I wanted to say, Damn, it’s worth everything to me. But I didn’t. Because I knew what she was getting at. How right today felt. How easy and comfortable and wonderful. How sitting on a bench having ice cream and holding my daughter in my lap and having Rachel beside me—that the only thing better would’ve been if I could’ve put my arm around her, drawn her against me. Like she belonged to me, to us. I swallowed.
“That’s good. You’re finally getting to buy the diner, and I know you’ll make a great success of it.”
“There you have it, the gold medal winner for intentionally missing the point,” she said ruefully. “No offense, but you’re lumberjacking this up.”
“What?”
“It’s like jacking things up, but with a beard,” she quipped. “You know what I meant, and you’re choosing to ignore it. I said I’d only say it once and I meant it. I thought I’d shoot my shot, you know. And I missed. Or you did.”
I’d sure as hell missed out, but that was my choice. It was my shot to dodge, as it were.
“We’re going to head out. Good night, Rachel.” I said, my tone final.
With that, I scooped up Sadie off of the couch and carried her to the door. Rachel held the door open, and I went to the car, glad she had a ground floor apartment and I’d been able to park very close. I settled her into the booster seat and fastened her in. She rubbed her eyes. I shushed her, hoping she would stay asleep.
“Mooshie?” she mumbled.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “I’ll be right back.”
I shut the car door, locked it with my fob and went back to Rachel’s door and knocked. When she swung it open, I knew she had been right there, probably getting ready to lock up.
“She left Mooshie,” I explained.
Rachel hurried to the couch where Sadie had been sleeping. I was right behind her, annoyed and ready to get the bunny and get the hell out of there. I was irritated because of the way things were between us, how she’d let me know she wasn’t going to bail on us if I let her in. How I’d turned her down. Neither of us saying the exact words, both of us knowing she’d asked, and I’d said no. It was uncomfortable as hell, and I was on her heels to get the rabbit. When she snatched it off the couch and turned around, I was standing too close. She turned around and bumped into my chest.
Startled, she looked up at me, the rabbit in her hand. I took her by the arms. It happened so fast, I wasn’t sure if I leaned down or if she rose on her tiptoes. Like a thunderclap, my mouth was on hers, hot and insistent. Her arms went around my neck and I pulled her closer. She parted her lips between mine, and I swept my tongue in her mouth, a hot, deep stroke as I explored the curves of her sweet body with my hands. She started to tremble in my arms, and my heart hammered in my ears. I could feel her breath, her tongue stroking mine. She met me stroke for stroke, making me wild for her. I knew I needed to back away, break the kiss, but I’d waited so long, wanted her for so long. All the tension and heat between us had ignited. I gathered her close to my chest and slanted my mouth to get better access, plundering her lips, leaving her clinging to me and gasping. My knee was between her legs before I knew it, and I felt the heat between her thighs through the fabric of her shorts. If she rubbed against my thigh, if I pressed a hand into the small of her back to arch her against me, it was over in a moment’s time. We broke apart.
“Sadie’s in the car,” I muttered, half-blind with arousal.
I got one glimpse of her passion-drugged eyes, her parted lips swollen from my kiss, and I was out the door. I snuggled the bunny into Sadie’s booster where she dozed and then drove off for home, for the safety of my secluded cabin where there was no temptation, no curvy, pie baking babysitter who filled out a pair of shorts like a wet dream.
I hadn’t been this wound up since I was a teenager. I’d never tipped over into obsession, not even in my earliest liaisons. There was something special, something dangerous about Rachel. Because this temptation was so powerful, the risk was so great. She was close to Sadie. She was insidiously easy to fit into our lives. She felt good there, felt right. I had started to want her, not just her body—all of her. I didn’t want to admit that, even to myself, but it was such a raw, wild want that I had no place to hide from it. I was in the grip of this attraction, this—infatuation. It made me feel like a fool. I should’ve seen this coming, should have hired someone else instead. But I knew I couldn’t have avoided it. I was willing to believe it was inevitable that I developed feelings for Rachel. She was warm and down to earth, funny and sexy and brave. Of course, I wanted to be with her. I just didn’t live that kind of life. So I was destined to be disappointed, to move on with a sense of regret and let it go.