This Baby Business. Heatherly Bell
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laughed at that, scribbling something down. “So glad it’s not just me. Sorry, Cribs for Mommies, I’m going to say it’s a two-person job.”
“So does it work?” He stood up to stretch his legs. “Do they take your advice when they read your blog?”
“I don’t really know. They used to take my mom’s advice.”
“But not yours?”
She lifted a shoulder. “My mother was the real baby whisperer.”
“Baby whisperer. I could use me one of those.”
“I do have her baby bible. But it’s incredibly disorganized, and sometimes it’s hard for me to understand. Of course you need to put a baby on a schedule, but it doesn’t say what to do when your baby is too tired to stay awake because they’ve been up all night.”
“Exactly.” Finally, someone got it. “I have it on good authority she’ll sleep through the night. When she’s a teenager.”
He wasn’t going to be one of those parents who wouldn’t let their teenager sleep till noon. Figured she’d have a lot of catching up to do.
Carly jotted something down on her pad while he checked the baby monitor. Grace slept peacefully. Still, he should get out of Carly’s house right now before he had any more random thoughts about kissing her. Because at the moment, it would be nice to find out if the rest of her was as soft as her rosy pink skin. Like her lips. For starters.
Carly met his gaze and caught him staring at her lips. He didn’t bother trying to hide it. She smiled and looked away first. Back to her notes.
He understood. That was a lot safer than dealing with...whatever this was. There was a definite pull between them, and he didn’t know what to do about that. Acting on it would probably be stupid. But face it, stupid was pretty much his calling card when it came to women. Still, the appeal didn’t make sense to him. She’d normally not be his type at all, but he felt a magnetism that had to do with a lot more than her looks. Even though she was incredibly pretty. Naturally beautiful. Yeah, that was the thing about it. She didn’t try very hard. It was just...there.
He took a step closer, telling himself he wanted to see what she’d written down about the crib. “What are you writing?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
But his height gave him an advantage. “Because from here it looks like a doodle.”
A floor-length dress, which had pretty much nothing to do with the efficacy of the directions to this crib. Unless he was missing something.
“It’s a sketch.” She pulled it away from him.
“Cool,” he said. “You don’t have to be shy about it.”
She blushed again and gnawed at her lower lip. “I’m not shy about it. It’s just not... Never mind.”
“Already forgot all about it.”
She folded up the piece of paper. “Let’s talk about you. Have you decided if you’re going to retain my services yet?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Your services?”
“My baby help.” She put her hands on her hips. “I don’t offer any other...services.”
Shame. “You’ve got the job. You didn’t realize it, but this was your interview. And you passed.”
“I did?” She smiled, clutching the folded paper against her chest.
“I like to make sure that my nannies can put together a crib. Just because. I’m weird that way.”
“That is weird.”
“Yeah. You’ll do just fine.”
“You won’t be sorry.” She traced the edge of the crib rail with one finger. “I’ve got a lot of baby knowledge.”
He took a step closer, just to make sure he’d chosen the correct three-point level for the mattress rise, he told himself. “When they’re infants, you use the highest level. This adjusts for later, you know.”
She came up beside him. “Good to know.”
It occurred to him that he possibly stood a little closer than he should. Somehow that didn’t bother him at all as his eyes met hers. He was close enough to see every tiny speck of green. When his gaze slipped to her lickable lips, he knew he was in trouble here. She was sexy and pretty. Real. Not at all stuck-up as he’d previously assumed. And she was one hell of a complication in his already chaotic life.
But he’d be lying if he didn’t admit he wanted her.
He reached out to tug on a lock of her hair. Silky soft, too. Her eyes were shadowed with lust, making him feel like a superhero for the first time in a long while. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d seen a woman look at him that way. This was good, because damned if he didn’t want to be alone in this...whatever this was. With his hand on the nape of her neck, he pulled her close enough that they shared oxygen. Her eyes were warm and fluid, showing him all the things he wanted to see. An invitation. A welcome.
He kissed her, deep, long and lingering. When her tongue met his, soft and tentative, he tugged her closer still. Took the kiss deeper and wilder.
She pulled back, a bit out of breath. “What was that?”
“I kissed you. And I think you liked it.”
As if to acknowledge that, yes, she liked it, she kissed him this time. Her hands were on him, clutching his T-shirt, hanging on. He clung, too, one hand dropping to her hip, where he pulled her closer. The other he used to grab a handful of her wild hair in his fist.
From the monitor, Grace wailed. And every good part of him froze.
Carly tensed under his fingertips and he lowered his forehead to hers. “I should go.”
“Yeah. Y-you should.” She stepped away, an unreadable gaze in her eyes.
Relief?
Disappointment?
He didn’t know which one of them was more frustrated, but he’d lay bets in Vegas on himself.
WHEN THE PAPER airplane hit Levi’s forehead on Monday, he was awake, though definitely not firing on all cylinders. So what else was new?
He crumpled the paper in his fist. “Which one of you ladies did this?”
His bet was on Matt, who sat a few feet away from him in Stone’s office, making no effort to conceal his smile. “Wouldn’t need to ask if you were paying attention.”
Levi would grin like that, too, were he engaged to Sarah Mcallister, spending nights wrapped in those mile-long legs.
Damn, he was horny. It had been so long. He wouldn’t mind a sweet woman lying under him or on top of him. Just...not Carly.
This morning when he’d dropped Grace off at Carly’s, she’d been wearing a short dress that showed off a pair of wickedly curvy legs he couldn’t have even imagined. Her hair wasn’t pointed in different directions like it had been the first day she’d watched Grace. She’d put some effort into her appearance this morning, maybe to reassure him that he’d made the right choice.
So he had a new nanny, and he wouldn’t kiss her again. Levi didn’t need someone like Carly in his life. She had the power to draw him in and suck him dry when he had so little left to give these days. Right now he needed easy, casual and definitely no more life-altering situations.
The three of them, Stone, Matt and Levi, were having one of many meetings to work toward the achingly slow progress of turning a small county airport into a regional one. Even if all his