Page 35 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

“You got it!” she called over her shoulder.

“Oh! And later today we’re going to go over the fundamentals of knocking. Don’t worry, you’re a bright kid. You’ll get it down in no time.”

Michelle stuck her tongue out at him and scampered out of the room. They heard her running footsteps down the hall and down the stairs.

“I’m so sorry,” Aurora turned to him, chagrin in her eyes.

“For what?” Dante ran a hand over her hair.

“For being here where Michelle could see. And not knowing how to explain it to her. I hope she’s not traumatized.”

Dante raised a wry eyebrow. “She’s resilient. I’m sure seeing you with your makeup smudged wasn’t quite enough to send her into therapy.”

“Oh!” Aurora’s hand went right to her eye make up and she was out of the bed instantly.

Dante chuckled to himself when he heard her furiously washing in the sink. And then he lost his breath when she came back out, pink and fresh from washing her face, his t-shirt falling over one of her shoulders.

“You know that’s not what I meant. Will she be traumatized from knowing that we slept in the same bed?”

“No,” he said, meaning it. Dante reluctantly slid out of bed and slipped past her into the bathroom, putting toothpaste on his own toothbrush and hunting up a new one for her. He handed it to her and popped his own in his mouth, talking around it. “She knows about the birds and the bees. I mean, ideally I would have talked to her about you sleeping over first, asked her permission, but as you could tell, she didn’t seem too bothered by the idea.”

Aurora spit toothpaste into the sink, her eyes narrowing. “You would have asked her permission to have me sleep over here?”

He shrugged, splashing water on his face and considering a quick shave. “Sure. It’s her house as much as it is mine. And she has to ask me if she wants somebody to sleep over. Makes sense for it to go the other way. Of course, if she said no, we’d have to have a pretty serious conversation about why. But I don’t think she would have said no. She obviously likes you.”

Deciding against the shave, he turned from the mirror and finally caught Aurora’s eye.

“You’re a good dad,” she said.

He felt the conflict of pleasure and irritation inside him. Pleasure at the praise and irritation at the wording.

“I’m a good brother,” he corrected.

She cocked her head at him before going back out to the main room and grabbing her dress off the hook. He sat on the bed and watched her as she slipped out of his clothes and into the dress. So graceful. So gorgeous. Good lord, he could watch this woman do her taxes and he’d still be aroused.

“You don’t consider yourself to be her father?”

Dante rose, swiped the t-shirt she’d been wearing off the ground and pulled it over his head. He got instant wood from the scent of it, a combination of him and her. “No. I’m her brother. She has a father. It’s just her bad luck that he’s a piece of shit.”

He didn’t want to shut her out or shut her down, but he also really didn’t want to go further into this. He knew that she was still teetering on the edge of whether to like him or not and he didn’t particularly feel like dragging his daddy issues into the room right now.

Stepping up behind her, he zipped her into her dress. He turned her, and seeing that she was about to say something further about the dad thing, he traced his fingers through the lacy holes at the neck of the dress.

“You know, the way this dress is cut, it makes the skin underneath look like a necklace.” He dropped his head and kissed along the delicate cuts of the dress. “A mouthwatering, golden, warm little necklace.”

Aurora’s sucked in a breath. Dante was completely shocked when suddenly, her soft hands grabbed him firmly on either side of his face. She hauled him toward her and started kissing the daylights out of him. Soft and hard at the same time. Her lips were so lush that no kiss could ever be too hard, but she was using all the force she could muster.

It was intoxicating to Dante.

And confusing as hell.

“I’m waaaaaaiting!” Michelle hollered up the stairs, and Dante and Aurora broke the kiss on a laugh.

He watched as she walked out of the room. He wanted desperately to grab her hand, make her tell him exactly what had her kissing him like that, but he didn’t. The moment passed, and all he could do was follow her downstairs.

* * *

Turned out scram-damn-bles were flippin’ delicious. But as she’d already insisted he was beautiful and a good dad that morning, Aurora kept her thoughts on his cooking skills to herself. She didn’t want to go playing all her cards right now. She was still in shock that she even had those cards to play. Her feelings had come out of nowhere. Blindsided her.

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