I shake my head. “I, uh, wanted to give Sterling and Eden some privacy.”
He nods, licking his lips. The huge kitchen feels like it’s smaller than it’s ever been before. I should walk away and go to the guest room, but my feet won’t move. The hum of the refrigerator fills the silence.
“I loved your speech,” I finally say.
He pushes off the counter, dropping his arms and giving me an uninhibited view of his abs. He stalks toward me slowly and purposefully. My pulse skyrockets. He takes my bag off my shoulder and the glass of water from my hand before turning around and walking toward the hallway.
“Come on.”
I follow after him, my empty hands feeling awkward. I’m still wearing my yellow bridesmaid dress. We walk right past Dolly’s old room. The door is closed.
“Um …”
“Pops is in there now. The stairs got too hard on his knees.”
He leads me up to a door, opening it to reveal a large, verymale room. It has a massive four-poster cedar bed and a cowhide rug on the floor.
“Don’t worry; I replaced the mattress when Holden moved out. No one else has slept on it besides me, and I changed the sheets for you.”
I bite my lower lip. “How did you know I was coming over?”
“Sterling texted me.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
I want to climb you like a tree right now.
I manage not to say it out loud, but it’s all I can think about. He sets my bag on the bed and my water glass on the nightstand. I notice his boots from the wedding in the corner of the room. The faint scent of his cologne wafts through the space. My body physically aches with the desire to make him stay in here with me.
After I got divorced and had to split custody, the nights I spend alone without my boys are the hardest. I lie awake, tossing and turning and worrying about them with Matt. Dutton has nightmares sometimes and crawls into bed with me. Dawson often wakes up and joins him, and they’re both so cuddly.
I sit on the edge of the bed, peering up at him.
“What’s that look for, Mamas?” He steps closer to me, tilting my chin up to look at him.
I wet my lips before boldly grabbing his hand and pulling him over until he sits on the bed.
“Stay,” I murmur, grabbing my bag and going into the bathroom.
I step into the shower and rinse off, soaping up the important parts and washing my face. I try not to think about this being Duke’s shower. I change into my new purple cotton pajama shorts quickly, paring it with a plain white tank top. I brush my teeth and gargle mouthwash before using the cheap baby lotion I bought as moisturizer. It’s all I could afford on my run to get the essentials after the fire and having to stock up on clothes and shoes for the boys. Even the drugstore-brand skin care is outrageously expensive for me on my single-mom bartender budget.
I pull the few pins out of my hair and run my fingers through it before finally turning back toward the room, hoping he didn’t leave.
When I step back into it, I sigh in relief when I see that he’s lounging back on the pillows. He looks like he’s modeling the bedding with one arm tucked back behind his head.
I climb up into it and slip under the covers. When I lay my head down on the pillow, he looks over at me, his expression unreadable. My body is hyperaware of his, every nerve ending extra sensitive.
I close my eyes and sigh. “Good night.”
14
DUKE
It’s physically painful for me to lie next to her and not be touching her. She’s inches away from me, in my bed, where I’ve never let another woman sleep. There are at least four other guest rooms in this house since everyone moved out where she would have been comfortable.
But I wanted her in here, with me. I planned on sleeping on the sofa in case Pops woke up and he needed me. If I went upstairs to my old room, I might not hear him if he got up and fell while wandering the house at night.
