Page 65 of This Wild Heart

“I know you don’t need my permission for this, and you’ll certainly never come out and ask,” Anya said. Slowly, I opened my eyes and braced for the impact of whatever was about to come out of her mouth. “But I’m going to take him in my room overnight. I won’t tell you to get some sleep because I don’t think you will. Let yourself be freaked out for a night.” Her gaze was unrelenting. “That baby needs someone who is all in, and tonight, that’s not you. But tomorrow, you don’t get to act like this, not when we’re around your family.”

My jaw was clenched so tight, I struggled to breathe evenly. It felt like a year ago that I kissed her. Maybe even longer. I gave her a small nod. “Thank you,” I said, my voice strained and tight.

There was an entire world outside of this room, completely unaware of what was happening. Completely unaware of how thoroughly our lives had just changed. We’d have to address it eventually. We’d have to address what happened betweenuseventually, but I couldn’t do it tonight. Based on the look in Anya’s eyes, she wasn’t going to either.

I stared at the bassinet until my eyes felt gritty and dry, then I stood. Without a backward glance, I disappeared into my room for the rest of the night, where I stared at the ceiling and tried not to listen to the sound of her voice as she talked to the baby.

The racing of my brain was impossible to slow—a macabre slideshow of what it was like for those few months before and after my dad died. It was empty nights with women I didn’t remember, waking hungover more than sober, feeling sick and exhausted with grief but unwilling to stop and feel a single second of it. I was unwilling to unload it on anyone because I was terrified that it would be more than what they could handle. After, I’d stopped with the women, but still numbed myself when I couldn’t take the pain.

But I wasn’t like that anymore. I wasn’t that version of myself. But he was still there, lurking under the surface, like I was cleaved straight down the middle, unsure of which version of me would win out.

Tomorrow, I thought numbly.I’ll try again tomorrow.

It was my last clear thought when exhaustion finally pulled me under.

Chapter 17

Anya

It was the way he watched me, I decided. I’d never had anyone watch me that way in my entire life. Leo and I were on the couch. I had him stretched out on my thighs while I fastened the buttons on his little sleeper. Before closing the buttons over his little belly, I dipped my head and blew a soft little raspberry against his smooth skin. He was a bit too young to smile or laugh, but he made a cute little grunting sound, and I found myself grinning as I sat back up.

Or tried to until his fist wrapped in my hair pulled me to a dead stop.

“Quite a grip you’ve got there, little lion,” I said, carefully disentangling his shockingly strong fingers.

Across the room, Parker sat in an armchair, legs spread wide, a cup of coffee in his hand, and he watched. He watched while I changed Leo’s diaper. Watched while I made a bottle and fed it to him after we wandered downstairs.

And now, as I smiled down on this adorable little baby who was most likely his kid, he watched that too.

It was probably a hormonal thing—that after great sex, I was biologically programmed to respond to the broody, intense look in his eyes. I didn’t want to because I was still trying to figure out how to handle this guy.

Emotionally, at least.

Physically, I’d been doing just fine with the … handling. A little too good, if I was being honest with myself.

Maybe someone else would’ve been really pissed off at how he reacted the night before, but I couldn’t say I would’ve done much better if someone had dropped a child off in my lap and saidsurprise! It’s yours.

Brokenhearted, Louise had said. He wore it like fucking armor. Like a shield and a sword, and the more I was around him, I wasn’t sure he knew how to set it down. Not when things got big and intense and real.

I wore mine the same way, but my trigger was worlds away from his.

Listen, I didn’t want to be intrigued by him. I didn’t want to make occasional glances across the family room and feel the undeniable itch of curiosity at the back of my mind when his intense gaze lingered on mine. I didn’t want to feel butterflies in my stomach either. Oh, it was impossible to ignore those after great sex.

I’d read this book once, fun and sexy and flirty, and the hero was this broody, Type A, intense sort of guy, and the plucky, funny heroine said she wanted to juice his head like a lemon, simply to pry the thoughts from his head.

That was how I felt. Parker’s head was locked down so tight, and in the times when he relaxed enough to let something slip, I swear, it gave me a contact high.

Cinnamon rolls and Bob Marley and sex weren’t much of a foundation, but I could say this with the utmost certainty—it was more depth than I saw out of my four-year relationship with Dickhead Bridges.

So I let him watch. I let him drink his coffee and process all those locked-down thoughts he wasn’t ready to share.

One of the things Louise brought was a little bouncer, where I could safely strap in Leo while he was awake. I tickled his foot, smiling when the toes curled up in response, then dropped a kiss on the top of his head. There wasn’t much hair up there, sort of an indistinct feathering of muddy brown that I ran my fingers over lightly as I stood.

I turned into the kitchen and stopped short at the sight of a second mug of coffee on the counter. Parker was still watching me, sipping from his mug with his eyes on mine.

It was still hot when I picked it up, and it looked like he’d put just the right amount of cream in it. After a tentative sip, I gave him a small smile.

“Thank you.”

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