Page 68 of 40 and (So Over) Fixing It
Gavin laughed. “Don’ they use ‘ma’am’ in the South.”
“Oh yeah”—Erin pushed the hair back from her face—“but it’s just polite manners. It doesn’t make you sound like you’re sixty.”
The men laughed again.
“Well, you don’t look a day over thirty,” Gavin said gallantly.
Erin grinned Carter’s way and jerked her chin toward his partner. “He’s cute.”
Carter growled under his breath. “Would you stop flirting with my woman?”
Erin’s eyes went wide. Surprise glittered there, but at what, he wasn’t certain. Then a thoughtful look came over her face, and she leaned closer to him.
He met her halfway.
“Am I?” she whispered under her breath.
“Are you what?”
“Am I your woman?”
Something inside him settled into place—Erin. As if she were a part of his soul he’d been missing all this time and he’d finally found her. He reached up to take her chin between his fingers. “I want you to be.”
As those moss-green eyes stared into his, they softened with something that made his heart pick up speed.
“And suddenly I feel like a third wheel.”
Carter kept his gaze on Erin. “That’s because you are.”
The corners of Erin’s mouth twitched up.
“Wanna go home with me?” He couldn’t wait to get her alone. He was even more impatient to get her naked.
“That is the whole reason I came here.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Good,” Gavin said, picking up his Macallan. “Then I’ll go back to my cigar. I hope to get to know you better later, Erin Jenkins.”
“You too, Gavin.”
Carter stood, pulling Erin up with him. “Let’s go.”
ChapterTwenty-Seven
New York City was a kaleidoscope of sights, sounds, smells, and textures that overwhelmed Erin’s senses. It was kind of like Nashville on mega steroids, and that was just the parts she had seen. Carter hailed a taxi outside of Harrington’s in deference to her heels—for which she was supremely grateful because her feet were starting to get desperate—and they were on their way to his high-rise apartment. She couldn’t imagine living here. She couldn’t imagine raising a child here.
Might want to get used to that one, Erin.After all, their child would be a mix of town as well as country. She couldn’t ask Carter to uproot his child in favor oftheirchild. Nor did she feel like she could completely uproot herself from her home. But together they could come up with a solution that would work, at least for now. Who knew, she might even begin to like the bustle and noise of New York…eventually.
She’d expected a lot of white and chrome and glass in Carter’s apartment, mostly because that was how all high-rise apartments were decorated in TV and movies. The walls, though, were painted a soft cream that was warmed by the sunlight entering through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The furniture tended toward a dark, masculine vibe that suited him. She caught a quick glimpse of dark cabinets in the kitchen and a hallway leading the opposite direction before Carter dragged her through a hall and into what she assumed was his bedroom.
He slammed the door shut.
Navy-blue walls, lighter bedding, brown and leather accents. And Carter standing in front of her, as intent as a predator with his prey. His hands held her face at just the right angle as his mouth descended.
“Mine.”
