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I couldn’t let her go. Not when I just got the hang of her being around.
My hand slid from my face and returned to my pocket. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“That’s okay. We can learn together.”
“You mean that?”
She beamed. “I mean everything I say, captain.”
“I’ll hold you to your word.”
“Why don’t you hold yourself to me?”
I nearly snarled at her for that. And not because it was rude, but because it was torture to hear her say those things to me when I was already towing the line.
Damn it, I didn’t want to do this. My family deserved to feel whole again, meaning I deserved to have someone in my life worth my time. For once, I gave a damn about someone who wasn’t my daughter. Was that such a bad thing?
I sat down across from Regina and laid my phone on the table. “Here’s how this is going to go.”
She sat attentively with her palms flat on the table.
“I’m going to make this grocery order, I’m going to grill you up some heart-stopping ribs, and then I’m going to take you up to that loft where I’m going to slam between your hips so hard that you can’t walk tomorrow.”
She whimpered.
Good girl.
“After that,” I continued while watching the patches of scarlet brighten on her cheeks, “I’m going to hold you while we talk about everything—and I mean everything that we can possibly think could go wrong in this scenario.” I sighed. “Including you possibly losing your best friend.”
She nodded with such an innocent, wide-eyed grin that it made my heart flutter.
I unlocked my phone and opened the delivery app. “Do me a favor, darling.”
“Anything, Captain.”
“Be a good girl and soak in the hot tub for a bit while I cook. Okay?”
She eagerly hopped up from the table and ran to the door. I never saw a woman get naked so fast. And she didn’t even have time to hear me laugh about it as she disappeared beyond the door. A loud splash was followed by a languid sigh that warmed the cockles of my heart.
From now on, that was all I wanted—to hear Regina relaxed and at ease.
And I would make sure to be the man who did that for her.
Chapter 16 - Regina
Dinner was spectacular.
Most of my friends from school bitched about their boyfriends being unable to cook. How they managed to stick with lousy guys didn’t make sense to me because I didn’t understand the process of repeated complaints. If something was wrong, I fixed it. If I didn’t like what someone did, I told them.
Although it was hard to admit that I was having a crisis of conscience over that right as I started going up the stairs in nothing but a satin nightie and fluffy socks. Bless Eric for not making fun of my sock obsession. I didn’t like spending any amount of time being uncomfortable.
Which further deepened my dilemma.
Currently, I was avoiding my best friend because she had something that bothered me, making me uncomfortable. By my own standards, I should have addressed those two things already. Even a well-meaning text would have worked for us.
But this issue was so much more complex. There were nuances to my liking Eric, and the possibility of being his mate was more intense than I could have ever imagined. I didn’t even believe the kind of ‘meant to be’ garbage that polluted mainstream movies, so I didn’t know how to begin processing it.
I didn’t know how to accept it.
