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“With your family.” Each word came out clipped and filled with irritation at the boldness of his questions, considering he’d clearly seen me too.
“When?” he repeated, turning to look at me. Eyes searching me and pleading for something I couldn’t quite understand. “What were we doing?”
“Getting—oh my God, what does it even matter?” I seethed. “You’re married. You have children. Your daughter is one of my students.”
Shock had replaced everything else as I’d spoken. But just as I was about to tell him he needed to leave, he stepped toward me and said, “You’re mad because I’m married.” The words coming out more of a confirming statement rather than a question.
“Yes,” I cried out, irritation bleeding from me because he seemed surprised by that.
“You said you’d scream—you’re trying to keep me out—because I’m married.”
“God, Diggs, yes.” I flung my hand toward my bedroom door. “And I hate you for using me to betray your wife and your family. Now, leave.”
“Give me a minute to explain something, and then if you still want me to, I’ll leave,” he said, honesty weaving through each word as he slipped his phone out of his pocket and began tapping on the screen. His face illuminated in the otherwise darkened room.
“Diggs, if you’re gonna try—”
“One minute,” he begged, his gray eyes meeting mine before his attention returned to his phone. But just as quickly, he was watching me again as he moved along the side of my bed, closer to me. “Need you to tell me if there’s any other reason you’re mad. Any other reason you’re disgusted with me.”
“I think you being married is reason enough.”
A brief, stunning smile lit his face before he crushed his mouth to mine. And even though my hand automatically shot to his chest to shove him away, my fingers betrayed me by curling into his shirt instead.
Because I knew in the way my spirit shuddered the moment he touched me that I wanted to wake up to him slipping into my bed for weeks and months and years to come. I wanted the way my body sang and my heart soared when he touched me. I wanted the undeniable craving during the long days as I restlessly waited for night to come.
Guilt and betrayal burned in my stomach as I was hit with an image of his wife and baby. Forcing my face away from his, I finally managed to push him back a step as I cried out, “I can’t.” I pressed a hand to my uneasy stomach, my head moving in slow, wide shakes. “I can’t. You’re—”
“Tree, I’m not married,” Diggs hurried to say as he held out his phone for me to take.
My stare shifted between the lit screen and the relief in his eyes before I hesitantly took the device. My breath catching when I saw the picture of the man who had been slipping into my bed the past month—mid-laugh as he looked at the man beside him.
Fully identical.
From their gray eyes to their amused expressions to the way their dark hair looked as if they styled the short, messy strands by running their fingers through them.
Except, the one who wasn’t centered in the photo was holding a woman with fiery red hair against his chest, and she had a baby on her hip.
The same woman and baby from the coffee shop.
“Maverick,” Diggs informed me when I just sat there, taking in their similarities, “and my sister-in-law and niece. Alexis?” he continued as he bent, placing his hands on my bed so his face was directly in front of mine. “That kid isn’t blood or mine in any way you’re thinking. But her parents are as good as family, and we take care of family. Which means I would take care of her, even if she didn’t act like my little mini-me. Understand?”
“You’re not married?” I asked slowly, trying to wrap my head around what he was saying. Because in less than a minute, he’d taken everything I’d been agonizing over and tossed it away.
“No,” he said tightly, almost seeming repelled by the idea of it.
The relief I felt from that one word was profound and dizzying, but before I had a chance to fully absorb what that meant, Diggs was wrapping me in his arms and capturing my lips.
Numbing my jumbled thoughts and stealing my breath as he knelt on the bed and laid me back. The desperate, almost primal way he kissed me and ran his hands over my body was something I understood because I needed him just the same.
It’d only been a day of thinking he’d used me to betray his family, and I’d been wrecked over it. More than that, I’d been broken over the thought of never having this again.
“Jesus, what are you doing to me?” he asked as his shirt joined mine on the floor, the words so soft I wasn’t sure he meant to say them out loud.
My eyes rolled back as he made a wickedly teasing path down my stomach, and my fingers secured in his hair just as he whispered, “Been going out of my fucking mind thinking I was losing you.”
Wings took flight inside me at the confession. But just as those wings began shifting into heat when he gripped the edges of my sleep shorts, his words fully registered and brought everything to a crashing halt.
Because Diggs wasn’t married...and that left more questions. Worrying questions.
