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That was the first time I’d heard him say he loved his son out loud. I’d seen it every single day, every time they interacted, but that was the first time he’d actually said it.
I kept my eyes on the road as I spoke, trying my best to be conscious of my blind spots and the other vehicles around. “I think you should give yourself a little more grace than you currently are.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just mean, you’re doing better than you think. Every decision you make is with Cash’s best interests at heart. I’ve seen you put his needs and wants over your own countless times. He’s a cautious little boy, and after what you told me of his mother, that makes sense, but he lights up when you walk through the door, and he does that because you’ve earned it. You have a very smart son, Laeth. He feels your love for him.” I lifted a shoulder and tilted my head to the side. “It wouldn’t hurt you to maybe say the words more often, but actions matter just as much as words, and youshowyour love for him every day.” I made a scoffing noise as I shook my head. “Believe me, I’ve seen more than my fair share of terrible parents. You don’t even rank close.”
Silence enveloped the cab so long I couldn’t help but chance a peek in Laeth’s direction, and the intensity rolling off of him made my mouth go dry and my tongue feel thick.
“Laeth?” I asked on a whisper. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep. If I said something out of turn—”
His voice had a rusty edge to it when he spoke. “You have no fuckin’ clue how bad I needed to hear that, Deva.”
I swallowed down the rest of the apology that had been poised on the tip of my tongue. “Well, it’s the truth. Sometimes I think maybe we’re our own worst critics. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. You’re doing great.”
Chapter
Twenty
DEVA
A pathetic groancame from the man standing beside me, and I didn’t bother to bite back my smile at the sound of it.
“Are we done yet? This has to be the most boring fucking thing I’ve done in my whole life.”
I cut my eyes at Laeth at his use of foul language with his sonliterallyright there, sitting in the cart he was pushing, but the heat I’d been going for was watered down by the giggle I couldn’t hold back.
I grabbed a jar of spaghetti sauce and placed it in the cart before waving at him to follow me down the aisle. “It’s been twenty minutes,” I said in a tone more reserved for a whiny child. “You’re acting worse than your son, and he’stwo.”
Laeth hit me with a scowl, but the look held no heat whatsoever, and I felt a little thrill zip through my body before centralizing between my thighs.
In the days that had passed since Laeth took me for my first driving lesson, the draw I’d felt to him had only gotten worse. Three nights had passed, and every one of them had been riddled with dreams of him.
Trying to tamp down my body’s reaction was getting harder and harder. When he looked at me, my skin tingled. When he chuckled, my nipples turned to rock hard peaks. And when he smiled—something he did much more frequently—it stole my breath. Every. Single. Time.
Long gone were the days of avoidance. Now, instead of escaping to the sanctuary of my own room every night, Laeth would insist on cleaning the kitchen after dinner while instructing me to pick a movie for, and I quote, “the three of us to watch” before Cash went to bed. I’d argued at first, saying that should be his special time with his son, just the two of them, but he refused to take no for an answer.
Night after night the three of us would eat dinner together at the table, then we’d curl up on the couch to watch a movie. It was all so very... domestic, and I was starting to have trouble making out the line that should have been drawn between employee and employer. I was starting to feel... more. And sometimes when he looked at me I could have sworn he felt something too.
I woke up each morning, after a night of dreaming about him, and reminded myself that I was here for Cash. I was responsible for looking after and caring for that little boy, not falling for his father.
But I worried those daily pep talks were falling on deaf ears.
Never in all my twenty-six years had my virginity been the albatross it had become recently. The more time Laeth and I spent together, the more my body craved things it had never experienced before. I hated that I didn’t know the first thing about sex, aside from what I’d read about in books. I’d never even been kissed.
The longer these feelings lingered inside my body, the more I wanted to scream. The Fellowship had very strict rules about abstinence and marriage that I hadn’t agreed with, but whenthere wasn’t a single man in your vicinity willing to break the rules... well, there wasn’t much to be done.
It didn’t matter that I believed my sexuality was mine and mine alone to do with whatever I pleased when I was the only one in my community who felt that way. Now there was Laeth, and he was as off limits as the boys I’d grown up with.
I rolled my eyes and resumed grocery shopping, scanning my list for the next item I’d written down. “This is your own fault, you know. I told you we were more than capable of using the wagon and walking. You were the one who insisted I wait until you were home to go grocery shopping so you could drive me.”
“I’m quickly coming to see the error of my ways. Who knew chivalry would lead to mind-numbing boredom?”
I looked back over my shoulder with a smile just in time to catch him dragging his eyes up to my face from somewhere much lower.
Had he just been staring at my behind?
I whipped back around so he wouldn’t see the blush spreading across my cheeks and neck, staring at the shelves like the items lined along them were the most fascinating things I’d ever seen.
