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CHAPTER15
Esme
Being a walking ball of lust and confusion was no fun. Like, at all. My mind was stuck on an endless loop of fantasies of Wolfe taking me to bed, meaning that I was operating at a heightened level of excitement every hour of the day. In these fantasies, it was crystal clear how much Wolfe wanted me, what with his whispered,You’re so fucking hotor,God, you taste so good,or,You can’t imagine how much I want to fuck you, Esme.Like I said, crystal clear.
In real life, not so much, as far as I could tell. I’d only seen him twice this week, once at the diner when he came in for a business meeting, then another time at the supermarket. Both times, he’d seemed friendly but distant. Me, on the other hand? So fucking hot for him I could set the world on fire.
It didn’t seem to matter how much I told myself it was impossible, anyway. To stop thinking about it. Because I wasn’t going to leave the kids at home alone so I could go out and get laid, was I? Or throw myself at a guy that didn’t seem that interested in catching me.
When I said as much to Stef on Friday morning, she answered, “Are you fucking kidding me? That man would devour you if given the chance.”
We were at Riverside Park, sitting in the shade of a giant oak, while the kids splashed about at the river’s edge. “Yeah, I just don’t know about that.”
Lying back, folding her arms under her head, Stef gave me a knowing smile. “Trust me.”
“Yeah?”
“Lemme tell you a story.”
I leaned back on my hands, keeping a watchful eye on the kids. I didn’t want Belle going much further than knee deep here. When I saw that Ariel was hovering nearby, ever vigilant, I relaxed a little and turned my attention back to Stef. “Go on.”
“When I was bringing the kids to you at the diner the other day, as I was crossing the road, I looked up, straight into the diner window. Wanna know what I saw?”
“A tyrannosaurus rex eating a muffin?”
“Oh, you’re soooo funny.”
“Sorry not sorry.”
“I saw a devastatingly handsome man. First thought was—”
“You wished you could fuck him.”
“Of course. Second thought was, wow, I wish I could find a guy who looked at me like that. Whoever is on the other end of that gaze is one lucky woman. Color me all sorts of surprised when I stepped through the door and realized, my little cupcake, that it was my very own sweet Esme he’d been looking at.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, an edge of doubt to my words. “He’s friendly and distant.”
“Friendly, sure. Distant, not so much.”
I felt coils of hope squeeze around my heart and rubbed at my chest. Reality time. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
“Disagree. It’s the only thing that matters. You want him. He wants you. Have at it.”
“The kids, Stef.”
“I’ll have them overnight. We’d have a blast together.”
“I appreciate the thought, but what would I tell them about it? As in, why you’re having them?”
“You could just say it was because I offered, and we thought it would be fun.”
“Ariel wouldn’t buy it. She’d be suspicious, wonder if there was something wrong with me, like if I was going for some secret medical appointment, or something. Before you know it, she’d have diagnosed me with cancer, and I’d be at death’s door. I can’t lie to her, and I damn well can’t tell her the truth.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“You know what you need to do?”