“You...panicked.” His admission is heartfelt, but I’m still reeling from the information overload and breakneck turn of events. “You spent a few very intimate—very passionate—hours with me, then...panicked?”
“I couldn’t see how both worlds—the intimate one I was hidden in with you, and the real and protective one I’d already been a part of with Daniel—could ever collide.”
I can suddenly feel the blood rushing in my ears, irrationally afraid of what might be coming next. “And now?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Now,” Derek whispers back. “Now, I can’t see how both worlds could ever not come together to become something more.” He reaches out for my hands, turning them in his before raising them to his lips and kissing the backs of them gently. “I made a mistake by shutting you out, Josie. I tried to protect my son, but in the end I only hurt you.”
I lean forward, at the same moment he does, and our foreheads press together. “Hurting me isn’t the only thing you accomplished, you know.”
“Oh yeah?” I can see his eyes flitting down to my mouth. Mine are watching his lips just as intently. “What else did I accomplish, or should I be afraid to ask?”
“You made me want you,” I confess on a sigh. “When I’d sworn off wanting anyone ever again.”
“And now? Does the truth change that?”
I swallow, breathing in slowly before speaking. “I think I want you even more,” I whisper.
A sexy, devilish grins forms on his mouth. “Give me a little more time, Josie. We’ll see what other kinds of things I can make you want.”
“That almost sounds like some kind of sexy, sinful threat,” I joke.
Derek presses his lips gently to mine. Then, “I don’t make threats. I make promises.”
My cheeks heat up with the physical contact, but also with the sound of such a sensual vow on his tongue. “I must admit, I like the sound of that. I just have one more question for you.”
“And what’s that?”
I pull away just enough to look into his eyes. “What in God’s name is your last name?”
Epilogue
Derek
Ten Months Later…
What happens when what happens in Vegas follows you home?
I guess you could ask Josie that; she knows better than anyone.
Because that’s exactly what I did.
Okay, so I may not have dropped everything that day in the airport, and irrationally put Daniel and myself on a plane with her, heading back to Ohio in the hopes of finding our happily-ever-after, but I did pursue exactly that...in my own way.
Even now, I think of how foolish I was to almost lose my chance with her just because I was afraid to tell her about Daniel. If I’m being honest, I think it wasn’t just that I was being far too overprotective of my son. Because she was such a curveball for me, something so unexpected I didn’t know how to react, I think I was scared to tell her I had a kid. I wasn’t ashamed of him—hell, no, that would never happen—but I’m convinced part of me wanted to be sure she was worth telling. To be sure my instincts weren’t just playing obscene tricks on me, that Josie was really someone I was interested in enough to confide everything in.
Thank fuck I realized she was before that goddamn plane took off.
Josie still can’t believe I sat in that airport from the moment I picked Daniel up from Rhonda’s before she left for work until I found her just before noon.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Josie had only told me she was catching her flight on Monday afternoon, and that she lived in Ohio. It took a little investigating and a whole lot of luck, but I’d been able to narrow down which flights were heading directly to cities in Ohio that day, around that time of day, and where Josie would have to go within the airport once she got there. I didn’t want to miss any of the possible flights, so Daniel and I camped out all morning, have a breakfast of vending machine snacks and chocolate milk while we waited and alternated between potential terminals she might be at.
Daniel thought it was fun to hang out there and eat junk food. But me? I’d been almost losing my mind every second that went by that I didn’t see her. Thinking I’d missed her, that she was gone and I’d royally blown it.
Then, there she was.
I’d been lucky to catch a glimpse of her heading down that corridor. I was even luckier that I’d managed to make her see that I never meant to hurt her the way I did, that I wanted a chance to see where this could go, and that not even distance would stop me from trying to coincide the passionate, exciting world I’d found in her with the real life I’d existed in with Daniel for so long.
And she did agree, thankfully. Because the passion and excitement between us was real, too.