Page 54 of Tempting Fate
“You do not seem so glad.”
She looked down at the bundle in her arms, convinced that Caroline, such a peaceful child, might take after herself. Would she only be an aunt for the rest of her days? Might no one ever call her Mother? “If I’m honest, I’m envious. Mercy always claimed she’d never marry. She made me promise not to, either. We were going to make our own way in this world the same way we came into it. Together. And here we are… here I am… beholden to duty while her choice has somehow granted her a modicum of freedom.”
She cleared a gather of bitterness from her throat at the same time Charlotte made an adoring noise up at Gareth.
“I think she likes you,” she murmured when the child curled a strong, chubby fist around one of his rough fingers.
“How can you tell?”
“Look at her face, she’s very contented.”
“Well…” His nose wrinkled in a wry grimace. “That might have been the bubbles I just felt coming out of the back end.”
Felicity threw her head back and laughed in a burst of pure merriment. How easily he could dispel her earlier melancholy with his dry wit. And her loneliness with his very presence.
When she finally looked over at Gareth, he’d gone perfectly still.
And was smiling at her. An honest-to-goodness smile. Both sides of his lips relaxed into something that looked like joy.
It was like standing in the sun for the first time. Warm and beautiful and breathtaking.
“Haven’t you ever held a child before?” she asked, glancing away and clenching her thighs.
“Never.”
“At your age? I find that hard to believe.”
His smile melted into mock effrontery. “I’m no Methuselah.”
“How old are you?”
“All of four-and-thirty,” he sniffed, obviously offended.
“It’s not your age that surprises me, just that you’ve never been around children. There are only twelve years between us and that’s no significant difference, I think.”
“I should think not.”
Charlotte chose that moment to shove his captured finger into her mouth and chew on it with ruthless vigor, drawing his attention.
“I’m too big a meal for you, little one,” he chuffed. “But gnaw away if it makes you feel better.”
Charlotte cooed, smiling and drooling on his hand.
“Would you look at that, your sister’s raising a little cannibal.” He checked to see if Felicity witnessed the spectacle, a winsome smirk of pride smoothing out the savage planes of his face. Producing handsome branches at the corners of his eyes and deepening the lines of his mouth.
Oh, she was looking.
She was looking in a way she’d never looked at him before. Her skin tingled and tightened around her bones and suddenly she was aware of all things that made her a woman. Her breasts became heavy, aching, the tips tightening to an almost painful degree. All the moisture deserted her mouth but pooled between her thighs. Thighs that yearned to open and clench simultaneously.
This man. He claimed to have no children. No family. And it seemed like a travesty that the world would keep existing without his child in it.
What a waste of all that masculine perfection.
Dear lord, how alarming that her body seemed to be petitioning for the job without her permission.
Felicity might be innocent, but she now understood why authors described lust as hunger. It was so physical and base. So consuming. When one needed to eat, the body and brain rarely allowed any function until the hunger was sated. The need was obsessive. Overwhelming.
So, too, was this.
