When I get out of the shower, Wren is in our bed with the covers pulled down toward the feet, lying on the sheets. She’s wearing those damn short-shorts that drive me nuts. When she walks, I can see the curve of her butt cheek at the top of the thigh. And I’m pretty sure she’s not wearing a bra. In fact, I’m sure of it because it’s currently hanging on the chair next to the bed.

I pick it up and look at the lace. It’s soft and slick and cold.

“Dude,” she says. “Are you seriously fondling my underwear?”

I look at her over the bra, but I don’t put it down. “Are you wearing underwear?”

Her cheeks get rosy and she bites back a snort, I can tell.

“Are you?” I ask again, my eyes meeting hers. “Ease some of my discomfort and tell me you are. Please.”

“Discomfort?” she says, sitting up and crossing her legs. She plumps a pillow and drops it into the vee. Then she rests her elbows on it, her chin in her hands. “Why does my underwear make you uncomfortable?”

“It’s not your underwear. It’s the fact that your bra is over here while your naked boobs are over there.”

“I’m about to go to sleep,” she explains, her cheeks flushing even more.

“And I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing between you and those little shorts you’re wearing.” I hang her bra back up and cross to sit on the edge of the bed, looking away from her. I take my watch off and lay it on the nightstand, trying to take a minute and dispel the idea of her…here…in my bed.

“Again, I’m going to sleep.”

“Well, so am I, and you’re not making it any easier.”

She lifts her chin from on top of her fists. “I can’t tell if you’re joking with me or not. You’ll have to tell me.”

“I just did.”

“Do you want me to sleep in my jeans? God, Mick, they’re legs. Just legs. They take me from place to place. They hold me up when I might fall down.”

“And yet I have so many other uses for them in my head,” I admit. I turn and smile at her. I’m only half joking. In all honestly, it’s hard seeing her so comfortable.

“What other uses?” she asks cautiously.

“You sure you want the answer to that?”

“You had better tell me something because I’m freaking out a little bit here. What other uses are in your head?”

I grab one of her ankles and lift it so that her leg extends. “Every time I see these ankles, I imagine them on my shoulders. Usually while I fuck you really hard.” I slide my fingers up the back of her calf to tickle the back of her knee. “And when I see these knees, I imagine you on all fours, while I take you from behind.”

She gulps so loudly that I can hear it.

I slide my fingertips up her thigh, stopping to rub across a rough spot where she missed shaving. “And every time I think about your thighs, I imagine them on either side of my head while I lick your pussy.” I rock my head from side to side. “You may or may not come on my face. It changes every time I think about it.”

Her mouth falls open and tiny gasps escape her lips. She wiggles her ass against the sheets. “I didn’t know you thought about such things.”

“It’s all I ever think about, Wren. It seems like I can’t get it off my mind, and then I come out here and here you are, all comfy in pajamas like we’re having a slumber party, when the only party going on around here is in my pants.”

I put her foot back where it was and turn back around.

“I’m going to get some water. Do you want some?”

She shakes her head, but doesn’t say anything.

I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and gulp it down, trying to catch my breath. I shouldn’t have said any of that. But…God! Might as well be honest. I’ll have to go back in there and—

Her hands lift the back of my shirt, her palms slide around to my front, and she presses her chest against my back.

“You think I don’t think about all those things too? Every time you come to bed, you’re wearing those low-slung pajama bottoms that hang low on your hips. You lift your arms to scratch the top of your head and your T-shirt lifts just a little, and I can see the trail of hair that leads down…” Her fingers slide across the trail and into my waistband, tickling as much as they tug.

And if I wasn’t hard before, I am now. I cover her hands with mine. “You feel it too?”

“Of course, I feel it. Every time I look at you I want to feel you inside me. But I hurt you and I was trying to give you some time to like me again. I wanted you to like me as much as you want me.”

I spin around and hold her face in my hands so she has to look up at me. “I like you just fine.”

She steps up onto her tiptoes. “You like me?”

“Mm-hmm,” I hum, my lips hovering over hers. “I like you more and more every day I spend with you.”

“Despite my lack of underwear?”

I drag a knuckle down the front of her T-shirt and across her nipple. She gasps. Her eyes fall closed. “You can walk around naked, for all I care. But don’t expect me not to be affected by it.” I take her hand and push it down to my dick, which is standing hard between us. She touches it tenderly with the tips of her fingers.

“Is all that for me?” she asks.

“I don’t see anyone else I want to give it to.”

Her hand wraps around my length through my pants and she gives it a squeeze. My head falls back. With her other hand, she pulls my waistband back and pushes her hand inside. And then it’s skin on skin. Her hand is hot and soft, and it’s wrapped tightly around my junk. She gives me a lazy tug. I grab her hand and pull it out of my pants. “We had better stop.”

“Why do we have to stop?” she asks, her lips against mine.

“What are you doing?” a little voice asks from the doorway of the kitchenette.

Wren freezes. “We’re talking,” I say to Anna, who’s standing there holding the ears of a stuffed bunny. “That’s all. Just talking. Why are you up?” I’m still trying to catch my breath, and I have to have a rational conversation with an eight-year-old?

“I want some water,” she says.

“It’s in the fridge,” I reply. She pads on her little feet to the refrigerator and gets a bottle of water. “Can you open it?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer. She just opens it and takes a drink. “I’m going back to bed now,” Anna says.

“That would be nice,” I squeak out.

“You can go back to kissing,” Anna calls over her shoulder.

Wren snorts and falls against me. I pull her close, wrapping my arms tightly around her. “We should have confined this to the bedroom.”

“That would have been smart.” She lays her hands on my chest and leans close to me. “Do you want kids?” I ask her. Because I can see this in my future. The whole getting-caught-by-the-kids-when-you-really-want-to-fuck thing.

“Do I want kids?”

“Yeah.” I brush a lock of hair from her face. “Do you want kids?”

“Well, if the time were right and the finances were right and I found the right man, I might.” She’s repeating what I told her earlier. “Why? Do you want to give me babies?” She laughs. “I bet you do. Right this very minute, you want to give me babies.” She snorts.

“Be honest. Are you willing to face that again?” I ask gently.

“I would love to be a mother. Hanging out with those four just solidifies it for me. I kind of think your mother and my mother put us together with them in order to put me off the idea of having babies, but it’s done the opposite. They’re a lot of work, but watching them learn and grow…there’s nothing like it.”

She pulls back from me a little.

“What?” I ask.

“When my mom and dad died, I worried that no one would ever love me again. I’d lost my brother, because he went to live with our uncle. And it was just me and Star. Star loved me, but not like a parent loves a child. So, maybe I thought that baby would love me. No matter what, he or she would want me, would love me, and would need me. Just me. And there’s a heady feeling in that.”

“I want you. Need you. Love you.”

“There’s a heady feeling in that too,” she says. “I know I have enough love in me that I can let it spill over to someone new. I just need to find someone who wants to receive it.”

“I volunteer for the job.”

She falls against me and wraps her arms around me, joining her hands in the back. I hold her close. Those moments when she had my dick in her hand were great. But this…this is the shit. This is the shit you write home about.

“My grandmother called it a tender–sweet sense of belonging,” she whispers.

“Called what?”

“This. Just this.”

“Oh.”

“Tender–sweet sense of belonging. That’s what this is.”

“You want to go back to bed?” I murmur.

She takes my hand and pulls me with her. I climb in my side and she gets in hers, and then she lifts my arm and slides up so she can put her head in that spot where my shoulder meets my chest. Her hand slides into the waistband of my pants, but she doesn’t go any farther. I lift her shirt in the back and place my palm against her skin, moving it until it slips beneath her waistband at the small of her back.

“Is this okay?” she asks quietly.

I don’t respond. Because there are no words that can adequately describe what I feel, can adequately describe just how okay this is.