Page 56 of Something Like Shelter

Not some theoretical children I might have with some theoretical woman one day.

Ours.

I dragged a hand over my face and turned back toward the grill.

This was getting out of hand.

Because I couldn’t stop myself from imagining being curled up with Willa on the couch with some coffee, watching a show, reading books, or just talking about our day or our plans. Then heading to bed early, bodies close, lips teasing, hands roaming…

I exhaled hard as desire coursed through me too quickly to try to talk myself out of it.

I turned back to the grill, trying to think of anything but the beautiful woman in my house who’d been on my mind nonstop for weeks.

It took an embarrassingly long time to feel even close to being able to think straight.

Or so I thought.

Until I reached for the skillet to take it off the grill, only to have my skin meet the scalding bare handle of the cast iron skillet.

“Fuck,” I growled, dropping it back down.

I had the presence of mind to shut off the burners before striding back into the house and toward the sink.

“Are you alright?” Willa, sensing something off with my body language, asked as she followed me.

“Reached for the skillet without an oven mitt,” I admitted as I turned the tap on cool and shoved my hand under the spray.

“Oh, no,” she said, wincing.

She was too close.

Her perfume filled the air around me, scrambling my brain each time I breathed in.

As she reached to turn my hand to look at the burn, her breasts were against my arm. My mouth went dry.

“How’s the pain?”

“I’ve had worse.” I’d been burned countless times in my life. This wasn’t even going to blister. It would just feel sensitive for a few days.

“Let me see,” she demanded, making me realize my hand was curled.

I turned off the tap with my free hand and unfurled my fingers, trying not to notice how gently she was holding the back of my hand, or how a shiver coursed down my spine when she ran a fingertip across the pink skin of my palm.

“It doesn’t look too bad.”

“It’s not,” I said as her hair fell from where it was tucked behind her ear and hid her face from view.

She reached past me for a towel, carefully blotting the water off my skin.

“This is the part where a mom might offer to kiss and make it better.”

I needed to pull my damn hand away.

But that’s not what I did.

Instead, I opened my mouth.

“You’re a mom.”