Glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one sees me, I try a few doors, all of which are locked. The knob on the last door turns easily, and the door swings open into a dim room, a lamp in the corner providing soft light.
Perfect. Maybe I can even grab a few winks. I sink gratefully into an overstuffed recliner, pushing the button to elevate my feet.
A soft sigh from a chair in the corner startles me. I squint, visually picking through the shadows and find the last person I expected to see.
“Iris?” I ask disbelievingly.
“Shhhh!” She raises an index finger to her lips.
God, her lips.
I’d forgotten how full they are, how wide and luscious. I’d forgotten that her eyes hold a dozen colors hostage and that her hair is a pitch-dark fall of silk. Maybe I didn’t forget as much as didn’t allow myself to remember—I blocked the memory of how this woman is exactly what I would wish for. My imagination, my memory, did her no justice.
She gestures to a blanket-covered lump at her chest.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “Didn’t mean to shush you. She just fell asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her.”
Her.
For the last few months, I’ve thought of the baby as Caleb’s spawn. Now that I’m in the same room with Iris feeding her baby, I can only think of the baby as . . . hers.
Feeding.
“Oh, shit,” I mutter, lowering the footrest. “I’m sorry. You’re . . .” I gesture to the baby on her chest. “And I’m just sitting here like—”
“It’s okay,” she interrupts, smiling. “I’m decent. She’s finally sleeping, and I could use a few minutes of adult company.” She licks her lips and then bites the corner of her mouth. “Stay.”
Even though she asks, I know I should leave. Not to preserve her modesty. She’s right. The blanket completely covers her chest and the sleeping baby. I should leave because I want to stay too badly. Because after more than a year of not seeing her, I have a million things to ask her and a million things I want to share. We’re different people than we were when we first met. I’ve signed a huge contract. I’m on a box of cereal out there somewhere and have been animated in a video game. My life is completely new. And Iris has a baby now, for God’s sake. There’s a part of me, though, that will always think of her as the gorgeous girl swearing at the television in a sports dive, sipping flat beer and pulling for her Lakers. We’re different, but I wonder if the quick, deep intimacy we shared that night is still there. If it’s still the same.
“So how’ve you been?” she asks.
I sit back, raising the recliner again, and grin. “How much time ya got?”
She glances down at the blanketed bundle. “She’ll be in a milk coma for a little while, so probably plenty of time to hear about all your rookie adventures.”
“It’s been a wild ride,” I say, hastily trying to fix the bad impression I probably gave. “I mean . . . I don’t mean wild like chicks or whatever. Not like that.”
One knowing eyebrow elevates.
“Okay.” I chuckle self-consciously. “Maybe a little like that.”
She rolls her eyes and twists her lips.
“Alright. You got me.” I allow myself a wolfish grin. “A lot like that.”
“It’s to be expected.” She shifts a little, tipping her head back against the cushion of the leather couch. “You’re rich, talented, handsome. Single. I wouldn’t believe you if you told me any different.”
“So you think I’m handsome?” I tease her.
She looks away and to the side, shaking her head and laughing softly under her breath. “Like you don’t know.” She pats the little bottom under the blanket. “I’m sure you had no trouble finding . . . companionship . . . before your fat contract. And I’m sure you have to fight ’em off now.”
My smile freezes on my lips. We can laugh a little here in this barely lit room. I have a few minutes with her in a year, but she’s going home with Caleb. She’ll be in his bed tonight. Even now, she’s feeding his child.
My good humor circles a drain until it’s gone, and all that’s left is my futile resentment.
“I’m certainly not fighting ‘em off,” I say pointedly, linking my fingers over my stomach.
She stiffens for an almost-imperceptible second, before resuming her smile and meeting my eyes directly. “I’d be surprised if you weren’t taking advantage of every perk the NBA has to offer.”
“Yeah, well, when you can’t have what you really want,” I say, locking our eyes together, willing her not to look away, “you settle for whatever’s available.”
She laughs, but it rings false before she glances away and adjusts the blanket around the baby. “A man like you should never have to settle, August.”
“Same goes for a woman like you, Iris.” I plow through my hesitation to ask her the question I hope she would ask me if she saw me compromising my ambitions. “Are you settling?”
She swallows, the muscles moving in her slender throat, and takes a deep breath before looking back to me. “I’m not settling. I’m doing the best I can with the hand I’ve been dealt.”
I don’t know everything that has transpired in the year since I last saw her, but it doesn’t matter. She got pregnant. I know she has to be responsible, but putting all of her eggs in Caleb’s basket is a mistake. It’s one I can’t allow her to make, at least without warning her again. We’ve only met twice, but she feels like my friend. A friend I’d probably enjoy kissing and fucking, but a friend nonetheless.
I get up and walk swiftly over to the couch, squatting and looking up at her. If you didn’t look closely, you’d assume she was as serene as any mother nursing and nurturing. But she’s not any mother. And when I look into the turbulence of her eyes, she’s certainly not serene.
“Iris, don’t lose sight of what you want.” I risk touching her, gripping the hand in her lap. “You got pregnant, but that’s not the end of your dreams. You’re too young and talented and amazing to abandon your ambitions running after Caleb while he pursues his.”
“I’m not running after him,” she says stiffly, snatching her hand away. “You don’t know the choices I had, the hard calls I had to make.”
“I’m sure you did what you had to do because that’s the kind of woman you are.” I recapture her eyes but don’t try to recapture her hand. “But you’re only proving my point. You did exactly what you had to for this baby. Now do what you have to do for yourself.”
She looks at me, her emotions naked and spread across her face, watering her eyes. Her lips part, but whatever she plans to say gets cut off when the little bundle on her chest squirms, shifting, and the blanket falls away.
And holy Shit. I’m looking at Iris’s breast.
The nipple is piqued and the color of fresh plums against the dark gold of her skin. A milky drop clings to the tip. I can’t swallow or breathe, but my mouth automatically opens, my body demanding I suck. I should look away. I’m probably creeping hard, but I can’t help it. My fingers fold into my palms, aching to trace the blue–green network of veins just under her skin.
When I finally look up, Iris is as paralyzed as I am, watching me watching her. Her mouth falls open, her breath coming hard, heaving her breasts, one covered and one exposed to my greedy eyes. The air thickens with all the urges I’ve been suppressing and drowning in meaningless sex with other women. This is the woman I want. Crazy as it may be, this is the one I want. I couldn’t move from this spot if the place were on fire.
“You are so fucking beautiful.” My voice is hoarse and urgent. “We barely know each other. I get it, but I can’t stop thinking about you, Iris.”
My words snap the thread tying us together, and she hastily, belatedly jerks up the bra, fastening a flap and pulling her blouse together.
“August, don’t.” She runs a hand over the back of her neck under the hair spilling past her shoulders.
I saw her nakedness, but I’m the one exposed. I can’t hide how much I want her. I’ve felt more connected to her in the little time we’ve spent together than I have to any of the women I fucked this last year.
“Do you think about me, too?” The question I promised myself I wouldn’t ask forces its way out.
“I can’t think about you.” She squeezes her eyes shut, clamping her teeth tightly on her bottom lip. “I’m with Caleb. We have a daughter, a future.”
“A future?” I snap. “With him? Gimme a break. He’s probably cheating on you already.”
A muscle clenches along the smooth line of her jaw. I’m on the road enough to know the married players get as much ass as the single ones. I’ve known Caleb a long time. That man always wants his cake and to eat it, too. No way he isn’t tapping anything he can pull when he’s away. If Iris were mine, I’d be faithful to her. There’s not a woman alive who could tempt me if I were hers. I want to confess it all to her, but she wouldn’t believe me.
“I have to try to make this work, August.” She rubs the downy hair of her daughter’s head. “There’s a lot at stake.”
“Your future is at stake.”
“August, we’ve met all of twice and—”
“Correction. Today makes three,” I say, adding a smile to show I know how ridiculous it sounds.
The tight lines around her mouth loosen some, too. Humor softens her eyes.
“I stand corrected. Today makes three,” she says, slowly sobering. “But you can’t expect me to walk away from the man I’ve been with for two years. For what? A feeling? An attraction?”
“So you are attracted to me?”
She aims an exasperated look at me, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. I can be . . . attracted to someone without acting on it. That doesn’t mean I’m walking away from my relationship, the father of my daughter who’s taking care of me and my baby.”