Page 26 of Irresistibly Risky

“He has your hair,” I murmur, my voice cracking, and then I pull up a video I took of him yesterday evening and hand him my phone. Asher collapses, his back against the chaise and his knees up as he holds my phone in his hand, his gaze glued to the screen.

“Fuck. Jesus fuck.” He pants out a breath, his eyes immediately glassing over as he watches his son play in the bath and chew on his favorite giraffe teething toy. Once that video is done, he starts to scroll through picture after picture, video after video. “He’s really beautiful, Wynter,” he says as he hands me back my phone after he’s gone through nearly every picture and video I have. “My mind is spinning, and I can’t think all that clearly, but he’s seriously fucking beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

He gives me a wry smirk. “Worst sex of your life, and we made that. I feel like I should ask you to marry me or something.”

A laugh hits the air. “Um. No.”

“That’s what my dad did with my mom.”

I raise an eyebrow. “How’d that turn out for them?”

He rubs at his smirking bottom lip. “They’re happily divorced. I grew up in Cambridge with my mom, who now lives in Sarasota.”

I shoot him with my finger. “Point proven. Thank you.”

“Fine. I won’t marry you until you beg me to.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“But you’ll give me mouth-to-mouth if I do. There’s incentive enough.”

I sigh. “Such a player.”

His expression turns genuine. “I’m honestly not. Not in the way you mean it, at least. I wanted that night to be great. I was going to take you back to my hotel and then ask for your number with plans of using it. Five minutes after meeting you, and that’s what I was already thinking about.”

I look away, hating how that makes me feel. “That didn’t happen, so what now?” It’s the question I was dreading asking but has to be faced all the same.

He shifts off the ground and scooches in on the chaise beside me. “I don’t know. This is my first time finding out I have a kid I knew nothing about. I don’t know what I can ask for and what I can’t.”

“Did you ever… did you ever want kids?”

He gives me a look. “Fuck yeah, I want kids. Callan is now the guardian of his niece Katy, and I love hanging out with her. Kids are great. My brother has three little terrors I don’t get to see nearly as often as I’d like since he lives in Dallas, and we don’t play them often. He married his high school sweetheart. They’re the couple everyone loves to hate because they’re still sickeningly in love with each other.”

The way he says that makes me smile. It’s a far more normal response than I was expecting, and I don’t even know why. Joe has jaded me pretty deeply.

“You know…” he trails off and leans into me, rubbing his shoulder with mine. “I’ve thought about you a lot since that night. I always said if I ever found you, I’d do everything I could to make up for the shitty sex I gave you.”

I snort out a laugh. “Are you propositioning me for sex?”

“Not just any sex. Great sex,” he counters, his eyes glimmering against the pool lights.

“I seem to remember that promise once before.”

“Yeah, but I’ve only had one drink and no muscle relaxants. Trust me, I won’t have performance issues with you again.”

“I’ve thought of you too, but not in the most favorable way.” I give him a sheepish grin.

He sobers. “I wasn’t trying to do anything underhanded that night. I swear—”

I put my hand on his forearm, stopping him. “I know. I heard what you said downstairs in the bathroom, and I believe you. I never thought I’d meet Mason’s father again. It’s a lot to take in.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” he agrees, his gaze flickering back and forth between mine before dipping down to my lips.

He exhales a breath and then starts to lean in like he’s going to kiss me.

I pull back, and his hand cups the back of my neck, holding me still. “Don’t pull away,” he pleads, his sweet breath on my lips. “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to kiss you. From the first second I saw you again, I’ve wanted nothing else. But seeing those pictures of Mason. Of you with him. Wynter, I want you so badly that I can hardly stand to be next to you and not touch you or kiss you.”

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