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Jay, too, got up to admire her, standing just behind her brother. A satisfied expression lit up her eyes before she whispered something in his ear and then winked at Nora.
“You two get out of here. Come on, Evie-B. I need to know what happens next in this movie.”
“’kay! Bye, mommy,” said Evie before delivering a quick kiss on Nora-Jean’s glossy lips.
Nora let her go as she wiggled to signal her desire to return to her feet, and she hurried back to the couch with Jay.
“I made us a reservation at Smithy’s. We better get goin’ or we’ll miss our grace window.”
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know I was goin’ anywhere tonight. I got ready as fast as I could,” muttered Nora as she went to grab her purse from the kitchen table.
“You don’t need to apologize, songbird. You’ve always been worth the wait.”
His comment made her stiffen, her back toward him as she gripped her bag. He kept saying things with meaning she wanted to understand but didn’t. He spoke like they were on the same page; but they weren’t, and they hadn’t been in quite a long time.
Shaking off her uncertainty, she turned toward the living room and focused her attention on something more familiar. “Um, Jay, she goes to bed at eight. Evie—you be good, okay? Listen to Miss Jay when it’s time to go to sleep. No whining, you hear?”
Evie nodded as Jay waved her fingers in an obvious signal for them to shoo. “Go, I got this. Have fun!”
“Right. Okay,” Nora murmured anxiously. “I love you, Evie-B.”
“Love you too, mommy.”
Lawson reached for the door with one hand, pressing his other to the small of her back as he encouraged her out of the apartment.
This was happening. It was really happening. Nora-Jean was about to go on a date with the man she thought she’d lost forever.
As soon as the door was shut behind him, Lawson slid the hand at the small of Nora-Jean’s back around her waist, pulling her close as he stopped them in the middle of the hallway. He’d been wanting to kiss her all day—but the first glimpse of her he’d gotten when he saw her emerge from her bedroom made him want to do a whole lot more than kiss her.
His woman still had legs for days. Yet, while she remained as thin as she’d always been, she was curvier. Her breasts were bigger, her hips were wider, and the dress she wore highlighted the maturity of the body he intended to rememorize with his lips and his hands. Her hair, which he had always loved, fell halfway down her chest and back. It was beautiful and all but begged him to bury his fingers in it.
There was a part of him that felt sixteen all over again. He wanted to skip dinner, drive his songbird out into an empty field, and make love to her all night in the bed of his truck. But they weren’t teenagers anymore. Not to mention, he was all too aware of the storm he saw in those pretty green eyes staring up at him. Rather than surrender to temptation, he took hold of it. With his free hand, he slid his fingers under Nora-Jean’s hair as he cradled the base of her head and lowered his mouth to greet hers. He kissed her deep and hard until any trace of her lip gloss was completely gone.
“You look gorgeous,” he muttered when he finally pulled away.
Nora hesitated to respond, short of breath as she stared up at him. “I kiss my daughter with this mouth,” she replied softly.
Grinning, he tickled the nape of her neck and reminded her, “You kissed me with it first.”
He felt her shiver before she whispered, “True.”
“Come on. We’re late.”
He took her by the hand, and she didn’t protest as he led her toward the stairs. In fact, she didn’t say anything as they made their decent or when they stepped outside. The night was a chilly one, and he made sure to crank the heat and point the vents in Nora’s direction before he pulled out of the parking lot. Other than a smallthank you, she remained quiet.
“How was your day?” asked Lawson, hoping to break the silence.
“My day…well, last night the father of my four-and-a-half-year-old daughter showed up out of nowhere for the first time since said child was nothing more than a zygote and then I slept with my ex-boyfriend, which all seems crazy. And today, I had to wake up and be a mom and go to work, which means I’ve barely had a second to be alone with my thoughts so—my day went about as one would guess.”
Her words came out in a rush, taking Lawson by surprise. If the kiss they’d shared in the hallway was reminiscent of the one that kickstarted their intimacy the night before, her response to his question now was akin to her plea for him to leave her apartment that morning. It was obvious their physical attraction to one another had not diminished in the slightest—but there was a reason she still labeled him herex-boyfriend.
“Okay. There’s a lot to unpack there. What do you say we start with the ex-boyfriend part?”
“Don’t make fun,” she murmured, turning her face toward the window.
“Nora-Jean, I’m not. What do you think we’re doin’ here?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know, Lawson, that’s the problem,” she exclaimed.
