LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Get out of my way.” She pushed him. It was like trying to move a rock with a feather.

      “You’re not leaving the Cove until we’ve talked some more.”

      She fisted her hands on her hips. “Are you trying to scare me? Bully me? Great way to convince me I should consider you being a part of my daughter’s life.”

      He tipped his head back and closed his eyes as if trying to hold on to his self-control. She knew the feeling.

      He sighed. “I said I need time. You owe me that. Tell me you’ll stay and let me have time to process this. We’ll meet tomorrow when, hopefully, I can think straight.”

      Her heart thumped and her body trembled. How could she refuse him twenty-four hours? He dipped his chin and his crystal-blue, black-lashed eyes bored into hers. As much as she wanted to sprint upstairs, pack and get the hell out of there, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t have done that to anyone...but especially not him. Not to the father of her child. God damn it, not when he was a man she wanted to touch so badly it made her want to scream.

      More than that, how could she refuse his request when he looked at her in the exact same way Belle did when she was hurt, confused and desperate to understand what her mother had just told her?

      Her shoulders slumped and she closed her eyes. “Fine. I’ll wait for you to call.”

      “Promise?”

      She huffed out a wry laugh. Belle would’ve said that, too. She opened her eyes. “Yes.”

      “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

      His gaze lingered over her face, slowly evolving and changing. She stood rooted to the spot as his frustration abated and turned to something equally as fiery, but now its implication ran over her body in a way that made her yearn. Her breath turned harried as her body tingled with awareness.

      Just as she recognized his intention, he gripped her hand and tugged her forward. Carrie opened her mouth to protest but it was too late. His lips touched hers as he held her firmly against his broad, hard chest.

      Stop this! Stop this now! But she leaned into him, her toes curling in her boots and her core humming mercilessly. She could do this. She could match him blow for blow, kiss for kiss. A groan escaped and she raised her hand to grip his neck. She was in control... Liar!

      She had never felt so out of control since the night she slept with him. Her body trembled with a desire that hadn’t been ignited in any shape or form since Scott last touched her. This wasn’t the desire she felt for Gerard during their lovemaking. This was fraught with danger and potential heartbreak of a different kind. She had to stop the kiss and stop it now.

      Gathering her strength, she pushed her hands flat against his chest and shoved. “Happy now?” She raised her eyebrows, her body a mess. “Exerted enough authority to stroke your ego? Don’t touch me again. Do you hear me?”

      His gaze was feral. “I needed to know if it’s still there. I’ve never forgotten you. I’ve never had a relationship or even sex with another woman that compared to what I had when I was with you. Don’t you dare leave.”

      He stormed past her, toward the exit, before she had time to tell him to go to hell or even draw a breath. She raised her shaking hand to her tender mouth. What had she done? How could she have not seen Scott Walker was a man who took what he wanted whenever he wanted it and to hell with the consequences?

      Despite her bravado, the need to slump to the floor reverberated through her weakened muscles. She cast her manic gaze left and right. People lingered, watching her curiously. Embarrassment replaced her shameful lust. Her first kiss in months and it was with the man Gerard always suspected she loved. Tears burned. Was this love? Did it make you lose your mind? Do things you normally wouldn’t? Carrie trembled. Did it really hurt this much? Did it make you want to run and hide...yet still reach out for the person in question?

      Inhaling a shaky breath, Carrie stormed toward the elevator. The seconds passed like hours as she waited for the doors to open.

      “Good afternoon, madam. Which floor?”

      She forced a smile at the elevator attendant’s greeting, cursing the world that she wasn’t alone to collapse to the floor. “Six, please.”

      He pressed the button and Carrie concentrated her gaze on the rising neon numbers above the door. When the doors pinged open, it took every ounce of her self-control not to sprint through the opening like a woman possessed. Instead, she tossed the attendant a wide smile and walked out with as much dignity as she could muster.

      Just as the doors closed behind her, her cell phone beeped with an incoming text. Dread knotted her stomach as she slowly extracted her phone from her bag and looked at the display.

      You owe me some time. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning at nine. Scott.

      Carrie closed her eyes as the corridor walls drew in on her until she thought she would scream out loud.

      * * *

      SCOTT SAT AT his kitchen table, frustration curling his hands tighter on his coffee mug. Any man who ran his own business, paid mortgage payments on a three-bedroom detached house and owned a car, as well as his beloved bike, should be able to have a quiet cup of coffee with some good eggs while he contemplated his day ahead. Well, that was no more the case the morning after he learned he was father to a two-year-old little girl than it was any other day.

      He glowered over the rim of his coffee cup. Once again, his three sisters had turned up uninvited, kissed their mother at her seemingly permanent position at the stove and then taken seats at his table waiting to be fed. The loud, and too often brash, tirade of conversation bounced from the walls and Scott squirmed as the hardened veneer that sealed in his frustration threatened to splinter.

      Once again, the pressure of his familial obligation rose hot and heavy in his chest, burning and clawing at his need to escape. He worked hard and as he earned more money, he planned to be free of the responsibility his absent father had dumped in his lap years before. He planned to help his mother and youngest sister get their own places so he’d have his solitude back. He planned to employ someone else to manage the garage so he’d be free to travel the world, if and when he chose to do so.

      Now it was possible that he was a father. The responsibilities had just gotten a whole lot worse.

      He curled his fingers tighter around the handle of his coffee cup. A father. The simple fact was, if what Carrie said was true, it was his own fault. They’d made love once with a condom; the second time protection had been the last thing on his mind in his eagerness to have her. He couldn’t remember her injecting any sanity or responsibility into the moment, either...

      He closed his eyes as the noise and his sisters’ presence clawed at his nerves. He took a gulp of his coffee and glared at each of them in turn.

      As much as he hated it, the perpetual feeling of suffocation gathered strength. He didn’t want his mother or sisters to change. He loved them and adored the unbreakable bond they held with each other—and him. Yet today, more than ever, he felt like a fraud.

      The resentment he harbored toward his father fought its way to the surface. He had to find a way to separate himself once and for all from the man who sired him.

      All the effort he’d put into not getting involved, not hurting a woman when she might want more than he could give...and now this.

      A father to a baby conceived in the week he’d never forgotten...with the woman he’d never forgotten. How could he deny the suffocation didn’t ease every time Carrie looked at him since she came back? She must be telling him the truth about the baby. She had no reason to lie. There was a little girl out there who’d never known him as he’d never known her.

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