Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 43920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
“I play the guitar as well.”
“I want to play guitar.”
“I could teach you,” he offered.
“May I speak to you over here?” I said, and it came out sharper than intended.
He glanced at Cami. “Did that sound like he was asking me?” She shook her head, and he looked back at me. “Am I in trouble?”
“Would you please come here,” I demanded, standing next to the window.
It was a large office so it took him a moment plus, he crossed slowly, the swagger evident. When he was close enough, I grabbed his arm and yanked him over to me.
“Okay,” he said with a catch of breath. “The manhandling I remember.”
“Quit that,” I growled. “You cannot promise things to a little girl that you have no intention of following up on. She will get attached, and we can’t have that. She’s had more disappointments in her short life than—”
“Try and really listen this time,” he rumbled, facing me, quickly slipping his hands around my hips, up under my shirt, his fingers taking hold of the belt loops of my jeans. “I am not going anywhere.”
“Dawson…”
“I am telling you right now, I want you back. I am down in my soul sorry I messed up, Chris. I’m sorry I left, but I’m different now, and I have a whole new set of priorities that include you at the top of the list.”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re—”
“Yes, it does,” he murmured, stepping in even closer, his lips brushing the side of my neck, just that much contact causing goose bumps. “I’m going to stay and prove to you that I’m your home.”
I shook my head. “Sonny––”
His filthy chuckle cut me off. “Well, now. That right there is a very good sign,” he said, gloating. “Never Daw with you, love, only Sonny.”
Good God, what had I done? And how had the nickname just slipped out of my mouth?
“I don’t care how long you’ve been over me,” he whispered, his right hand sliding higher, smoothing over skin, stroking reverently, seductively. “I’m here now, I’m back, and I know your first instinct is to punish me, to stay away from me, try and push me away, but that’s a waste of both our time.”
I should have pulled free, shoved him off me, but I was just as susceptible to memory as he was. The truth of the matter was, since him, there had been no one in my bed because really, how could anyone else ever hope to measure up to a rock star? And more importantly, to the only man I’d ever loved.
“Aww,” Cami cooed behind us, and we both turned to look at her. “He loves you, Uncle Chris. He wants to have babies with you.”
I groaned loudly, and Dawson whispered how much he loved that before leaning away very slowly and letting me go. Cami just smiled.
“I will teach you to play guitar,” he promised my godchild—something her mother and I had signed, sealed, and notarized in case anything happened to Georgine. Her grandmother would have a heart attack and probably die as well if she knew the single man who owned a club would be raising her granddaughter.
Cami reached up and took his hand, and he squeezed back.
Of course she liked him. Everybody liked him.
“I need to talk to your mother about what you know about babies,” I muttered.
Dawson thought that was hysterical.
SEVEN
Dawson left quickly after that. I sat in my office, on the floor, looking at Otto with Cami. She changed his water, gave him some new hay, and then informed me that rabbits eat their own poop.
“I could have gone my whole life without knowing that.”
“And I know that men can’t have babies.” She scowled at me. “But I also know that when you love someone, you want to have babies with them.”
“You—”
She lifted her finger just like her mother did to shut me up. “But Xola says babies can be a lot of different things.”
I sighed deeply.
“Some people want to have dogs together or cats or even ferrets.”
“Okay.”
“I think Dawson loves you, and maybe he wants to have puppies with you, but you know, you could adopt a baby too. Mrs. Chan, she lives on the other side of us, not where Henry and his dad live, but on the other side.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Well, both her kids are adopted, so you and Dawson could adopt kids too.”
“Could we talk about something else?”
“I think he’s nice, but if you want me to not like him, I won’t.”
God. “No. You do what you want.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”
“Because I really want to learn how to play the guitar.”
“I know.”
“Okay, good,” she said, and I could hear it in her voice that she was pleased. Cami liked it when things were settled.
Twenty minutes later, Cami was doing the thing where she was using me as a backrest as I lay on my stomach, resting my head on my folded arms. I was trying to keep my eyes open, but she was reading to me The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. It was very soothing, lulling, and she had started because she wanted me to understand how much better it was than the movie. I believed her, the book was always better, but she was proving it to me partly because she needed me to know, deep in my soul, and partly because she liked to read aloud and do different voices. When Prue came in a few minutes later, she talked quietly to Otto for a moment before getting a pillow off the couch in my office, another for me—which I thanked her for—and then settled in to listen to the story.