His arm tingled and his shoulder ached under the weight of her. January had been asleep him for the past hour. Listening to her even breathing and feeling the soft exhale against his chest, he felt completely at peace. His arm might have been on its way to falling off, but he’d be the happiest one-armed fellow ever.

It was the first time in a very long time that he’d laid beside a woman without having sex, and it was also the first time he didn’t give a damn. Just lying next to January was better than the orgasms he’d had with any other woman.

A soft moan escaped her lips, and January rolled over, putting her back to him.

He thought of his father’s uncovered journal. Not that he’d really forgotten, it’d been in the back of his mind all night. Looking across the room to where it lay on the dresser, he could see the bound book that matched the one his father had given him on graduation.

Rubbing a hand over his late-night scruff, he weighed the pros and cons of reading it. On one hand, there was nothing it could say to make up for the lies and deceit he still felt deep down in his bones. On the other, he was curious about what his father could have possibly written about for the last eighteen years. There were only so many ways to say I’m sorry. Not that his proud father had tried to apologize. It had been more like a bullshit speech about how he was too young to understand.

Resolving to keep his heart hard, he stood with a false confidence and retrieved the journal. The smooth leather was reassuring as he ran his hand over the cover. Old, worn, comfortable. They were characteristics he’d loved about his father’s lifestyle, and ones he’d worked the hardest to eradicate from his own.

Climbing back into bed with January and propping his cell phone flashlight on his chest, he opened to his father’s scribbled handwriting. The first words, the familiar greeting, “Dear Son,” knocked him in the gut, and he shut the book with a snap.

Maybe he didn’t want to forgive him. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but as he sat there with a book that possibly contained all the answers to the million questions he’d asked himself over and over the last eighteen years, he couldn’t bring himself to read it. This was only his version—his father’s side of the story didn’t include the way his mistakes changed Brecken’s life.

Running a hand through his hair, he tossed the book on the floor next to the bed and then brought January’s warm body closer to his. He wasn’t going to give his father the satisfaction of messing with his head again. He’d come too far.

* * *

Her eyes fluttered open, and her face peered up at him, chin resting on his chest.

“Hi,” she said timidly.

Wrapping his arms around her, he rolled, pinning her underneath him. He wanted to wipe that unsure expression off her face. It threatened to destroy him.

“Good morning. Can we get a ruling on the field?”

Her brows furrowed, and the corners of her eyes crinkled. “What?”

“Last night, you called time out. A flag was thrown on the play, and I’m demanding time to be added back to the clock.”

She covered her face with both hands. “Oh my God. I’m so embarrassed.”

“I had no idea you were such a sports fan, but you threw that T like you had done it before. Volleyball? Football? Oh, please tell me you’re into that whole women’s lingerie football and all my dreams just came true.”

She dropped her hands and smiled up at him. “Lingerie Football League? Seriously? That’s what you think I do in my spare time?”

“A man can hope.” His dick twitched just picturing her in a pair of pads and… well, nothing else.

She rolled her eyes. “I played basketball. I was tall—coaches loved me.”

“Correction. You are tall.”

“So, into the technicalities this morning.”

“Sexual frustration.” He let his weight fall on her fully and ground his hardness against her. “It does crazy things to a man.”

Her eyes widened, but she shook her head and then ducked underneath his arm. “Well, I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t have the cure for your problem this morning. Get dressed or we’ll be late.”

“Late for what? It’s Saturday.”

“Mm-hmm, and we have somewhere to be in thirty minutes.”

“Does this have something to do with why you insisted I stay here last night?”

She nodded feverishly, her smile growing wider.

Brecken hopped out of bed and picked his discarded clothes up off the floor. Holding the dress shirt in front of him and eyeing the missing buttons, he grinned before tossing it in his overnight bag. He dressed, watching January as she ran her hands over the skirt of her dress and then reached one hand up to her necklace and then pointed toward the corner of the room. “Can you grab that box in the corner?”

His eyes followed the line of her finger where a cardboard box rested on the floor. He picked it up, the taped top gave no indication of what was inside, but whatever it was, it was heavy.

“I can’t be involved in the burying of a dead, apparently dismembered, body. How did you get this box in here?” he asked, shifting the box to get a better grip on it.

She flexed a bicep and winked. “Come on, Hercules.”

For the first time since he’d been at her apartment, they didn’t take the elevator to the first floor. Instead they stopped on the second. He’d assumed it was more apartments, but when they stepped into the open space, he realized it was all conference rooms. People were already in the large room January was walking toward, and he followed behind her, wondering what he’d got himself into.

“Hi, everyone, sorry we’re late. This is Brecken Blackstone of Blackstone Software. He donated this month’s entire order of books for the kids.”

He was thrown off balance as people came forward, shaking his hand and patting his back, giving their thanks for something he hadn’t done.

He tossed a confused look to January, but she just smiled and hung back, watching the commotion. Brecken nodded and backed away from the crowd. Feeling claustrophobic, he took her by the arm. “Can I see you for a minute?”

“Now? The children are going to be here any second.”

“I didn’t donate to”—he waved his hands around the room—“whatever this is.”

“Yes, you did,” she said quietly and turned back to the crowd. “Here they come, everyone,” January said excitedly and greeted a group of bouncing and screaming children as they exited the elevator.

With every step of their little feet scurrying across the linoleum floor, Brecken backed up farther against the wall. He gulped and wiped the sweat from his brow. He didn’t do kids. He’d been an only child, at least during the formative years. He didn’t have any friends or close coworkers that had them, excluding Martin, who would be moving into the parent column soon. Brecken had zero experience, and the little fuckers terrified him.

January handled them with ease, talking animatedly and corralling them into the room. The box he’d carried down was open on a table that had been pushed against the wall, and colorful books of all sorts were being pulled out. The kids grabbed them eagerly and headed to the front of the room where a large area rug was laid out. January and the other adults sat as well.

He watched, a little intrigued, and a whole lot impressed, as the adults sat with the children and listened to them read, offering occasional assistance with sounding out words or explaining what something meant. At some point, he relaxed, no longer afraid he was going to have to interact with these small humans, and he stepped away from the wall, inching closer to the rug.

January smiled up at him in encouragement as he approached, prodding him to take a seat next to her. Feeling ridiculous as he tried to bend his legs into “crisscross apple sauce” as January called it, he tucked his long legs up against his chest.

A little girl with dark hair pulled back into a long braid read hesitantly to January, looking up for reassurance every few words. January nodded and smiled in encouragement, and his breathing hitched.

She’d never mentioned wanting to have children, but they’d barely even scratched the surface on talking about what they wanted for their futures. Their separate futures that he’d begun to see a lot more intertwined. Could he be a husband and father? Considering his role model, it seemed unlikely. But with January at his side, he wasn’t ruling anything out.