Page 34 of Under His Control

“Would you like to hold her?” Nina asked. She raised her brows and widened her smile as I looked between her and Olivia in her lap. The sweet girl was content to chew on the tip of her bottle, gumming around it instead of just drinking her milk.

“Oh, no.” I shook my head, too put on the spot to admit that I wanted to. I’d been watching her and wondering if she’d approve of my holding her. Tessa and Nina were quick to call themselves aunties, but I lacked that maternal instinct they seemed to have with ease. I was curious. I felt a yearning to cuddle her, but I never had. I lacked experience with any babies, and Olivia was already over a year old. She wasn’t a newborn to get used to from the get-go. She was a smart girl, and I was nervous she’d just know I had no clue what I was doing.

Babies could be intuitive like that, right?

“No. It’s okay.” It wasn’t okay, but I was too intimidated that I’d mess up with something new. I wasn’t personable with most people, and that was adults. I’d been raised to stay powerful and aloof, to assume everyone was out to get me. It wasn’t an ideal mindset to have for good, and I worried my “icy bitch” persona that Liam accused me of would come through and scare Olivia.

“Oh, damn it,” Nina said with such an exaggerated flair that I knew she was faking her shock and dismay.

“Dam!” Olivia repeated, grinning around her bottle.

Nina and I glanced at each other, sharing a silentoh, shitlook.

“I mean, ohdangit,” Nina amended. “She spilled a drop of milk on me. I better go wash it off.” She stood, not giving me a chance to protest as she handed Olivia over.

“What—wait—what—no.” Nothing I said mattered. She was on her feet and slipping back from the table, a triumphant smile on her face.

“Hey, aren’t you planning to breastfeed, though?” Dante asked as he wrapped up a game of cards with Romeo. “And you’ll be getting milk everywhere?”

“I don’t think it’s like water guns.” Tessa set down her cards, folding anyway. She mimicked spraying out water from her chest. “She won’t be leaking it all over the place.”

“Oh, hush,” Nina said, not even going far to tend to any made-up milk spill. Olivia’s bottle was empty, anyway. Instead, Nina stood at the counter and snacked on the chips we had set out.

We didn’t do formal game nights—ever—but it was a relaxed evening of all of us in the same place for once that we figured we should do something besides hanging around the pool. Olivia cried when water splashed into her eyes earlier, and that ended that fun.

With a fire roaring under the mantel, our hot cocoa or adult drinks consumed, and a lousy game of poker completed, we’d made a decent night of this fall evening.

Too bad Liam’s not here, though.I missed him more than I had any right to. But as I held his daughter and smiled back down at her gazing at me, I wanted him to see this side of me.The kinder side, the part of me that wanted a baby of my own one day.

Seeing as he was the only man to hold my interest for more than a passing glance, that was saying a lot.

“See?” Nina gestured at me. “Livy’s been seeing Eva around so much that she had to be familiar with her. I wanted to test out whether she could hold her.”

I frowned at her. “So, I’m an experiment?”

Nina winked. “Nah. Just wanted to corner you into holding her because you seem too shy to ask to hold her.”

Guilty as charged.I wasn’t shy about it. I was simply clueless how to ask or bring it up. Nina and Tessa had appointed themselves as suitable babysitters. Sure, they knew Liam for longer, but I was here all the time too since my house was being repainted.

And if I were to ask Liam himself if I could watch her, that would require me to approach him. Which went flatly against our return to carefully avoiding each other. It seemed he was stronger in the department of keeping things tojust sexandonly one more time.

Since he held me in the shower, I wanted him more and more. Each time intensified my need, and I wasn’t sure if I’d burn for him forever, at an accumulative pace of more lust, or if this connection would fade and fizzle if we didn’t feed the attraction between us. It felt like a game of limbo, not sure of where we’d end up.

“Where is Liam, anyway?” Romeo asked around a big yawn.

“He went out for a ride,” Nina said.

“Argh. I hated it when he said he got a motorcycle,” Tessa said. “They’re so dangerous.”

“Not as dangerous as supposedly trespassing on a goddamn MC’s territory,” Liam drawled.

We all turned, not noticing him enter the great room. He wasn’t limping, but something was bothering his leg to warrant a slow, off-kilter stride like that.

“Liam!” Tessa stood and faced him, gaping at the wounds he sported.

My heart stilled as I held Olivia, clutching her closer as though she’d notice her father so hurt and be scared. “What happened?” I hoped Olivia couldn’t feel my heart racing and get fussy, but I couldn’t hide my reaction.

His lip was split. Red, puffy skin raised in a circle around his eye. A scrape bled on his jaw, too. That was limited to the skin that was visible to us. I feared he’d taken more hits elsewhere that we couldn’t see.

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