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“I’ve only just met you, and I can see it.” As she spoke the words, she covered his hand with her own.
Asher swallowed as he stared down at their fingers. When he finally looked up again, she was watching him. Was she as surprised as he was that she’d reached out to him? Did she just feel sorry for him after seeing his dad in the hospital, or was it something more?
Willow slowly withdrew her hand, but the atmosphere inside the cab had changed. The air was heavier, the space more intimate. Like the first flicker of a flame during a candlelit dinner, something had ignited, and there was no reclaiming that candle’s pristine wick before the brush of the match.
“I mean I’ve seen you with Harper. You’re a wonderful dad. She adores you. I think she has good instincts.”
“You’re a great mom, too.”
Not giving himself time to second-guess, Asher leaned forward until they were only inches apart. Her eyes were wide as she stared back at him, but she didn’t look away, didn’t back away. Her full lips called to him, begging for him to lean just a little farther, to close the tiny chasm, but still he waited. No matter what he wanted, and, oh yeah, he wanted, it had to be her choice.
Her tiny nod was all the permission he needed.
He dipped his head and claimed her lips, sinking into their almost impossible softness. No slow, polite introduction, his big hello came with the glide of mouths, a dance of tongues and a brush of teeth. Bells of caution clanged in his mind, but he tuned them out, lost in the sweet taste of her, the texture of her lips, the call of her sighs.
His splayed hands slid through her hair as he continued to delight in and then devour her lips. She returned his kisses with equal determination. A battle of equals where both were favored to win.
When even lips weren’t enough, he scooted from behind the steering wheel and slid his hands over her bare shoulders to draw her across his lap. He paused to cheer his genius for insisting on a bench front seat and then brushed his hand along her smooth, lean calf as he took her lips again.
He couldn’t get close enough or kiss her deeply enough. He wanted more and, unless his instincts had gone south in his months of celibacy, she was a more-than-willing partner.
Suddenly, she pulled her head back, but she had to take a few breaths before speaking.
“Now let me get this straight. Did you just kiss me because I’m a good mother?”
“No, that’s not—”
She grinned then. “If good parenting is an excuse to be kissed, maybe I should prepare myself for random strangers to stop me on the street. You should get ready for it, too.”
Willow was only joking, and yet the thought of anyone kissing her didn’t sit well with him. That should have served as a warning of high-voltage proportions, as if he needed another one, but he was ignoring them all.
He leaned in and took her lips again, this time in a slow and sensual exploration that had her shifting her bottom on his lap to move closer. When he pulled away again, he smiled.
“I kissed you because I haven’t been able to think of anything else since I walked in that office and saw you sitting there in those shorts.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true since he’d been imagining a whole lot more than just kissing her over the past few days.
“Is that so? You weren’t thinking about that beautiful baby sitting in my lap or the little angel you carried in your arms? Just me and my...shorts?”
He shook his head. “That’s not it. Sure, I was thinking about the girls, and—”
She stopped him by tilting her head and taking his mouth, kissing him as if it had been the only thing on her mind for days, as well. Her hands slid over his shoulders until they met behind his neck, where she sank her fingertips into his hair.
As his one hand brushed up and down her silky arm, the other took a more adventurous journey to the hem of her long, full skirt. He inched it up slowly, pausing to skim his fingers over each inch of newly exposed skin. She eased his progress by sliding her knees wider.
Then just as his fingertips brushed over the tiny bit of cloth at the juncture of her thighs, and he smiled against her lips as he noted the dampness, Willow jerked her head back and pushed forward off his lap.
“What are we doing?” She shook her head as she slid her feet back into her flip-flops. “We can’t do this. Oh my gosh. The hospital security car is right over there.”
She pointed through the window to a small white car patrolling the next lot, its yellow light flashing.
“What if that driver made it over here? What would we say we were doing?”
Asher tried not to chuckle, but he couldn’t quite remove the mirth from his voice. “I think they would figure it out all on their own.”
“It’s not funny. I’m a business owner in town. A childcare-center owner. I can’t be caught playing show-me-yours-I’ll-show-you-mine in the hospital parking lot.”
“Was that what was just about to happen here? Darn. We were interrupted too soon.”
She folded her arms over the chest that had so recently been pressing against his.
