Millionaire Daddy (Freeman Brothers 2)

My hands gripped his hips and pulled him harder up against me as his hands cupped around my neck. Our tongues tangled, and as the kiss got dirtier, I wondered if we could get away with disappearing off to his office for a little bit without anyone noticing.

Suddenly, he pulled away. The kiss was over far too fast, and my brain was reeling as it broke and Darren stepped back. There was immediately a sense of emptiness and disappointment that his lips were no longer touching mine and his body wasn’t crushed against me anymore. Then a flicker of fear went through me as I wondered why he had that sudden, sharp reaction.

Maybe he’d come down to the garage as an experiment. He wanted to see if there was still anything between us. Or maybe he had been wondering since seeing me again what had attracted him to me in the first place. Our first night together had been absolutely incredible, and maybe now he was trying to figure out how that could have happened. He was all too happy to agree to be just friends with me, so it was possible that kiss was just his attempt to figure out what we had three years ago.

The nervousness and uncertainty rolled through my mind, but when I opened my eyes to look at him, it didn’t seem like Darren was uncomfortable or confused. He was still standing close in front of me, his eyes locked firmly with mine. His hand lifted again and stroked down the side of my neck, curving around the back to hold it tenderly as we looked at each other.

“Just so you know, okay?” he said. “I didn’t want there to be any question about how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking. Because I want more than friendship with you.”

“But we said…”

“I know what we said. I don’t care. That’s not how I felt then, and it’s definitely not how I feel now. There’s no way I can just be friends with you. I don’t want to,” he answered.

With one more soft, brief kiss, he walked away. My mouth hung open as he walked over to the other side of the garage and got to work. My brain seemed to have crashed and gone into a factory reset. I couldn’t manage a single cohesive thought to explain what just happened or decide how I was going to feel about it. It took a few long seconds before I was able to get my brain processing again, and then a bit longer to convince it to work in conjunction with my body. As I got back to work, I glanced over at Darren and could have sworn I saw a smirk on his face before he turned back to cleaning his race bike. I huffed out a shocked laugh and mentally added that to the ever-growing list of things I needed to figure out.

21

Darren

I was still feeling almost giddy the next morning when I pulled into the parking lot for my morning workout with Colby. He wasn’t too happy with me the day before when I told him I had to miss our workout, but after I explained that I needed to see Greg, he calmed down a bit. It didn’t stop him from warning me this morning’s workout was going to be far more brutal than what he usually put me through. It had to be. I was behind by a day now, after all. Since I had to go to work after the workout and he had other appointments, it wasn’t like I could linger around at the gym for twice as long in order to get twice as much workout. Of course not. Colby had to distill all the intensity and effect of what he had planned for both days down into the same amount of time. I could only imagine just how obscene this workout was going to be.

But in all honesty, I didn’t care. I was so happy, and my mind felt so much clearer than it had since Kelly showed up again, possibly even before, I didn’t even think I would notice how hard I was working out. All I had to do was think about her and that kiss, and I would be able to get through anything. Working out hard would also help to get some of the built-up energy out. Before it was getting out anger and frustration. Now it was about getting out all the excitement and the rush of desire I felt when I was that close to her again. I could have just scooped her up into my arms, carried her into a dark corner, and continued what we started years ago. It took a lot to stop myself, but I was glad I did. This deserved time, and I was going to do it right.