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He’s not the only one risking everything, but all that means is we’ll have to fight harder to keep it. But the risk is worth the reward if this all works out.
The door swings open and there is freaking Bennett, his dark hair in wild disarray, his deep blue eyes smoky and sleep-covered, and his body, well his body is a work of goddamn art. The only thing he’s wearing are gym shorts, which leave plenty of smooth, golden, naked chest landscape for me to ogle. Stacked bricks of muscle and a honed chest sweep up into built shoulders, biceps, and triceps that put NFL players to shame.
I might be drooling. I might not even know how to stop. What sort of crazy bitch cheats on a man who looks like this?
“Hey,” he rasps, rubbing the top of his head and making his hair stick up even more. “Are you really here or am dreaming? It’s been a long night of very little sleep.”
I walk straight into his house, loving that he’s also suffering from a sleepless night. It tells me the talk we had last night is weighing on his mind as much as it is mine. It tells me it’s everything to him the way it is to me.
“I have a few things I need to ask, and then I have to tell you something after that.”
“Okay.” He closes and locks the door and then leads me into the living room, offering me a seat that I decline because I’m far too worked up to sit, let alone sit still.
“You’re almost naked.”
He glances down at his body and then back up at me. And he smirks. A fucking devilishly delicious smirk that makes my stupid nipples harden. “Is that one of the things you need to ask me?”
“No, that was a statement and a fact.”
“I’m wearing shorts,” he points out.
“And no shirt.”
His thumb glides along his bottom lip in a move that should be illegal for how wet it makes me. Clearly my body has made up its mind and says we’re a go for launch.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be on my doorstep before dawn. Or at all, for that matter. I’ll run upstairs and put on a shirt.”
I can’t even with that. Who on the planet Earth would ever want him to do that?
“Absolutely not. Stay where you are, or I might lose my nerve. It just caught my attention and sidetracked me because you, well, you look like that.” I wave a hand up and down his body, swirling my finger around to indicate his abs.
“Should I ask what that means?”
I throw him a look. “Don’t play coy, Bennett. You know exactly what you look like.”
He grips the back of his neck and lifts his shoulders in a self-deprecating way, though in doing so it makes the muscles of his arms bunch and Jesus, can he just stop it already? Maybe he should go and put on a shirt. Arms are my total lady porn, and he has some of the best I’ve seen.
“Sorry. Sometimes I can’t help myself when it comes to flirting with you. And honestly, I’m so fucking nervous I can hardly breathe. The floor is yours, Katy, and I’ll answer anything you ask.”
I start to pace my way through his living room, which is gorgeous and expertly decorated with what appears to be expensive furniture. It’s not a place where children can play without ruining or breaking something. I wonder if he’s the sort of guy who cares about things like that. Like will he have forbidden furniture and rooms children can’t play in and freak out when they do?
“Do you like this room?”
“Huh?” He scratches the back of his head again and wipes some sleep from his eyes as he surveys the space around him. “Uh, I don’t know. I mean, I guess it’s okay. I’ve never given it much thought. This is the longest I’ve ever spent time in here. Formal spaces aren’t exactly my thing.”
Great answer.
I turn on him. “Are you a good man? Because I told my uncle Callan, who no joke risked his entire world for guardianship of me, that you were. Are you the sort of man who would risk everything and anything for his child the way it seems you’re doing to try to have one?”
He steps forward and grasps both of my upper arms, stopping my pacing. “Yes,” he says unequivocally. “I swear, every accusation those women said about me was a lie.”
“I believe you.” I believed him before. That question wasn’t even about that, and I hurt for him that he thought I was questioning that.
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you do. I think of myself as a good man. The sort of man who would do anything for those he loves and cares about. I’d be that man for you, too. It’s not just for our children.” He licks his lips, his eyes flickering back and forth between mine. “I’d protect you the same way I’d protect them. And if anything came down from this, I’d make sure I take the heat for it. Not you.”
Fuck. I wish he hadn’t said that because my chest is inflating like a balloon and my stomach is like a bounce house on crack. But then I catch on that word…
“Children?”
