Page 62 of Who's Your Daddy?

“And bythis...you meanthat?” She points to my crotch.

“Yep. In a couple days, you won’t even notice it.”

The cutest blush tints her cheeks. “It’s pretty big.” Her gaze drops, and she stares at it for a moment too long. “Hard...not to notice.”

I shut my eyes for a second because even though her tone is playful, the breathiness in her voice does something to me. “Shut up,” I say with a chuckle. “You’re making it worse.” A naughty smile greets me when I open my eyes again. “Why are you just staring at it?”

“I don’t know. It sort of feels like a superpower...like I can control it without touching it.”

“Please stop talking.” I shake my head, ridding myself of every dirty thought that look invokes before I redirect the conversation. “Uh...I know I came here to tell you something, but now...Oh, yeah. You’re working the four-hour shift today and tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Scott needs me to help him with something today, so we have to sort of change plans. Do you mind if I drop you off a little earlier today? I’ll make sure I leave by twelve-thirty, so we can still make it on time to our doctor’s appointment.”

“Sure, that’s fine.” She thinks it over for a second. “I work in the opposite direction to Scott’s place. If it makes it easier for you, I can just ask Rafael to pick me up on his way to work this morning. He passes this way anyway. It’ll just be a five-minute detour for him.”

Over my dead body. I know the look of a man who just wants to smash. I can spot my own kind. He obviously has different tactics. I’m more direct in my approach to women. He uses the side door to get in under the guise of friendship. Personally, I don’t think he’d stand a chance with Lia, even if she wasn’t pregnant. But the fact is, he’s going to try, and I don’t want him anywhere near her. And that includes friendly carpools to work.

“I’ll take you,” I say.

“Peter, I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“I’m sure he won’t either.” It’s a mixture of my icy tone and sardonic smirk that gives it away.

She picks up on my change of mood immediately. “What’s up with you? I’m just trying to make all the logistics of this easier. You’re gonna travel twenty minutes in one direction to drop me off. That means it’s gonna take you over an hour to go back the other way to get to Scott’s place. Or maybe even longer if you end up hitting mid-morning traffic. If Raf picks me up, it’ll be more convenient foryou.”

God, even his name grinds me. “In case you missed it, dollface, I signed up for a lifetime of inconvenience, and I can assure you I’m not reassigning that role to anyone else.” I place my forearm on the doorjamb and lean closer, lowering my voice like this is a secret just between us. “I also know that your skirt rides up about two inches when you get into my car...” I slide my finger into the waistband of her skirt, tugging her closer, and her breath catches in her throat. “...and I’m not reassigning that view to anyone else, either.”

There it is again. That adorable smile tugging relentlessly at her cheek, but she refuses to let it widen. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

She kills the smile and gives me a disinterested eye roll instead. “Fine.”

“Now, get ready, and let’s go.” I turn and start walking back to my bedroom.

“I left your breakfast in the microwave,” she yells out when I’m halfway down the hall. “And lunch is in the fridge.”

She did the same thing yesterday. I don’t know what time she wakes up to get all this done before she goes to work, but I’m not going to raise any questions because this is one of the very many things I missed when she was gone. It’s the one thing that solidifies the fact that she’s back. We may not be sharing a bed. The dynamic between us has changed, and it’s awkward as fuck sometimes, but if she’s cooking again, it means she’s comfortable and feeling at home. And that’s all I want.

“Thanks, Li,” I yell back.

I shower and change, then head downstairs to eat breakfast. Ten minutes later, we climb into my Bugatti. I bought the SUV as a sign to show her I was serious, but until the baby’s born, there’s no real use for it. And I want to enjoy every bit of my freedom before that day comes.

Lia hands me a bottle of water, then clips on her seatbelt. “You need this if your stubborn ass is gonna be cooped up in this car for an hour.”

“How kind of you.”

She crosses her legs, and maybe it’s because of the comment I made earlier, but the movement draws both our eyes to the silky smoothness of her thighs. She watches me, watching her, and I know she knows that all I’m thinking about is burying my head between those thighs.

“Be honest with me, Li.” I prop my elbow on the steering wheel, biting my thumb as a mechanism to restrain my hands, my mouth...everything. “Are you taking as much strain as me?”

“Possibly more. My hormones are all over the place. I have to battle horniness and nausea at the same time. And my nausea has doubled since I moved back in because I’m so disgusted at myself for perving over you in my mind. It isn’t fun.”

“Glad to know it’s not just me.” I spare a quick glance because I can’t afford to stare at her for too long. “And remind me again why I’m not balls-deep inside you right now?”

The lewdness of my question doesn’t even faze her. She expects that little of me. “Well, I want a committed relationship, possibly marriage, and you...don’t, and we agreed that compromising somewhere in the middle of those two extremes wouldn’t work well in the long run for us or our baby...so we removed sex and all related complications from the equation.”

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