Page 169 of Wild Card 13

Lucy felt it too.

I lowered my head before I had enough sense to stop myself. Not to kiss her. I knew better than that. Barely.

My mouth hovered near her hair, close enough to breathe in the clean winter scent of her shampoo, the faint sweetness of Matt’s still clinging to her coat, the warm skin underneath all that careful control.

“Come home with me,” I breathed into her hair.

With a sharp inhale, she forced herself back. “Absolutely not.”

The words hit firm and fast.

No hesitation.

No gray area.

My hands dropped immediately.

I should have stopped there. A smarter man would have stopped there. An emotionally evolved man who had not spent dinner sitting beside the only woman he had ever loved while she laughed with his family like no time had passed absolutely would have stopped there.

Unfortunately, I was still me.

“Oh, come on, Shortcake.” I kept my voice light because the other option was letting her hear how badly I wanted it. “We’re having such a good time.”

Her eyes flashed to mine. “Ty.”

I stepped back and lifted both hands, palms out. “Okay.”

The Uber turned onto the street, headlights cutting through the snow.

Lucy watched me for a second like she expected me to push. Like some part of her had braced for it.

I hated that.

So I smiled. Not the big one. Not the one for cameras or teammates or rooms I wanted to control before they could look too closely. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” I chuckled.

Her expression shifted. For half a second, I saw the thing beneath the no. The want. The ache. The same reckless almost that had been following us since Grandma Ruth’s fudge container appeared between us.

Then the car stopped at the curb.

I opened the back door for her.

Lucy stepped past me, close enough that her sleeve brushed my wrist. She paused before ducking inside, one hand on the top of the doorframe.

“Goodnight, Burns.”

Old and sharp and soft in all the wrong places.

I held the door while she slid into the back seat. The driver asked something I didn’t hear. Lucy answered, her voice quiet through the open door.

I wanted more than one night. The realization landed so hard it almost knocked the air out of me.

I wanted her in my bed, yes.God, yes.I was not dead or noble enough to pretend otherwise.

But I wanted her at my table too. In my passenger seat. On my couch. At Matt’s with my family. In all the ordinary places I had spent years filling with noise because silence reminded me she was gone.

I leaned one hand on the top of the car door and looked down at her. “Sleep well, Shortcake.”

CHAPTER 21