Page 64 of Prognosis Bad Timing

‘This is a disaster,’ Carrie muttered, trying not to think about the eyeful her daughter would have had if she’d managed to pull back that sheet.

Or how they’d made love over and over until the wee small hours. Even when their supply of four condoms had run out, he’d laid her back and made it all about her.

Charlie should have been concerned. He should have been worried, too, but he was too happy at this moment to care. He hadn’t felt this good since before his marriage had fallen apart.

He rose from the bed and stretched languorously and Carrie swallowed hard as she ogled his naked buttocks, tightening with the movement. And the muscles of his broad tanned back.

Oh, God, the things he had done to her.

‘Charlie, for heaven’s sake, put something on. Dana could wander in here any second.’

Charlie turned and grinned down at her, watching her eyes widen as she stared at his full frontal nudity. His dick twitched at the desire he saw there.

‘Are you sure?’

His voice was deep and lazy and sexy and Carrie wanted nothing more than to pull him back into bed. But...

‘Charlie,’ she warned.

He laughed and hunted down his clothes. ‘My shirt is in the lounge room.’

Carrie groaned again. ‘Great.’

He looked at her lying in bed, the sheet pulled primly up to her chin and suppressed the urge to yank the sheet down and just stare at her. She couldn’t hide behind her morning-after primness with him. Not when he knew every delicious inch of her body.

‘Are you getting up or shall Dana and I make you breakfast in bed?’

Dana and I.The way he’d said it had been so possessive it scared the hell out of her. It was something a father would do with his daughter.

A partner would do.

But he wasn’t Dana’s father and he wasn’t her partner. To get caught up in this little fantasy was dangerous. ‘No. I’ll have a quick shower and be out in a flash.’

‘Sounds like fun.’ He waggled his eyebrows.

Carrie’s toes curl at the flirtatious tone and promise in his grey eyes. This was insane. Do not read anything into this, woman! ‘Go, Charlie, now.’

He chuckled. ‘Okay, okay. I’m going.’

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Charlie scanned thelounge room for his missing shirt. He was looking under the lounge when Dana found him.

‘Here’s your shirt, Charlie,’ she said, holding it out. ‘Did it get hot last night?’

Oh, hell yeah. It got very, very hot. ‘A little,’ he said, ruffling her hair and putting on his shirt. ‘Right, let’s make pancakes.’

Charlie laughed and joked with Dana as he cooked. She cracked him up with her four-year-old observations and her baby jokes. The longer he spent in her company the more charmed he was by her mix of exuberance and innocence.

The enormity of what he and Carrie had done last night - its implications - hit him square between the eyes as he flipped pancakes. This little girl was looking at him as if he were God, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all rolled into one.

He liked kids, had wanted his own. It had been the deal-breaker in his marriage. But this was reality. What did he know about four year-old girls? How could he be a good father when he’d had such a lousy example? Did he have the right to impose his inexperienced parenting on this close-knit, loving mother-and-daughter team?

‘Mmm, something smells good.’

Charlie started as Carrie entered the room, a warmth spreading through his chest at the sound of her voice. He smiled at her gently, despite his chaotic thoughts. Her hair was damp from the shower and he wanted her all over again.

He cursed his weak body.

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