Chance shook his head. “Yeah, but there’s no way I’m going to go anyplace until the kids come home.”

“They will come home, won’t they, Chance?”

When he heard the trembling in her voice, he set his cup on the table and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. It felt good to hold her again. “Yes, they’ll come home. When they get hungry, they’ll be back.”

His words made Kylie smile. “Yeah, Tiffany definitely likes to eat.”

“And so does Marcus.”

Kylie cuddled deeper into Chance’s warm embrace. It felt good to be held by a man who cared about her. A man who’d told her he loved her. A man she knew she could depend on. “Where do you think they’ll sleep tonight?”

Chance shrugged. “Either in the car or at a hotel.”

Kylie pulled back and looked at Chance. “Are they old enough to get a hotel room on their own?”

“It depends on where they go. To some hotel owners, money and not age is the determining factor.”

Kylie really hadn’t wanted to hear that. More than anything she had to remember that Tiffany said she and Marcus wouldn’t do anything. She had promised.

“Come here and lay beside me. You must be tired.”

She automatically did what he suggested without thinking twice about it. He stretched out his legs on the sofa to accommodate her and gently held her as they lay side by side. Before he had arrived, she had changed out of her nightgown into a pair of silk lounging pants and top. Heat curled through her when he wrapped his arms around her. It felt good knowing she wasn’t alone now.

“Try to get some sleep.”

“I don’t think I can, Chance. I want my baby home.” A few moments later, sleepily she said, “Did I ever tell you about the first time I let Tiffany sleep somewhere other than her own bed?”

“No, I don’t think that you did.”

“She was two and my parents had finally acknowledged that they had a grandchild and wanted some bonding time. At first I wasn’t going to let her go but then Lena convinced me that I should. I barely slept that entire night knowing she wasn’t in the house. I finally was able to sleep only after going into her room and stretching out on the floor beside her little bed. Now isn’t that pathetic?”

“No, it sounds to me like you were a mother who had missed her child and needed the connection.” After a few moments he added, “It works like that for adults, too, you know.”

She lifted her head and met his gaze. “Does it?”

“Yes.” He reached out and stroked her cheek with one finger. “You slept in my bed that one night but that’s all it took for me to get used to your presence. All this week I found myself reaching out, as if you were still there, wanting that connection.”

Kylie’s stomach knotted when her gaze slipped to his mouth and she remembered how that mouth had driven her crazy in so many different ways. She remembered the taste of it, the feel of it. She also remembered something else. The amount of love she had in her heart for this one particular man.

“Oh, Chance.” She reached up and tightened her arms around his neck at the same time she leaned up for his kiss.

With agonizing slowness he took her mouth, claimed it, branded it. His tongue made love to her mouth. The more it did, the more she became fully aware of the steady, strong arms holding her. They were protective arms. They were arms that would shield her from any storm, whether raging or mild. They were arms that would always be there to hold her when she needed to be held. It had been late in coming but she realized that now.

Moments later when he lifted his mouth she let out a satisfied sigh. “Thanks. I needed that.”

He looked at her and smiled. “So did I.”

Determined to maintain control of the situation he then said, “Now let’s try to get some rest so we can be well-rested to give our kids hell when they come back home.”

“Yes, our kids.” Kylie said the words as if they suddenly had new meaning to her.

As he pulled her closer she settled against his comforting muscular form and believed that from this time forward somehow everything was going to be all right.

“Mom?”

“Dad?”

Chance slowly opened his eyes. Had he been dreaming or had he actually heard Tiffany’s and Marcus’s voices? The first thing he noticed was that he was stretched out on the sofa with Kylie lying beside him, her head resting on his chest. That would not have been so bad if his hand wasn’t possessively cupping her bottom or one of her legs wasn’t entwined with his. Even her hand was resting pretty darn close to the fly on his jeans.




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