Page 17 of Single Dad Christmas

She blinked at him, amazed by how he seemed to see inside of her and understand. She’d been here a month and workedclosely with people like Donovan and nobody had seen beneath the veneer she presented at work. Not even Stuart Conroy, who knew what she’d left behind in Moricosia.

But somehow Noah saw.

“I’m okay,” she said, and she smiled because, with Noah, she felt better than okay. She actually felt kind of great.

He let go of her hand and just like when he’d saved her from the scooter kid, she felt a strange emptiness afterwards. She put her hand under the table, and rubbed her thigh, to try to get rid of the tingling in her fingertips.

“So, you were telling me how a handsome young man like you ends up with a fifteen-year-old,” she said, her voice shaking only the slightest amount.

He grimaced, sipped his drink, then replaced it slowly, staring at the condensation before flicking his glance up to Louisa. “It wasn’t planned,” he said, simply, and then dragged a hand through his hair. “I was twenty, Amy was twenty-three, and at the height of her career.”

Louisa nodded sympathetically, leaning forward a little.

“She fell pregnant, we got married, and then, there was Tay.”

Louisa’s smile was soft because his words were filled with love at the end of the sentence.

“So, you’re only a little bit old,” she teased.

“Thirty-five?” He pretended offence and she hid a smile behind her wine glass.

“Don’t worry. Some things get better with age, and I think you might be one of them.”

He let out a low whistle. “You’re making me feel bad for?—,”

“For?”

His eyes met hers with a startling intensity. “Some of my thoughts.”

“Your—Oh,” Heat flushed her cheeks as his meaning dawned on her. She shook her head a little, her lips parting. “I think…your thoughts and my thoughts would probably have a really good time together, if we let them.”

Her skin was slick with heat. Her body pumped with awareness. The world tipped sideways.

“I think you’re probably right.”

And he lifted his wine glass towards hers in another salutation, but this time, it also held a silent, sensual promise. Louisa met it without hesitation.

CHAPTER FIVE

HE READ THE TEXT FROM his housekeeper Kristen as Louisa unlocked the front door.

All good here.She came out for dinner, made some polite conversation, then went to her room. I just checked; she’s asleep.

And he exhaledbecause in the back of his mind, he’d had a sense of unease that even the beautiful Louisa couldn’t completely erase. Oh, she did a damned good job of distracting him, but there was still a small percentage of his brain left that could think about his daughter, and how much he was screwing everything up, and hating Amy, even when he knew it wasn’t her fault, for leaving him holding the baby.

“Okay,” Louisa turned to face him, and now he knew that Taylor was asleep, his night was suddenly his own again. He stepped into her apartment, and whether from the sheer force of relief or because he’d been wanting to do this all night, he put anarm behind her and drew her back against his body, just like he had on the street, only this time, he kissed her.

Hekissedher.

Because she’d been there and he’d wanted to, because the force of their chemistry had been turning them both into fireflies all evening.

He was about to pull away, but her lips were so soft, and her mouth so warm, and then she moaned and leaned harder against him, so her breasts were crushed to his chest and her hips shifted a little, and his whole mind went bright white and then utterly blank, so only his body was in control. He vaguely remembered a narrow console table being behind them, and he reached back and placed the bag of food there, so both his hands were free to hold her against him. She was all soft and warm and the flimsy cotton of her shirt was hardly anything, so he could feel her completely even through those clothes.

It was her lips though that were haunting him, kissing him back with just the same passion and need he felt, almost devouring him, and it was the easiest thing in the world to lift her and wrap her legs around his waist as he stalked deeper into her apartment and looked around for somewhere that they could keep doingthis.

“My bedroom—,” she said, pointing down the hallway.

His brain briefly flickered to life. “You’re sure?”

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