Page 1 of The Good Guy on My Porch

CHAPTER ONE

Dilly

I sat straight up in bed, my heart pounding, my flight response in full effect. I’d been dreaming, fast asleep, and then there’d been…There it was again. Someone was banging on my door.

Abram reached over and pulled me down, flush against his warm body.

Over his shoulder, I glanced at the clock on the night stand. It was only seven in the morning. Who could possibly be knocking on my door at seven in the morning? Everyone I knew would call if they needed me. It was probably someone trying to sell a security system or vacuum cleaners, nothing that should distract me from the man in my bed. I snuggled up against him, my face to his so I could see the way his brilliant green eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled. He was twelve years older than me, not that I’d known it when I’d met him, but it hadn’t bothered me when I found out. His maturity made our relationship easy, his expectations of me less intrusive, his understanding of my need for freedom lacking the suspicion and jealousy I’d received from too many of my past boyfriends.

“Dilly Dally,” he said, stroking my cheek. “I would give every dollar I own and every breath in my body to spend the rest of the day in bed with you, but the demands of reality, my need for an income, and all the necessities of a responsible life demand I leave you. If I were a richer man, I’d never wear clothes or leave this bed again.”

I smiled. His sweet words almost made up for that horrible, patronizing nick name he’d given me. Abram wasn’t afraid to say sweet things and he loved foreplay more than any man I’d ever dated. We’d even met in a romantic way, both sheltering from a rain storm in a gazebo at Peak park. We’d hit it off right away, chatting about the weather and books. “We might get hungry,” I said.

His gaze heated. “I can think of so many parts of you I prefer to food. You taste better than—”

The banging started up again. “What the hell is that noise?” Abram asked, anger flinting his emerald eyes.

I rolled and stared at the wall. It was now clear the banging was coming from the other side of my bedroom wall, from the other half of the duplex I rented, and not my front door. “Maybe Mary hired someone to work on the place, get it ready to be rented.”

Abram leapt from the bed and pulled on boxers, then he strode from the room like a knight to battle. “I’ll straighten this out,” he said. “I will not leave you alone with obnoxious strangers next door.”

I watched him go, my hands clasped like a Disney Princess watching her prince march to her defense, and sighed. Abram was just so perfect. Don’t get me wrong. I consider myself a feminist and if Abram wasn’t there, I’d have had no problem handling the interloper next door myself, but a man caring enough about me to defend me just did something to me. I sighed again and listened for the firm discussion I expected to hear next door.

Buzzing from the night stand distracted me and I glanced down to see a text notification flash on Abram’s phone. I’m not the paranoid or the jealous type, but I had been burned a time or six, so I twisted to read the message.

Lara: Our bed was cold without you in it last night, sweetheart.

My blood went cold, icy cold, and my hands shook as I reached for the phone and slid the home screen away. No password. What an idiot. The rational part of my brain pointed out that Abram and I had never had the talk about being exclusive. I hadn’t wanted to ruin the pure romance of our interactions with mundane chats about exclusivity and labels. No…Those had been his words when I’d brought it up. Damn it. I clicked on the text he’d received, and an image popped up of a fully naked woman spread out on silk sheets. She appeared to be closer to Abram’s age, gorgeous, and fit.

I did not have low self-esteem. I was genetically gifted to be able to eat whatever I wanted and stay tiny. Tiny in every way. Kind people called me petite and my best friend, Carrie, called me a china doll. I was happy with my tininess, most days, but sometimes I wondered if maybe I should firm up my soft edges with the occasional work out. Maybe get the fit look that was so popular right now. It was usually a fleeting thought, until I was confronted with my boyfriend receiving text messages from a woman who was so clearly not tiny and strong enough to break me in two.

Anger flared, and I tuned out the yelling from next door as I scrolled through texts from this woman. Sexts, but also requests for him to bring home milk or pick up the kids from…My vision went blurry and I couldn’t breathe. My heart pounded like it was fighting it’s way free from an attacker.

Abram had told me he had no interest in marriage or a family. He liked his freedom too much. It was one of the reasons I’d thought he was so perfect for me. He’d never ask for more than I could give. Except now, it was clear he didn’t want those things with me because he already had them. I gripped the phone so tight my knuckles went white. I wanted to scream, to smash his phone against the wall, to kick him in the balls hard enough to make sure he’d never have more children.

Outside, sirens blared, and I wondered if they were coming for me. If the whole world somehow knew I needed help. Or knew I was about to commit a crime. I sucked in a deep breath, put the phone back on the night stand, and stood. No one was here for me, there was no cosmic force coming to save me. I was going to have to do this on my own, and I would do it right.

I pulled on the undies, jeans, and t-shirt I’d discarded next to my bed the night before when Abram had shown up, unexpectedly, and lured me into bed. No. He hadn’t lured me. I wasn’t an innocent victim. I was a home wrecker, because I hadn’t asked the right questions, hadn’t investigated the man I’d been dating.

He sauntered in, his boxers hanging low on his hips like he was a sixteen-year-old skate punk and not a forty-year-old Economics professor at the local university. His slow, sexy smile faded when he caught sight of me, hands on hips, anger likely making my face as red as a raspberry (I had pale skin, emotions tended to make me change colors).

“I took care of it. The guy claimed he’s the new renter, but—”

“Who is Lara?”

He had the brain cells to look nervous. “I thought I’d told you about her.”

My hands fell to my sides, clenched into tight fists. “Nope. You failed to mention her or your children.”

“Right.” He shifted and took a step back. “I guess I forgot to mention it.”

“You forgot to mention it?” I was screaming now. I rarely screamed except in happiness or pleasure. I was angrier than I’d been in a very long time. “Did you forget you have children who want their father not to cheat on their mother? A wife who misses you when you’re out fucking some other woman?” And I was the other woman. It made me sick to think I’d been the woman to destroy a family, to take a father from his children.

He raised his hands, calm when I was losing control. It only made me madder. “It’s not like that, Dilly Dally.” I hated that nickname more than ever as I realized that’s all I was to him. I was an illicit dalliance. “My wife and I have an open relationship. She knows all about you and she’s totally fine with it.”

That stopped me. I thought open relationships were urban legends, fantasy stories men made up to excuse their straying ways. “Right. So, if I call her right now, she’ll be glad to hear you shared my bed last night instead of hers?”

He shrugged, his expression bland. It was an expression he wore often, one I’d thought meant he was above emotion, intellectual on a level I’d never be. Now he just seemed dull and faded. “Go ahead. She won’t want the details, but she won’t be surprised to hear where I was.”

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