Free The One You Want by Gena Showalter

I guess I’ll understand. Either way, there will be no more grabbing me and hauling me off. No more staring at my lips or caressing my jaw, making me think you want to kiss me senseless.”
    A tense round of silence before he gritted, “I...like you, too.”
    Disappointment that he hadn’t said it more quickly turned to resolve. “Good. Then we don’t need to speak of this anymore.” She moved her hands to his chest. His heart was hammering as hard and fast as hers, surprising her. She gave him a little push. He could have resisted, and there would have been nothing she could have done about it. But he moved away, allowing her to pivot and open the door, to walk away and not look back for the second time since he’d come back to town.
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
    D ANE RANG THE doorbell and waited almost...nervously. But at least he wasn’t acting like an idiot anymore.
    He’d thought to distance himself from Kenna by taking a date to her workplace, to firmly establish the fact that Kenna belonged in a sister box...to move on—he’d managed neither.
    Bottom line, he’d panicked about the tenderness of his feelings for her. He knew that now, some part of him recognizing that she wasn’t like other women, not to him, and if he wasn’t careful, he would find himself entangled in a commitment and miserable.
    But he was miserable now, so, what was the difference?
    They’d had their confrontation a week ago. Since then he’d done nothing but punish himself at the gym. Kickboxing, the punching bag and hour after hour on the treadmill. Nothing had helped. He’d constantly reminisced about her proud departure from the office, hating himself, maybe even hating her, and he didn’t want to experience anything like that ever again. He’d even found himself wondering what the hell was so bad about a commitment if it meant kissing Kenna, touching her, driving inside her sweet little body...then waking up to her and kissing, touching and driving inside her all over again.
    He had to make things right between them. He didn’t care that he was acting like his dad. He didn’t care that she had a kid. He didn’t care that she didn’t know the father’s name. He only cared about
her.
    He just had to be with her.
    The door swung open, and he had to look down...down...down...to a mini-Kenna. She was short with a fall of bright red hair and stunning green eyes. A round cherub’s face. The ache in his chest returned. Damn. How was he supposed to talk to her? He did not speak princess.
    Heart-shaped lips pursed. “You’re a stranger, and Momma says I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. They might want to touch my private places and that would be bad.”
    Kill me.
“I’m your...Uncle Dane. And you must be Norrie.” His only experience with someone her age was Daniel, and that occurred almost two decades ago.
    She flashed him a bright smile. “My name is North, and I know, I know, I have the same name as that rapper guy’s kid, but my momma says I’m her bright star and I always help her find her way home, but when I was a baby I had trouble with some of my letters, because babies are dumb, and I called myself Norrie, so now everyone else does, too.”
    The words poured out of her, and Dane could only stand there, oddly...charmed.
    Not charmed. No way.
Not getting embroiled with her.
He would be with Kenna, if she would have him, but he would keep distance between himself and the kid. “I’d like to speak with your mother.”
    “Norrie Isabelle Starr.” A twentysomething woman with dark blond hair came up behind the girl. “Your mom will murder me in my sleep if she finds out I let you answer the door on your own. Thanks for that.” Navy blue eyes focused on him. “Hey, I know who you are.”
    “I’m afraid I can’t say the same.” Though he remembered seeing her at the engagement party.
    “I’m Jessie Kay, one of Kenna’s roommates.”
    “Uncle Dane is
not
a stranger,” Norrie said to Jessie Kay. “Do you