Taking a Chance on the Single Dad

She was staring right back, the overhead light making her face harsh yet highlighting the longing in her eyes. ‘Hunter.’

His heart missed a beat. Then another. The breath he’d just inhaled hurt in his chest. His tongue glued itself to the roof of his mouth. Leave. Now. Please.

Her shoulders lifted, fell softly, and then her hand was on his chest. ‘I know what we said about nothing happening between us again, but—’ Her hand clenched into a small fist, knocked on his sternum. ‘Can we have this one night?’

His arms reached for her, lifted her up against his chest and he leaned down to kiss her softly on those delightful lips. ‘Open the door, Bren,’ he gasped through the need roaring through his body from his hard-on to his chest to his mouth. ‘Now.’

Down the hallway into her bedroom, right up to that enormous bed she apparently slept in all by herself. What a waste. But not tonight. Tonight they’d make love, pile up more memories, and worry about where this wasn’t going tomorrow. He set her on those amazing heels, turned her round slowly, savouring the view in the light thrown by a bedside lamp she must’ve left on earlier. He palmed her shoulders, spread his fingers across her satin skin, closing in on the zip that held that figure-defining dress in place. His mouth found her neck, where he laved the sweet skin behind her earlobe.

‘Hunter,’ she whispered. ‘Let me touch you.’

‘No way, sweetheart. This is for you. One touch from you and it’ll be all over for me.’ His desire was explosive. It wasn’t happening until he’d made Brenna fall apart in his hands. Right on cue her lithe body shook. Her head tipped back so that her wild hair spilled down her back as he tugged the zip down to the top of her bottom. Then she stepped forward, to shimmy out of the dress. He gasped as her perfectly curved bottom in the red lace G-string moved from side to side. Then she turned to face him, swinging her hips in the same way she’d done on the dance floor earlier. Her full breasts in their lace cups swayed in time with her hips. Her widespread hands slid over them, pausing to rub her nipples before moving lower, over her belly to the lacy V that was the front of her panties.

Hunter groaned. ‘Don’t do this to me.’ Yet he was incapable of moving, his eyes tracing every movement of those fingers, his body thrumming with desire, his head whirling.

Her lips lifted into a sensual smile, teasing and taunting him. ‘Or what?’

‘Or I’ll throw you on the bed and take you. Now. Urgently.’

‘Perfect.’ She reached for him, using his tie to tug him close. Held on as she sank to the bed, and began dealing with his belt and trousers, his boxers. And, at last, his body. With her mouth.

‘No, Bren,’ he gasped. ‘No. Not yet.’ He had to touch her, feel her need. Now. Pulling back, he reached for her head, lifted it away from him, before sweeping her up and spinning around to sink onto the bed with her straddling him. ‘Ladies first.’

And his hands and mouth proceeded to show her exactly what he meant by that. When she cried out with such need and relief and depth in her voice, he finally sank into her heat and knew he’d come home. If only temporarily.

There was nothing temporary about the rest of the night. Neither was there much sleep, just snatched minutes before he’d reach for Brenna again, or roll into her arms as she gripped him and began touching, tasting, giving herself.

When the sun lightened the edges around the curtains, they both looked at each other and smiled.

‘I’m exhausted,’ Brenna said. ‘I’m not getting up till I have to get ready to go to lunch with my sisters.’

‘I’m starving and exhausted,’ he gave back. ‘What’s for breakfast?’

‘Ow!’ She winced. ‘I didn’t do the shopping yesterday.’

Hunter sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. ‘I’m going out to get bagels and smoked salmon, and proper coffee. Then I have to go. I’ve got the movers coming at nine.’

Brenna shot upright, her eyes wide. ‘I totally forgot it’s moving day for you. Why a Sunday and not Saturday, like normal people?’

‘Because I had a wedding to go to, and Dave wouldn’t have been available.’ He ducked through the door into the en suite bathroom. A quick shower was needed before anything else.

‘What can I do to help? Unpack boxes, set up your kitchen?’ Brenna followed him into the bathroom. ‘I’ve got a few hours free.’

‘Get back to bed and play catch-up on that sleep you want until I bring back the breakfast. As for unpacking, there’s not a lot to do and anyway Jess has taken charge of the kitchen. Mostly dumping her old stuff on me. Not that there’s anything wrong with her last dinner set or the salad bowls and casserole dishes she put away when a whole new lot was delivered last week.’

Brenna laughed. ‘You’re getting the cast-offs, eh? Didn’t you bring your own things from Kamloops?’

The water was hot and worked at his muscles as he soaped away the scents from the night. ‘There wasn’t much I liked, most of it being from the cottage at the orchard. In other words, rubbish. A mix of Mum’s old sets.’ Nothing like the one decent collection of Wedgwood blue dishes, plates and bowls stacked in Brenna’s cupboards.

‘So, you don’t want me to help?’ There was something wistful going on in her eyes.

Which made him feel a heel when he said, ‘Thanks, but there’re going to be too many people hanging around already. Jess will be bringing the kids with her as well. Bedlam.’ Having Brenna in his house, opening boxes of books or mugs, as he moved in and got established in the new life he’d been dreaming of raised the stakes about where they were headed. He wasn’t ready for that. Despite the incredible night they’d just shared, he had to think about how far he was prepared to go with her.

The brakes had to go on until he was a hundred per cent sure what he wanted for the future. He wasn’t about to set Bren up only to hurt her again.

So why stay last night?

Like he’d been able to say no to her.

The bathroom door closed with a loud click, but not before he saw the withdrawal darkening her eyes.

His heart was heavy as he lathed his skin with soap. The words that slid across his lips unprintable. Again, he’d stuffed up with Bren. What was the harm in having her help unpack his gear? He didn’t want her just as a woman to make love to and then get up and disappear out the door, but having her in his house, leaving her scent, her presence in the rooms for him never to be able to avoid her if it became apparent he had to, wasn’t on. Snapping the water off, he snatched up a towel from a pile stacked on a stool. It smelt of jasmine and Bren. His lungs expanded as he breathed her in. Brenna. His Bren.

Was he falling in love with her all over again? Or had he never fallen out of love? Was that why he and Evie hadn’t made it? Had he been too distracted by the woman who’d held his heart? The same questions he’d found himself asking over and over since first seeing Brenna again, and still no straight answers. He’d worked so damned hard to get over her, to shove her out of his life so he wouldn’t go begging for a second chance, and he’d thought he’d succeeded.

He might’ve spent the intervening years having moments of longing for that smile, those curves, the attitude that told him where to go when she didn’t agree with him, but he had stopped loving her. Or so he’d thought.

Hunter’s skin lifted in cold bumps. If he still loved her, where did it lead? Brenna had been quick to kiss him, even quicker to get him into her bed last night, but he doubted she’d have him back other than as a friend with benefits. He’d hurt her when he’d called their relationship off. While she hadn’t tried to stop him going—he wasn’t admitting to her calls that he’d refused to answer—and she hadn’t made a move to go to Kamloops to be with him, in her eyes he’d deserted her as her birth mother had in the past. Almost as though she expected people to dump her, which was hardly fair on her father, who’d stayed around all her life.

Back in her bedroom he found his shirt on the floor where it’d been dropped in their frenzy to get naked with each other. Pulling it over his head, he looked around the neat room with its feminine furnishings and smiled. No photos of hair-raising skiers or parachutists in here. The only photos were of her father and stepmother, and her sisters. No one else. This was Brenna’s room, her haven from the world, the place she tended to her soft side. His smile dipped. The room felt lonely.

He found her in the conservatory off the kitchen, a mug of hot water clasped in her hands, a thick navy robe wrapped around her slim body, and Poppy sitting at her feet. That sense of loneliness grew inside him. This was a side to Brenna he hadn’t known before. Because it hadn’t been there then? Another thing he was responsible for?

‘Hey,’ he called softly. ‘I’ll be back shortly with the bagels.’ It was the least he could do.

Those curls had become riotous overnight and now they hung over her cheeks like curtains, hiding most of that still expression. Most of it, not all. ‘Don’t get me one. I’ll find something in the freezer when I’m ready for breakfast.’ She sounded as though food was the last thing she needed.

Brenna wanted him gone, not coming back with a smile and a bag with something to eat in it. ‘Fine.’

What else could he say? Come round for a celebratory drink later when I’ve unpacked the glasses? Not that he didn’t want to show her his home. He wanted to very much, and yet he didn’t.