Madison giggled and grabbed my ass with clenched fingers, yanking me into her, making me groan. “Maybe you should convince me, baby daddy,” she whispered seductively.
I winked. “Any time, lips.”
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Her Neighbor’s Baby
Rochelle Paige
Chapter One
Melody
My best friend had a one-night stand with my boss. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he was the doctor we were both hoping would help her get pregnant.
Waiting for Madison to come out of Dr. Cole’s office felt like it was taking hours instead of minutes. When I’d told her that I’d been able to get her the appointment to meet with Dr. Cole, Madison had been nervous and excited. She wanted a baby more than anything, and my boss was one of the best fertility specialists in the country. If she was going to go through with her plan, I wanted her to have access to the best care possible.
I’d also wanted to be with her every step of the way, but my boss had suggested that I let her do the first consultation on her own to limit any discomfort she might feel over the personal nature of the questions he needed to ask to determine if he was willing to take her on as a patient. I’d reluctantly agreed...and then I’d been glad for it once I’d realized what’d gone down between the two of them last night.
When Madison hadn’t returned my calls or texts last night, and after I realized she’d gone home with Dr. Cole—or Ethan—I freaked the fuck out. She hadn’t given me many details when she’d sent me a text with the address of the guy she’d gone home with—something that was completely out of the ordinary for her—but I’d eventually recognized it as where my boss lived since he’d had everyone over for a holiday party last year. By the time I’d caught up with her, it was way too late since she met me in his waiting room before her appointment hours and hours afterwards.
All of that added up to a super impatient Melody. I wanted to know what’d happened last night. I also wanted to know how Madison’s appointment was going. And I wasn’t feeling particularly patient.
Tapping my foot against the floor, I heaved a sigh of relief and rose to my feet as soon as I saw my boss leading my best friend towards the door. Glancing down, I noticed that their hands were clasped together and it made me even more curious about what was going on between the two of them. “What’s going on? Are you going to take Madison on as a patient?”
“We’re still discussing the possibilities. She’ll call you later,” Ethan answered.
My gaze darted between them when Madison struggled a little in his hold and huffed, “I can speak for myself, Ethan.” And then I tried unsuccessfully to keep a straight face when she out-and-out lied about how she’d gotten to the office. “Anyway, she’s my ride.”
My boss wasn’t one to let an opportunity pass him by, and his reply to Madison was no different. “No problem. We’ll take my car to dinner and I’ll make sure you’re in bed at a decent hour.”
I could practically see the sparks flying between the two of them. The fact that she’d gone home with Ethan said a lot. They clearly had a lot of chemistry going on, and their banter was beyond adorable. I loved my best friend like a sister, but she wasn’t the kind of person who took risks when it came to guys. Sometimes she needed a little push, and I was just the person to give it to her. Giving them a little wave, I ignored Madison’s spluttering as I high-tailed it out of there after I called out a quick, “Have fun, kids.”
It wasn’t until after I pulled out of the parking lot that I realized I had no idea where I was going. My plan had been to take Madison to dinner if she’d gotten good news during the consultation or to pick up wine, ice cream, and pizza if it hadn’t gone well. Now I’d sent her off with Ethan, and I had nothing to do. I headed towards my apartment complex and decided to stop at the grocery store on my way. As I stood in line with my basket filled to the brim, I mumbled to myself, “I didn’t think I’d be the one who needed the comfort of pizza, wine, and ice cream tonight.”
“That’s a damn shame,” a deep voice murmured behind me. I whirled around and found a hot guy standing there, staring at me. I had to crane my head back to look up at him; he had to be at least six foot two. He looked like an athlete, and it had nothing to do with the track pants and wicking t-shirt he was wearing—it was all about the breadth of his shoulders and the muscles straining against the material. His dark hair was tousled, and humor filled his green eyes as his lips tilted up in a sexy smirk. “A beautiful woman like you shouldn’t be left alone to drown her sorrows in junk food.”
Normally, I would’ve flirted right back, but I was tired and cranky...and I couldn’t help but feel like maybe he was making fun of me in some way. He was hot as fuck and looked like he never put anything with empty calories between those sensual lips of his. The cart in front of him was full of water, milk, fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, and chicken breasts. There wasn’t a single bad carb in sight, while that’s all that was in my basket.
“Whatever,” I huffed and turned around again. Luckily for me, the woman who’d been ahead of me in line had just finished up her transaction. I was able to plop my stuff down on the belt, flashing the guy behind the register a grateful smile when he quickly started to scan my items.
With my basket all the way on the front of the belt, the hot guy reached for one of the dividers lined up on the far side. Only he didn’t do it the normal way. Instead, he moved around his cart so he was standing right behind me. Then his muscular arm brushed against my back when he leaned over the belt. “Sorry.”
His raspy apology sent goosebumps along my spine, even though I didn’t for one moment think he was actually apologetic for a move that was blatantly obvious. I mumbled something about it being okay just as the cashier told me my total. Moving forward, I inserted my card into the chip reader and entered my pin.
While the transaction was processing, I had a hard time stopping myself from looking over my shoulder at the hot guy. The back of my neck kept tingling like he was still staring at me. I could practically feel his body heat from where I stood, and every time I breathed in, I got a whiff of his cologne. Or maybe it was just the pheromones he was pumping into the air. Whatever it was, I had the completely inappropriate urge to nuzzle against his neck to get closer to his addictive scent.
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. As soon as the cashier handed me my receipt, I high-tailed it out of the store without looking back. I had to; before I did something monumentally stupid—like pretend the hot guy was a tree and climb him.
Chapter Two
Trace
It’d been a killer moving day for me, after a three-day, two-thousand-mile road trip. When the movers left, the temptation to order in from the place they’d recommended had been real. But tomorrow was going to be a busy day too, and it’d be a fuck of a lot easier if I at least had the necessities at home instead of putting it off for another day.
I’d trudged my way through the store, but once I’d hit the checkout aisle I was glad I’d decided to suck it up and make a quick run out. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have bumped into the grouchy brunette who’d gotten my blood pumping in a way I hadn’t felt in too long. She was fucking stunning with her long, dark hair, bright blue eyes, plump lips, and curves in all the right places. “The scenery in Malibu is a damn sight better than it was back in Chicago,” I mumbled to myself.
My gaze had been riveted on the sight of her sexy ass as she walked out of the store, but my head jerked up when the guy manning the register agreed, “You can say that again.”
His eyes were locked on the same view mine had been staring at before he’d spoken. “And you can keep your mouth shut and eyes off her, if you know what’s good for you.”
He jolted back a step and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he gulped. “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean any offense. I didn’t rea
lize she was with you, what with her ignoring you the way she was. You sure must’ve pissed her off to get the silent treatment like that.”
His assumption was totally off base but completely understandable considering my over-the-top reaction to his appreciation of her ass. It didn’t make sense for me to feel territorial over a woman I’d just met—and describing our interaction as meeting her was stretching the truth.
I wasn’t sure if it was my approach or her grouchy mood, but it was like she’d been wearing a No Trespassing sign. Either way, the message had been loud and clear, so I’d backed off…for the moment at least. Just because I’d let her get away from me for now didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do whatever it took to find her again another day. Even if it meant staking out this damn grocery store until she returned. With the limited number of items she’d had in her basket, at least the odds were good she’d be back again soon. Which gave me an idea. “If you want to make it up to me, you can let me know if she comes in here a lot.”
The cashier’s eyes darted to my arms as I leaned against the small counter next to the credit card reader. I hadn’t done it to intimidate the guy purposely, but I wasn’t going to feel bad about it since the sight of my flexing muscles prompted him to say, “Yeah, I work this shift Tuesday through Saturday, and I usually see her two or three times a week. Most of the time, it’s about half an hour later than today. And she’s almost always dressed in scrubs. I figured she likes to come in and grab stuff on her way home from work.”
I didn’t like how close of an eye he’d been keeping on my grouchy brunette. He’d come up with too many details about her on the fly to only be paying her casual attention. This time when I quirked a brow at him and flexed my arms while I stared him down, it was on purpose. He flinched and the color leached from his face, turning it pale white while he gulped again. His reaction wasn’t enough for me, and I offered him a verbal warning, “What I said about keeping your eyes off her is doubly true when I’m not around. Same with keeping your lips zipped.”
He gave me a jerky nod. “You got it, man.”
With the way he kept quiet as he rung up the rest of my groceries, it was clear that he got where I was coming from and would back off the brunette. Since I was appreciative of the information he’d given me, I took pity on him and flashed him a brief smile after I paid. It grew wider when his shoulders slumped in relief and I turned to push my cart out to the parking lot.
I spotted a flash of long, dark hair from the driver side of the car making a right turn out of the lot and made a mental note of the make and model. The electric blue Mini Cooper would be hard to miss in the future, which boded well for me since I wanted to track down my grouchy brunette again.
Grinning widely, I loaded my groceries into the back seat of the extended cab of my truck and headed to the apartment complex. When I parked next to a now familiar small blue car, I grinned again. “Damn, talk about a lucky break.”
Hefting the groceries in my arms, my grin turned into a deep chuckle when I spotted my brunette in front of the wall of mailboxes in the lobby. My penchant for driving fast must’ve paid off because she’d barely beat me there. She had just shut the door to a box when I walked into the building, and then she headed towards the bank of elevators. Since she was rifling through her mail, she didn’t notice me until she turned around to press the button for her floor and our fingers brushed because we both went for the same one.
I flashed her a pleased grin. “Lucky number seven.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she groaned. “Let me guess. You’re the new neighbor who moved in today? The one who started at the ass crack of dawn, without any regard for the people you might wake up?”
Ah, that explained the grouchiness. “Yeah, that’d be me. I’m sorry. I haven’t adjusted to the time change yet, so for me it felt like nine in the morning instead of seven. Since it’s a weekday, I didn’t stop to think about the possibility of waking up any of my new neighbors.”
“Of course you’re being all nice and polite about it now,” she sighed, using her free hand to squeeze the bridge of her perky, little nose. “While I’m being a total bitch.”
“That’s not how I would word it.” She quirked an eyebrow at me. “I was thinking more along the lines of grouchy, which is understandable if I interrupted your sleep.”
The elevator doors slid open, and I followed her out and down the hallway. She stopped at the door right before mine and turned, offering me an apologetic smile. “My lack of sleep really wasn’t all your fault. I was up late, worried about my best friend because she was in the middle of a situation and I couldn’t get a hold of her.”
“Do you need help with her problem? I can be a handy guy to have around,” I offered.
“Um, no,” she snorted, her blue eyes twinkling with humor. “It’s an unusual situation that’s pretty difficult to explain, but my boss seems to have it well under control. He’s”—she squinted her eyes and her nose wrinkled—“uniquely qualified to help out with her problem. In more ways than one.”
There went my opportunity to step in and impress my new neighbor. Her boss—another guy who probably wanted to show off for his gorgeous employee—already had it handled. “Your boss?”
“Yeah, I’m a nurse. My boss is a doctor who specializes in reproductive endocrinology, which is part of what makes him perfect to help my best friend.”
“And the other part?”
“That would be the reason for me frantically trying to reach her last night, before she made a huge mistake. Or at least I thought it would be one. Now I’m not so sure.” She jiggled her bags. “But that’s a conversation for another day. I’d better get inside since I don’t want my ice cream to melt.”
“I guess I’ll let you get going. It was nice meeting you…” I looked at her expectantly as I let my sentence trail off.
She quickly got the hint and introduced herself, “I’m Melody Carson.”
“I’m Trace Chapman.”
“Of course you are,” she mumbled before opening her door.
I headed down the hallway to my apartment after she went into hers, and I was filled with determination that “another day” would happen sooner rather than later. Much, much sooner.
Chapter Three
Melody
For the rest of the week, it felt like I ran into my new neighbor everywhere I went. When I left my apartment, he seemed always to be leaving his too. He was in the lobby getting his mail twice when I came home from work. I even ran into him at the grocery store the other two nights. It was almost like he had a copy of my schedule or something.
It didn’t matter the time of day or what he was wearing—like the custom-tailored, three-piece suit from yesterday morning or the athletic shorts and t-shirt he had on today—he was impossible to ignore. With the way his green eyes lit up whenever he saw me, I would’ve had to have been heartless even to try it. His persistent friendliness only made me feel guiltier about how cranky I’d been with him the night we’d met.
And then there was how he treated me whenever we bumped into each other. He walked me to my car in the morning since his big truck always seemed to be parked next to it, even if it hadn’t been there when I pulled in. At the grocery store, he insisted on helping me load my bags into the car and carrying them up to our floor when we got back to the apartment building. He always waved me into the elevator first, keeping his arm in the open doorway to make sure it didn’t close on me.
But being a gentleman didn’t stop him from flirting with me. Relentlessly. He told me how beautiful I looked, even at the end of a particularly hard shift when I felt like I’d been run over by a bus. He asked me out for coffee. Breakfast. Dinner.
At first, I’d said no out of habit more than anything else. I was totally out of practice when it came to dating because it had been a while since I’d gone out with anyone. Not that I didn’t get asked out by guys. I just hadn’t been tempted into agreeing lately. But Trace was more tempt
ation than any woman could handle and it was becoming hard to not take him up on his offers.
The last two times he’d asked, I’d been regretful when I declined. Work had been more exhausting than usual since my boss was full of an almost frenetic energy and it was exhausting just being around him all day at work. When I called Madison to blame her for it, she’d burst into a fit of giggles. After she’d calmed down, she started to tell me how it was a good thing Ethan was using up some of his spare energy at work because she wasn’t sure if she’d survive their nights together if he didn’t. At that point, I’d hung up. I didn’t want to know too many details about their sex life—especially when I didn’t have one of my own.
I didn’t have energy after work for much more than changing into my pajamas and passing out while binge-watching shows on my favorite streaming service. But now it was Saturday afternoon, I’d slept for almost ten hours last night, and Trace was standing in my doorway...trying to tempt me with my favorite ice cream and wine. They were the same brands I’d bought the night we met. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
“You remembered?”
His lips kicked up in a grin. “Of course I did. Everything about you is memorable, angel face.”
“Wow.” I realized I’d said it out loud when Trace’s smile grew wider. Feeling a little embarrassed, I hurriedly added, “Except you must’ve missed the pizza since you only brought wine and ice cream.”
“I was hoping to use the wine and ice cream as a bribe to get you to come out and grab a pizza with me.”
That was such a smooth comeback. He was definitely going to keep me on my toes. “A bribe, huh?”
His head tilted to the side as he held the items out for me to take. “Is it working?”
Baby Daddies: A Me, Myself & I Collection Page 7
