The sunlight streaming through the windows pulled me from sleep. I drew in a deep breath and let it out with a contented sigh as the greatest ache I could ever know as a man seeped its way into my muscles. I looked down at the mass of hair sprawled across my chest and grinned. I smoothed it away from Kylie’s face, studying her as she slept.

She was beautiful. Her lips were slightly parted and soft snores fell from between them. Her skin was flushed with a decadent glow after getting the rest she needed. It was soft against mine. Her curves filled out against me, covering me in her comforting presence. Her leg tightened around mine almost possessively even while she slept.

I still couldn’t believe the night we’d shared together.

But then again, I could. Something deep within me had been longing for it. Kylie was intelligent, wise, funny, everything I could’ve ever wanted in a woman wrapped up in the beautiful body of a twenty-four-year-old. I stroked her back for a few minutes, feeling her inch her way closer to my body.

It killed me to think about pulling myself away from her, but I wanted her to wake up to breakfast.

I slid from her grasp and pulled on some pants, then made my way downstairs. I started the coffee pot and was cracking eggs as I heard rumbling around upstairs. I grinned and looked up, listening as her footsteps came padding down the hallway. I tossed some strips of bacon into a pan before putting in some biscuits, and I listened as she made her way to where I was, gravitating to me in the same way I had to her.

“Morning,” she said sleepily.

“Good morning,” I said with a grin. “How did you sleep?”

“Better than I have in a while,” she said with a sigh.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

I peered over at her and was struck by how wondrous she looked. Her hair was a mess and she had no makeup on. She wore my shirt on top of her naked curves, and it barely fell to the middle of her thighs. She stretched her arms over her head, forcing the fabric up her body. It crept up her thighs and dangerously close to where I wanted to eat my breakfast from. She stretched and stretched. She went up onto her tiptoes and groaned out the rest of the cracks in her joints. I forced my gaze away from her so I could concentrate on breakfast.

Because if I didn’t, I’d take her right there on the damn kitchen floor.

She was right about the sunrise. There had been a close, intimate romance to it, to finding a naked woman in my bed curled up against my body. It was something I hadn’t experienced in years, and I was already longing for it again.

But more than that, I was longing for it again with her.

I knew it was wrong. For fuck’s sake, she was my son’s ex-girlfriend. But I couldn't resist her. The pull she had on me. The allure that dripped from her pores. That sweet, innocent smile that concealed the juiciest of sounds and the most desperate of pleas before she came on my cock. Even her sweat enticed me, drove me to primal heights I’d never experienced with any other woman. She unleashed an animal within me, and I hadn’t yet chained that thing back to its damn post.

“Any plans for the day?” I asked as I flipped the bacon.

“Nope,” Kylie said. “None that I can think up.”

“Then why don’t you—?”

My phone ringing out in my pocket pissed me off. I’d been just about to ask her to spend the day with me. We could lie in bed and talk, or I could take her out shopping. Hell, we could jet off in my plane and take a weekend trip to anywhere in the world she wanted to go. Anywhere at all. Anything she named.

I scrambled the eggs up and pushed them off the stove before I held my finger up to her.

“This is Ryan.”

“Hello, Dad,” Adam said.

My face fell as my eyes whipped over to Kylie.

“Morning, Son,” I said.

Kylie’s eyes widened as she tried to pull down my shirt she had on.

“We need to talk. I’m on my way to see you right now. I’ve got coffee for us, so unlock the door for me.”

“That’s great, Son. I’m glad you’re coming over so we can talk. Because I agree, we do need to.”

Kylie scurried out of the room and ran up my steps.

Fuck. Of course this would happen.

“I’ll be there soon,” Adam said.

Then he hung up the phone without so much as a good-bye. I finished cooking the bacon and pushed it off the stovetop a little too hard. It was painfully obvious I was cooking for two. I pulled out a Tupperware container and filled it with some bacon and eggs, then capped it off and pulled out a to-go thermos. I filled it with coffee and brandished some cream and sugar so Kylie could make it however she wanted.

I felt like shit for having to do this to her, but my son and I did need to talk.

“I’m so sorry,” I said as she came around the corner. “Please, take this with you. I made it for us.”

“Can’t keep it here. Adam will know you were cooking for two.”

The bitterness in her voice slapped me across my face.

“I’ve got coffee for you and a variety of creamers. Fix it however you like,” I said.

I watched her dump creamer into the coffee until it was a soft brown before capping it off with the top.

“Kylie, I—”

“Talk with your son,” she said as she whipped around to face me. “That’s important, okay? He’s your son, Ryan.”

I watched her wrinkle her nose, almost as if she were disgusted.

“I have to go,” she said.

I wanted to go after her, to chase her down, wrap her in my arms, and pin her to a wall. I wanted to press my leg between hers and slide her off her feet until I had her full attention. Until I could drill into her that she was just as important, just as necessary, just as needed in my world. But my son was a few minutes out and she was still in my house. She walked away from me quickly and I followed her, but I couldn’t quite catch up to her. She ripped my front door open and practically jogged for her car, then slammed herself into it and drove off.

Not five minutes later, Adam was barreling through that same front door.

“Dad?”

“In the kitchen,” I said.

I turned the oven off on the biscuits to let them sit, ignoring the food I’d made. I was no longer hungry, and I knew Adam was coming with coffee. He came around the corner and eyed me, quirking an eyebrow at the fact that I was shirtless.

“Excuse me for not being in a suit at nine in the morning,” I said.

“Ran into Kylie’s car coming down the road,” Adam said. “Stopped at a stoplight.”

I bit down on my tongue as he dropped my coffee on the kitchen counter.

“Looked like she had a rough night.”

“You wanted to talk?” I asked.

“What’s going on between you two?” Adam asked.

I shrugged as I crossed my arms over my chest. I didn’t know how to answer his question because I wasn't sure what was happening. If he was looking for a definition or a title, I had none. If he was looking for an explanation or some details, he wasn’t getting them. So, what was I stuck telling him?

“You really aren’t going to answer me,” Adam said.

“You seem bothered by whatever it is you think is going on,” I said.

“Come on, Dad. Seriously? This game? You’re shirtless in your damn kitchen and Kylie was sitting at the stoplight three blocks up. I’m not supposed to put two and two together?”

“Does it bother you?” I asked.

“Hell yeah it does. Kylie’s my girlfriend.”

“Ex,” I said.

“Whatever. She’s still fresh on the market, and you swoop in to do what? Mend her heart? Clean up the mess I made? Take part in my sloppy seconds?”

“You will not come into my home and address me the way you are right now.”

“Why? Because we’re talking about Kylie?”

“No. Because we’re talking about a woman in general. I raised you better than this. I raised you with better morals.”

“That might have hit home a little more if my girlfriend’s lip hickey wasn’t on your damn collarbone,” he said.

“Ex-girlfriend, Adam. You broke up with her. Remember? You called me about it.”

“And I sure as hell wouldn’t have if I knew you were going to swoop in on her like some wild animal. How long have you had a crush on her, huh? Were you banging her behind my back?”

“Clean up your language and we can talk,” I said curtly.

“Were you or were you not fucking my girlfriend while we were together?”

“Remember where you’re standing, Adam.”

He snickered and shook his head, altogether forgetting about the bullshit peace-offering coffee he’d brought into my home.

“Just answer the question. Will it help if I say please? Please, Dad? Will you tell me whether or not you were balls deep in my girlfriend while we were dating?”

I had half a mind to kick my son out of my own damn house for talking about Kylie that way.

“No,” I said flatly. “I was not treating your girlfriend the way she deserved to be treated while you were treating her like shit.”

“So that’s what this is about,” he said. “You didn’t approve of us fighting.”

“I don’t approve of the way you handled anything with Kylie over these last few months.”

“You were the one who told me to move in with her!”

“I was the one who told you to think long and hard about what you wanted before taking that next step with her. You were the one who chose to do it while knowing you didn’t really want to do it.”

“You literally sat there and told me that if I wanted to keep Kylie, I had to move in with her.”

“No. That’s what you took away from it. You weren’t thinking in terms of Kylie. You were thinking in terms of yourself. I told you to communicate with her. I said you were dangling a possible future in order to keep her on your hook so you wouldn’t have to lose her. I called you out on that, Son. I told you to talk to her, and sooner rather than later. The next thing I knew, you were calling me about a security-deposit check on an apartment.”

I stood toe to toe with my son, refusing to allow him to gaslight the situation further.

“Tell me what you really think,” Adam said underneath his breath.

“Trust me, you don’t want that,” I said.

His eyes hooked with mine as his eyebrows hiked up.

“Oh, really? The father fucking my girl—”

“Ex-girl,” I said.

“The father fucking my ex of only two weeks wants to lecture me on my bad decisions. Go right on ahead. I’m actually kind of curious.”

My face settled into stone, and I watched my son falter.

“You willingly manipulated and dangled a future in front of Kylie’s eyes because you had no idea what to do without her. You used her, Adam. Maybe not in the traditional sense of a man keeping a woman around for sex or for bearing children or any of those other bonehead moves, but you kept her around because she was your artistic inspiration.”

Adam’s his face fell and his skin paled.

“You kept Kylie around with the promise of a future you never intended to give her because she was your muse, the root of your creation, the foundation you grounded your entire production company on. That was why you got upset when she took my job offer. You needed her next to you in your production company so you could keep your inspiration close. Not because you needed her or her expertise, but because you needed what she could give you. And there’s a difference, Son. There’s a difference between wanting a woman for who she is and wanting a woman for what she can provide.”

“I didn’t do that to her. I loved her. I still love her,” Adam said.

“I don’t doubt for one second you did. And I don’t doubt for one second you still do. But that doesn't mean you kept her at your side for the right reasons. It takes more than love, Adam. It takes more than love to make anything like that work. The one constant throughout the past four years was how you talked about Kylie being the fuel behind your creative thoughts. And when she came to work for me, you saw your production studio crumbling because she didn’t go to work with you. Then you compromised what you wanted for your life—and put into jeopardy what she wanted for hers—because compromising both of your abilities to be happy was okay in your mind as long as you kept your muse.”

“I didn’t do that.”

“Yes, you did. That’s exactly what happened. And I know in the back of that heady mind of yours, you know it. You know the only reason you clung to Kylie as long as you did was because of your creative process. So I’d think long and hard before storming into my home and judging me for my actions when you can’t even admit to your own,” I said.

My eyes locked with my son’s, and not once did I look away until he did.

“You know what, Dad?”

“What’s that, Son?”

“Fuck you.”

Adam his head and backtracked from the kitchen. I listened to his angry footsteps storm down the hallway and straight out the front door. But I knew he had heard me. I knew he had digested the message. As I listened to the door slam shut behind him, I wondered where in the world he had learned these morals. I wondered where in the world I had gone wrong with my own damn son. I sighed and relaxed against the kitchen counter, my eyes dancing around the empty expanse of my mansion.

And I found myself wanting to call Kylie.