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He’s filled out since college. Thicker in all the right places—biceps that strain against the fabric of that shirt, sculpted chest. Torso that’s somehow brawny and lean, all at once.
He may be a venture capitalist. But he’s got the body of an actor training to play a Marvel superhero, his suit jacket draped casually over one enormous, muscled forearm.
I still don’t know if accepting his invitation for a drink, and then another and another, was the right call. But I do know I am having a really, really great time.
I do know he seems to sincerely, deeply regret the way he treated me back in college. Never in a million years would I have guessed he’d be so forthcoming ten years later. And so curious and kind about my career. My cookbooks.
This Ford—the exhausted single dad—is funny and authentic and vulnerable in a way the guy who broke up with me wasn’t.
This Ford is hot as fuck.
I stare as he tugs his rumpled shirttails out of his pants and plucks at the fabric, trying to get some air circulating. The muscles in his forearm ripple as he moves, making the tattooed marlin there—an ode to Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea—jump.
“What?” he asks when he catches me ogling him, one side of his mouth curling into a knowing smirk. His eyes flick to my mouth.
My lips tingle.
My ears are still ringing from how loud the music was inside. His voice sounds distant. A little fuzzy.
“You run a company. You’re a single parent. How the hell do you stay in such great shape?”
“5 a.m. workouts. It’s the one thing I try to do for myself on a daily basis. Helps me stay sane.”
“And hot. It helps you stay really hot. I hate to use this term because, well—it is what it is. But Ford, you are a total DILF.”
He laughs, and the space around my heart lights up at the sound. I know I need to end this—this date thing before I do something I regret, but I’m having too much fun. I needed a night out more than I realized.
“What’s wrong with ‘dad I’d like to fuck?’ I certainly don’t mind it,” he says.
“So you’ve been called a DILF before, then.”
“Never by someone who’s ground their ass into my crotch first. That usually happens after they tell me I’m a dad they’d like to bang.”
My turn to laugh. “Hey, you were the one who called me a badass. And badasses don’t play by the rules.”
“Just like Tom Cruise in every movie he’s ever been in.” He lowers his voice. “He’s a cocky fighter pilot who scares innocent women in bars with a cappella. She’s a cookbook author who knows her meat and takes no shit.”
I look. He looks back.
He makes zero effort to hide the desire I see there.
My God, there is something so…so steady and so real about the way this man wants. My skin pulses with prickly warmth, like it’s soaking up sunshine. Energy.
Belief. When we first started dating, Ford believed in me. Even when I was an idiot sophomore who lived in off-brand terry cloth tracksuits (thanks, J.Lo) while torturing myself over whether or not I could get a job with an English degree.
It’s clear he believes in me now. Do I trust that? Or is he more liable to pull the rug out from under me again, the way he did on graduation day?
“I had a really great time tonight,” he says. He takes a step forward, his shoes catching on the flinty pavement.
He’s close enough to lean in for a kiss.
Do. Don’t.
Instead, he reaches for my ponytail—on my way out of the bar, I put my hair up with an elastic I had in my bag—and loops the end around his finger. Gives it a tiny but firm tug.
It’s enough to send bolts of heat crashing through me, making my pussy throb.
“I’ll be honest,” he continues. “I want to ask you to come home with me right now more than…Jesus, more than I’ve wanted anything in a long fucking time, Eva. But I’m a gentleman, for one thing.”
“Heartbreaker, you mean,” I manage, despite the fact that my body just went up in flames at his admission that he wants to take me home.
He grimaces. “Told you I was an idiot. But I’m a gentleman now, and I’m also a parent. I admit I’m a little overprotective when it comes to Bryce. I have an unofficial policy of not bringing women around until…until I don’t know what. But I haven’t brought anyone home yet.”
“No need to explain,” I say. “I get it. I think it’s cool you’re so careful. You’re clearly a great dad, Ford.”
He arches a brow, the light from the neon Jacob’s sign catching on his jawline. “You think so?”
I smile, feeling all kinds of tangled up inside at all this vulnerability. I love it. Brave is a good look on him.
