I was panting. I couldn’t talk.
One of his thumbs took a detour from my ribs and went up, swiping over my nipple, which I wasn’t surprised at all was hard. Dallas was breathing roughly as his thumb did it again. His mouth kissed the patch of skin my button-down shirt couldn’t cover and he whispered, directly into my damn heart, “I’ve thought about doing this with you in here a hundred times—a thousand times—”
“Buttercup! Are you gonna tuck me in?” came a shout that had me jerking back to reality.
But it didn’t have Dallas going anywhere. It didn’t have his hands moving from where they’d taken residence. And that thick shaft across my stomach didn’t go anywhere either.
It was only Dallas’s head that rose until his face hovered just above mine, that beautiful pink mouth brushing my own. He focused those green-brown-gold eyes in on me and kissed my lips, just a peck, one, two, three, four, five times. Then he touched his mouth to one of my cheeks and then the other, pausing right in front of me as his gaze bounced from one of my eyes to the second and back.
“Buttercup!” Louie yelled again.
His hands moved over to my arms and down to my wrists before cupping each of my hands in his palms. He brought them up between us and against his hard, flat belly. “I’ll let you put the boys to bed, but we’ll talk tomorrow. I’m not gonna keep putting this off, Diana.”
And I answered with the only word my stupid, stunned brain could come up with. “Okay.”
“Buttercup!”
“Poo face! Give me a second!” I hollered, shaking my head as I held Dallas’s gaze.
“Bring Mr. Dallas!” the little boy shouted back.
This beautiful, perfect man who had just finished kissing me smiled softly at Louie’s request. “You mind?” he had the nerve to ask.
“You know I don’t.” I waved him toward me. “Come on.”
Dallas nodded and took a step forward as I turned my back on him. I managed to take maybe a couple of steps before two arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind in a hug that lasted all of a squeeze and what I could only assume was a kiss to the back of my head. I stood there and took it.
A giant part of me wished he would do it again and again.
It wasn’t until he dropped his hold on me way too soon, that I reached back without looking at him and took his hand. I laced my fingers through his and felt his pads curl over the fine bones below the outside of my wrist. We walked the fifteen feet to Louie’s room holding hands, not saying a word. Sure enough, his blond head was the only thing peeking out from over the top of his Iron Man covers and he was grinning that grin that lit my entire world up.
“I like this,” Louie confirmed as I took a seat on the bed furthest away from the door and Dallas took the opposite spot as we let go of each other’s hand.
Snorting, I started tucking his comforter in around his legs and let his comment go. “Did you brush your teeth?”
“Yes.”
“What story do you want to hear today?” I asked, still tucking him in.
The little boy made a humming noise as his eyes bounced to Dallas. “What do you think, Mr. Dallas?”
“What do you usually hear? Only stories about your dad?”
“Yeah,” he answered like he was saying “duh.”
Dallas made his own thoughtful noise. His hand went to the top of where Louie’s foot was and he gave it a squeeze. “What about one of your mom?”
The cowardly part of me said “Shit.” The part of me that knew this was a conversation I’d continued to push aside even though I shouldn’t thought that it was about time someone had brought this up. Louie, on the other hand, didn’t say a word but I could sense his gaze on me. I could feel his tension.
Dallas knew Louie’s mom wasn’t alive. I’d mentioned Mandy and Rodrigo’s wills before, but I still hadn’t told him what happened. Guilt was a painful son of a bitch no one liked to remember.
“My mom died.”
The statement out of Louie’s mouth had me glancing up at him as sneakily as possible. That sweet, innocent face wasn’t exactly blank, but it was his eyes that said it all. He looked as hurt as he had two years ago, and that ate me up inside. I should have handled this better.
“My dad died when I was a kid,” Dallas told him gently. “I still miss him a lot. My mom used to tell me stories about him too sometimes but not like your Buttercup does. You’re really lucky, you know that?”
“Your dad died too?”
Dallas nodded. “I was ten. He was the best man in the whole world. I wanted to be just like him. I still wanna be just like him.”
I kept my mouth shut and watched Louie’s face as he said, “My daddy was a policeman. I wanna be like him too.”
“You can be whatever you want to be, Lou,” our neighbor said. The hand he had on Louie’s foot moved and his fingers plucked at one of Louie’s toes.
“That’s what Tia Di says.”
“She knows what she’s talking about.”
Louie smiled. His eyes flashed over to mine and his smile grew even wider. “Yeah.” Just as quickly as it had arrived, the curves of his mouth disappeared and he glanced once more at Dallas. “I only like stories about my dad.”
“You might like stories about your mom, too, buddy. I’m sure she had to be pretty special to have such a nice son like you.”
This guy was killing me. “She was pretty special, Goo,” I let him know, my voice just a little unsteady. I had to take advantage of this opportunity Dallas was giving me. “Where do you think you get how sweet and cute you are from? Everyone loved your mom.”
He blinked and his fingers peeked out from over the top of the comforter, curling over the edge of it. I’d swear his eyes narrowed just a little. “They did?” From the tone of his voice, it confirmed he didn’t believe it. Had my parents said something in front of him to make him think otherwise? I doubted the Larsens had, but what did I know?
A lump settled into my chest, and I had to force myself to ignore it. “Oh yeah. Ask Josh.” I wanted to ask him if he didn’t remember her but that seemed almost cruel. “She was always happy and she never had a mean thing to say about anyone.” I smiled at him.
Those blue eyes jumped between me to Dallas and then to his comforter. I glanced at Dallas and reached out to put my hand over the one he had on Louie’s feet. His fingers spread wide and took mine between his.
“Did she…” Louie hesitated. “What did she say when I was born?”