Dallas’s tongue dueled mine, and I wasn’t about to let him win. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a breath, but I didn’t give a shit.

It was me who pressed my hips against his, a rock, a roll. But it was Dallas with the hard thing between us, hot and like a pipe against me, right above my belly button.

“I love the way you kiss,” he whispered when he drew his mouth away from mine just an inch.

I said it. I told him. “I like everything about you.” Because it was the truth.

This choking, groaned noise bubbled in Dallas’s mouth and I could feel the heat of his stare on my face, but I could only talk myself into looking at his mouth. His slightly parted, swollen lips inches away. And it was only because I was looking at his mouth that I knew it was being redirected to my cheeks, to my jaw, to two spots on my neck, and then I couldn’t see at all as his hips rocked into my stomach again, his cock harder and so warm through my clothes. Dallas pressed that soft mouth to my collarbone as his hands slid up from my hips to my waist to just directly below my breasts, so that the undersides rested on the curve of his hand between his thumb and index finger.

“I knew it would be like this,” he murmured into my collarbone, nipping at it with those flat, white teeth.

I was panting. I couldn’t talk.

One of his thumbs took a detour from my ribs and went up, swiping over my nipple, which I wasn’t surprised at all was hard. Dallas was breathing roughly as his thumb did it again. His mouth kissed the patch of skin my button-down shirt couldn’t cover and he whispered, directly into my damn heart, “I’ve thought about doing this with you in here a hundred times—a thousand times—”

“Buttercup! Are you gonna tuck me in?” came a shout that had me jerking back to reality.

But it didn’t have Dallas going anywhere. It didn’t have his hands moving from where they’d taken residence. And that thick shaft across my stomach didn’t go anywhere either.

It was only Dallas’s head that rose until his face hovered just above mine, that beautiful pink mouth brushing my own. He focused those green-brown-gold eyes in on me and kissed my lips, just a peck, one, two, three, four, five times. Then he touched his mouth to one of my cheeks and then the other, pausing right in front of me as his gaze bounced from one of my eyes to the second and back.

“Buttercup!” Louie yelled again.

His hands moved over to my arms and down to my wrists before cupping each of my hands in his palms. He brought them up between us and against his hard, flat belly. “I’ll let you put the boys to bed, but we’ll talk tomorrow. I’m not gonna keep putting this off, Diana.”

And I answered with the only word my stupid, stunned brain could come up with. “Okay.”

“Buttercup!”

“Poo face! Give me a second!” I hollered, shaking my head as I held Dallas’s gaze.

“Bring Mr. Dallas!” the little boy shouted back.

This beautiful, perfect man who had just finished kissing me smiled softly at Louie’s request. “You mind?” he had the nerve to ask.

“You know I don’t.” I waved him toward me. “Come on.”

Dallas nodded and took a step forward as I turned my back on him. I managed to take maybe a couple of steps before two arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind in a hug that lasted all of a squeeze and what I could only assume was a kiss to the back of my head. I stood there and took it.

A giant part of me wished he would do it again and again.

It wasn’t until he dropped his hold on me way too soon, that I reached back without looking at him and took his hand. I laced my fingers through his and felt his pads curl over the fine bones below the outside of my wrist. We walked the fifteen feet to Louie’s room holding hands, not saying a word. Sure enough, his blond head was the only thing peeking out from over the top of his Iron Man covers and he was grinning that grin that lit my entire world up.

“I like this,” Louie confirmed as I took a seat on the bed furthest away from the door and Dallas took the opposite spot as we let go of each other’s hand.

Snorting, I started tucking his comforter in around his legs and let his comment go. “Did you brush your teeth?”

“Yes.”

“What story do you want to hear today?” I asked, still tucking him in.

The little boy made a humming noise as his eyes bounced to Dallas. “What do you think, Mr. Dallas?”

“What do you usually hear? Only stories about your dad?”

“Yeah,” he answered like he was saying “duh.”

Dallas made his own thoughtful noise. His hand went to the top of where Louie’s foot was and he gave it a squeeze. “What about one of your mom?”

The cowardly part of me said “Shit.” The part of me that knew this was a conversation I’d continued to push aside even though I shouldn’t thought that it was about time someone had brought this up. Louie, on the other hand, didn’t say a word but I could sense his gaze on me. I could feel his tension.

Dallas knew Louie’s mom wasn’t alive. I’d mentioned Mandy and Rodrigo’s wills before, but I still hadn’t told him what happened. Guilt was a painful son of a bitch no one liked to remember.

“My mom died.”

The statement out of Louie’s mouth had me glancing up at him as sneakily as possible. That sweet, innocent face wasn’t exactly blank, but it was his eyes that said it all. He looked as hurt as he had two years ago, and that ate me up inside. I should have handled this better.