After the Climb (River Rain 0.50)

I nodded.

“We’re gonna make out in a little bit, and I’m gonna warn you, I’m gonna feel you up. You’re bein’ shy, so I think it’s fair you know what’s coming.”

I started giggling.

Duncan kept talking.

“Before that, I’m gonna ask you to give me the week. You don’t have a sanitation problem at your place, but Cookie’s already up here, and you clearly don’t have plans that’s messing with, so you can stay. Not here. Chloe has informed me she’s using my place as her vacation destination and I don’t know how long that’s gonna last and her mom and her new, yet old man hooking up under the same roof, even if she’s on the other side of the house, would not work for any of us. And more importantly, I’m sensing you wanna take this slow, and you’re gonna need your space, so I’m gonna give it to you. So you stay at the hotel. During that week, we can get used to each other again, catch up our lives, and make a plan for after without any rush. Are you down with that?”

“What about your work?”

“I can’t deny I’m getting behind, so I’m gonna have to hit the office. But you strike me as a woman who doesn’t get bored easily, your girl is here, you got friends here, so I hope that’s not gonna be a problem.”

“It won’t, but now I have to ask you to be honest, because I can assure you, I won’t be offended. Are you okay with Chloe staying with you?”

“If she left me at this point without needing to go home and get on with her life, it’d gut me.”

I stared at him, warmth (or more warmth) creeping around the region of my heart.

“Straight up, after Gage left, it took a while to get settled in this house without my boys and their mess and their friends and girlfriends in and out. I only had them every other week, but when they went away to school, no other way to put it, it fucking sucked.”

“I so totally get that,” I told him, and I so totally did.

“Yeah, and my boys, especially Gage, take up space. They’re active. They had a lot of friends. Both were serial daters. So there was a lot of action around here. But your girl is one girl, but she seems like about five of them.”

I started laughing and repeated, “I so totally get that.”

“I don’t have daughters,” he went on. “Love my boys so much, really didn’t think on it. Just happy with what I had, how great they were, and that was it. But bein’ around your girl…” He paused, then continued cautiously, “This is for later, honey, but we woulda had beautiful kids, and you might have given me daughters, and that’s not ever gonna happen, and that’s a hole I discovered today that I got in me that’s never gonna be filled. But all that’s Chloe takes so much attention, I’m thinkin’ I’m not gonna feel the empty too much.”

His words made my head fall forward and it thudded against his chin.

He just shifted to kiss my forehead.

“We would have made beautiful children,” I agreed.

“We didn’t,” he said gruffly. “But we got what we got, and we’re all kinds of lucky.”

At least with that, we were indeed all kinds of lucky.

I tipped my head back. “I love that you like her so much.”

“She’s the shit.”

I smiled at him. “She is that. Your boys sound the same.”

“They are.”

“I’m scared of meeting them.”

“Do you know Larry Fitzgerald?”

“Uh, no.”

“Too bad. Though I figure Gage will like you anyway.”

That made me giggle.

I was giggling a lot lately.

It felt nice.

“Can we make out now?” Duncan asked.

That made me giggle more.

I stopped when Duncan kissed me.

And it came back, just like on the porch.

What I’d lost, like it was a sense. Like I’d been flying blind. Moving deafened through the world. Unable to touch. Or taste. Or smell.

All that without Duncan and this and the freedom he gave me to just be me.

I knew Tom loved “Gen,” not “Imogen Swan.”

But in this, he took over. He guided things. And his alpha ways meant that was the only way.

And I could not say I didn’t enjoy it. I did. To let go. To let someone steer that ship. It was a turn-on to give over control.

This was different.

Because Duncan took and he led, and he knew what he wanted, and he went after it.

But he let me have all that too.

Back then.

And now.

Like when I got so into our kissing, I yanked his shirt out of his jeans and started feeling him up before he got even close to the hem of my sweater.

That smooth, hot skin, the muscle underneath.

He groaned at my touch and shoved a knee through my thighs.

I pressed closer and tucked my hand down the back of his jeans, going for his ass.