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  And Colleen had said she needed him.

  He’d been lost to her, then. Her need, an aphrodisiac. His desire to please her, undeniable.

  Colleen put her head on his shoulder and nuzzled into him. It had only been a little over a month since the weekend of the snowstorm, but everything about her felt as though he’d known her forever. Her hair tickled his nose, but he didn’t move until he felt the whisper of her lips on his throat. Then he couldn’t stop himself from twitching.

  She laughed against him. “Stay still.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He felt a moment of tension in her, but it faded immediately. She spoke against his skin, letting her teeth press him now and then. “I like it when you say that. Too much.”

  “Why too much?” His hands roamed her back, stopping just above the sweet curve of her ass. Waiting for her to urge him with her body to touch her there.

  “All of this is too much,” he thought she said, but her voice had dipped so low he couldn’t be sure of her words.

  When she moved against him, pushing his shoulders to the back of the couch so she could straddle him, then take his face in her hands, Jesse’s head tipped back. Colleen nudged his chin to tip it farther, exposing the line of his throat to her hungry, nibbling mouth. She rocked on his lap, and he was rock-hard in seconds. That was what she did to him. A word, a look, a touch, and he was aching for her.

  It was more than the sex. It was her laughter when he teased her. The softness of her breathing when she fell asleep curled inside the circle of his arms. How she looked in the morning, rumpled from sleep, so sexy and sweet and delicious.

  He was falling for her in a big way, and nothing had made that more evident than how he’d felt this entire week without seeing her...and how he’d felt the moment he saw her tonight.

  She kissed his mouth, hard and bruising, and caught his lower lip between her teeth, tugging. She stopped before it really hurt, then used the sweetness of her tongue to lick away the ache. She ground herself against him, her soft, heavy tits crushing to his chest until he wanted to thrust hard against her. But he didn’t.

  Because she hadn’t said for him to move.

  Jesse’d known for a long time what flipped his switch. He’d dated a girl who’d been really into camping. Tying knots. She’d had her own collection of ropes for climbing, and though he’d never taken up the sport, he’d gained a true appreciation for all the uses of carabiner clips and smooth nylon cord. It had never occurred to him that what he liked was submission, though later internet porn had taught him some kinky new terms to describe what got him off.

  “Open,” she demanded of his mouth, and he gave it to her. Her tongue stroked his. Then she sucked his gently before breaking the kiss to breathe. “You taste so good.”

  His fingers tightened on her hips. He wanted to slide his hands beneath her shirt, but kept himself from it. She must’ve seen it in his face, though, because she gave him a curious half-tilting smile.

  “You want to touch me.”

  “Oh, yeah. Yes.” He tried, teasing the hem of her shirt upward to get at the smooth heat of her skin, judging to see if she was going to let him...or if she’d get stern. Either was a win, as far as he was concerned.

  “Tell me, Jesse, what you want to do to me?”

  That stumped him for a moment. “You want me to talk dirty?”

  “I want you to tell me what you want to do to me,” Colleen said into his ear before taking his lobe in her teeth and biting. When he reacted with a groan, her low and throaty laugh tickled his ear and sent another surge of arousal straight to his skyward-pointing cock. “And how it makes you feel. Describe it to me.”

  Shit. He wasn’t that great with words. But she hadn’t asked, she’d commanded, and there was no way he was going to disappoint her if he could help it.

  “I want to touch your tits,” he breathed, arching his back when she ground harder onto his dick. “Take them in my hands and flick your nipples tight and hard, and I want to put my mouth on them. Suck them until I hear you moan my name. Just keep sucking and licking them until they’re swollen and hard and you can’t stop yourself from moving against me.”

  Colleen’s lips moved on his ear, but the rest of her had gone still. “More.”

  “I want to move down your body, between your legs, and settle in there. My mouth on you, making you moan my name.”

  She did when he said that, whispering it low. Jesse arched, thrusting upward, helpless not to move at the sound of her voice. Colleen cupped his face, looking into his eyes. Then slowly, deliberately, she slid back a little on his thighs to unbuckle his jeans. She freed him with some struggle, but in a minute his cock was in her mouth, her hand at the base of it and stroking in tandem with the movement of her lips on his shaft.

  It was his turn to mutter her name. His turn to dig his fingers into the fall of her hair. She felt so good, he couldn’t do anything but let her have her wicked way with him.

  Her stroking fingers moved to caress his balls, then a little lower. Jesse arched again, trying desperately not to thrust too hard, trying to wait for her commands. At the sound of her low chuckle, heat flooded him, but he couldn’t keep himself from rolling his hips to get himself deeper into her mouth.

  He looked down at her to see her meeting his gaze. “Colleen, I’m close.”

  “Good.” She bent back to him, sucking and licking, flicking her tongue along the underside of his cock until he thought he might die from it.

  Over and over again she teased him to the edge and then slowed or stopped entirely while her hand kept a firm grip around him. He lost himself in the sight of her and in the pleasure building, building. Until at last he couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “I’m gonna—”

  “Yes” was all she said, then bent back to him.

  Jesse came hard enough to see stars. When he was able to open his eyes, he found Colleen giving him a very self-satisfied grin. She climbed onto his lap again to kiss him.

  “Wow,” he said.

  “Hot,” she answered.

  They sat that way in silence for a few seconds. The pattern of their breathing aligned. So did the thump of their hearts. He pressed his face to the sweetness of her neck.

  “Stay with me.”

  She nuzzled against him before pulling away. “I’m not sure I feel right having a sleepover with Laila here.”

  “She’s okay with it,” Jesse said. “Despite what her mother thinks.”

  Ah, shit, he’d screwed up again.

  Colleen got off him to sit next to him on the couch, buttoning her jeans, which he hadn’t noticed were undone. “What does her mother think?”

  He reached for her hand. She let him take it but didn’t squeeze when he did. “Just that since she’s dumping her boyfriend, I shouldn’t be getting a new girlfriend because it’ll be disruptive to Laila. Which is just bullshit.”

  Colleen was silent. Her fingers untangled from his. She tucked her hands in her lap.

  “Is that what I am? Your girlfriend?”

  Jesse ran a fingertip down her arm, stopping at her wrist and letting his hand rest on his own thigh when she made no move to take it. “Do you want to be?”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “Look, my kid’s the most important thing in the world to me. I don’t do stuff that I know will hurt her.” Jesse frowned, watching Colleen’s neutral expression. “But you know it’s important for her to see that her parents have lives. And more important, that I can have a relationship that works and doesn’t take anything away from my relationship with her. I don’t want her to grow up thinking that the only way to love someone is by giving up everything else.”

  “Let me ask you something. Were you avoiding me this week? Seeing me, I mean.”

  “A little. Yes. I thought it was the right thing to do. But I was wrong!” he added hastily at the sight of her face. “Colleen, wait. I was wrong.”

  “When did you figure that out?”

&n
bsp; “The minute you walked in the door tonight, and I realized that I’d been missing you all week like a part of me was gone,” he told her honestly.

  “But you weren’t going to invite me over tonight.”

  He shook his head, hating the way this conversation was going. “No. I wasn’t.”

  “What changed your mind?” she asked, looking into his eyes, her own bright. Her cheeks were flushed.

  He had to tell her the truth; there was nothing else to say. “You told me you needed me.”

  Colleen got off the couch. “I’m going to go.”

  “Wait, what? No.” Jesse got up, too, tucking himself quickly into his jeans and zippering them. “Colleen, don’t go.”

  “I think it’s better if I do. I’m not comfortable spending the night with your kid here.” She didn’t meet his gaze.

  Jesse snagged her sleeve as she tried to duck away from him, but when she yanked herself from his grip, her eyes wide and mouth grim, he stepped back with his hands in the air. “Sorry.”

  “I had fun with you. But that’s all it is. Fun.” Colleen found her coat on the back of the chair and shrugged into it. “Your kid seems great, but maybe her mother is right. Maybe this isn’t the right time for you to have a girlfriend.”

  “Or maybe you’re just not the right girlfriend. Is that it?” He regretted the words as soon as he said them, but he knew at once by the way she looked at him that he’d hit the nail on the head.

  Colleen tucked her scarf into her collar and put on her gloves. “Yes. Maybe that’s it.”

  “Don’t go,” Jesse said to her when she was at the door leading to the stairs down to the street. “Please, Colleen. At least, not like this.”

  “Like what?” she asked without turning. “Look. I never made you any promises. I never tried to make you think...”

  “Think what? That you liked me?”

  Her shoulders squared, but she still wouldn’t look back. “This was a mistake. I don’t want to miss you when we aren’t together. I don’t want to need you.”

  “But you do,” he said without trying to hide the bitterness in his voice.

  She left, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Chapter Ten

  Jesse’d been given the blowoff before. More than once. Hell, a couple times he’d been flat out told to his face that his presence was no longer required. He kind of preferred that to the cold shoulder. Or ghosting. When a girl did that, just disappeared from his inbox, unfriending or no longer answering his texts, he hated that shit, too. Yet right now he’d have preferred to have at least the pretense that someday, maybe, Colleen would call him again. The thought of never seeing her again, never talking to her again, was just too fucking painful.

  He’d called her, too stupid not to. She hadn’t answered. He’d left messages that she hadn’t returned. He’d sent texts, also ignored. She’d shut him out completely, and it was kind of killing him. At the same time, if that was what she wanted, his fucked up way of thinking meant that he had to give it to her. If she didn’t want to need him, then all he could do was let her go.

  “Dad!”

  He hadn’t been paying attention to Laila, but now turned his focus to the work sheet she was showing him. Jesse had never been good at reading or writing. Math had come easy to him. Math was numbers, which always added up the same way, unlike words, which could be spelled the same and mean different things¸ or the other way around. Laila was showing him a list of sentences she needed to do something with. What, he wasn’t sure.

  “You have to pick out the subject and object,” his daughter said patiently, her pencil tapping.

  “Your mom would be much better at this.” Jesse scratched his chin beneath the stubble of a beard he’d been letting go for the past couple days.

  “Too bad she’s not here.” Ah. This kid. Totally his, not that he’d ever doubted it. From the moment of her birth when she’d opened those eyes and squalled, he’d known he’d had a part in making her.

  Jesse leaned to lightly smack the back of her head. “Wiseass.”

  “Look it up on the computer.” Laila grinned without shame, showing him a smile so much like Diane’s it gave his heart a little pang. She was going to be a heartbreaker in a year or so, and he wasn’t looking forward to that at all.

  “You look it up.” Jesse pulled out his phone to check for messages he knew wouldn’t be there.

  “Dad!”

  “Sorry, kid. I’m useless with this stuff.” Jesse tucked away his phone and bent back to the work sheet. “Can you get a friend to help? Or wait for your mom?”

  Laila shook her head. “It’s due tomorrow.”

  And she was spending the night with him, since Diane had gone away on a business trip that Jesse suspected had more to do with the fact she’d replaced Edward with that guy from her office than an actual, necessary overnight stay. He didn’t begrudge her or anything like that. Laila spent more time with her mother, and Diane deserved a break to get her freak on, even if she was being hypocritical about it. But it was stuff like this homework assignment that made Jesse feel like a failure as a dad, and that was never cool.

  “Okay. Let’s figure this out.”

  Two hours later, they’d finished up the homework, made some popcorn and settled in front of the TV to catch up on streaming episodes of Perfect Strangers. Laila couldn’t get enough of crazy Balki and his belabored cousin Larry. And Jesse couldn’t get enough of this time with his kid, who was growing up too fast. That didn’t stop him from playing around on his phone, though, while they watched.

  Colleen didn’t have a Connex account, or if she did, she had it locked down so private he couldn’t find it. She didn’t tweet or post to PicStream, and a search of her name brought up thousands of results. Switching his search to images only, Jesse told himself it wasn’t creepy or stalkery to be doing this, even as he made sure to keep his phone shielded from the too-curious eyes of his precocious kid.

  Laila wasn’t fooled, though. “Who is she?”

  Caught, Jesse swiped his phone’s screen to erase his business. “Who? Nobody. What?”

  “You’re checking out a lady.” Laila scooped a handful of unpopped kernels and let them roll around in her mouth to suck off the butter and salt, unconcerned that she might choke on them. Or at the very least, crack a tooth.

  Jesse held up the bowl. “Get rid of that mess. Your mom will kill me if you break your teeth.”

  “Ugh, Dad, c’mon.” She bent to spit into the bowl anyway. She eyed him through the fringe of her sandy hair. “So, who is she?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Is she the one you’ve been spending all that time with? Is she the friend whose house you were at when you got snowed in?”

  “I can’t put one over on you, huh?” Jesse frowned. “Yeah. We’ve been spending time together.”

  “I knew it was a lady! Is she your girlfriend?” Laila’s eyes gleamed, and she got up on her knees on the couch.

  “No, Laila. She’s not my girlfriend.” The truth sucked.

  “But you like her a lot?” Laila narrowed her eyes to look him over.

  Jesse snorted softly. “I barely know her.”

  “So how come you’re looking her up on the internet? Why didn’t you just ask her if you could text her? Girls like it when you just ask.” She said this so nonchalantly that Jesse was reminded again how different things were for kids now. And again how much trouble he was in for with this kid.

  “I did text her,” he admitted. “She didn’t answer me. That’s her way of saying no, I guess.”

  Laila scoffed. “To you?”

  “Yeah. To me. Hey, kiddo, it’s getting late. You should get ready for bed.” Jesse took the bowl and stood, but Laila stopped him.

  “If you really like her, you should tell her, Dad. That’s what Mom says. She says when you really like somebody there’s no point in waiting to tell them, because if you don’t, someone else will.”

  “Your mom’s full of good adv
ice.”

  “She says Barry told her he liked her right away, and that’s how she knew she should give him a shot,” Laila added.

  Jesse tried not to laugh, which would offend her. “Barry, huh? That guy she works with? You like him okay?”

  “He’s okay.” She shrugged and got off the couch. “He’s got a big TV and all the cable stations. And a cat.”

  “Ah. He sounds great.”

  Laila launched herself at him, almost spilling the popcorn kernels as she squeezed him. “He’s not you, Dad. Don’t worry.”

  Okay, so maybe he’d worried. Just the tiniest bit. Now he squeezed her back and tugged her ponytail. “Go get ready for bed.”

  She was right, he thought later as he cleaned up the kitchen from dinner and paid some bills. The wind gusted hard outside, reminding him that winter wasn’t over yet. There were more storms coming, for sure. And if he wanted to spend any of them stranded with Colleen again, he’d better figure out a way to make that happen. At least he had to try.

  But when Thursday rolled around again, no matter how many times he looked up at the jingle of the bell over The Fallen Angel’s door announcing a new arrival, none of the customers were her.

  * * *

  “You look like shit.”

  Leave it to Mark to be so blunt, Colleen thought as she poured herself a mug of coffee she didn’t want, but would drink anyway because what she really wanted was a doughnut. Mondays, Mondays. Ugh. “Gee, thanks.”

  “Seriously.” He leaned too close for social propriety, almost like he wanted to sniff her. Or lick her. Either way, it was too close.

  Colleen stepped back. “I’m tired. That’s all. Haven’t been sleeping.”

  “Ah. Up too late?” Mark grinned, showing all his teeth. He made a dirty gesture with one hand. “New guy?”

  Her lack of sleep was certainly none of Mark’s business, even if he’d always had a way of worming out the most personal details of her life. “Old guy, actually.”