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Feigning a confidence I don’t feel, I throw my shoulders back and close the distance between us. Suddenly, my hand aches to rip the door open so I can see the shock on his face when he takes in my outfit, but I don’t give in.
Instead, I adjust the dress again, this time tugging it down a little in the front. I run a shaky hand over my long, wavy ponytail, letting it fall delicately over my bare shoulder.
The feeling of my fingers wrapping around the cold brass handle feels like jumping off the rope swing and falling into the icy depths of Barry’s Pond in the dead of winter.
The door groans as it opens, slowly revealing my hot-as-sin stepfather in all his brooding glory.
I scan his body from bottom to top, leaving what I know will be a raging scowl for last.
He’s dressed casually in dark jeans and a fitted white tee. Seeing Isaac so undone has a shiver rolling through my body. Fuck. He looks hot in a suit or his Sunday best. Adorable in his khaki shorts and polos while he’s corralling kids out on the church lawn. But seeing Isaac like this, casual and comfortable? Content at home with me? It’s crazy.
My lip twitches when my eyes catch on his aged but clean house shoes. He refuses to walk around barefoot, a quirk that’s only gotten worse in the last few years.
Isaac doesn’t think I notice, but I do.
I think my stepfather would be shocked by just how much I see.
My palms feel clammy and there’s a fine shiver inching its way down my spine as I take in his fit body. Isaac is a tall man, standing at just over six-feet. His legs are lean, his hips narrow, but I’ve seen what he looks like beneath his clothes. Beneath the perfect façade he likes the world to see.
Isaac is hot.
His body shows his love for running and his need for perfection, down to every delicious ab gracing his stomach. He’s not huge, his body isn’t cut, but fuck if I haven’t caught myself salivating over him a time or two.
Okay. More like twenty.
A throat clearing has my gaze snapping up to meet his. Isaac’s brown eyes are twinkling with a mischief I’m unused to, but one I noticed yesterday as he spun me around the kitchen. His lips and brow kick up at the same time as he crosses his muscular arms over his chest.
What the hell is going on?
I feel like I’ve been dropped into an alternate reality. One where Isaac plays instead of preaches.
“Find something you like, sweetheart?” he drawls, his voice huskier than I’ve ever heard before. The shiver previously dancing along my spine morphs to full-body shudders.
What. The. Fuck.
“Uhh,” I cough, suddenly feeling lightheaded. “You knocked?” I avoid his question and knowing gaze, praising myself when my voice doesn’t squeak.
A quiet chuckle slips from his lips and I damn near pass out. Seriously. I don’t understand what’s happening right now.
Isaac holds his hand out between us, palm up. “Come with me.”
It’s a demand, not a question. Yet the open hand between us feels like a lot more than anything I’ve ever been offered before.
Except for a time four years ago when someone else, another Payne man, made a different offer. One to take away the bone-crushing, Earth-shattering pain that’d been splintering through me, nearly breaking me in two.
And take away my pain, he did.
And so much more.
Shoving those memories away, I reach out and accept Isaac’s hand–the man who’s here. The man who stayed. His fingers immediately wrap around mine, flexing almost painfully. I let the pain anchor me to this moment, with him, not with a ghost from my past.
I’m breathless as he leads me through the house, the only sound is my bare feet padding across the worn planks and his deep breaths.
Glancing up at him, I find his expression soft, almost sweet. Something that’s not dread or anxiety swirls in my belly. I can’t decipher it, but it feels a lot like excitement? Like anticipation.
“What’s going on?” I ask softly. He squeezes my hand in response, his full lips tipping up in a secret smile.
Butterflies swarm my insides as he pulls the door to the sunroom open. I hesitate, my expression wary as I stare up at him. Isaac hates the sunroom, preferring to lounge in his old leather recliner in the living room. The sunroom is my place, where I do my yoga and read. It was Mama’s place before that. It’s where I go to feel close to her.
