My hand went out, landing on the wall to hold me upright when my knees threatened to buckle under my weight. It was then I felt my life alter in a way that I knew it would never be the same again.

I once read that it takes just four minutes to fall in love. I knew without a doubt that was false. Because in less than a minute, I fell head over heels, crazy in love with Xavier. That’s all it took—thirty seconds of him giving my daughter the kind of affection she only got from me since her father went to jail.

“I know all the words,” she announced.

“I see that. I just wanted to make sure you were listening,” he murmured to her.

“Mommy says good girls listen and I’m a good girl,” she informed like it was crazy to think she might be anything but.

“Good girls wouldn’t have opened the door to a stranger when Mommy said to keep it shut while she was gone,” I interrupted them even though I could have stayed watching them for hours.

Sophie brought her little arm around Xavier’s thigh and squeezed him tightly. “He isn’t a stranger. He’s my knight!”

Xavier made a choking noise, his face saying he thought he was anything but. Wisely, he didn’t make the mistake of telling her knights in shining armor didn’t exist again.

“You know what I mean, Sophie. When I go to do laundry, you need to keep the doors locked and you shouldn’t answer it for anybody. You got that?” I gave her my stern face, hoping she would get how very important this rule was.

“Mmm hmm,” she said, her head nodding and a repentant look on her face.

“You need in-apartment laundry,” Xavier chimed in and my eyes shot to his.

“Don’t start,” I warned.

“You know I’m right,” the dumb man kept going.

Not wanting to fight after the beautiful scene I had just witnessed, and still riding the high of knowing I didn’t have to dance anymore, I decided to let it go. I had a feeling if I didn’t learn to pick my battles, he and I would be going head to head frequently.

“I wasn’t expecting you.” I changed the subject, which made him look amused.

“Was in the neighborhood,” was his only explanation.

“Did you want to do dinner with us? I was going to make tacos.”

“My favorite!” Sophie exclaimed with a clap of her hands.

“Well, I couldn’t miss your favorite meal, now could I?” He gave her a grin and flicked his finger on the tip of her nose as she looked up at him.

My heart melted all over again.

“Can Avier help?” Sophie asked me.

“It’s Xavier,” I corrected her, to which he said, “Why don’t you call me X?”

“Okay. What will you call me?” She tilted her head, her curls falling to the side and a sweet, expectant look on her face making her look angelic.

“What do you want me to call you?”

“I don’t know.”

He thought about it for a moment before saying, “How about bug?”

“Bug?” She scrunched her nose up in disgust. “Bugs are gross.”

“Ladybugs aren’t. They’re the most beautiful bug,” he told her. “You could be my ladybug. How’s that?”

“Yes!” She jumped up and pumped her fist. “Mommy, I’m a ladybug!”

“I heard.” I picked her up and spun her around. “And to answer your question, yes, Xavier can help us with the tacos. It’s going to be all hands on deck.”

I started to walk towards the door but stopped when I realized Xavier wasn’t following. I turned to see him with a guarded yet warm look on his face as he studied me with Sophie in my arms.

“You okay?” I asked him with concern.

“Perfect,” he spoke quietly, and I felt somewhere deep in my soul that what he was feeling was exactly what I’d felt earlier that day in my hallway.

The thought was as thrilling as it was terrifying.

“God,” I breathed. Xavier’s mouth was between my legs, and at that moment I could swear I saw the big man as my orgasm slammed into me like a freight train.

With no time to recover, I found myself flipped over onto my stomach and my hips roughly hiked up. He positioned himself and then with one hard thrust was inside me. My head flew back, my hair going with it. My mouth opened and a loud moan vibrated from my throat.

Xavier pulled out and then slammed back in again, and I nearly came on the spot. I was so primed and ready to go. With all the time he spent playing with me, using both his fingers and his mouth to do so, I wasn’t surprised. In just a week, he had discovered things out about my body that my husband failed to figure out after years of being together.

He pulled out all the way just to thrust himself back inside me, bottoming out against my ass. His fingers bit into the skin at my hips as he fucked me with an almost brutal intensity, his grunts spurring on my second orgasm of the night.

“That’s it,” he encouraged as I tightened around him and cried out in pleasure.

“Honey,” I moaned as he took me through it.

“Fuck. So sweet. So damn beautiful.” His arm snaked around my chest and pulled my upper body up so my back was to his chest and I was straddling his legs. With a possessive hand cupping my breast, he held me to him as his hips reared up into me. “My sweet féileacán.”

My fingers tightened on his forearm and I turned my head to bury it in his neck and whispered, “Honey.”

That’s when he thrust into me one last time and came inside me. As the last of the tremors left his body, he kept me close, his hand still cupping my breast, his breath harsh and his skin slick with sweat.

As with every other time I had spent with him, this was as close to perfection as anything could possibly get.

“Go clean up, baby,” he murmured against my mouth, placing a light kiss there before pulling me off him. I shuffled out of bed and threw a robe on before walking out into the hall and to the bathroom.

After cleaning up, I checked in on Sophie, who was still out like a light, just as I knew she would be after the eventful evening she’d had.

The three of us had made tacos side by side, which was strangely comfortable and domestic. Xavier knew his way around a kitchen better than I had anticipated and had been instrumental in teaching Sophie how to brown the meat and dish out the condiments into the little bowls I had for them.

Done with cooking, we’d all eaten around the table almost like a family. Sophie had babbled about her day at school while Xavier nodded in all the right places. Even though his attention had been on Sophie, I knew without a doubt that it was also on me. Several times I’d looked up and found him watching me with hungry eyes.

After dinner, we’d played her favorite board game followed by watching her favorite movie. Xavier had been a good sport about it, but I could tell by the way his looks grew more and more heated that he was ready for us to be alone.

The memory of him practically ripping my clothes off when he had finally gotten me alone had me smiling, which was what I was doing when I walked back into my bedroom.

“That’s quite a smile,” he noted, and I looked over at him on my bed, back to the headboard and sheets to his waist. How the hell did I ever get so lucky to have a man like him in my life?

“As it should be. I just came three times,” I gloated as I crawled into bed beside him. “I take it you’re staying tonight?”

“And miss fucking you when I wake up? Besides, Sophie said you were making pancakes tomorrow.” I nestled into the crook of his arm, my head on his shoulder, and placed my hand on his chest.

“I am. By the way, I never got to thank you for giving Trixie the idea to train me. I can’t wait to start working under her tomorrow.”

His arms gave me a squeeze and his hand came up so his fingers could play with a few residual curls that were in my hair from earlier. “Told you I would find a way to make it work.”