Page 30 of Fumbled Love

We both smiled from ear to ear.

Maybe it was the pregnancy glow, or perhaps it was simply attraction. Whatever it was, I couldn’t stop staring at her.

“I meant what I said earlier.” I rubbed my hand gently along her arm. “I want to spend as much time with you as possible while you’re here.”

“Can I ask you a question?” She ran her tongue along her bottom lip, and now I was picturing molding her mouth against mine.

What the hell was wrong with me tonight?

I dropped my hand and shoved it into my pocket before I went and did anything stupid. “You can ask me anything, Kinley.”

“What are we doing here?”

I knew what she was asking, but I didn’t know how to explain it. How did I tell her that she was under my skin and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, and she was making me feel things I didn’t know were possible?

We might have grown up together, and she might have been my sister’s friend, but right now, I was mentally trying to find a place for her in my life. We didn’t even live in the same state, but in less than eight months, that wouldn’t mean a damn thing. This baby would tie us together forever, and that thought didn’t scare me like I expected it to.

“I want to get to know you, really know you,” I explained, waiting and watching for her reaction. “Not just as the woman who’s having my baby.” I stopped, unsure how to finish the sentence. Jesus, she had me all tied up in knots.

She tilted her head to the side. “In what way do you want to get to know me?”

Guess she wasn’t going to make this easy on me.

“Whatever way you’ll let me. I think we owe it to ourselves and our child to explore these feelings.”

Crossing that line with her might come back to bite me in the ass, but things were moving too fast for me to process it all. We didn’t have time to play games. We weren’t in a position to let things play out and see where they led. We only had a few fleeting moments, and I wanted to take advantage of every single one.

“I’d like that too, and hopefully we’ll become better acquainted with each other than we did in the past.”

Her tone was light, but her eyes showed a bit of hurt.

“We will.” I grabbed her hand and wrapped my fingers tightly around hers. “One of my biggest regrets is not paying better attention to you in the past.”

That seemed to appease her. And I was quickly learning that making Kinley Roberts happy was my number one goal.

When I walked her to the door, we both hesitated once we got to the landing. I tried to think of an excuse to keep the conversation going because I wasn’t ready to leave yet.

Reaching up, I brushed her hair off her shoulder. She wore it down today, and the long blond locks felt soft under my fingertips. “When can I see you again?”

She planted her hands along my shoulders and leaned up on her tiptoes. “I could probably fit you in tomorrow sometime between my naptime and dinnertime.”

“And she has jokes.” I laughed and hauled her into my chest so I could capture my mouth with hers. Every doubt and worry I had about coming on too strong melted away. The kiss was gentle and slow, yet it had the power to make me lose my mind. Everything about that night came rushing back to me: her taste, her scent, the little sounds she made that drove me insane.

I bent my head to deepen the kiss; my hands found her hair, and every part of my body craved her. And when she let out a faint whimper, I felt like a bomb ready to detonate. I dug my fingers into her scalp. Never in my life could I recall ever wanting to worship a mouth like this. I moved her back against the railing, not caring one bit that anyone driving by could see us.

A throat clearing caused me to tear my mouth away from hers too quickly. Kinley lost her balance, but I caught her before she fell.

“Well, well. What do we have here?”

I grabbed on to Kinley’s shoulders, making sure she was steady on her feet. We both turned to the voice that belonged to a little old lady leaning against the door wearing a floral muumuu. Her hands were in the pockets, and the corners of her mouth were uplifted into an amused smile.

I dropped my hand and rubbed the back of my neck, feeling like I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t have.

“Grandma.” Kinley closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I thought you were going out to eat with your friends from the Red Hat Society.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I did, but some dumb cow accused me of jumping in front of her at the buffet line at the Golden Corral. If her face wasn’t buried in her phone, she would have noticed that the line was moving.”

I raised a brow, with a million questions running through my head, but her stare was so intimidating that I was afraid to talk.

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