Page 82 of Breaking the Ice

Nick glanced at Samantha’s shirt and her ruffled hair and her thoroughly kissed mouth, which did not help with his erection problem one little bit.

Samantha’s cheeks flushed. “So they aren’t.”

“Buttons are hard,” three-year-old Thomas piped up.

Cynthia turned her suspicious gaze on Nick, flicking over his rumpled hair. “Everything okay, here?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

There was an awkward pause where no one said anything. “Coffee?” Nick asked.

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Samantha seized the opportunity and escaped to the back room to straighten up while Nick busied himself with the hot drinks. By the time she joined them again she felt reasonably composed. But that was blown out of the water as she watched the ease with which he held a baby and jiggled a three-year-old on his knee.

For a man who didn’t want kids, he was pretty adept with them.

Her eggs, which had been lulled into a sexual stupor the last few days, woke up and she could hear them saying,We told you so, we told you so.

“I know this is really short notice,” his sister-in-law was saying, “but we need a babysitter tonight. Your brother made arrangements but they’ve fallen through. We could drop them to you and we shouldn’t be too late. Midnight tops.”

Samantha’s clucky eggs roared to life. “I could help,” she volunteered.

Nick and Cynthia turned to look at her. Cynthia’s gaze was pure speculation as she clearly tried to figure them out.Good luck with that one, Cyn.

“Are you sure?” Nick asked.

He was staring at her intently, his gaze full of heat and the hint of delicious possibilities. They had agreed not to meet at night. Daytime was fine, they had some constraints on their activities. Nighttime was different. Too much alone time.

But Cynthia’s children were cute as buttons.Nickwith Cynthia’s children was irresistible.

She couldn’t miss out on that!

Nick’s brother Richard arrived that evening moments after Samantha. He knocked on the door, the very one that Nick had her pushed up against the second she’d stepped into his apartment and swept her away to another world where all that existed was his mouth and his hands and the delicious sensations swirling through her body.

The knock startled the hell out of her.

“Later,” Nick whispered and gave her a quick hard kiss before he opened the door and she scooted across to the other side of the room.

Richard looked harried as he plonked a crying Maggie into Nick’s arms and dragged a recalcitrant Thomas behind him. Maggie stopped immediately and beamed a dribbly smile at her uncle. Samantha knew exactly how she felt. She’d been drooling over Nick for months now.

“Sorry,” Richard apologized. “She needs changing and Thomas is tired and cranky and sulking because we wouldn’t let him bring his fish.”

“I’ll change her,” Samantha offered, taking Maggie from Nick and accepting the bulky bag Richard had slung over his shoulder. Nick introduced them quickly and Samantha took a protesting Maggie into the bedroom.

“I know exactly how you feel, little one,” she crooned as she laid Maggie on Nick’s bed, “I never want to leave his arms either. Let’s get you all done and back to your hunky unky.”

Maggie rewarded her with a smile and Samantha’s heart squeezed painfully. Her eggs were positively cooing. She could see the family resemblance looking into Maggie’s sweet young face. What would Nick’s child look like? No, what wouldtheirchild look like?

She shook her head.Stop it, Samantha!

Picking the baby up, Samantha stopped just outside the living room when she heard her name being mentioned. She knew she shouldn’t eavesdrop but she couldn’t resist either.

“Cyn said she caught you and Sam making out at the shop this morning. Must be serious.”

“Did that wife of yours send you up here to do some digging?”

Even from out in the hallway, Samantha could head the humor in Nick’s voice.

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