn cool.

After what seemed like forever, we finally made it to my building in Greenwich Village. My apartment wasn’t huge, but it was close to work and considered prime New York real estate. I set the bags down by the front door and gave them both a tour of my home.

I bought this place from an architect; it was a little different than your typical modern apartment. It had dark wood floors, not the cheap laminate that most places had these days. The previous owner had added large wooden beams throughout the open floor plan, which gave it a more authentic look that resembled the period in which it was originally built. There was a huge brick fireplace in the corner, right next to the floor-to-ceiling windows. The kitchen was lined with black cabinets and a charcoal gray backsplash.

“This is gorgeous.” Chloe beamed while running her hand over the back of the cream-colored leather couch.

Tanner looked up to me. “This isn’t very big.”

“Tanner!” Chloe scolded.

A laugh bubbled out of my chest. I wondered what he would think if he saw what a typical apartment in the city looked like. This little pad cost me a mint and real estate was my specialty. This was pretty much the Taj Mahal of village apartments. “It’s okay, Chloe. He’s right.” I winked and turned my attention to Tanner. “Most apartments in Manhattan are quite small. There are too many people and too many buildings, which means there isn’t a lot of extra space.”

Tanner put his hands on his hips and looked around. “It’s cool. I like it.”

“Thank you. I’m really glad you’re both here.” I picked up their luggage. “Let me show you where you’ll be sleeping.”

They followed me into my bedroom. I was on the top floor, so I had a great view of the downtown skyline. “This is my room. You guys can sleep in here.”

I walked over to the side of the bed and put their luggage down. Chloe stepped into the middle of the room and turned to me. “Where will you sleep?”

“I have a blow-up mattress set up in my office across the hall.”

Her eyes flickered over my shoulder. “You don’t need to do that.”

“Yeah,” Tanner added. “I sleep on a blow-up mattress all the time when I’m over at Tyler’s house. Your bed looks big. My mom can sleep in here with you, and I can sleep in there.”

Chloe’s eyes flew to mine in panic. If I was being honest, it wasn’t the worst idea I had ever heard, but as much as I wanted her in my bed, there was no way we were sleeping together with her kid in the next room. That wasn’t what this visit was about. Don’t get me wrong, I planned on getting creative with finding time to get my hands on her, but this trip was meant to be special for both of them.

“You guys are my guests, so I insist. Besides, sleeping with your mom would be inappropriate.”

Tanner smirked. “I’m almost eight, not five. I know what adults do when they’re alone, Jack.”

I brought my fist to my mouth and turned my head to stop myself from laughing. I wasn’t touching the comment with a ten-foot pole. Chloe’s face turned a bright shade of red. “Tanner!” she warned, while I silently wondered if he was closer to having the talk about the birds and the bees than she thought.

“Whatever.” He just rolled his eyes and walked over to the bed. He bounced on the mattress as if he were testing it out.

I clapped my hands together. “Okay, let’s get situated, and then I’ll show you both around the city. Sound like a plan?”

Tanner went right to work unpacking his suitcase while Chloe followed me into the kitchen. I grabbed her face and gave her the most tender kiss I had ever given a woman in my life. My feelings for her were getting too strong for me to hide, but I had to respect that Tanner was close by. Not being able to touch her when I wanted to felt like a punishment. My hands moved up under her shirt, finding the underwire of her bra. I wanted inside her softness so bad that it was killing me. “I really wish I could give you a proper fucking greeting.”

She laughed as I pushed her small frame against the kitchen sink. “I like how you threw the word fucking in there.”

My fingers stilled, and I bent my head sideways so she could see the truth in my eyes. “It’s never just about the fucking with you. You know that, right?”

Her hand reached up to cup the back of my neck. “I know that, but I love how you bring out the fun in me. And I also love your displays of affection—your little touches and shared glances. And I really like that no one else gets them but me.”

This woman made me wish I could take an eraser to my past and wipe the slate clean. Forget about all the nameless faces and meaningless fucks that used to fill my time. This was as real as it gets.

“After he goes to bed tonight, you’re all mine.”

She ran her tongue along her bottom lip, causing my dick to jump in my pants. Damn her.

“I like the sound of that.”

The patter of footsteps along the hardwood floor told us that our time was up. Tanner rounded the corner with his eyebrow raised. “Jack and Chloe, sitting in a tree…K.I.S.S.I.N.G…first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage,” he sang out.

Chloe buried her face in my chest and laughed. I felt the corner of my mouth tug into a grin.

She pulled away to straighten out her shirt. “Are you guys ready?” I asked, looking at the time on my phone. We still had a few hours of daylight left.

Tanner’s head popped up. “I’m so ready.” He sounded like he was ready to rock and roll.

I cleared my throat and prayed like hell that he would crash and burn by the end of the night because I had plans for his mother later. “Okay, do you have your list ready?”

When we spoke this week, I told him to make a list of all the places he wanted to see. As soon as he pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to me, I knew I was screwed.

I scratched the top of my head as my eyes scanned the wrinkled piece of paper. “Uh…as fun as all this sounds, there is no way we would be able to fit it all in. How about this,” I offered. “We can do Rockefeller Plaza and Times Square tonight, and then tomorrow we can do Central Park and the Yankees game.”

Tanner tilted his head to the side. “What about the statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Wall Street, the Bronx Zoo, and the museums?”

I looked at Chloe sideways for help. There was no way we could cross everything off this list in two days. And there was no way in hell I wanted to disappoint this kid.

She leaned in and kissed his forehead. “Tanner, that is way too much to do in one weekend. We’ll have to save some stuff for when we come back.”

“You mean we can come back again?” he asked, looking right at me. He still seemed a little disappointed, but I think he knew crossing everything off his list in one weekend wasn’t going to happen.

“You both are welcome here anytime.” Hell, I would move them both up here in a heartbeat if I thought Chloe would say yes. I was in deep with this woman. Unfortunately, not the deep I wanted to be. That would change come later tonight.

Tanner was passed out in my room, and Chloe was tucked against my side on the couch. I couldn’t remember a time when I had done so much walking around in the city. I was so damn tired, that if my building caught fire and the alarms blared, I’d lie on my couch and let the place burn down around me.

I could honestly say that if I never stepped foot in that damn M&M store in Times Square again, it would be fine with me. The wall was covered with dispensers filled with M&Ms in every conceivable color. We got caught up in the moment as Tanner picked color after color until there was no more room left in his bags. By the time we got to the register, we had accumulated almost three pounds of candy. If I had known that you could charge fifteen bucks for a pound of colored M&M’s, I would have invested in that stock ages ago.

True to my word, we managed to visit both Times Square and Rockefeller Center, and warded off a few of those dirty generic superhero characters that were begging for pictures and asking for money.

I adjusted my neck against the back of the pillow. As exhausted as I was, I’ve never felt so content in my life.

Chloe’s fingers were drawing small little circles along my bicep. “Why are you so quiet?”

I picked at a piece of hair that had fallen onto my chest and twirled it around my finger. “Just thinking about how good things have been going between us.”

Her fingers stilled on my shoulder. “You sound surprised.”

How was I supposed to explain how I was feeling when I could barely make sense of it myself? Over the past couple of months, she had me wanting all the things I used to avoid. She had me questioning my past and made me feel things I swore I never would.

“I guess I am in a way because this is all new to me,” I explained, giving her leg a squeeze.

She sat up and stretched her arm out so she could lay her head on it. “You’ve really never been in relationships before?”

I looked down at the small dusting of freckles that you could barely see across her nose. She was so naturally beautiful that sometimes I wondered what the hell she was doing with a guy like me.

“I dated a girl in high school. We were together for four months. Does that count?”

She lifted her head to look at me. “If you cared about her, and she mattered to you, then I guess it counts.”

I wasn’t going to tell her that I really didn’t care about Victoria. There was no need to make myself look like an asshole. In my defense, I was just a typical seventeen-year-old boy looking to get laid. Once I learned that attracting and catching women was easy for me, it became the first and last relationship I ever had. Quite honestly, I enjoyed the chase much more than the catch. And as they say, variety is the spice of life.

My hands went to her hips, and I pulled her over the top of me until she was completely straddling my lap. “How about you? What’s the longest you’ve ever been with somebody?”

Her eyes closed, but I kept mine open so I could stare at her. “Three years.”

“That’s a long time,” I said, forcing myself to swallow. She looked sad, and I mentally kicked myself for asking the question to begin with. “I’m assuming it’s the guy you told me about, the one you dated in college?”

“Yes.” Everything around us went quiet as she stared across the room, doing everything she could to avoid meeting my eyes.

She leaned her head down on my shoulder as my arms wrapped around her. It hit me at that moment that I was in love with her. So in love with her, that the thought of having to fight for space in her heart was painful to even think about.

I rubbed her back trying to calm my racing thoughts. “Do you still keep in touch with him?” I’ve never felt jealousy before, and I must admit it wasn’t a good feeling. I knew she had a past, but the difference was, I’ve never loved anyone before, and it bugged me to think of her having feelings for someone other than me.

She kissed my shoulder and whispered, “It was a long time ago, Jack. I’m not going to lie, he was someone very important to me.” She sighed and sat up a little bit so she could look in my eyes. “He was my first love. We were both so young and naïve. But at the end of the day, we both wanted different things out of life, and neither one of us was willing to compromise enough to make it work. It took me a long time to realize that what we had wasn’t strong enough; it was easier to walk away than to fight for what we had. That’s not the type of foundation you build a future with.”

“You know, I have to ask out of curiosity because we real estate guys love to use building analogies.” I quirked an eyebrow. “How does our foundation look so far?”

She looked at me—really looked at me—as if she could see just how vulnerable I was with her despite my attempt at humor. Whoever the hell this guy was, he was her first love. Isn’t that the love all women compare everything that follows to? Not to mention, he had years with her while I only had months.

“Jack. Every relationship has peaks and valleys. I know from experience that our foundation will get shaky at times, but we’ll keep working on it.” She brushed away a piece of hair that had fallen on my forehead and paused “I love you, Jack.”

Fuck. I loved hearing those words from her. It took me a moment to recover, to let them sink in.

I brought my hands to her face, pulling her mouth to mine. “I love you too. You know that, right?”

She smiled. “I do now.”

Being with Chloe and Tanner gave me a sense of belonging I’ve never felt before. My entire life had always felt like one big jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece, and now it felt like the full picture was finally coming together.