Page 72 of Under Daddy's Spell

His mouth found hers once more, lingering a heartbeat longer this time. “Bye, baby.”

“See ya later, Daddy Gator.”

He chuckled as he turned to leave. “My girl is a nut.”

She didn’t used to be. He brought it and a lot of other buried stuff, the very best stuff, out in her.

Chapter Twenty-One

TESSA TRIED NOT TOgawk at the affluence surrounding her. As she took in the black-and-white marble floors, the two-story vaulted ceilings, and the wide central staircase, with treads so dark and gleaming she would have sworn they were onyx, she found it hard not to. And this was just the entryway.

He called it a lake house, which, in her experience was a rustic cabin or a log home with lots of lakeside decking. This place was a mansion. The foyer and living room, which she could see through the arched doorway, were the size of her entire house.

“I went into the wrong line of work,” she murmured in awe. But seriously, how did a gym owner afford a place like this? It was rude to comment about a person’s wealth, or lack thereof, but she hinted at it. “Business must really be booming.”

“Tallahassee is my twentieth location across the Southeast. I ain’t hurting.”

“I can see that.”

“But I’ll never schedule two grand openings in the span of two weeks again. Want to take a tour?”

“Would I? I thought you’d never ask!”

He chuckled as he led her down the hallway, flipping on lights as he went. “We’ll start at the back of the house with my favorite room.”

They passed through a dream kitchen with a massive island and more cupboards than she could count into a large yet cozy family room. The enormous sectional sofa and three recliners faced a fireplace, but the apparent focal point of the room, was the wall-mounted TV above it—at least twice as big as her forty-two-inch screen at home. Thinking this masculine hangout was the favored spot, she walked farther into the room.

“Out here,” he said, opening a set of French doors and leaving her to follow.

When she joined him and took in the glass walls surrounding her, the huge paddle fan in the ceiling, the thickly cushioned wicker furniture, and the profusion of greenery with potted plants everywhere, she immediately fell in love with it, especially the view of the lake. She could see the last few fingers of light streaking across the twilight sky, the reds and purples mirrored in the water beneath it.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I never tire of it. I’m not home a lot, but when I am, and it’s raining, you’ll find me out here.”

There was a stack of paperbacks on a table and a pair of glasses beside them. Imagining him in lounge pants, and nothing else other than his flawless skin, while he read out here in the rain, made him all the more attractive. He’d already proved he was more than muscle and a pretty face. Now she saw they had much more in common than she thought.

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