Taking a step to the side, I pushed the door open wider so he could enter. “Come on in.”
He stepped into the entryway, dwarfing the already small space and making the air thick with his scent. He smelled like pine trees and clean laundry and something with just the slightest hint of spice. It was a scent that would drug any woman.
“It smells amazing in here,” he said, pulling me from the fog he’d created simply by existing. “I don’t know what you cooked, but if it tastes even half as good as it smells, it’s going to be fantastic.”
“Thanks,” I murmured with a blush. “I hope you like Chicken Carbonara.”
His eyes took on a heavy, slightly glazed look. “Is that the pasta dish with the bacon in it?”
I let out a little laugh. “Yep. That’s the one. I’m guessing you like bacon?”
“Not sure there’s a red-blooded man on the planet who doesn’t like bacon. Most important food group as far as I’m concerned. Now I’m even happier your pushy friend set this whole thing up.”
My head fell back on a deep belly laugh at his spot-on description of Luna. I opened my eyes once the hilarity had died down to find him staring at me with a look that made it hard to swallow past the cotton filling my throat. His eyes seemed to have gotten a few shades darker in just a handful of seconds. The only way I knew to describe the intensity carved into his chiseled features was potent. This damn man was potent as hell.
I licked my suddenly dry lips, my brain buzzing frantically for something to say. Fortunately, my little girl was here as a buffer and had the perfect timing.
“Tent!” she shouted, blazing from the living room. “Hi, Tent! Hi! You came to see me!”
The tension that held my body captive, every muscle locked tight just a moment ago, let me out of its iron grip as soon as he looked away from me and to my daughter.
“Sure did. Hey there, Little Bit. How you doing?”
“I’m colowing a pictew! Wanna see?”
She got those dimples from him as he answered, “Of course I want to see. But first, I got you a little surprise.”
I’d been so overwhelmed with looking at him that I hadn’t even noticed the bottle of wine he had in one hand, and the bag of gummy bears in the other. But they weren’t just any gummy bears, Trent had gone through the two bags he’d bought earlier that day and picked out all the green ones.
Oh my damn. And my heart just melted into a puddle of goo.
She sucked in a breath so big I feared her lungs might explode.
“Uh oh,” I whispered, knowing what was coming. “You might want to cover your ears.”
He shot me a quizzical look, asking, “What?” right as Renee let out her patented excited shriek.
“GWEEN GUMMY BEAWS!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, doing a little dance after snatching the bag out of his hand. “Yay! Yay! Yay!”
“Good God,” Trent muttered, his eyes wide with fright as he rubbed at one of his ears. “Think she might have just set off every dog in this town.”
“Yeah, she’s kind of famous for that scream. I’m used to it now, but the first few times she did it, I thought someone was murdering her. Scared a solid decade off my life.”
His chuckle was like velvet over gravel. “I can see that. So that’s her excited, huh?”
“Yep. My baby girl is all about the drama. There’s no middle ground with her. When she’s unhappy about something, she makes it known in a big way, and when she’s happy, she’ll shake the house down around you.” Looking down at her as she pawed through the bag, I asked, “What do you say, doodle bug?”
“Fank you, Tent! Fankyoufankyou!”
“You’re welcome, Little Bit,” he told her before lowering his voice for just me to hear. “Christ, how do you ever say no to that little face? If she were to ask right now, I’d give her all the cash in my wallet and call up my lawyer to have her added to my will.”
I let out another laugh. “Meh, I’ve gotten used to it. After enough time, I was able to numb myself to the effects of those looks. It’s the only way I can get her to eat vegetables and take baths regularly.”
“Well, you might have to act as my buffer tonight or I’ll walk out of here after giving her the deed to my house and title to my car.”
“Don’t worry,” I said on a giggle. “I’ll protect you.”
Those green-brown eyes hit me, all smoky and sweet. “Thanks, darlin’.”
My daughter wasn’t the only one standing before me with a face that would make a person melt.
“No problem.” I cleared the cotton out of my throat. “So who’s hungry?”
Chapter Ten
Sawyer
As the evening progressed, I was surprised to find myself completely at ease. The brain fog I usually experienced around Trent had finally started to let up, and I was able to act normal in his presence. Well, somewhat normal, at least.
Dinner went off without a hitch. The food was actually pretty damn good, if I did say so myself, and the company wasn’t anything to sneeze at either. Any lulls in the conversation were quickly filled by Renee rattling on and on, talking about everything and anything she could think of.
There’d been a few times where I’d had to translate what she’d been saying for Trent, but for the most part, he followed her toddler ramblings perfectly.
At one point, I’d actually just sat back and drank my wine, watching the two of them talk to each other. Halfway through dinner I felt this strange warmth bloom to life inside of me at their interaction, heating me from the inside out.
If this was a date—which, I still wasn’t totally sure of—it would be going down in the record books as a success. At least in my opinion. But I didn’t want to get ahead of myself.
Yes, I liked this guy. There was no use in denying that. And it scared the living hell out of me.
He was the first man in years I’d been attracted to, and what he made me feel was so much stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. It was completely foreign to me. The intensity was staggering. I hadn’t even felt this way with Graham during the time I’d convinced myself he was my forever.
The old me—Cheyanne—would have grabbed hold of this feeling with both hands, desperate to keep it and terrified it would slip from my grasp. But that was before. Before I’d chosen wrong. Before I’d made the worst mistake of my life. Before my need to be loved came back to bite me in the ass. But I wasn’t that girl anymore, and this wasn’t about me. It was about Renee.
It was because of her, my need to protect her with everything I was, that I’d made the promise to myself to be done with men. I poured all my time, energy, focus, and love into that little girl, and there wasn’t a single second of a single day that I’d regretted it. She was worth all of that and so much more.
I’d actually convinced myself that she was all I’d ever need. So the impact of my feelings involving Trent not only caught me off guard, but they actually knocked me on my ass and left me reeling.
And in spite of being scared half to death, it wasn’t an altogether bad feeling. Thanks to Graham, I’d forgotten all the things I used to enjoy about the back and forth between a man and a woman. The thrill of the game. I’d forgotten the rush I got as a woman when an attractive man looked at me like I was something special. Those were all the things I’d felt during my dinner with Trent and Renee.