“Who’s the manager up there now?” she asked.
“A guy named Kevin Jones.”
“It’s about time.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Kevin Jones is Old Man Lee’s grandson. He’s the one set to take it over when Lee passes.”
“Well, it’ll be a good handoff. Kevin’s good with the cars and the customers.”
“Which one are you good with?” she asked.
I lifted my gaze to hers and found her kind eyes staring back at me. Her entire neck was flushed, and it dragged my eyes down her body.
Fuck, she’s beautiful.
And she could cook up a storm. The lasagna was amazing, and I was having a hard time holding back my praise. She was easy to talk to, but more than that, I wanted to talk with her, to tell her about my day while we sat at her dinner table.
I felt my wall shooting back up, blocking me off from her before I got too comfortable. I couldn’t tell her much about me. I couldn't indulge in this any longer. This wasn’t my family, and she wasn’t my wife, and Lily wasn’t my child.
This was a shitty idea.
I never should’ve come over.
“The lasagna’s good,” I said instead of answering her question.
“I’m glad you like it,” Cindy said. “Old family recipe.”
“Your mother a good cook?” I asked.
“More than that. She was a chef for most of her life.”
The dinner was easygoing, and I had to tread lightly. Every time Cindy struck up a conversation, I got excited. Every time Lily talked to me and got me going, I felt relaxed. And that was when disaster always struck. If I needed a reminder, I would lean into the back of the chair and feel the cool metal of my gun pressing into my back. I couldn’t lose focus. I couldn't get wrapped up in her and the deep, stormy ocean of her eyes.
I helped Cindy clean up, and then I headed on home. I closed the door behind me and rushed across the grass, trying to put as much distance between them and me as I possibly could.
There was something about the two of them so innately familiar that my body wanted to reach out for. The way her skin flushed in my presence made me feel like a man, and the way she was eager to get to know me made me feel special.
The way Lily wanted to play with me was something I’d longed to hear from my son for so long.
“They’re not my family. They’re not my family. They’re not my family.”
I chanted that phrase as I undressed. I cast my clothes aside and put my gun on my bedside table. Cindy was entrancing.
Too entrancing.
I’d never been affected by a woman that way. Not since Cary.
I laid down in bed as that phrase ran through my mind, and I closed my eyes to try and usher in another day. But all I saw in my mind’s eye was a beautiful face with auburn hair and a pixie smile.
I was fucked.
CHAPTER 9
CINDY
I sat on the edge of Lily’s bed until she was fast asleep. I ran my fingers through her hair, gazing down into her beautiful little face. She looked so peaceful whenever she was asleep. Night after night, I’d wake up to the sound of that dreadful knocking at the door and the men there to tell me I’d never see my husband again.
I was glad that Lily didn’t have that nightmare. I was glad that she could still sleep soundly, and I vowed that I would always make it okay for her. I never wanted her to lose her innocence. I made my way to my room and stripped down for bed. I crawled in and closed my eyes as my mind went back to dinner and Graham’s ruggedly handsome features and the kindness behind his deep blue eyes. Dinner had been so easy with him. Talking to him had been effortless. I hadn’t experienced that kind of freedom with a man since Bradley had come into my life, and it was oddly familiar, though still completely new.
And he was wonderful with Lily. The way he tossed her onto the couch and galloped her around the house. That joyful laughter of hers had been missed. Her laughter was different with me than it had been with her father, which wasn’t good or bad but merely different. That full-voiced giggle that I hadn’t heard in over a year was there again tonight.
I relaxed into bed and allowed my mind to wander. I saw his eyes staring at me with that shadow of a grin on his cheeks. I saw the way his jacket pulled at his shoulders, his massive muscles underneath that white shirt. I saw his wet hair and how he had answered his front door in that white shirt that clung to his damp skin.
I could see every ripple of his strong chest, and it tugged at my gut.
Two years. It had been two years since Bradley had left for that last deployment. Two years since I’d experienced the warmth or the desire of a strong man’s arms around me. Graham had wonderful arms. The veins that had been bulging when he’d answered his front door left me breathless, and I could feel my body puckered at the thought of him and of his chiseled body against mine.
I felt that throbbing between my legs. Could I? Should I? Was I somehow betraying Bradley by doing this? I didn’t know. I was being pulled in two different directions. But the memory of Graham wet from his shower overrode the face of my late husband, and my hand began to creep down my body.
Squeezing my breasts. Tickling my stomach before finding its way between my pussy folds.
My fingertips circled my pulsing clit as I focused on Graham. His rock-hard abs, his tortured blue eyes and that beard on his face. Oh, how it would feel with his tongue between my thighs. I imagined it scraping against my skin, making me wetter and wetter as that deep voice of his moaned into my pussy. I dug my heels into the mattress, my hips bucking against my ministrations.
I imagined his thick cock pulsing inside of me, filling me up and pressing against my walls I imagined him thrusting into my body, shooting electricity through my veins as his muscles draped along my skin.
“Graham,” I said breathlessly. “Oh, yes.”
I wiggled around in bed as I imagined him taking me, pinning me against the wall, and bending me over the bed. Spreading my legs on the couch and kneeling in front of me to devour my pussy. I imagined him taking me on his kitchen counter, pulling me to the edge as my legs wrapped around his juicy body. I could see his veins bulging and his muscles trembling. I could feel his dick inside of me as it pushed against my walls. My legs began to tremble, and his name kept tumbling from my lips.
I screwed my eyes shut and felt his skin against me.
I saw his lips on my neck and his hands massaging my breasts. I saw me sitting in his lap, my legs spread as we watched ourselves in a mirror, his cock pistoning in and out of my body before tossing me to the bed.
“Shit. Graham. Yes. Don’t stop. Oh my gosh. It’s been so long. Please don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
I saw his eyes locked on mine and him hovering over my body. I rolled my hips hard against my fingers, my legs shaking with exertion. I felt his hand cradling my lower back as he pulled me closer to him. His lips on mine. His beard against my cheeks. His tongue licking the roof of my mouth and sending my body spiraling.
I shook in midair, my legs contracted, and my hand pressed into my dripping pussy as I moaned his name.
“Graham. Oh, yes. Holy hell …”
I collapsed to the bed as tears rose to my eyes. Our bed. This was mine and Bradley's bed. The bed we got when we first married, and the bed we had conceived Lily in. My hand fell to the side as my juices slid to the covers, wetting the sheets underneath me as I cried.
I had masturbated to the memory of a man who wasn’t my husband in the bed I use to share with him.
What was happening to me?
“I’m sorry,” I said in a whisper. “I’m sorry, Bradley.”