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After opening his email on his cell, he scrolled through his folders until he found the one that contained the photos. Then he slid Chloe his phone.
She scanned through the snapshots without showing any reaction at first. Then her eyes misted and she glanced up at Michael. “I was pregnant with Axl.”
“Yeah. You were stunning. Are stunning,” he amended. “Do you want me to send those to you?”
Stiffly, she nodded and handed back his phone.
He tapped a few buttons and isolated just the shots of her and Nick. There were only a couple, and they were as innocent as could be.
Only a dick would be jealous of several-year-old pictures of friends hugging. Problem was, he was a dick, and he knew they’d once been way more than friends back in the day. How much more, he didn’t want to think about.
“Need your email address,” he said.
She gave it to him and he sent the pictures, then took a chance and lifted her legs onto his lap. She made a noise in her throat and tried to scoot back, but she was in the corner of the couch and there was nowhere to go.
“Full disclosure. I had a thing for Lila for a while. Teenage boys think solely with their dicks. When the gods grant you an attractive stepmother, yes, your thoughts drift bad places. But that was years ago. After she hooked up with Nick, the last of those feelings died.”
Chloe’s brow arched. “You certainly have a busy social life, Michael Shawcross.”
“Nah, back then most of it was up here.” He tapped his head. “The Lila thing wasn’t anything at all. She never saw me as anything but a son. I saw her as a mom too, and the last few years, that’s all I’ve seen her as. Often a pain-in-the-ass one too.”
Chloe’s legs shifted in his lap. Her little toe had a flower-shaped ring on it, which might have been the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. “I saw your hair first, from the stage. All wild and free. Swaying behind you as you danced. Definitely never saw it like that before.” He gave her ponytail a pointed look. “It’s always up when I see you.”
“I work and I take care of my son. No time for fancy hairstyles.”
“Maybe not, but I’m glad there was time for this.” He tweaked her little toe. “The ring’s hot as hell, by the way. Almost as hot as watching you dance with your girls and get totally loose to my music. I got off on the fantasy of you being all wet and ready just from watching me. As ready as I was for you.”
“Alcohol makes people do crazy stuff,” she said quietly, turning her foot into his ministrations on her arch. “Oh fuck, that feels good.”
Hearing her swear was always a slice of the forbidden. “Want me to give you a massage?”
“That sounds like a pick-up line.”
“No, it’s a ‘I want to give you an orgasm before you go to work’ line, so let’s pretend this is innocent until it’s so not.” He rubbed her ankle bone under the hem of her jeans. “Oh, and just so you know—I hadn’t had a drop when I was on stage. I might be a partier—might’ve been,” he corrected, “but I always kept the music sacrosanct. I never rehearsed drunk. Never performed that way either.”
Her feet wiggled. She was nervous, and trying to act like she wasn’t. Even that turned him on. “I can’t say the same. We pre-gamed pretty hard.”
“Your eyes were unfocused when we were dancing. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to take care of you or fuck you
senseless.”
She inhaled audibly. “You were pretty much on the fucking track all night.”
“It kills me that I don’t know,” he murmured, digging his thumb into her arch just to hear that sexy little give in her breathing again. “I should’ve been able to memorize every moment of undressing you, and touching you, and licking you. I wanted to see your breasts in the light, outside the club. See the rest of you. The little slash of your belly button, the slit between your legs. Your ass. Goddamn, I want to see your ass bare. And I might have gotten to, but I was robbed of the memory and maybe I’ll never get it back.”
She swallowed hard. “Outie.”
Her soft, shaky voice made him whip his gaze to hers. “What?”
“I have an outie.” She peeled up her shirt to give him a glimpse of her belly, and Jesus, he couldn’t stop the groan.
Her stomach wasn’t flat. Wasn’t perfect. But he’d never wanted to worship every inch of a woman’s midriff more.
“Keep going,” he rasped, fully expecting her to say no.
But she rolled her shirt up higher, offering him a look at the pale peach lacy cups that guarded her tits. Between them there was a tiny bow, sweet and pure.
He bent her legs and leaned closer, reaching down to stroke her adorable navel. She flicked her gaze up to his and her lower lip trembled open. Just like before she reached up to bring his head down to hers, sending him the message loud and clear that she was into it too.
