Misty and the Single Dad

and close the doors between them and treat this as just…as just him steadying her because she’d risen too fast.

But one of his hands had released her shoulder, and now his fingers were under her chin, tilting her face to meet his.

Yes.

No?

Um…yes. Yes, and yes and yes. Her face was definitely tilting and there was no need for his fingers to propel. She was propelling all by herself. Her bare toes were rising so she was on tiptoe, so he could hold her tighter, so she could meet… His mouth.

Her whole world centred on his mouth.

Her lips parted involuntarily, and why wouldn’t they? She was being kissed by a man who’d made her body melt practically the first time she’d seen him. See a man across a crowded room and your world turns to fire… She’d read that somewhere, in a romance novel or a short story or even a poem. She’d thought it was nuts.

Nicholas Holt had walked into her classroom and she’d thought he was Adonis. Only he wasn’t. He was just… Nicholas.

He was pressuring her mouth to open, gently, wondrously, and her lips were responding. She seemed to be melting. Her mouth seemed to be merging with his. His hands were tugging her up to him. Her breasts were moulding to his chest. The world was dissolving into a mist of desire and wonder and white-hot heat.

He tasted of salt, of warmth, of wonder. He tasted of…

Nicholas.

Her body no longer belonged to her. It felt strange, different, as if she were flying.

She let her tongue explore his. Oh, the heat…

Oh, but he felt good.

‘Misty…’

It was his voice, but she scarcely recognised it. He’d put her a little away from him and his voice was husky, with passion and with desire. He wanted her.

It felt powerful to be wanted by a man like this. It felt amazing.

‘Mmm?’ Their mouths were apart, but only just. She let her feet touch the floor again, grounding herself a little with bare toes on bare boards. Cooling off.

‘It’s too soon,’ he whispered into her hair, but he didn’t let her go.

‘To take me to bed, you mean?’ she whispered back and she surprised herself by managing a trace of laughter. ‘Indeed it is. So if you think…’

‘I’m not thinking.’

Only of course he was. They both knew what they were both thinking.

And why not? She was twenty-nine years old, Misty thought with sudden asperity. If they both wanted it…

Um…she’d known the guy for two days. He was right. It was too soon.

‘So back on your side of the door, tenant,’ she managed and he smiled and put her further away, but he was still holding her. They were a whole six inches apart but his hands were on her shoulders and if he tugged…

He wouldn’t tug. They were both too sensible for that.

‘Let’s just see where this goes,’ he said and she nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘But not tonight.’

‘No.’

‘So different doors?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And a small hole in the wall for dogs and Bailey. But not for us.’

‘But rockers on the veranda?’ she said, trying to smile.

‘Not cocoa?’ He was laughing at her.

‘No!’

‘Dangerous thing, cocoa.’

‘It is,’ she said with asperity. ‘Even cocoa has risks.’

Risks. She thought suddenly, inexplicably, of her list. Her scrapbooks.

Her scrapbooks were dreams. Maybe fate had sent her Nicholas instead.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HOW could a girl sleep soundly after that? She managed a little, but she slept thinking Nick was just through the wall and she woke up thinking the same.

Nick was her tenant, but their worlds were already intertwined.

Was that a good thing?

Monday. School. No matter how muddled her thoughts, she needed to get going.

She went to check the dogs and found them already on the back lawn, with Nick supervising. He was wearing his boxers again, and nothing else. Get dressed before you leave your side of the house, she wanted to say, but she didn’t because that’d tell him she’d noticed. And she didn’t want to make a big deal of it.

Besides…she was absurdly aware that she wasn’t dressed either, or she was, but just in her nightie that was a bit too short and her pink fluffy slippers that were just a bit too silly.

‘Cute,’ Nick said, surveying her from the toes up, and her toes were where her blush started.

‘Inappropriate,’ she said, flustered. ‘Go get your son ready for school.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He hesitated and she felt like fleeing and finding a bathrobe.

She didn’t have a bathrobe.

She’d buy one in her lunch hour this very day.

‘If you take Bailey to school I’ll look after the dogs,’ he said.

‘Okay,’ she said cautiously, wondering what she was getting herself into. Suddenly she was committed to a school run? ‘You’ll need to pick him up, though,’ she warned. ‘I visit Gran after school.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘The dogs can come with me.’

‘They’ll be okay by themselves if you need to leave.’

‘Mostly I’ll stay,’ he told her. ‘I have my desk set up overlooking the sea. My son’s safe. I’ll have dogs at my feet. What more could a man want?’

‘A pipe and slippers,’ she said, and she caught herself sounding waspish. What was wrong with a pipe and slippers?

‘You’ll need to think about shopping,’ she told him. ‘You can’t live on pizza for ever.’

‘Would you like to eat together tonight?’

‘No!’ It was a response of pure panic.

‘No?’

‘I…I may need to stay longer with Gran. Sometimes I grab a takeaway burger and eat with her.’

‘Is she very ill?’

‘She’s not aware…’ she started and then her voice trailed off at the impossibility of explaining the unexplainable. ‘Or maybe she is. I’m not sure.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, but sometimes I think she is. And then I stay.’ She hesitated. ‘Maybe she’d like to meet Bailey. I’ll tell her about him. If you think Bailey…’

‘We could do that,’ he said gravely. ‘Tell me when.’

When I’m ready, she thought as he retreated to his side of the house and closed the door behind him. When I’m ready to admit that these doors might stay open.

‘That was fast.’