He met my gaze and blinked, no doubt surprised by my tone. I expected him to turn the exchange into something sexual. “Am I in trouble? Don’t spank me, Daddy.” Something embarrassing and over-the-top that served as a reminder that I wasn’t “the boss of him.” But he didn’t speak for a long moment. He watched me wipe sweat from my brow, then return to the machine for a second set of squats.
“I think something is wrong with me.” He leaned against the metal post of the equipment and frowned. “I hate bossy assholes, but I really like you and I can’t figure it out.”
I smiled through my series of reps. “Thanks?”
“Hmm. Are you almost done here?” He glanced around the vicinity, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “There’s gotta be something else that gets your motor running. Besides sex, of course.”
“Golf.” I grunted, releasing the bar with a clunk.
Johnny’s lips twisted in horror. “Seriously?”
I wiped my hands on my towel again and reached for my water bottle. “Have you ever played?”
“Fuck, no.”
“It’s fun,” I insisted with an amused grin.
“What could possibly be fun about trying to get a tiny ball in a hole a mile away?”
“Lots of things. It’s a personal sport. You can play with friends, but the goal is to work on your own game. It’s a great stress reliever and good exercise—”
“Unless you’re in a golf cart with a twelve-pack of beer,” he snarked.
“True, but I prefer to walk the course.” I chuckled at his theatric eye-roll. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”
“Ha! You’ll never get me on a golf course, so—”
“Ever?”
“Never.”
I drank half the water bottle, aware of his rapt attention. I stepped closer, closing the distance between us as I recapped the bottle and met his hungry gaze. I’d bet every penny in my bank account we were thinking the same thing. Why were we still here? Why did my attraction to him grow stronger every day?
Johnny wasn’t classically handsome or endlessly witty and charming. He was beautiful in the way wild creatures are. Raw and real with sharp claws and a biting tongue. The dark smudges under his eyelids softened his austere black-on-black attire. I’d bet he didn’t realize that he looked exotic rather than fierce. His bright smile and twinkling eyes gave him away. He was lovely from the inside out. I just couldn’t get enough.
The bigger shock was that he made space for my craziness in his life. The guitar lessons that had begun as an impetuous suggestion to reach a struggling teen had snowballed into a relationship that was beginning to entangle all the pieces of my life I’d worked hard to keep separate. I should have been more wary about Fiona mixing with Johnny, but that cat was already out of the bag. They’d loosely worked together well before he and I became lovers. Now…fuck, this was complicated, but it also felt too good to be wrong.
And funny enough, I didn’t just think about how he fit into my life. I started to wonder how I could fit into his. How I could show him pieces of myself that might make me seem worth the hassle.
I reached out impulsively and traced his jawline, loving the scratch of his scruff against my thumb.
“Come to the desert with me,” I said in a low, raspy voice.
Johnny lowered his lashes, sighing when I dropped my hand. “When?”
I shrugged. “In the next week or two. Just me and you.”
“That sounds vaguely romantic,” he hummed. “You don’t want me to get the wrong idea, do you?”
“Of course not. That’s why we’re going golfing.”
“Fuck that.” He glowered, crossing his arms like a petulant kid.
I smacked his ass, then uncapped the bottle. “Language. Or did you want a trip over my knee?”
Johnny nodded like a puppet on a string. “Yes, please.”
I waggled my brows, pleased when he laughed aloud. “Let’s go, bad boy.”
Balancing business and personal life was always a challenge. It was exceedingly rare to find harmony between the two…for me, anyway. Investments went sideways at the last second, kids got sick or had issues at school, my ex-wife wanted more money. It never ended. My dad used to say that the Lord never gave you more than you could handle, and that if it seemed like too much, you just had to dig a little deeper to find a reserve of strength. I suspected he knew I was wired differently, and this was his way of encouraging me to stay on the straight and narrow path. Pun intended. I’d become so adept at juggling chaos that I had a hard time relaxing when things seemed to be going too well.
Like now.
My biggest business worries were under control, and my personal life was kind of amazing. I had a sexy lover I couldn’t get enough of, the kids were happy, and Fiona was too. She must have been busy with work. She didn’t call every other day or offer helpful hints on how to deal with Penny’s overly booked social calendar or Parker’s lack of one. Or maybe we’d reached a good place in co-parenting.