Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

Auggie, on the other hand, was the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on and every time I saw him I was reminded of this fact.

That thick black-black hair that curled at the ends. His hooded brow, deep-set onyx eyes and dense eyebrows that had a wicked-gorgeous arch. The slight flare to the nostrils of his strong, attractive nose. His excruciatingly perfect lips. His tall, lean, muscled body that was not too tall or too lean or too muscled, it was all just right.

Not to mention, Auggie was funny.

Auggie was playful.

Auggie liked to tease.

There was some boy to this man that would never go away.

And there was something so insanely compelling about a man who was downright beautiful in a classical sense (he looked like a Greek god, for goodness sakes) being the kind of guy you knew would make you laugh in bed. Who would get into the spirit of Halloween and Christmas in a way the joy would never go out of it. Who wouldn’t sweat the small stuff and would guide you to that same.

I dealt with a lot of small stuff in my life every single day.

It’d be good not to sweat it.

And he wasn’t only a veteran, he was currently a commando.

He’d been on the team that had rescued Evie from a kidnapping, and that effort had reportedly included smoke bombs and confusion tactics, so I had secondhand knowledge that he was the real deal.

He was probably the single coolest person you could ask to speak at a third-grade career day.

The only cooler person I could think of would be Hawk Delgado, Auggie’s boss, because I had suspicions that the cover story was false to protect his identity and Hawk had single-handedly found and eliminated Osama bin Laden.

But as such, and for other reasons, he probably couldn’t talk to eight-year-olds about that.

“Pepper, you’re touching me,” Auggie stated unhappily.

At these words, I shot back a step, letting him go, but I did this still staring at him.

Now in horror.

Oh God, how had I forgotten?

The last time I’d spent any real time with him was when we’d had sex in my foyer.

And then I’d kicked him out and he did not want to be kicked out.

I’d made a pact with myself.

No men in Juno’s life until she was mature enough to sort through that emotionally.

I had decided this would be when she was around fourteen or fifteen, though I’d consider it at thirteen, but also possibly push it back to sixteen if she was having a difficult adolescence.

I knew this was going to be a very long row to hoe for me (case in point, standing right there with all the perfection that was Auggie Hero and not being able to make him mine).

But there were sacrifices you made as a mother that were necessary.

This was one of them.

I had told not one single soul about this pact I’d made with myself.

None of my friends were moms, they wouldn’t get it.

Added to that, none of my friends had started a family with the love of their lives, or even had just settled in with the love of their life, sleeping beside him for years, only to learn he’d been cheating on them the whole time they were together.

Yep.

The whole time.

They didn’t get what it felt like to have your heart broken, your trust decimated, all your dreams for your future shattered and have to watch your daughter experience the same thing.

They didn’t get that.

I went through that.

But more importantly, Juno went through it.

Top all of it with the shit my dad, mom and sister pulled on a regular basis and okay, sure. Maybe I was overprotective. Maybe this pact was over the top.

Maybe.

But as a single mother, I didn’t have the luxury of dealing in maybes.

“I’m taking it Juno didn’t tell you she asked me to be here,” he remarked, breaking into my explanatory (justifying?) thoughts.

“No,” I mumbled.

“You got a problem with me being here?” he asked.

I absolutely did.

I had not gotten into how hard I’d climaxed when he’d done me against the wall of my foyer.

Or how fantastic of a kisser he was (the promise of those perfect lips delivered, believe you me).

Or how good he smelled when you got up close to him. The only way I could describe it was he smelled warm. Like he was the human embodiment of a sunny day.

And I’d gone into detail on how good he looked.

But I also did not have a problem with him being there.

Because he was single-handedly going to make my daughter the coolest kid in school, possibly until she graduated from high school.

Therefore, I answered, “No.”

“Good,” he grunted.

“Uh, how did Juno call you?” I asked. “Was it on my phone?”

He shook his head. “Nope. A number I’d never seen.”

“Can I have that number?”

As he pushed away from the wall to fish his phone out of his back pocket, he shot me a glance that no mother wanted to get. It said, How do you not know how your eight-year-old kid is making phone calls?