But right now, it wasn’t about me, because what I wanted was more than she was ready for.
“Then I want you to tell me something,” I said. “Tell me whatyouwant.”
Her hands fell away from her mouth, and she had to blink a few times as she gathered her thoughts. With the sun streaming into the car, the red of her hair was so vibrant, it almost didn’t look real. My hands itched to touch it, but I kept them where they were.
“I want—I want to besurewhen I go into any relationship,” she said, forming the words slowly. “I want to be sure that my son and I will be safe with that person. Whoever that is will have to know that Gavin will always come first. He will always be the compass by which I make my decisions. I’ve tried dating in the past, and he gets attached so easily. That boy wants a father figure in his life, and that’s why I cannot be flippant about who I let into my life in that capacity.” She straightened her shoulders. “They’d have to know that sex is not a reason for me to pursue a relationship, because half the time I hardly have the energy to shave my legs. You combine that with everything else in my life, and—and I know ... I know that’s not what most men want to hear.”
My brow furrowed. “You think I fucking care if your legs aren’t smooth?” Her cheeks flushed, and it was so damn cute, I almost reached across the car and hauled her into my lap to kiss the embarrassment right off her face. “Remi, sex isn’t the reason I’m here either. Even though I was being a dick when I said it, it was still true. If sex was all I wanted, that’s not hard for me to seek out.” Her gaze dropped into her lap, but I reached over and gently touched her chin, lifting her face back up to mine. “That is not why I’m here.”
“So you don’t want to have sex?” she asked lightly, the teasing glint in her eye almost severing the shaky grip on my restraint.
I leaned forward and allowed my forehead to rest on hers. “Yes, firefly, I want to have sex with you. God, it would be so good.”
“That was unfair,” she said quietly. “I shouldn’t have asked that. I’m ... I’m all over the place.” She pulled back, her finger slowly inching across the console to drag along the knuckles on the back of my hand. “How do you know it would be good, Archer? We haven’t even kissed. How do I know that that’s not all this is? Sexual tension we haven’t been able to act on? Itmightnotbe good.” She grinned. “You might be selfish. And I might have forgotten what to do and I’d just lay there like a dead fish.”
I sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. “Keep talking, firefly. You’re just proving my point.”
She laughed softly. “How?”
Knowing she might tell me to stop, I slowly reached up and cupped her face in both hands, allowing my fingers to tangle in the silky strands of her hair. “I don’t need to kiss you to know. You and me, it would be magic,” I whispered, leaning in to brush my nose along hers. “Because I’ve hardly touched you and I’m ready to fucking explode. Aren’t you?”
Remi didn’t answer, just exhaled against my mouth.
It was going too far and I knew it. She probably did too.
In her office, when we’d ended up just like this, she had begged me to back away first so she wouldn’t have to ask, and even though it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, I backed away now too.
This last step had to be hers.
If I respected nothing else, I had to let Remi be the one to inch herself over the line she’d drawn in the sand.
Once she did, though, she wasmine.
When I returned to my own seat, Remi skimmed a hand over the top of her hair, then rubbed it over her mouth as she blinked herself back into the present.
“Good. Good talk.”
I laughed. I laughed long and hard. Then she did too.
This woman.
I didn’t want to think about what my life would look like right now without her in it.
As the thought registered, I wanted to follow it, see here it would lead, but the angry buzz of my cell phone yanked me back.
Analise’s name flashed on the screen when I pulled it out, so I tapped the button to answer it on speaker.
“Little A, how are you?”
She didn’t answer right away. Then I heard a telltale sniffle. Remi gave me a concerned look.
I sat up straighter. “Analise, talk to me.”
“Dad is so mad, Archer,” she said, voice thick with tears. “He ... he overheard me tell Rebecca I was driving, and he got so mad and he was yelling. He threw his glass across the dining room. Rebecca tried to get me out of the room and calm him down, and he told her to mind her own fucking business.”
“Shit,” I whispered. I gave Remi a pleading look. “I hate to ask you this ...”
Her face was firm. “Give me the address.”