Page 118 of Single Dad Dilemma
“Don’t run from this,” he said evenly. “I’m not going to hurt you, Lily. I’m not going anywhere.”
My hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt, anger and frustration—at him and at myself—fused with a white-hot bang inside my chest. I wasn’t mad that he was so unfazed. I was furious that, more than anything, I felt a desperate itch to believe him.
Eclipsing it all was head-spinning desire, and instead of running away from it, from trying to justify why we couldn’t, I leaned all the way in and let it crash over my head.
Barrett’s eyes flashed when he clocked the change in my face.
Which was why I made a small noise of annoyance, gripped his shirt tighter, and pulled him down toward me, one hand sliding up behind his neck while his mouth slanted over mine.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Barrett
As a distraction technique, it was effective.
My hands dove into her hair, and I took control of the kiss in the span of time it took for my heart to expand in my chest. Her tongue, soft and warm and wet, twisted around mine, and I groaned into her mouth.
I tightened my fingers, and Lily let out a short whimpering sound as I gripped the strands of her hair to tilt her head. Her legs wound around my hips, tugging me flush with her center, and I rocked against her mindlessly, shocked at how quickly we’d arrived here.
I shouldn’t have been.
This woman had the stunning ability to bring me to my knees with nothing more than the crook of her finger, and I wasn’t even sure she was aware of it. She bit down on my bottom lip, and I untangled my fingers from her hair, cupping her face to roll my forehead against hers.
“Are you kissing me just to shut me up?” I asked, unable to keep my hands from sliding along her waist and back, down to the curve ofher ass, keeping her tight against me. Even if she said yes, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop.
Lily’s cheeks were flushed pink, and her hands slid underneath my shirt again, palms coasting over my sides, up over my chest. “Baby, if I thought that would work, I would’ve done it the first night we met.”
I laughed against her mouth, and she pulled back. After a slow, dazed blink with her eyes locked on my lips, she surged up, kissing me again with a helpless sigh. I wound my arms around her and held her tight to my chest.
“It drives me crazy when you laugh,” she moaned, gripping my hair in tight fists as she rolled her hips over my blood-draining hard-on. “You don’t even know.”
“Yes, I do,” I breathed, pushing my hands under her T-shirt, finding her braless again. God bless her hatred of that particular undergarment. “What do you think it does to me when you smile? When you laugh? When you tuck yourself against my chest, all soft and sweet? You’re no better.”
Lily leaned her head back, and I kissed down the line of her neck, sucking on her skin, driven by a throbbing urge to mark her. Not once in my life had I felt that way, the desire to leave a bruise or a bite mark. But with her, it was all different. Better. Heightened in a way that should have been frightening.
Everything about her had me off-center, and I couldn’t find my way back to solid footing.
She was leaving. She’d taken another job. Six fucking months. And instead of making me want to pull away, I simply wanted her more. Because no matter what she said, Lily Townsend wanted this with me as much as I did with her.
If I had to single-handedly dismantle the towering wall of her fear, tearing it down until my hands were bloody, I’d do it. One day at a time. Even if it took weeks or months or years.
“Barrett,” she said in a breathy voice, gently pushing on my chest. I pulled back, heaving breaths in and out while we stared at each other with only inches between us. “What if I can’t?” she said again.
I shook my head, brushing her hair off her face. “What if you can? And what if it’s amazing? Then what?”
Her eyes were huge, her lips red from our kisses, and it was clear she didn’t know what to say. “I’m not very nice,” she blurted out. “I’m not ... friendly. I don’t really have friends.”
I held her gaze. “Neither do I.”
Lily blinked. “You don’t?”
“No. I have my kids and my parents. I can’t tell my brother he’s one of my only friends, because it’ll go to his head. Bridget would say she is, but she scares me too much for me to call her that.”
Her lips twitched, hands twisting absently in my shirt as she tried not to smile.
“And I have you,” I said quietly.
Lily’s eyes flew to mine. “What?”
