“Do you want me, Tess?” he asked against her mouth. The vulnerability in his words speared her chest. How could a man like Carter ever feel an ounce of doubt?

“I want you, Carter,” she said. “I want you so bad it hurts.”

It wasn’t a lie, either. Tess’s body ached from her want of him. He kissed her again. And again. Over and over until they were swept up in a frenzy of lips, tongues, and teeth, hands groping for bare flesh. Their mingled breaths raced.

He pulled away and Tess let out a whimper. Lord, she was already so addicted to him her body betrayed her with its silly disappointed sounds. “I’ll be right back.” His lopsided grin melted her. “We left something in the living room.”

She grabbed his arm to stop him from leaving. She didn’t want to waste even the few seconds it would take for Carter to go back out into the living room to retrieve the condoms he’d left there. “Top drawer.” Tess inclined her head to the bathroom vanity. When she’d moved out of her and Jared’s apartment, she’d literally pulled out the drawers and emptied the contents into a box. She’d almost thrown the box of condoms away when she’d moved in here and never had she been so glad she’d reconsidered.

Carter grinned as he pulled open the drawer and ripped one of the condom packets free. He cocked a sardonic brow. “Can’t get back on the horse if you don’t have a saddle?”

Tess grinned. “Something like that.”

Carter took her in his arms and kissed her until her world flipped on its axis. The room continued to fill with steam and they’d likely run out of hot water before they ever stepped under the spray. Tess didn’t care, though. They could take a shower later—Carter cupped her breast, his thumb feathered over her erect nipple—or not. Whatever. Who needed to be clean, anyway?

Ten

“I can’t believe you even stepped foot in my place,” Tess remarked from Carter’s much larger living room. “Seriously, this house is a palace in comparison.”

Carter had enjoyed his time with Tess in her bathroom. He’d bent her over, arms braced on the tub, and pounded into her while he cupped her breasts in his palms. She’d come for him again with impassioned sobs that set his own intense orgasm into motion. He had a couple years’ worth of sexual repression to work out it seemed. And Tess happened to be on the exact same page. Afterward, they’d taken a lukewarm shower and managed to get most of the paint off their skin. By then it was late afternoon and Carter hadn’t wasted any time finishing what he’d started—they’d painted the rest of her living room. The fumes drove them out though, and he suggested they go back to his place to cook dinner.

“Your house is nice.” Carter handed Tess a bottle of Corona complete with a wedge of lime before settling down beside her. “I always thought of Millie’s place as a Nacogdoches fixture. Part of the lake.”

“It’s weird to think of it as my house,” Tess said. “I like it here, though. It’s quiet and far away.”

Carter’s brow furrowed. He rolled the bottle of beer between his palms. “Far away from what?”

“Everything,” she said with a sad laugh. “Life. Jared. Our apartment. The reminder that I hadn’t been enough.”

The hurt in her voice sliced through him. Tess was beautiful, exciting, sensual, intelligent. How could she think she hadn’t been enough? “The guy is obviously a piece of shit.” Her lips quirked into a half smile. “And whatever happened, I’m sure it had nothing to do with you not being enough.”

She frowned. “You sure about that?”

Carter took a deep breath. “I am. If anything, it was him that wasn’t enough. A real man doesn’t cheat. He doesn’t lie. And he doesn’t make you feel as though you’ve done something wrong when he was the one who fucked up.”

Her smile grew a fraction while the sadness faded from her eyes. “I’ve never met anyone like you,” she said softly. “You’re not what I expected.”

A rush of tender warmth flooded Carter’s chest. He didn’t want to feel anything for Tess. Couldn’t. He had to think of Jenny and Jane. Of his own heart that was already so goddamned broken it couldn’t survive another crack. “You’re not what I expected either,” Carter said. He curbed the train of his thoughts from where they wanted to go and added, “You’re not half as bossy as I first gave you credit for.”

Tess laughed, and the sound rippled pleasantly through him. “Don’t be so sure. I can get pretty feisty.”

He didn’t doubt that. There was more to Tess than what she wanted him to see, though. She guarded her heart with the same ferocity he did.

“For what it’s worth, you’re not half as grumpy as I gave you credit for.”

Carter cringed. “I thought that coming out to the lake would be a nice change of pace while the girls were on break from school. I didn’t think that they’d be bored to death. I probably should have taken them to Disneyland instead.”

“Dude,” Tess said with a grin, “it might be the happiest place on earth, but you would have left a broken man. Rambunctious twins at Disneyland? The staff would’ve had to take you out on a stretcher.”

Tess hadn’t known Jenny and Jane that long but she already had their number. His girls’ ornery streak hadn’t scared her off, though. She still let them come over to play and she’d cooked them dinner. Bought them toys. Carter rubbed at the knot that formed above his sternum. “It definitely would’ve been a two-person job. Travis thinks I need to hire a nanny to take care of them.”

Tess ran a fingertip along the mouth of her bottle before bringing it to her lips. Carter was riveted to the simple action, his gaze locked on those lips that had been wrapped around his cock earlier in the day. His gut tightened and he shifted on the couch beside her. Her lips were as soft as rose petals.

“I honestly don’t know how you’ve done it on your own so far,” Tess said. Her gaze met his, warm and full of genuine concern. “You travel all the time, don’t you?”

“Up until last year, when I had to leave they stayed with one of my teammate’s wife. They have two kids around the girls’ age, and Shari was great about making sure they got to school while I was gone. It kills me, though. They need more stability than this. They need to be able to be home and not carted off and dumped at someone’s house because I’ve got a game in Miami or wherever.”

“I’m sure they know you’re doing the best you can and that you love them,” Tess said. She reached out and took his hand in hers.

“I want to do better than my best.” Emotion lodged in Carter’s throat as he spoke past the sudden thickness. “They need a mother, not a nanny.”

“They need a dad, too,” Tess remarked. “Life isn’t perfect, Carter. Instead of trying to make this change in your lives as painless as possible, maybe you should try to remember that you’re all going through this together. Do you talk to them about any of this?”

He snorted. “They’re almost six.”

“But they’re not stupid. They have thoughts and feelings too. Why do you think they built that secret fort where they plotted their escape? It wasn’t because of your football schedule or because they have to stay with someone else while you’re playing out of town. It’s because you were cranky and withdrawn. You guys are a team. You’ve got to bring them into the huddle.”

Not even Carter’s brothers had put it to him as straight as Tess just had. Travis was all about him hooking up and moving past his one-woman-man status. Nate and Noah were supportive, but neither of them had kids. They helped when they could but didn’t have much to offer in the way of advice.

Steph used to set him straight. She’d never missed an opportunity to put Carter in his place when it needed to be done. His wife and Tess would’ve been friends if they’d ever had the chance to meet. Carter was sure of it. Steph would have liked her.