by Karina Bliss
“Not that it changes my decision, but why?” Great, now she had his full attention.
Because playing the calm, cool professional around your motherless child is getting harder and harder. Because I don’t trust myself around you. Because I’m confused and I want you even though you’re bad for me, only I’m starting to believe you aren’t and that’s the most dangerous thing of all. I saw what I wanted to see with Zander. I might be doing that again with you.
“I need to get back to my studies and my life. By then, any scandal would have settled enough for me to do that.”
“Of course you do. I’m sorry you haven’t had the study hours you’ve needed since Grace arrived.”
“Actually, I’ve managed to find a few here and there. But that doesn’t mean I can’t find you a great nanny for Grace.”
“Lily, stop. I can’t let emotion compromise her future.” He ran his hands over his face, letting her see his exhaustion. “This is my opportunity to give her everything I never had. A stable family, a mom and dad, siblings, a community…good people.”
She opened her mouth to tell him to give himself a break, for once. To stop undervaluing what he had to offer. That he was good people. And closed it.
This was a big decision, the most important of his life. He had to be committed one hundred percent to keeping Grace for it to work. Being a single father wouldn’t be easy, not with his lifestyle and band commitments.
“Only you can decide what’s right for you and Grace.” Her role was a support one. That was all. “What matters is that you make an informed choice.”
His big shoulders relaxed. “And I have.” He picked up the file. “You agreed to help me choose when I had a short list.”
A short list already? She struggled to hide her dismay. But he’d kept his end of the bargain by getting to know Grace and she had to keep hers. No matter how painful. “How did you narrow it down?”
Opening the file, he handed her an application. “The agency says it helps to imagine the life you want for the child when you’re choosing.”
“Okay.” She wasn’t ready to look at it yet so she pretended she was still hungry and ate another forkful of curry.
He said quietly, “I appreciate this, Lily. I know this is hard for you.”
The hard part was seeing him shut himself off from his feelings. “I’m fine,” she reassured him. “I accept that I’m borrowing the children I look after.”
Looking skeptical, he watched her chew the food she had no appetite for. “I saw you at the airport saying goodbye to the English kids. It didn’t look like you were protecting yourself against caring.”
He’d seen that? She put down her fork. “I don’t stop myself loving them,” she clarified. “I don’t think that’s possible. My joy comes from helping to build a healthy, happy little person at a time in their life when they’re sponges absorbing information on how the world works. Looking after kids is my calling—like music is yours and business is Dimity’s.”
He was silent, watching her, and she felt exposed suddenly. That was the trouble with taciturn types, they really listened. “Did that sound arrogant? Blame the cold meds.”
“You’re extraordinary,” he said slowly. “I’m in awe of you.”
She’d always wanted to be valued but she had no idea how to respond gracefully. Flustered, embarrassed, glowing, she said, “Phph,” adjusted her glasses, and focused on the file in her lap. “Let’s see what the Drummonds have to offer.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later Lily was asleep. With her head on his shoulder.
If her neck wasn’t at an awkward angle Moss would have sat that way all night, savoring the warm weight against him. He’d wanted this woman from the moment he’d seen her, but it had passed from skin-deep attraction to a ravening need that had sunk into flesh and bone and marrow. Much good it did him.
As he turned to ease her to a prone position on the couch, her silky hair brushed his chin and he was unable to stop himself breathing her in like a thief. Peaches and apricot and Lily expanded his lungs, gave his feelings more room to move. And feeling was so very dangerous at this point in his life. He was already standing on the deck of a sailing ship in rough seas, fighting for balance, because a stumble would send him overboard. He didn’t know how to swim in these waters, but he wanted to. God, he wanted to.
Gently, he lowered her to the couch and removed her glasses. She stirred, opened her eyes, and smiled faintly. “Did I fall asleep?”
“Yeah, Sleeping Beauty, forget the night shift, you’re still recovering. It’s time for bed.” His voice roughened on the last word, and her pupils flared with a sexual hunger that matched his before her lashes dropped.
“You’re probably right.”
He’d imagined it. Wanting her so much, he’d imagined it. He made himself stand, stretch. “Bed for me, too.” Turned to find her gaze flick away from the skin he’d exposed. Every muscle froze.
She stood and pressed on her back, her breasts round under the fabric of the robe. “How long were we sitting there? I’ve stiffened up.”
She wasn’t the only one. He walked across the open-concept room to check the wall clock in the kitchen, though his cell was in his pocket. “Ten. Well past your bedtime.”
“Are you feeling claustrophobic about staying in another night?” He realized he was pacing and stopped. Lily replaced her glasses. “Call a cab and go out if you want to.”
What he wanted to do was slide off that robe… “I’ve been checking in with the drop-in center. Someone is covering my rounds.” He was intensely aware of her as she walked into the kitchen, emptied her leftovers into the trash, and rinsed her plate. “And don’t worry about getting up early either.” He averted his gaze from her ass when she bent to load the plate into the dishwasher. “Seth and Dimity will be home early.” They were staying at Zander’s mansion tonight. “They’ll pitch in if I need them.”
“Okay, then. Goodnight.”
He noticed her face was faintly pink on one cheek, where she’d rested it against his shoulder. He caught himself reaching out to touch it as she passed and jammed his hands in his jean pockets.
God, what was wrong with him? Despite putting up a good front, she had to hate him for giving up Grace.
Their eyes met. Held. Lily stopped. For a split second he thought he saw his desire reflected.
Grace’s wail came through the baby monitor on the coffee table.
Lily glanced toward it. “Want me to get her?”
He’d been misled by the way light struck the lens of her glasses. “No. I’ll go.” Awkward. He’d made her feel awkward. He got the hell out of there.
* * *
I want him, Lily thought as she boiled the kettle to make herself a cup of tea before she went to bed. I want him.
Was she nuts? Even when she was struggling with his decision to adopt out his daughter, one blazing glance had been enough to kindle her blood, and set her body afire. For heaven’s sake, how many times did she have to give herself the spiel on making better choices?
Her energies should be going toward catching up on her studies, keeping a low profile, caring for Grace, and supporting Moss through a difficult time. She added a teabag to a mug and poured in the boiling water, every nerve humming with sexual frustration. That does it, tomorrow I’m getting a vibrator recommendation from Dimity.
“Go to sleep baby, you’re driving Daddy crazy,” Moss said through the nursery’s baby monitor. His voice held a husky tenderness she’d never heard before. She looked across the countertop to the living room where the second monitor sat on the coffee table. Because he thinks he’s alone.
“Lily and I have been looking for a family for you Gracie, but don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten what we talked about.”
Moss had started talking to Grace? Leaving the tea half made, she went and sat next to the monitor.
“Oh, you want to go see Lily? Not tonight. You’ll get overexcited and forget that you’re wo
rking toward sleeping through the night. You’re almost two and a half months old, Gracie, and it’s time you accepted some responsibility.”
Lily smiled. The baby’s small noises made it sound as if she was agreeing.
“And I don’t want to see Lily again tonight so we’re hanging here until she goes to bed.”
Ouch, she thought and then, Good. Between us, we can do the sensible thing. Returning to the kitchen, she stirred milk briskly into her tea.
“What was I talking about, Gracie, before you interrupted? Oh yeah, Your Highness’s requirements for a family. You want to live in a small town where if you forget to lock your car it’s still there the next day. You do know you won’t be driving for a few years, right?”
God, his tone with the baby. Playful, tender, protective. Unable to help herself, Lily crept back to the couch with her hot drink.
“You want a big yard and lots of pets, maybe even a farm animal or two. Your parents always know where you are, and you have grandparents and aunts and uncles and lots of cousins to watch out for you, and you’re never alone unless you want to be.”
Lily put down her mug, untouched.
“You walk to school every day with your mom, who’s a teacher, and on the way you pass your daddy’s business and wave to him. The business has been in the family for three generations and there’s plenty of room on the sign for ‘& Daughter’ if you decide making widgets is your calling. Both of your parents value education and they read to you a lot.”
Lily covered her mouth with her hands. She wanted to weep for the love so evident in every detail, weep for Moss’s stoicism.
“You love school because you’re smart and all the teachers are nice. You grow up surrounded by people who nurture whatever talents you have, who are proud of you, and who will love you, Gracie, no matter what. No matter that you have the stinkiest diapers in the history of diapers, or spit up, or are wakeful and frown all the time.”
Lily had never wanted to shake sense into him harder, or been so drawn to him. But anything she said would reveal that she’d eavesdropped on this most personal of conversations. She switched off the baby monitor.
All she wanted to do was fling her arms around Moss, comfort and soothe him, ease the loneliness he’d never admit to. It was a compulsion so powerful she couldn’t think past it. She’d resisted him and resisted him, and why? Because she was terrified of getting hurt again. But givers had to give.
Hearing his footfall, she picked up her mug and walked away from the baby monitor into the kitchen, where she stirred her tea again.
Moss stopped when he caught sight of her. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I was waiting for you.”
He glimpsed the baby monitor and went to retrieve it, relief flashing across his face when he saw it was off. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“We hadn’t finished our conversation when Grace woke up.” Now she’d made a decision, she felt very calm.
Switching on the baby monitor, he tucked it into the breast pocket of his navy shirt. “Weren’t we leaving the other files until tomorrow?”
“Not that conversation.” Tipping her tea down the sink, she walked over to him. “This conversation.” Taking his hands, she placed them on her shoulders and watched his eyes darken with such hunger that she became light-headed.
No one had ever wanted her like this man. No man had ever needed her like he did, either. “I want to kiss you,” she whispered. “So badly, when you look at me like that.”
“Well, you can’t,” he said harshly. Removing his hands from her shoulders, he stepped away. “You’ve changed your type, remember?”
“I’ve made some poor choices, it’s true. This is not one of them.” She added simply, “I’ve never known a man like you.”
“I’m not a regular guy, a safe bet,” he reminded her.
“No.” Smiling at him, she removed her glasses.
He groaned. “Jesus, woman, you’re not thinking straight. You’re reacting to cold meds or experiencing some kind of Stockholm syndrome, only our captor is two months old with no teeth.”
“You’re funny,” she said tenderly, placing her glasses on the dining table. “Who knew?” She held out a hand. “Let’s go to bed.”
He made no move to take it. “This won’t change my mind about keeping Grace.”
She lowered her hand. “You think that’s what this is about?”
“I think you’d do anything for the people you love.”
If they hadn’t spent weeks in close proximity, if she hadn’t just heard the conversation she had, she might have been hurt and angry. Instead she said very gently, “Because it could never just be about you, could it Moss?”
She’d flummoxed him, and she used that advantage to step into his body and link her arms loosely around his neck. He could break her hold, if he wanted to. “This…” standing on tiptoes, she touched her lips to the beating hollow of his throat, “…is between you and me.”
Pulling his head down to hers, she pressed her lips to his. For a moment he resisted opening to her, and then he caught her close and surrendered. The sweetness of the kiss intensified to an intoxicating level.
Abruptly, he pulled away. “Wait!” He passed a hand over his eyes. “I can’t deal with any more mistakes… I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“I know.” Tucking a silky strand of hair behind his ear, Lily traced the line of his cheekbone with her index finger. “This is my decision.” The men she’d dated used her to varying degrees—to move to LA, as a status symbol, and in Travis’s case, as a tool for revenge. She might have loved two of them, but it hadn’t been an unselfish love. She’d used them too, ironically for the very same reasons. All the while, withholding her real self. “I’m tired of being afraid,” she said. “Let me give to you tonight, Moss. Let’s give to each other.”
He caught her in his arms and buried his face in her neck. “Yes.” His warm breath sent a tingle down her spine. “Let’s go to bed.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Moss wanted Lily more than any woman he’d ever wanted in his life, but he had no idea how to make love instead of fuck. Leading her to his room, putting the baby monitor beside the bed, watching her curiosity as she looked around checking out the art, the rugs, the mass of plants—he’d gone a little crazy on the decor—he felt like a virgin, uncertain of the next move.
And she was so certain she wanted this, wanted him. It was in her eyes, her touch, as she said, “May I?” and started to undress him. Uncover him. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for this to be about him, so he caught her hands when she reached for the second button of his shirt. “What’s your sexual fantasy?”
Lily blinked, as astonished as he was by the words that had just come out of his mouth. Nice one, McFadden, real smooth. He’d thought Seth’s sex tip stupid when he heard it and now he was stupid for repeating it. A gust of wind caught the sheer curtains over the French doors which he’d left open to the pool, and automatically he closed and locked them.
“Um, I don’t have—” She followed his movement and stopped. Blushed.
Intrigued, he touched her red cheek. “This is interesting.”
Her blush deepened and he realized he was embarrassing her. Because he was making this clinical. Fuck. He tried to lighten the mood. “Just tell me it doesn’t involve a guinea pig.”
She blinked again. “What?”
Way to kill the romance. He had a beautiful, sweet, funny, brave woman who was ready to get real with him and he was about to blow it big-time. Well, if she could be brave, so could he. “I’m nervous,” he admitted. “I want you so much, but I have no experience of intimacy…how to make love.”
“That’s okay,” she reassured him. “I don’t know how to be made love to.”
It took him a moment to understand. She’d loved Zander…but he hadn’t loved her. But he did, God help him. He couldn’t tell her that because she’d feel it as an obligation not to hurt him, but he could try a
nd show her.
“You were undressing me.” He held his arms away from his body. “Going slow. I liked it.”
It was the right thing to say. Her expression softened, she smiled, and he saw the woman he was beguiled by, shyly mischievous, confidently feminine. Warm and sexy as hell. As she unfastened each button, she looked at his body, soaking it up, and his cock hardened painfully. The last button on his shirt lay over the bulge in his jeans. She took her time undoing it, her lashes demurely lowered, the slight brushes of her hands against the fabric deliberate.
He was a patient man when he needed to be—he could wait for his revenge. His shirt fell open and she slid it off his shoulders, her palms sliding over his skin, stepping closer so the hardening nipples under her satiny robe brushed his bare chest.
“My turn,” he rasped. Catching the end of the robe’s sash, he gave it a tug and the garment opened and slithered to the floor. Underneath she wore practical gingham summer pajamas.
She pulled a face. “I wasn’t expecting—”
“I don’t care about the wrapping.”
Slowly, he undid her top and she took a deep breath as he reached the third button.
“I like your new breasts better,” he reassured her.
She huffed a laugh. “You haven’t even seen them yet.”
“Yeah, I have. When your robe fell open.” That memory was going with him to the grave. When every button was undone he pushed the fabric aside, noting fleetingly that his hands were trembling, and slid the top to the floor. Her skin was tanned, her small breasts pale and pink-tipped and… “Beautiful,” he breathed.
Her laugh was self-conscious. “You have to say—”
He cut her off by taking her hand and placing it on his jeans, showing her the evidence. Their eyes locked, blue and green, welded together by a white-hot arc of heat. “Your turn,” he invited.
Staring into his soul, she unsnapped the button. He heard the slide of the zipper and then her hand was on him, sliding down the length of his cock and up again. Swear to God, he could have come then.
