Five First Dates (Sassy in the City 2)

This was going to be harder than I’d thought. I’d come here hoping I’d be over it all. Over her. That I would see her and decide we were just friends, or honorary siblings, and my plans to slowly, surely, methodically make her see she wanted me as much as I wanted her would seem pointless.

That I’d enjoy her seeing me more as a man, but that’d be the end of it.

Yet not one single thing had changed in a decade.

I’d inked half my body, worked out and eaten protein like a beast, dated some really nice women I’d cared about.

Yet I was still half in love with Savannah and wanted to bury myself deep inside her.

“And I can’t even take a cold shower,” I told Sullivan, because my plan was to take him in the shower with me.

The baby’s response was to kick me in the gut with his heel.

“Keep doing that,” I told him. “I need someone to knock sense into me.”

Chapter 2

I woke up with a start, sitting up in panic. There was drool in the corner of my mouth. Why was I in bed? Where was my son?

I stumbled out of bed, heart racing.

I remembered almost immediately that Maddox had arrived and had told me to take a power nap. Right. Geez. I slowed down in the hallway, putting my hand onto my chest to take a deep breath and calm down. Sully was fine. He was with Maddox.

But when I went into the living room, they weren’t there. I realized the bathroom door was closed and the shower was running. Hold on. If Maddox was in the shower, where was Sully? Was he lying on my bathroom floor, which I had to admit, hadn’t been cleaned recently? The thought of my child rolling around on that cold, damp germ-riddled floor had me opening the bathroom door to rescue him.

Sully wasn’t on the floor. He wasn’t anywhere to be found.

My panic kicked into high gear again, and without hesitating, I ripped back the shower curtain to demand Maddox explain where the hell my child was. The words died on my tongue. Because Sully was in the shower with Maddox, looking pink and chubby and delighted, hand out in front of him to catch the water as he rested comfortably on Maddox’s hip.

Maddox’s naked hip.

Maddox, who didn’t look pink and chubby and delighted.

Maddox, who looked like a hard, sexy-as-hell, bad boy.

His head was under the water, body turned toward me so Sullivan was out of the direct line of the stream. Which meant I could see every single full-frontal inch of Maddox. He was hard. Everywhere. Muscles on muscles, decorated with tattoos over a good fifty percent of his incredible body. Incredible and firm body.

I tried not to look at everything. I really tried. But my gaze seemed to have a life of its own and took a peek at his lower body.

My mouth went dry. My cheeks hot.

That was a big cock.

Inches from me.

“Hey, is everything okay?” he asked, pulling me out of my dumbfounded stupor.

I yanked my gaze back to his face, mortified.

“You didn’t sleep very long,” he said when I just stared at him. He didn’t look even remotely uncomfortable with the fact that he was standing under a stream of hot water totally naked in front of me.

Finally, I pried my tongue off of the roof of my mouth. “I’m sorry, oh my God. I didn’t mean to…” I gestured to his body. “I just woke up and I didn’t know where Sully was and I freaked out. I’m not used to having help…” I trailed off, pressing my lips shut.

Maddox just gave me a grin. “Not a problem. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I should have told you I wanted a shower.”

Sully reached for me, bless his little heart. He saved me from further embarrassment.

“Grab a towel before you take him,” Maddox said. “He’s slippery.” He looked down at Sully and bounced him on his hip a little. “Aren’t you, little man?”