Page 51 of A Christmas Bargain

17

CLAIRE

It was pure luck that I woke up early enough to slip out of Derek’s arms. I didn’t intend to sleep with him—again. I certainly hadn’t planned to be naked in his bed when his daughter woke up.

She expected me to be in the guest room, and it seemed safest to keep up that lie. I grabbed the clothes I’d borrowed yesterday and snuck through the house until I found a guest room. It seemed like one, without any personal effects. I’d just lain down and closed my eyes when two minutes later, she knocked on the door.

“Claire? It snowed.”

“It did?” I replied, knowing full well that it had. “Come on in.”

She opened the door to run and jump up onto the bed. Bouncing and smiling, still in her pajamas, she looked like she was ready to burst from excitement. “Are you ready?”

“For breakfast?” Derek asked as he walked down the hallway and looked in the open door. He was still shirtless, rubbing his slightly hairy but sculpted chest as he yawned.

“Daddy,” Naomi whined. “She wants to build snowmen. Not have breakfast.”

I eyed him with her back to me, letting my face lighten up with an appreciative stare. I raked my gaze over him, admiring that disheveled and sleepy appearance he was rocking. I didn’t know how it was possible or what kind of science was working behind this theory, but a man with a beard was somehow that much sexier with a gruff, sleepy voice and a face still blank with drowsiness.

He perked up, though, waking up and becoming alert to how I checked him out.

Naomi spun back to smile at me, and I quickly schooled my face back into a normal, not horny, smile.

Behind her back now, Derek did the same to me, nearly pouting that he couldn’t have a chance to get back into bed with me.

“Breakfast first,” I told her. “Because we need energy to build all these snowmen, right?”

She sighed and nodded. “You’re right. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

I got out of bed after she climbed off it. I wasn’t sure whether breakfast was the most important meal of the day. In the city, I was always on the go and never relaxed enough in the morning to pause and prepare an actual meal.

But breakfast was quickly becoming my favorite meal of the day, especially when Derek was the one making it for me, shirtless and too sexy to stand.

Naomi scampered off, shouting back to us that she was getting dressed before meeting us in the kitchen.

Derek lingered, though, leaning his arm against the doorframe as I walked up to him.

“Yes?” I asked softly, running my hands up his chest.

“I was hoping to steal a good morning kiss…” He lowered to press his lips to my cheek. “But you snuck out of bed too quickly.”

“I didn’t want her to see me there.”

He kissed my other cheek. “I know. And I appreciate that. Whatever this is that we’re doing, we need to be careful around her.”

Meaning… you want to keep this going?I smiled as he hovered his lips over mine, a breath away from a kiss. “I agree.”

“You agree to stealing kisses when she’s not looking?” he whispered.

“Yeah.” I kissed him then, sighing against his lips.

“And you agree not to look at me like that?”

I laughed quietly. “Like what?”

“Like you wantmefor breakfast.”

“Hmmm.” I reached down to rub over his dick. “We’ll have to work that on the menu for another morning.”

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