Page 72 of Tempted By her Daddies

Salem sighed. “Tamsyn, you know that you shouldn’t have done that, right? You could have seriously hurt yourself.”

“She did hurt herself,” Alexei protested.

“Yes, you did hurt yourself,” Salem agreed. “You must be more careful, understand? We don’t care about the paintings or other things. What we do care about is you.”

To his shock, tears filled her eyes for a moment. Then she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were gone. And it made him question whether he’d seen them in the first place.

“Me?” she whispered.

“You,” Salem told her. “We care about you, Tamsyn. All three of us.”

She cleared her throat. “Right. Of course. I care about the three of you as well. You’ve all been so kind to me. Giving me a job and looking after me. But you know I’m just your housekeeper, right? No one special. You don’t have to take care of me like this.”

Salem’s gaze narrowed. “Just a housekeeper?”

Alexei whistled. “You’re in trouble now. Remember what I said about not pushing it with Salem.”

Salem snuck a look at Alexei half-expecting to find him smirking. As though he thought this was a game.

But the bigger man had his arms crossed over his chest and was giving Tamsyn a firm look.

Interesting.

More and more he was seeing that Alexei was taking his feelings for Tamsyn seriously. That reckless, don’t-give-a-care attitude wasn’t there where she was concerned.

Moving his gaze back to Tamsyn, he found her watching him closely. This was important. Was she testing him?

Even unconsciously?

He’d have thought she would know how he would react given their interaction at the club. Then again, he’d been holding back since then. Not wanting to cross any lines between them. To take any sort of advantage of her.

He turned to look at Roman. Did the other man understand how important this moment was?

Roman was studying Tamsyn as though she was some interesting sort of specimen. The man was obsessed and Salem had only ever seen him get like this over his work.

“Not anything special?” Salem added in a deliberately quiet voice.

Her eyes widened. He picked up her foot and reached over to grab the ice pack. He wanted her to know that caring for her wouldn’t stop. Even when he wasn’t particularly happy with her.

“Is that really what you just said?” he asked. “Have we not had a conversation about putting yourself down and how I feel about that?”

“Well . . . yes. I don’t see it as putting myself down when it’s the truth, though.”

“The truth? Interesting,” Alexei said.

She was trying to hide her pain, but he had seen her wince when he grabbed her foot and raised it.

“I, um, what?”

“Have you taken any of these painkillers before?” he asked, picking them up.

“I don’t think so.”

Alexei moved to sit next to her on the sofa. He looked like he was itching to touch her and Salem was shocked that he was holding himself back.

“This brand has very good reviews,” Roman said, grabbing a bottle. “I believe we should try this one.”

“Good. Let’s do that,” Salem said, watching her closely. He didn’t want to completely railroad her to the point that she was overwhelmed. But if she couldn’t make the decision, he was more than happy to make it for her. He ran his hand up and down her calf.

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