“Exactly. I know that you’ll be wonderful with my baby. I don’t doubt that for a minute. But I need to know if this is temporary or long-term. If we need to take it slow…or we need to leave it at this tonight.”

The words tickled his ear as she spoke. He could smell the floral scent of her lotion, feel the dampness of her hair as he drove his fingers through her curls.

“I don’t want to pressure you or rush you or be insensitive to what you’ve been through, but I do have to think about my baby, and I just need to know what it is you want.”

What he wanted and what he should do seemed to be two different things. It wasn’t fair to ask Mandy to wait for him to heal the wounds he had. It wasn’t fair to ask her to take him on as he was, more liability than asset. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her to allow him into her daughter’s life.

He closed his eyes. He didn’t give a shit about fairness. If he couldn’t have Mandy, tonight, here, now, love her and feel her love for him, if he couldn’t have a life that included her in it, then he wasn’t sure he could face that empty future.

Selfish or not, he needed her.

“I want you. I want your daughter. I want us.”

“I was really hoping you’d say that,” she whispered.

It wasn’t clear to him who moved, but their lips were together, coaxing, pressing, begging, tasting each other, and he gripped the side of her cheek, desperate in his desire, his feelings.

He loved her. She loved him. And Mandy said it could be that simple. Here, in the dark, with her in his arms, her taste on his tongue, he believed it.

Mandy kissed Damien for all she was worth, trying to push into his mouth all the feelings, the love, the tenderness she felt for him. She knew it wasn’t easy for him to open up to her. He had been living in emotional solitary confinement for three years.

But this was right, so very, very right, and she wanted to show him that.

When she started pushing down her knickers, he broke their kiss. “Need help with those?” His voice wasn’t urgent, but slow, sensual, achingly intimate.

“Yes, please. I want to be closer to you. I want to be inside your skin.” She slipped into his boxers and held his bum, wedging him closer against her, even as he skimmed her panties down.

“You feel so good,” he said, brushing his mouth over her shoulder, her arm, as he pushed the panties to her knees.