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I consider it for a moment, how I would feel if he slept with someone else, and I can come up with only one word that would describe even a fraction of how that would make me feel.

“I would be devastated,” I admit, my words barely audible.

“Well, to answer your question, I wouldn’t exactly be happy about it either.”

“You just drove three hours worried that I was going to hook up with someone else. I think you’d be more than just unhappy about it,” I call him out, silently begging for a truth he’s been so hesitant to give.

“You’re right. I’d probably kill the motherfucker.” Anger flashes through his dark green eyes, but that isn’t all I see.

I smile, my hand sliding to the side of his face.

“I’m not going to sleep with anyone else. Not as long as we’re doing whatever it is we’re doing here. So long as you agree to the same.”

“Done,” he says without hesitation, widening my smile.

“Then it’s settled. So the next time I send you a picture of me in a dress like this.” I gesture down at myself. “Know that I’ll be taking it off later, alone, wishing it were you stripping me bare.”

“I shouldn’t have come all this way. I just... Fuck, I don’t know what came over me.” He shakes his head, causing his hair to fall across his forehead.

I reach up, pushing it back away from his face.

“Well, since you’re already here.” I trail my hand down his cheek, across his neck to his chest and then lower, not stopping until my fingers are playing at the buckle of his jeans. “No sense in wasting the trip.” I smile, popping open the button.

“You’re going to be the death of me, Charlotte O’Malley.” He hisses through his front teeth.

“And what a sweet death it will be.” I lean forward, pressing my lips to his once more.

Chapter Twelve

River

“How did you get talked into babysitting?” My sister snorts into the phone, not bothering to mask her laughter.

“Mom and Dad have dinner plans with Deb and Ryan. And Dalton and Avery have to go to some student-teacher thing at Lyla’s preschool, and they didn’t want to have to take the girls.”

“Andyouwere the best they could come up with to watch them?”

“Why do you say it like that? Like I’m incapable of occupying a two-year-old and four-year-old for a couple of hours.”

“Um, because, have you met you?”

“The girls love me.”

“They do. I’m not disputing that. But let’s face it, Riv, you’re the fun uncle, not the responsible one.”

“I’m theironlyuncle,” I needlessly remind her. Given that they’re Dalton’s kids, we have no other brothers, and Avery is an only child, I’m the only uncle they’ll ever have, by blood, anyway. “And for the record, I am plenty responsible.”

“But these are human children...”

“Well aware,” I grumble, pulling into my parents’ driveway.

The memories of the last time I was here with Charlotte come flooding in. Her pressed against the bathroom door. My mouth on hers. The way she whimpered against my lips. Fuck... If it weren’t for the fact that I’m on the phone with my sister, the thought would probably make me hard as a rock.

“I may not have been comfortable watching them when they were really little, but I feel like they’re old enough now that I can handle them.”

“You say that until Lacy has an accident and you have to clean poop off her, or Lyla throws one of her epic temper tantrums.”

“Let’s hope neither of those things happens.” I throw my car into park, killing the engine. “But if they do, you’re only a phone call away.”