Page 11 of Awaken My Heart

Grief changes you. When we laid Lisa to rest, I buried a huge chunk of my heart. It left me with a misshapen organ that sits hollow in my chest.

For more than fifteen years, it’s laid dormant. This sad, useless thing, leaving me to walk the Earth as nothing more than a husk of a man.

Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t check out. I showed up every day for our kids. Our three boys and one girl kept me anchored when all I wanted to do was crawl in that grave and die with her.

All of our plans, our dreams, died with her.

I was left behind. The survivor. I put everything I am into becoming the father my kids needed—the one they deserved.

But therein lies the potential problem. I was just their dad. That became my sole identity.

The man in me died.

The man with needs and wants.

The man who swallowed so much loneliness he nearly choked on it.

But as everyone keeps pointing out—I’m not dead. Hell, I’m not even fifty yet.

I can’t deny the fact that I want Emma. She turns me on. And though I’ve been fighting the urge, I can’t help but compare her to Lisa.

Lisa was my first and only for everything. First kiss. We lost our virginity to each other. I married her knowing I’d never look at another woman.

Then she left me. For fifteen years I was able to keep that promise. It wasn’t even that hard. I still had urges, but nothing I couldn’t handle on my own.

Emma Carson changed that.

Now there’s a face, a specific body, fueling my need.

I want her.

I want to spread her out on my bed and spend hours between her thighs. I want to inhale her heady scent of arousal, imprint her on my skin so she’s all I can taste or smell.

But to what end?

I might want her, but sex is all I could ever offer her. And she’s too young and beautiful to settle for the likes of me when she could get a man her age.

So I need to swallow my desire. Keep this set building together brief. Make sure there’s a power tool in between us at all times.

I’ve done all the preliminary work of searching out set ideas for the musical. I even got a copy of Taylor’s script so I could see what the scenes and settings should be. It’ll make the most sense to do a reversible set on wheels. I’ve already bought some supplies for that very thing.

I’m not completely sure I can actually handle power tools around this woman though, which pisses me off. But dammit it all to hell if she’s not the most distracting creature I’ve ever encountered.

chapter

nine

Emma

Twenty-four hours later and I still can’t believe I just walked right up to him and put my hands on him. Like I had permission to fondle him.

Oh damn, does this make me a molester?

Never in my life have I been so forward with a man. And we had witnesses. Embarrassment heats my cheeks for about the millionth time since I left the tattoo shop.

All through school, every mental image of his chest, the ink, the soft brown hair, just all of it, drifting through my brain.

Bram Whitmore is delicious, and I want him. There, I said it. I want him to bend me over something and rail me from behind, hard and fast.