Page 27 of Tempt (Peachwood Falls #1)

C hase

So this is what this feels like .

Moonlight filters through the curtains that weren’t properly closed in my haste to return to bed.

Megan was worried about the mess on the living room floor.

She feared that if Kennedy came home unexpectedly, she would look at the pizza boxes and discarded clothing and think someone had broken in.

So while Megan soaked in my bathroom after I thoroughly ravaged her, I disposed of my condom and cleaned up the mess downstairs.

“Do you think I should go to my room?” she asks, her voice sleepy. Her arm drapes across my bare chest as she snuggles into my side. “I mean, the answer is yes. I should. But do you want me to go now or wait a little longer?”

I stare at the ceiling and imagine watching her climb out of bed.

No. I don’t want you to go now—or later, for that matter. This is … nice.

I stroke her arm with my fingertips. “It’s not hurting anything for you to stay here.”

She smiles against me.

I don’t fight the grin that twitches along my lips, but I struggle with the lie I just told.

None of this is surprising to me. When Megan stepped out of her car, I knew she had the potential to cause me a lot of trouble. Hell, I might’ve known that when she was still a stranger giving me shit from the other side of a foggy window.

I want Megan in my bed. I want her lips wrapped around my cock again, my mouth exploring every piece of her body. I want to hear her laugh, watch her smile—come home from work, and see her in my kitchen with my daughter. And that’s all kinds of screwed up.

It’s a setup for pain. This is going to hurt—badly, I’m afraid.

And if I don’t play this right, it won’t just hurt me. It’ll hurt Kennedy too.

“What’s the matter?” she asks, yawning.

I pull her closer to me if that’s possible. “Nothing. Why?”

“You just tensed up.”

“Oh.” Did I? “My shoulder is still sore.”

“Want me to massage it again.”

I chuckle. “Only if you want to repeat what happened the last time you started rubbing me.”

She tucks her face against me and laughs. The sound pleases me—too much.

Chase, you’ve fucked up .

Megan slides a leg over mine. I rest my cheek against her head and appreciate the moment. It’s been too long since I’ve had a moment like this.

Have I ever had a moment like this ? The question stirs something deep inside me.

“Can I be honest with you about something, Chase?”

“I hope you’re always honest with me.”

“Good.” She exhales as if she’s struggling to accept whatever she wants to say. “I feel a little guilty.”

I pull back, tipping her chin up so she’s looking at me.

Her eyes are bright and vulnerable. My first instinct is to kiss her—to kiss away the vulnerability and show her I’m still here.

But kissing isn’t what she needs. Not right now.

She needs words and communication to work out whatever plagues her.

“What in the world do you have to feel guilty about?” I ask.

She smiles softly. “I knew when I offered to massage your shoulder that it probably wasn’t going to … end there.”

Fair enough . “Okay, well, if I’m being honest with you, I probably knew that too.” I wait for her to continue, to draw the line between her admission and her feelings of guilt. But her response doesn’t come. “I’m not following you, sweetheart.”

She slips out of my grip and nestles against me again.

“Hey,” I say, chuckling. “You’re not leaving me hanging. So what do you feel guilty about?”

“I … Did I just, you know, complicate this?”

“You mean, did we just complicate this?”

She shrugs, her narrow shoulders slipping against the sheets.

“I was an active participant in tonight’s activities,” I say. “Do you think I should feel guilty for something? Because if you do, I don’t.”

She presses a kiss to my side, and it melts my insides.

“How is a woman like you single?” I ask. “It boggles my mind.”

“Gavin asked me that today too.”

“Did he now?”

She laughs. “As I told him, it’s pretty simple.”

“So explain.” Tell me everything you told him and more.

She sits up, and the sheet pools at her waist. The moonlight shines behind her, illuminating her figure with a soft, muted glow. Her heavy breasts hang like teardrops, and the roundness of her stomach is utter perfection.

I rest my hand on her thigh, my fingers dangerously close to her pussy. I press them lightly into her soft flesh and will myself to listen. Ensure she knows I’m interested in more than just her body.

“I think I have a character flaw,” she says pensively. “I intentionally choose men I know aren’t a match—ones I know won’t work out. I think I told you this on the road when I broke down.”

“You did. I still don’t understand why, though.”

She shrugs, staring off into the night.

As I watch her, my thoughts return to the night on the road. “I choose to have relationships that I know won’t work out because it’s my comfort zone—which is odd because there’s nothing comfortable about it.”

Okay … “Do you pick out men who won’t work because you’re not ready to settle down? Or is it something else?”

A vague smile touches her swollen lips. “Maybe both.”

I roll over on my side, propping my head up with my hand. “It’s smart not to settle down until you’re ready because, let me tell you, kids are a pain in the ass.”

She laughs softly.

Though the words are easy to say, the reality isn’t as easy at all. The truth is, it doesn’t matter to me if she wants to settle down or why. Still, her admission feels like I’ve just lost something important, and I can’t shake that.

“I don’t know if it’s that, really.” She slowly faces me again. “I’m not averse to marriage and children in theory. Actually, the idea of creating a family excites me. I just don’t know if I would be good at it.”

I chuckle. “What does that mean?”

She grins shyly. “I don’t know what that means. It means … what it means . How do I know I would be a good wife or mother?”

I stroke her thigh and wonder how on earth she’d second-guess herself on that. She’s a natural—and that doesn’t come easily to everyone. I know.

The moment Mom and I met Kennedy in the cramped offices at CPS, my whole life changed. I went from a proverbial bachelor to a single dad with no idea how to raise a daughter. It took a minute to wrap my head around things.

And Kennedy? She was thrust into a big, loud family with a league of adoring people waiting to dote on her hand and foot. It took a while for her to acclimate, to trust us—especially as she grieved the loss of her mother.

The tears my baby shed. Night after night, sitting in bed and crying for her mom. I didn’t know how to make that better, how to get on her level. How did I sympathize with her when I’ve never lost someone, and I, sadly, didn’t really even know Monica?

But I sat beside her every night and told her it would be okay.

Hell, I cried with her sometimes because watching her devastation devastated me.

It took some time, but we formed a bond.

We figured out our new life together. And little by little, she accepted her new family—except Luke.

He was nearly immediate. That should’ve been an onus of what was to come with that kid—always preferring the troublemakers.

Despite Kennedy’s initial reticent and sullen reaction to Megan’s presence, she quickly warmed to her.

My daughter has a natural skepticism of new people.

I attribute that to how she made her way to me.

But Megan’s genuine affection, humor, and equally no-bullshit meter meshed beautifully with my daughter, and they’ve created a special friendship.

I suspect Megan would be an amazing mother.

“It’s scary to consider,” she says.

“It scared the hell out of me. Well, let’s cut the shit and admit that it scares the hell out of me every day. You’ve met my child.”

“Did you want to be a dad?”

I roll on my back and sigh. “No. Kids were the last thing on my to-do list—if they appeared at all. I wasn’t like you. I knew I’d be a shitty dad. I didn’t even like kids.” I turn my face to face her. “I still don’t like kids. Only mine, and I only like her sometimes.”

She smiles like she doesn’t believe me.

“You’re great at it, you know,” she says. “You’re an excellent father.”

“Thanks.” I blow out a breath and stare at the ceiling. “I try, you know. I try hard to do the right thing for Kennedy. Sure, she has my parents and siblings, but I’m her only parent.” And I feel tremendous guilt for that .

“I didn’t know Monica, but I know she’d be proud of what a good dad you are. I’m sure she rests easier knowing you’re taking such good care of her baby.”

My heart grows heavy as I think about my daughter’s mother—a woman I barely knew. Why did she try to go it alone? Did she struggle? Was it hard for her?

Was she going to tell me?

“You know,” I say around the frog in my throat, “a lot of people think I should be angry with Monica.”

A long, quiet moment passes between Megan and me.

“Are you?” she asks finally.

“I get it. I mean, she withheld my child from me. That’s cruel. I missed so much of Kennedy’s firsts. I was deprived of all the excitement of having a kid.” I look at her and grin sadly. “And I think I would’ve been excited … after the shock wore off.”

She smiles back, stroking my leg tenderly.

“But how can I condemn Monica?” I ask. “I don’t know what she was going through.

I don’t know her situation. All I know for sure is that she kept our daughter healthy.

Ken was happy when I met her—all things considered.

Monica kept Kennedy safe.” I blow out a tired breath.

“I’ll never get answers about why she made her choices, so I choose to feel grateful for everything she did right. ”

“That’s an amazing way to look at it.”

“Well, that’s really the only way to look at it, right?

I mean, I want Kennedy to grow up and know that so many people love her.

I want her to feel supported. To know her worth and value.

If I have a chip on my shoulder about her mother—someone who I know Kennedy’s going to have questions about and be curious about—that defeats the purpose. ”

“Does she ask about her?”

I move my shoulder and wince. “No, not a lot. But it’ll come.

And when it does, I want to look at her and tell her how much her mother loved her, how she was the center of her world.

But how can I do that if I’m secretly pissed at Monica?

That doesn’t serve Kennedy, nor does it serve her mother’s memory.

The stories I tell her about Monica are the only things Kennedy will ever know about her, and I’ll be damned if she thinks anything other than the best.”

Megan crawls across the bed and lays beside me once again. This time, she holds me tighter than ever before.

The peace that comes with having her in my arms is dangerous. But I can’t deny that if time were paused right now, I wouldn’t be upset about it. It feels pretty damn good with her by my side.

“You’re a good man, Chase Marshall. Even if you are a grumpy cat.”

The memory of her calling me that in front of my mother makes me chuckle.

“Now, enough of this sad shit,” she says. “How are we going to handle this now? I mean, we have to be respectful of Kennedy.”

I kiss her head again. I love that you consider my child .

“The ball is in your court,” she says.

“Well …” I contemplate my options. “I guess the only thing I want to avoid is Kennedy thinking that something is happening between us. You and I are adults, and we know what this is.” And that you’re leaving .

The thought is a punch in the gut, but I move on.

“So I guess if we can keep our distance in front of her,” I say, thinking quickly, “and make sure she stays our priority, then we can figure out how to get time together.”

Her hand slides down my stomach, resting on my cock. “I think that’s a good plan.”

“One more thing. I will have to go out of town overnight for a couple of nights this week. Probably Thursday or Friday. Just giving you a heads-up.”

“Okay. No problem.”

“Oh, there’s a problem,” I say, ripping the blankets off us. I take her hand in mine and wrap it around my hardening cock. “You touched it. Now it’s your problem.”

She looks up at me with a devilish grin. “That’s a problem I can solve.”

Thank God.