“How did you find who the orthodontist was?”

Oh. That.

He thought about telling her the truth. Knew he should. But she’d be mad and it sounded worse than it was anyway.

“You had my financials checked, didn’t you?” She sat down heavily.

“Yes. Okay? Yes. I had to be sure you were on the up-and-up. I had to know. And then I put it all away when I met Miles. I had the envelope in my desk and the DNA test came back and I tucked it away and saw the orthodontist and your payments. It was a lot for you to handle each month. I took care of it. I want to help you and Miles.” He looked at his hands, wishing he could put into words how he felt so she could understand and not look at him with all that hurt in her eyes.

“I feel”—he licked his lips—“helpless sometimes. I hate that. I’m alone and you’re both here and I just want to be of some use.”

For a long time she simply looked at him, clearly having some sort of internal argument with herself.

“Please tell me you understand.”

“I do. More than you can possibly know.”

“So you’re not mad anymore?” He waggled his brows and she scowled, for real.

“Thank you for the help.”

“And you still sound very disappointed with me.”

“You broke a promise to me.”

“I was meeting with my financial guy and he mentioned college funds and I realized I hadn’t done one for Miles for school so I did. I’ll get copies of the paperwork to you so you can see.”

“How am I to know you won’t do it again? You talk about how it makes you feel when I want you to talk to me about spending money. How do you think it makes me feel that you just ignore the things I think are important?”

Her voice hitched and she turned away. Alarmed and torn up inside, he moved to her.

“Baby, please. God, please don’t do this. Don’t cry. Don’t shut me out. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you first. I knew you’d be mad, but not how mad, and I’ve hurt you completely unintentionally but it’s still there.” He hugged her from behind.

Gillian didn’t want to be so affected by him but she was. She leaned back into the solid, warm wall of his chest and breathed him in. He kissed the top of her head, murmuring things she shouldn’t want to believe but did anyway.

“Please let me be part of what you and Miles have built. Let me be your family. Be mine.”

And what woman could resist this? Could resist him and what he offered? In that moment she opened herself to the parts they shared. That loneliness and helplessness she’d felt met his, and the wave of longing rolled through her.

Adrian Brown was no mere lover. Not just a boyfriend. There was something deep and strong between them. It made her attraction to him more intense than she’d ever experienced with a man.

She wanted it so much she was afraid to let herself get lost in it. Tenderly, he slid his hands through her hair, cradling her skull as he bent to kiss her.

She kissed him back, turning in his arms as she fell into him. She’d missed him so much and it had only been four days since she’d seen him last. He and Miles had video chatted every night, even if it had only been for Adrian to ask Miles how his day went.

But they hadn’t been able to talk much, and in just a short time she’d really come to like being with Adrian Brown. To being used to having him around enough that she felt it acutely when he wasn’t.

Needing someone else was a risky thing but she did anyway. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t planned on it, or planned for a man like him ever.

But that didn’t keep her from falling back onto the couch with him as the tenderness began to edge into something else.

He pulled her into his lap and she turned, straddling him. His fingers in her hair tugged the last pin free and it fell around their faces.

He plunged his hands into it, wrapping it around his fingers and forearms and using it to move her how he wanted.

“I missed your taste,” he said into her mouth. Little nips and licks, sweet, quick kisses and slow, dragging kisses until she was light-headed with it.

And then he pulled her hair, arching her neck to his mouth, and proceeded to devastate her that way.

Need clawed at him. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her. Wondered if there’d ever be enough for him and knew there wouldn’t be.

That she stumbled with him in this new life as a family made her vulnerable. Vulnerable like he felt, and that filled him with a tenderness he wasn’t sure he was capable of before he met Gillian Forrester.

She was so real in his lap—the warm, beautiful weight of her, the heat of her cunt through the pants she wore, her br**sts pressed to his chest.

His fingers curled with the need to rip the sweet pearly buttons down the front of her shirt. He wanted to strip her bare and possess every part of her he could see. Every part of her he could touch and taste.

“Off, off, off,” he muttered, pulling at her buttons.

She moved his hands aside, quickly unbuttoning her blouse. He took over then, pulling the shirt open and exposing her to his gaze.

He paused to look his fill. No one else saw her like this. This Gillian—tousled acres of dark hair around her face, her spectacular tits usually hidden by her clothing, exposed in a pretty bra, mounds of creamy, sweet flesh at the top—this Gillian was all his.

He ran covetous hands all over her upper body as she arched into him. So sensual. More than sensual, she was dirty and hot and sexy and pretty much on his mind all the time.