Dating a Single Dad (16 page)

Hell. They would accept it and move on.

Which should have been reassuring, but something about it bugged him. As he tried to push his feet toward the door, it hit him.

He wasn’t scared of what would happen if anyone found out.

He was scared of what would happen when Brynn left.

“Oh,
shit.
”

All that talk about what would happen to Millie when Brynn said goodbye? That had been a smoke screen. Yeah, he wanted to protect his kid. But he’d mostly been keeping Brynn at arm’s length to protect himself. Because he was scared silly of taking the next step, getting more involved with her and then needing to let her go.

Unbidden, the memory of Millie’s reunion with Heather rose again. Millie didn’t know yet that her mother might be back for good. He and Heather agreed to keep that quiet until it was definite. As far as Millie knew, her mother was working in the area for a couple of months, after which she would leave again. Yet had she allowed that to dampen her joy?

Dammit to hell. His seven-year-old daughter had more emotional guts than he did.

“You want to be the boss of your own life, North?” He set the glass on the counter with a solid thud. “Get your ass out there and start acting like it.”

CHAPTER TEN

B
RYNN
WAS
HALFWAY
through her forty-fifth viewing of
Dirty Dancing,
three-quarters of the way through a bag of ketchup potato chips and fully immersed in the kind of pity party she despised. She’d seen Hank’s truck pull in a few minutes earlier, heard the sad, solitary slam of one door. She had paused the movie and held her breath and waited, even though she knew she was the world’s biggest fool.

But she had pulled off another happy ending. She had helped Taylor and saved Ian from a broken heart and maybe even saved a family. She deserved some kind of celebration, some kind of reward for making herself relive moments of passion to help jump-start her cousin’s love life. Was it wrong to wish that the reward involved something other than Patrick Swayze and a bag of grease?

Apparently so, because that solitary slam was followed by...nothing. No footsteps on the path, no knock at the door, no invitations to help while away some child-free hours. Zip, zilch, nada.

Okay. So maybe she had read too much into what had happened. After all, she was the one who had pounced in the truck, not him. Come to think of it, he hadn’t made any overtures since that first kiss. No significant glances. No brush of his hand against hers. She was pretty sure he had continued to watch her, and he sure as hell hadn’t offered more than a token protest when she had climbed all over him in the front seat, but still. She had been the only one making a move.

What was it he had said?
Another time, another place.

Though maybe she was the one who said that.

She snuggled deeper into Old Faithful, grabbed another handful of chips and started the movie once again. Maybe this time Baby wouldn’t make the jump and Patrick Swayze would leap off the screen in search of a real woman who—

Something crunched outside.

She sat up straighter.

A squirrel. A chipmunk. Maybe even a raccoon, though, holy crap, that sounded like human footsteps on the—

Someone knocked on the door.

It’s probably not him. Or he needs a cup of sugar. It doesn’t mean anything.

But her pulse did the kind of leap that usually required at least ten solid minutes of running. And even though her brain knew she was setting herself up for yet another disappointment, as she closed the laptop and hurried to the door, she couldn’t keep her body from humming the song from the end of
Dirty Dancing
—the one about having the time of her life.

Of course she looked like hell—no makeup, hair pulled back in a braid still damp from the shower, wearing her favorite old Leafs jersey over yoga pants. Deliberate choices made in an effort to remind herself that nothing would be happening.

Oh, how she hoped she was wrong.

She peeked through the window before opening the door and gave a little yip. Hank stood on her porch in jeans and his leather jacket, hands in pockets, face unreadable. Average, everyday Hank.

Enticing, lickable Hank.

The shaking of her hands slowed her ability to unlock the door. When she finally wrenched it open, she had to slide her hands inside her opposite sleeves, kimono style, to hide the trembling.

“Hey.”
Oh, good.
Entrance him with your witty repartee, Brynn.

“Hi.” He opened his mouth again, but no further sound came out.

“Did everything go okay?”

He nodded.

“Are you okay?”

He shook his head, nodded, then grimaced and shook it again. She couldn’t decide if she should laugh, feel sorry for him or grab him by the jacket, wrench him against her and kiss him silly.

He raised his head to look directly at her, his eyes dark and decadent. The hell with deliberations. It was action time.

“Hank—”

“Here’s the thing,” he said, cutting her off at the invitation. “I still have no idea what I’m doing most of the time with this parenting gig. I want what’s best for Millie but I don’t always know what that is. All I know for sure is that I don’t want her to get hurt.”

She nodded and looked away so he wouldn’t see the disappointment on her face. He was here to talk about his kid. Okay. She should have expected that. He was a good dad, the kind who took his responsibilities seriously. Of course he was confused and adrift.

She could listen. And help. She could brainstorm and distract and try to make this better. It was her job. It was what she did best.

Even as she stepped back, holding the door wide to invite him in, her ego gave perverse thanks that she was dressed like a slob.

But he didn’t move.

“Mills was two when Heather left. Barely two. She wandered around the house calling for her, and it killed me because I couldn’t make her understand.... Not that I could make any sense of it myself, but I’m trying to convince myself that it’s good for Heather to be here again, that this time might not end up with Millie hurting, but I’m scared shitless that it’s gonna be the same story all over again.”

“I understand.” And she did. She would never forget how those first days of longing for her father to come home had transformed into vowing that if the selfish bastard ever returned, she would personally shove his ass to the street—preferably in front of a passing semi.

“And it’s kind of the same with you,” he said. “Because she really likes you, and if I let her think for one minute that there’s something between us, she would start hoping for things that we both know will never happen. But at the same time...”

Wait.
Wait.
Was Hank saying what she thought he might be saying? Hope pounded through her. Or maybe that was just the drumbeat of her libido.

“At the same time,” he continued, finally stepping off the porch and into the cabin, “Millie isn’t the only one who likes you. And I sure would like to pick up where we left off that night in the truck.”

Hot damn and hallelujah. “Me, too.”

Would it be too brazen to slam the door behind him and lock it?

He inched forward before stopping again. “I don’t want you to think... I mean, I can’t—this has to be just sex.”

“Just sex is just fine with me. Perfect, actually.”

But still he didn’t move. Every nerve in her body stood on full alert, waiting for him to step closer, to put his arms around her, to kiss her senseless, but still he hovered in the door like some stranger waiting to be invited in.

Okay. Maybe he was out of practice. He’d been divorced for years, it sounded like he hadn’t gone out much since then... He could be uncertain about what to do or say next. She could make this work. All she had to do was get him into the bedroom and—

“Right, then.” It sounded like he was talking to himself more than to her. But she didn’t have time to wonder because no sooner were the words out of his mouth than he was on the move. He stepped closer and cradled her face in his hands as he had done in the parking lot. She closed her eyes in a moment of total thanksgiving, only to feel a light kiss on her eyelids—one, two, soft and tender, gentle and tentative. She slipped her hands forward and gripped his jacket, planning to urge him forward, but was stopped by his lips on hers, again light and teasing, barely more than a nip. She leaned forward, searching for more, but his hands had slipped to her shoulders and he was keeping way too much space between them. She was all for treasuring the moment but there was a time and a place, and she was pretty sure this wasn’t either of them.

“Hank...” she began, but once again her words were swallowed by his kiss. His hands tightened on her shoulders and his heart beat against her touch, and it hit her that he wasn’t trying to be tentative or gentle. He was trying to stay in control.

She had never been so ready to kick control to the curb in her life.

She broke off the kiss and looked at him, ready to reassure, to remind him they had as long as he wanted. But no sooner had she parted her lips to tell him not to worry than some shred of...
whatever
...seemed to snap within him. One second he was holding her away from him and the next his arms were pinning her against him and he was there, everywhere, mouth and hands and that long body surrounding her, pulling her against him as if he weren’t quite sure she was really there. Her hands went beneath his jacket, running over the muscles she had watched with such longing so many times when he wasn’t looking. He was lean and hard all over, pulling her even tighter, clutching her to him like he was afraid she would slip away.

Didn’t he know that the only place she planned to go was down the hall to that gorgeous bed?

“Brynn.” His whisper was hot against her ear, rough and raw and aching. There were probably words that would be useful but she was damned if she could remember what they were. She settled for tugging at his shirt and arching back to give him full access to her neck. There was a hand in her hair and another at her butt and lips on her neck and then the tip of his tongue tracing the vee of her jersey, sliding in a hot line toward the hollow between her breasts and then, God, pulling her even tighter against his hips while he nudged the jersey aside and nipped at the top of her breast.

The shock made her sway backward. She tried to right herself but there was no need. He clutched her tighter and marched her back against the wall, pressing her against it. She was caught between a rock wall and a rock-hard man and she couldn’t think of anyplace she would rather be, except maybe in—

“Bed.” She dragged the word from somewhere in the rapidly shrinking rational part of her brain. “Hank. Let’s—”

“Good idea,” he said, but instead of pulling back he pushed against her again, molding her to him so she could feel every blessed inch of him. Suddenly the bed didn’t matter nearly as much as feeling and arching, and oh, God, his hand was inside her leggings, hot against her skin while his fingers hunted and probed and her jersey shifted and his mouth was at her breast, his free hand pulling the bra down while his tongue and his mouth consumed her skin. She needed to catch her breath, to get to the bed and do this the way she had imagined, but then he growled against her throat and her hips tipped forward and she grabbed his shoulders because she was slipping, she was teetering, she was falling, and if they didn’t stop she was going to—

“Hank, I’m— We— Let’s go to—”

He bit the side of her neck and yanked the lace down and the cold rush of air on her breast was pushed aside by his mouth and his tongue swirled and her hips arched and his fingers slid home and she fell, clutching him as every muscle in her body clenched and grabbed and tightened around him, around Hank, around this man who had...who had...

This man who had pushed her against the wall and reduced her to a jelly-legged mass of deep breathing and the most erotic sounds to ever come out of the back of her throat.

She opened her eyes and looked into his. A smile tugged at the few muscles she had that weren’t still reeling.

“You know,” she whispered, “six more steps and we could have been in bed. And then I wouldn’t be standing here with rock burn on my butt.”

“You complaining?”

“You’re the one who said I was your test case.”

“Sorry.” His lips were hot against the side of her neck. “I can’t hear you over the glow.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“None of this does.” He caught her hand and squeezed. “But I’m not gonna whine about it.”

He kissed her again, rocking against her before peeling her away from the wall and backing her toward the bedroom. They stumbled and grabbed and kissed their way until finally,
finally
they tumbled onto the bed. As he landed on top of her and pushed her harder against the mattress, she had two final rational thoughts before slipping into pure sensation.

The first was that she was immeasurably thankful that she had stocked the bedside table with just-in-case condoms before stepping into the shower.

The second was that sometimes, a change of plans could lead to most excellent rewards.

* * *

S
OMETHING
WAS
DANCING
through his dreams. A dog. A dancing dog? But no, it wasn’t a dream, it was...real. Real music. Dog music.

He screwed his eyes tight and groaned.

“Millie, take the toy away from Daddy’s head. Now.”

Instead of the giggle he expected, the end of the song was accompanied by a soft kiss on his cheek and a very satisfied sigh.

“Sorry, sunshine. It’s just me and my alarm this morning.”

Holy shit.

Reality hit as his eyes flew open. He saw pink-dotted sheets, dark hair on a pillow and a smile that had him quickly abandoning memories in favor of the moment.

“Hey.” It came out morning-rough but she didn’t seem to care.

“Sorry about the alarm.” She gestured to the Snoopy clock he hadn’t noticed last night. Not that he had been capable of noticing anything but her. “It was a gift from Casey. Turns out I like it. And since I have this really horrible job, I figured I need all the smiles I can get in the morning.”

“Sucks to be you.”

“Doesn’t it, though?”

Her smile made a complete mockery of her words. So did the lazy circles she was tracing on his chest.

“So,” she said. “Sleep well?”

It was the best sleep he’d had in months, if not longer. “Like some gorgeous enchantress gave me a double-strength sleeping potion.”

Strength
being the word of the day. Forget running or power tools or any of those other things that made a man feel ready to conquer to world. All he had to do was remember that moment last night when Brynn had come apart in his arms, shuddering so hard that she would have dropped if not for him holding her tight against the wall. That was a kind of heady power that left him ready to leap tall buildings, grapple wild animals and wrestle pesky fears to the ground.

To think how close he’d been to letting this slip through his fingers...

Her smile deepened, revealing a dimple he’d never noticed before. “Not feeling very enchanting this morning. Or gorgeous.” She made a face before wriggling close enough to bump up against his knee, sending sparks shooting through him. “However, I can say I’m quite delighted that you knocked on my door last night.”