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“Adrenaline crash, probably,” I diagnosed myself. “I was terrified.”
Brody nodded. “I get it. But Cleo’s sound asleep,” he soothed. “And you said the damage to her hand looked worse than it actually was.”
“It’s not about Cleo. It’s about you,” I admitted ruefully. “I told you once before—putting people together is what I’m good at. But when you weren’t at the hospital, when I thought maybe I’d lost you for good, I didn’t know how to make that better.”
Brody slid his hands around my bare torso and leaned his face into my neck. “But you did. You called me, and I came back. And I promise, Grant, Iswear, I won’t leave again.”
I nodded against the top of his hair. We’d already made promises to each other downstairs, and I believed him, but apparently, I needed more reassurance. Fortunately, Brody could tell. He held me tighter and breathed me in.
“I’m still ten years older than you,” I pointed out. “Liza said maybe I was getting you into a situation like the one she and I were in when we got married, trapping you when you’re too young to really know what you want.”
Brody snorted softly. “Liza doesn’t know me,” he pointed out. “Maybe she felt trapped, but I don’t feel that way in the slightest. I feel safe. Adored. Cherished. Supported. Wanted. Having you hold me like this… I can’t imagine anything more right.”
He spoke the words with such quiet conviction that I couldn’t doubt him. “So that means I don’t have to get in shape to take on the tattooed man at your gym for your affections?”
Brody laughed lightly. “Full confession time: Gym Crush Dude is named Dwayne, and he’s married to an equally tattooed woman who’s pregnant with their third child. I’ve never really had a crush on him, and he for sure hasn’t looked twice at me, except to ask if I was almost done with the elliptical. I just… didn’t want you to realize who Iactuallyhad a crush on.”
“Are you serious?” I snickered. “I was racked with jealousy for nothing?”
He pulled back to stare at me, his green eyes filled with confusion. “You were jealous?You?”
“God, yes. I nearly challenged Blue Marian to a duel for you today.”
“Who?” he demanded.
I laughed out loud. He didn’t even remember the gorgeous redhead’s name. “The married couple who own the winery, remember? We watched you walking across the field toward us, looking so freaking delectable in your jeans, with your hair shining in the sun, and I thought his eyes would fall out of his head.”
“You’re insane. That man is profoundly, stupidly in love with his husband,” Brody countered, a slow smile dawning on his face. “I got that within the first minute of our conversation.”
“Yes, but so am I,” I reminded him, pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose. “And I was very worried you might find one of them more attractive than me.”
I was teasing, but it was mostly true. It had been awful, and I was ashamed to even admit it aloud.
He laughed and moved his hands down to unfasten the button on my pants. “Don’t get me wrong, those guys were definitely good-looking, but they were nowhere near as hot as my sexy husband.”
His emphasis on the final word made me squeeze my eyes closed and breathe deeply.Thank you for this moment. For this man.
“You’re blind,” I said with a soft laugh. “But I love you anyway.”
“Not blind,” Brody said, shoving my pants down and moving his hands up to cup my ass cheeks over the smooth cotton of my boxer briefs. “While you were busy worrying about those two, I was noticing a cluster of moms from the other school who couldn’t keep their eyes off you. You had your damned shirtsleeves rolled up the way that drives me crazy. If it was makingmehot, I can only imagine—”
I stopped him with a kiss. Happiness filled my body like helium, making me feel nearly buoyant. I’d never felt this purely joyful before, and I was pretty sure that was because I’d never been in love like this before, either.
I’d loved Liza—I still did, as a friend, as the mother of my children, as a person I’d shared a wonderful history with. But now I could see that she and I were very different people who wanted different things, andthatwas what had doomed our relationship, far more than any emotional inadequacy on my part. It had been nothing like the pure sunshine warmth and bone-deep connection I had felt with Brody from the very beginning.
I kissed him while we stood half-naked in the middle ofourbedroom, where I could continue to seduce and flirt and laugh with him for years to come. Where I could share and cry and strategize with him. Where I would always and forevermore be at home with him.
Thinking about our life together, long and stretched out before us, filled with all the life-changing milestones and magical everyday moments we’d share with the girls and each other, somehow, impossibly, made me even hotter for him.
“Do you know… the day you came here to interview for the nanny job, I almost turned you down?”
He looked up at me, his eyes glazed with lust and his breathing rough. “I figured. I had no experience, and I didn’t exactly look the part.”
“You looked too much the part.” I grazed my teeth over his stubbled chin and felt him shiver in my arms. “Not the part of the full-time childcare specialist, though. I wanted you in my bed even then. I had to stop myself from eyeing you up and down like a greedy bastard and imagining you naked. I resorted to reciting the bones of the human body to stop myself from dropping to my knees.Calcaneus, talus, metatarsals…”
“That explains the strangely manic expression on your face,” Brody said with a grin. “Meanwhile, I was wondering whether I could catch a glimpse of your ass. I finally got so desperate I asked you for a glass of water. Worth it.”
“Oh my god,” I said, reaching up to tug on a hank of his hair. “Treating your potential employer like a piece of meat? For shame.”
