The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,18

body looked like under those tees and jeans.

I wanted to fuck him. I wanted that to be wild and intense and so enthralling, the world ceased to exist, all of it, except what we were doing to each other and how it was making us feel.

I wanted to sleep beside him.

I wanted to wake up next to him.

I wanted to feel his arms around me. Not like they were that terrible afternoon when I’d sobbed into his neck and he’d carried me to Izzy’s bed or that other, far more terrible afternoon when my baby had been stolen from me.

I just wanted him to hold me.

I wanted Brooklyn to grow up with a man like Toby Gamble. Not just as his somewhat uncle who would lift him high and make him fly or let him crawl all over him when we were at a diner eating burgers just because me and my son were there, and he was a decent guy who liked kids. But as a guy who was always there, eventually showing my boy the way in matters his mother could not.

I wasn’t in love with him.

But I knew if he gave me even the barest hint he’d even think of going there with me, I’d take that fall.

And when I did, if it didn’t work, I also knew it would annihilate me.

Perry had been about me finding my father. As much as I wanted to deny that truth, looking back, I could not.

When I’d met him—with the edge he’d convinced me he’d had, the rock ’n’ roll dreamer who could murder a guitar riff and rasp out a thumping song—the rebel in me was convinced I could walk in my mother’s footsteps but do it right.

I’d learned like I always learned.

You couldn’t tell me dick.

I had to fuck up and then I’d know.

And never do it again.

Now, I had a son.

And he was everything.

I couldn’t take those risks anymore. Especially not the ones involving my heart.

I couldn’t learn lessons the hard way.

Because Brooks would be forced to take those knocks with me.

And that could not happen.

So Toby Gamble built his wall.

And I was gonna stay on my side.

For Brooklyn.

And for Izzy.

Also for Johnny.

For me.

And last, for Toby.

“I’m not sure you’re reading this sitch right, baby girl,” Deanna said gently.

“I am,” I replied firmly. I went back to matching socks and assured, “It’s okay. I’m okay. Is the man beautiful? Yeah. Is he a good guy? Totally. In a dream world would I think about going there? For sure. But I don’t live in a dream world, honey. I live in the real world. Always have. The only time I strayed off that path was when I took a shot with Perry. And I can’t say that was a total loss, because I have Brooks. So in the end, it’s all good.”

At least that was true.

From what the utility bills I’d opened that night told me, and what that would mean to my bank balance and my ability to buy my son Christmas presents, and, say . . . food, many wouldn’t think that was the case.

But the life I’d lived, I knew it was.

“Okay, Addie,” Deanna murmured.

“So I’ll see you and Charlie around five on Sunday?” I asked.

“Sure thing, babe,” she assured. “And, well, sorry if I upset you about the Toby thing.”

“You didn’t upset me. It’s cool. It just isn’t what you think.”

“Right,” she muttered doubtfully.

Hmm.

“You take care,” she went on.

“You too. Love you. Later.”

“Love you back. And later.”

We disconnected. I put all that firmly in the back of my mind. Then I finished folding and I left the clothes across the top of the washer and dryer to add the ones from the next load when it was dry. I’d put them away in the morning, or maybe the next evening. Brooklyn wasn’t a light sleeper, but as much as I loved my baby boy, I got tons done when he was down, and I didn’t need to be waking him up by opening and closing drawers in his room.

I took the baby monitor with me when Dapper Dan and I went to Izzy’s upstairs office, which I’d converted into my card-making room after she moved out, and I moved Brooks out of the office where he’d been staying into the guestroom and me into the master.

I was hand painting some pine needles across the top of a card from which I was going to tack some ornaments for Deanna’s Christmas cards, or if she