I grunted and pulled open the door to my car. “You wasted a lot of years on me, Kallie. Don’t make the same mistake with the person you really want to spend the rest of your life with.”

On my way to the shop I paused at a stoplight and pulled the sonogram picture out of the back pocket of my jeans and stared at it. I let my thumb rush over the little nose and tapped my fingers on the minute-sized hand that was barely detectable. Out of nowhere, images of a little boy that looked a lot like me playing with plastic tools and banging on toy cars flooded my brain. I’d never had anyone to show me the way when I was young, never had anyone to teach me how to be a man and do the right thing. I wanted to kick myself for not realizing exactly what it was going to mean to be a father. I’d never had one and I was standing in front of an opportunity to give someone else everything I’d missed. I was an idiot for squandering any of that, for telling myself that if it didn’t happen the way I wanted it to, then it wasn’t good enough.

Someone honked behind me and I turned my attention back to the road. It was still early afternoon, so I should head back to work, but instead I found myself headed downtown toward the vet clinic where Poppy worked.

We’d been spending a lot of time together over the last week or so. She didn’t flinch or move away when I got close to her anymore, in fact she moved closer when she could. There were stolen kisses here and there and sometimes they led to heated embraces and seductive touches that had me spending a lot of time in the shower with my fist wrapped around my cock.

Wordlessly she was asking for more, her touch getting braver, her eyes getting bolder, but she still wasn’t ready for everything we could do to each other. She never complained when my clothes started coming off but she also wasn’t in any kind of hurry to remove hers. I’d never seen those pert breasts or that silken, hot place between her legs. I knew the strangled sounds she made when she was close to breaking apart and I heard the way she gasped my name when I made her come in my dreams almost every single night.

She let me touch her while she crawled all over me, rubbing, arching into me, begging me for release, but she never took it further. I hadn’t had a girl grind on me and ride me over my clothes since I was in high school. I also hadn’t come inside my jeans from those kinds of innocent ministrations since I first figured out how good girls felt pressed against me. Everything with Poppy was some kind of perfect torture, and while my dick was more than ready to know what kind of pleasure her body held, my heart knew that if we went too far too fast, all the trust I’d meticulously cultivated would crumble. She trusted me to touch her, to take care of her needs, and I wanted her to know that I always would even if it meant I drove home with a hard-on so stiff that felt like it was going to break off. I didn’t ever want her to think that my taking care of her meant I was expecting her to return the favor.

She wasn’t being rewarded for her performance. It was my privilege to pleasure her, my honor to be allowed in her bed, and I never wanted her to question the fact that I appreciated her allowing me to be there after everything the men before me had put her through.

She’d yet to go into detail about what had happened after her husband pointed the gun at her sister and forced Poppy to go with him. But I’d spent the night next to her on more than one occasion and she couldn’t keep the horror away and locked behind her walls when she slept. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that he had forced her, hurt her, and terrorized her. She screamed “no,” “stop,” “you’re hurting me,” and “don’t do this” over and over again. She was loud and thrashed around on the bed like she was trying to get away. I was surprised her neighbors didn’t complain because it was obvious her outbursts were a common occurrence and she slept through them all.

At first, I thought I should wake her up and try and settle her down, but as soon as I touched her, she curled into me and burrowed as close as she could. I wrapped my arms around her and held on to her as she shook like a leaf for the next hour. Eventually, she went still and melted into me, but throughout the night she would let out these little whimpers like a trapped animal, and they tore my guts to shreds. She didn’t need to relive what that bastard had done to her by giving me the words … the memories were clearly alive and well inside of her. She told the story without words and I heard every gory, awful detail of it.

When I got to the clinic, I texted her that I was outside and wanted to show her something. She shot back a message that said she was in the middle of an exam and would be out as soon as she could. I left the car running because it was cold, and while I waited for her I sent another message, this one to Zak, telling him I was in with the Hudson. I’d always wanted one and Kallie was right, no one was expecting me to be a minivan guy just because I had a baby on the way. I was the only one thinking my entire life had to change because of my new addition, and while my priorities were going to be rearranged for sure, there was no denying that getting my hands on one of my dream cars was an opportunity I would be an idiot to pass up. I got an immediate response that he was on it. He assured me again that he would score the lowest price he could, even after he told me the bottom-line price was fair. I was slightly bemused because the guy seemed more excited about the project than I did. I assumed he was stoked that the car was going to be in Denver, where he could visit it instead of shipped off to parts unknown.

I was still wondering about the guy and why I was so certain our paths must have crossed before when the passenger door swung open and Poppy slid into the seat next to me. She was shivering as the outside chill followed her into the warm interior of the car, but there was a small smile on her face and she leaned toward me with no hesitation when I crooked my finger at her. Every time her lips landed on mine it made my entire body come alive. My nerves sparked with sensation, my skin tingled from head to toe, and without fail my dick twitched and reminded me that there were other parts of my anatomy that really wanted a shot at touching her besides my hands and my mouth.

“I only have a second. There was an emergency case that came in a couple hours ago and that pushed all the appointments behind.” The tip of her tongue traced the curve of my bottom lip and her eyes gleamed gold at me. “What did you want to show me?”

I pulled the sonogram picture out of the dash and handed it over to her. Her tawny brows dipped in confusion as she looked at the odd little blob that was eventually going to be my baby. I saw her mouth turn down and watched the blood drain from her face as she silently handed the picture back to me. The gleam in her eyes went dull as she stared at me blankly.