Page 27 of Irresistibly Risky

My heart gives a reactive thud, and my body heats. So much of that night is still fuzzy, but I remember thinking that his kisses were magic. And the way he’s looking at me, whispering words I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the equal of against me. I’m lonely and aching and emotional—and I know everything that went wrong the first time wouldn’t happen again.

He’d give me the best sex of my life. He’d make damn sure of it.

“But then what?” I ask.

His brows crease. “What do you mean?”

“You kiss me, and maybe we have sex. Maybe it’s great this time. Best sex of our lives, even. But what happens after that, Asher? I have a son who also happens to be your son, and we haven’t worked out any of that complicated situation yet. It’s not like I can date you or that this is the start of a relationship.”

He blinks in rapid fire at me. “Why not?”

“For so, so many reasons. I don’t know you very well. So there’s that. More importantly, I can’t get emotionally involved with you that way. That’s how things become messy. That’s how things turn ugly. I have to think of Mason. Of what’s best for him.”

He frowns and pulls back, scrubbing his face with his hands. “Can I be in his life?”

I pry his hands from his face, and he interlaces them with mine. “Is that what you want?”

His fingers squeeze mine. “I want to be in his life as much as you’ll allow me to be. I’m not the sort of man who would have a kid and then not be their dad.”

My heart hiccups in my chest, and I release him. This is what I was afraid of. This is what can’t happen. He’s saying and doing all the right things. It’s enthralling and magnetizing and so very tempting. Asher is gorgeous and built and charming and quick-witted, and he wants me. Being desired, especially by a man who could likely have any woman he wanted, is an aphrodisiac.

But the reality is, I got pregnant from a one-night stand, and though it’s easy and romantic to call this something other than coincidence, it’s not.

We’d burn hot and crash fast, and that’s not something that can happen now. So I tell him the only truth that will sustain us and make this work.

“If you want to be in Mason’s life, then nothing can ever happen between us.”

8

Her words reverberate through my skull, and immediately I realize two things. One, I hate that she just put those boundaries on us. And two, keeping them is not something I can promise her. Because, holy fuck, I have a kid. A kid! And I have that kid with her.

I watched those videos and flipped through every picture, and it was like my life was clicking into place before my eyes. It was more than just him. It was her too.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand where she’s coming from either.

I don’t address her demand. It’s futile when I already plan to circumvent it.

Instead, I ask, “Can I meet him?” Because I’m dying to.

“How are you not freaking out?” she asks, and I laugh. Because good fucking question, right?

“I legit don’t know. But I’m honestly not. This wasn’t some situation where you intentionally got pregnant to score a big payday from me—because yes, that shit happens all the time in my world. You weren’t trying to keep him from me or hide him. This was something of my own doing that resulted in a piece of me. I have money. I’m twenty-nine. I get to teach him all things football. I’m pumped.”

“You’re very much a big kid, aren’t you?”

“Sweetheart, I play ball for a living. Of course I’m a big kid. But don’t hold that against me because I’d really like to be part of this. I understand he has to get to know me, and you have to get to know me too, but I want that all to happen. The only regret I have with any of this is the last year and a half without being part of it.”

I would have given anything to have seen her pregnant and then watch my son be born.

She blows out a heavy breath and stands. “I need to go home. I have a lot of thinking to do. You might be pumped and totally fine, but I’m very overwhelmed.”

“I get that. Can I drive you?”

She shakes her head. “No. I drove.”

I stand too. “Can I call you? Text you?”

“I was planning to take Mason to the park tomorrow. The one in the Common.”

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