And we’re off.
“Drama?” Asher gestured to the house. “That’s my kid in there, Gloria. He’s not drama.”
“I don’t mean Hawk! I mean you pulling me into a family day with you like I’m the girlfriend or something. I’m not. I had work to do! I have a life. I can’t just…just”—she threw an arm in the direction of the boat—“go out and play with you whenever you feel like it.”
“You could’ve said no,” he said, raising his voice some. “Last I checked, you aren’t accustomed to agreeing to things you don’t want to do.”
And wasn’t that the fuckin’ truth?
“You don’t own me, Asher Knight. You don’t get to be possessive when I’m on a date—”
“Come on!” he interrupted. “You want me to believe you’re pissed that I interrupted your date with Brice McGuire?” He knew her better than that—hell, Gloria knew herself better than that.
“Yes, Asher. A date.” She leaned closer to him, fire in her eyes, her hair wild from the wind. “You don’t get to pull me into your life whenever you need help. I have a life, too.”
“I know that.” But she kept going.
“A life that is not in this house, that is not on this dock.” She pointed at the wooden slats they stood on now. “A life that shouldn’t be happening here, of all places.”
Okay, she’d officially thrown him. “What does my house have to do with anything?”
“How about the fact that I saved every dime I had to buy it?” She pointed at herself, poking red nails into her white dress. “I put down an offer and you outbid me. I was supposed to be living and working here, not playing family with a guy who only wants me sometimes!” She quit speaking when her voice became choked with emotion. He heard it. He saw it.
It took him a few seconds to piece together what she’d said.
“You put an offer on this house?” he asked, pointing at the deck.
She sniffed, crossing her arms and looking past him at the lake. “Yeah.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? I would have pulled my offer and let you buy it!”
“I know you would have!” she shouted, dropping her arms and going red in the face. “I didn’t want you to!”
He couldn’t win. And he also couldn’t keep from grabbing her face, tugging those lips to his, and kissing her with every ounce of passion and anger and whatever else flowed between them whenever they reached this point with each other.
Gloria responded like he expected, tugging his T-shirt in both fists as she dragged him closer. They’d always been a volatile mix, their arguing a twisted form of foreplay. But when Asher’s hands went to her hips and pulled her close, he found himself softening and her softening against him.
She pressed those pillowy breasts to his chest and looped her arms around his neck as he tilted his head to the side to make out with her as thoroughly as possible. She let out a muffled moan and he splayed his hand across her back, tucking her into him.
She tasted like everything he wanted but couldn’t have. Being this close wasn’t enough. Not for either of them. He could tell by the sweep of her tongue in his mouth she felt the same way.
The sound of barking cut through the haze fogging his brain. Glo started to pull back and he groaned in disagreement.
“Ash,” she said, pulling her lips from his, but he went for her again.
More barking. Gloria shoved him back and this time when he turned to the house to tell Tank to shut up, he saw Hawk had climbed off the couch and was on the move.
Shit.
“Give me one second,” Ash said. “I have to get him.”
But Gloria had already sobered. She stepped back, her top teeth sinking into her bottom lip.
“Don’t move,” he told her, then ran for the house. He was out of time, and he knew it. He scooped up Hawk, who’d narrowly missed pulling a potted plant onto his head, then propped his son on his hip and went outside. Just as he’d anticipated, there was no one there.
The only sound was the clop-clop of retreating high-heeled shoes against the deck as Gloria made her way to her car.
*
After the longest day in recent history, Gloria decided she couldn’t eat another frozen dinner. She headed out to Salty Dog instead and ate comfort food in the form of a fish and chips basket with a tall Dr Pepper.
Diet be damned. It’d been a hell of a long day. In the parking lot, she dug into the bottom of her purse for her keys, pulling out a toy dinosaur instead. Hawk must have hid it in her purse today when she wasn’t looking.
The toy brought back memories of the day and stress pulled her shoulders tight. Being pushed into Asher’s day, him pushing her into his day, had frightened her in a way she couldn’t categorize. Never in her life had she pictured herself hanging out with Asher’s son. Asher and Jordan’s son.
Gloria may be good with Evan’s son and Kimber’s son, but when it came to Asher, she worried she’d fail Hawk and fail him big. She didn’t want Hawk to feel Gloria’s animosity toward his mother and Gloria was afraid she radiated it even if she didn’t speak it.