Kiss the Stars (Falling Stars #1)(57)

He quirked a brow.

Little punk.

I laughed in disbelief.

Was I really being handled by a twelve-year-old?

He crossed his arms over his chest.

Clearly.

“Fine. Let me put on some shoes.”

Turning on my heel, I started back for the bedroom.

“How about some swim trunks while you’re at it?” he hollered from behind me.

I threw up a hand of dismissal. Kid was lucky I didn’t give him the finger.

He might be a bulldog. But he was five-foot nothing and sure as shit not badgering me into that.





Nineteen





Mia





I was leaned over loading the dishwasher when I froze. Every nerve ending in my body alight.

Hypersensitive.

The man had become my mayhem.

A chaos that sprang into the hot, hot air.

I barely peeked back at the doorway where he came in carrying a stack of dirty dishes from the lasagna we’d just had for dinner. “Need some help?”

He approached. Caution in every step.

I just wished I had a little bit of that caution for myself.

Nope.

The only thing I could sense was the need that sprouted like invasive roots. Unnatural and rampant and overgrowing everything.

I swallowed hard as I took him in.

The man wore jeans when it was almost a hundred out. Black ones this time that were ripped at the knees, another one of those tees stretched so thin across the rippling strength of his chest that the threads threatened to bust.

Desire streaked.

Torrid and red-hot.

“You can just set them on the counter. I’m almost finished here.”

He came closer. “I can help, Mia. According to Brendon, I don’t have anything better to do.” He attempted a joke that stalled out in the tension in the air.

Every cell in my body shivered.

I tried to pretend as if he didn’t affect me at all.

That I wasn’t tangled up in a knot of this man.

My nights had become filled with thoughts and dreams of him. What it would be like to really be touched by him. To be loved by him.

“I haven’t been doing a whole lot myself, if I’m being honest.”

He edged up beside me, barely knocking into my shoulder with his, a coy smile on his mouth. “I always want your honest.”

The air rushed from my lungs, and I let go of a choppy laugh as I scrubbed down a pot, slanting a look at the man who was undoing everything. “I don’t think I believe you. It seems to me you like hiding from the truth.”

He chuckled, and he was shoving his hands into the sudsy water, rinsing the plates that he’d carried in. “Easier that way, isn’t it?”

My head shook. “Easier? Maybe. Better? No.”

“And what truth am I hiding from?” He seemed reluctant to ask it.

I knocked him back with my shoulder. “That you’re a good guy.”

His laughter was scraping. “You think because I’m doing a few dishes it makes me a good guy?”

“I think I have good intuition.” I fought for easiness, and this time I knocked him with my hip. “Just like my son.”

Could see the smile playing around his sexy mouth. God, it was getting harder and harder not to just . . . kiss him.

He shifted a fraction, the man so close to me his nose nearly brushed my cheek. Tingles flashed. “Bet my intuition is better, Angel, and I don’t think you could handle what I would do to you.”

“Yo!”

The dish I was holding slipped out of my hand and clanked into the sink when Brendon’s shout batted from behind.

“We’re all going to the park. Game time, baby. I’m about to show you all who’s really a badass.”

Leif shifted around, a smirk pulling to those lips, the man playing off casual way too easily when my heart was thundering out of my chest. “You better not let your parents hear you talking like that,” Leif told him.

Penny popped her head in. “Mom, we want to go to the park! Come on!”

I glanced at Leif.

Timid but sure. “You should come,” I said.

He cringed but those eyes were doing that tender thing again. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”

Maybe I was a fool, but I was beginning to think he was a very, very good idea.

Worth the risk.

Worth the pain.

Because he was so much more than the surface he showed. The best parts of him begging to be exposed. Pared away and revealed.

I grabbed a hand towel and dried my hands, cutting him a glance as I started for the kids.

A clear invitation.

“Yes, let’s do it!” Brendon pumped a fist in the air when I headed their way, Penny smiling soft, my girl so sweet. I returned one to her, all my pride and love and affection, and I followed the two of them back out into the fading day.

My attention moved to my son who was still floating in the pool, his Auntie Tamar and Shea watching over him, the child smiling one of his adorable smiles, splashing like crazy as Adia came gliding through the water toward him riding on her battery-powered unicorn.

Laughing maniacally, she pushed the button that made a thin stream of water shoot out of the horn, hitting her cousin square in the face.

“You gots unicorned, Greyson,” she sang as she rounded him like she was a barrel racer, leaning into the turn like she was trying to gain momentum.