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She wouldn’t be in his life long enough for him to find out. They were sharing a moment, not a life.
He could have retreated and taken refuge in his own bed—it was his normal modus operandi. Instead Zac switched off the light. He fell asleep smelling her hair.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHENZACWOKEup in the night he reached out groggily but found the bed beside him empty. He sat bolt upright and, without thinking, threw back the covers and swung his legs over the side, and as his feet hit the floor he heard a baby noise—noise as opposed to cry.
Pulling on the boxers he had taken off before he got into bed beside her, he headed to the nursery, and found the door open, the room lit by a rotating night light that threw illuminated animal shadows on the walls and ceiling.
Rose was standing in the middle of the room singing softly to the baby in her arms. As if she sensed his presence, her head lifted, her eyes widening as she saw him. She froze, then, after a moment of standing there transfixed, she glanced down at the baby before placing a finger to her lips in warning as her gaze returned to Zac.
He watched as she went over to the cot and laid her burden down before drawing the sheet up over him, and felt something shift and tighten in his chest. For several moments Zac forgot how to breathe.
She looked up, a question appearing in her eyes as their glances connected.
There was a tense silent beat.
This is just sex, Zac reminded himself.
On this perspective-establishing thought, he heard himself blurt stupidly, ‘I like your perfume.’
He watched a confused groove appear in her smooth brow, which, given he sounded like some sort of tongue-tied teenage idiot, was not to be wondered at.
‘I don’t wear perfume,’ she whispered back, glancing over her shoulder to check he hadn’t woken the baby.
He turned and walked out of the room, glad of the sense-cooling moment before Rose joined him, carefully leaving the door ajar.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ she whispered, her eyelids lowering on the memory of waking to find a heavy arm thrown across her hips... She had fully anticipated him waking as she’d eased herself away but he hadn’t, he’d been deep asleep.
Disturb...she had no idea. He reached out and took her arm, just because heneededto touch her. It seemed thin beneath the long-sleeved nightdress she had pulled on, which had in its favour a virtual transparency under certain lighting conditions.
‘You should have woken me.’
She had woken up next to a beautiful man, and thought he was a dream. She’d had to touch him to make sure he was real. The kiss had not been strictly necessary but she had been unable to resist the final reality check.
‘What are you smiling at?’ he asked suspiciously, observing the secret curve to her beautiful mouth. ‘That is a very prim nightdress.’
‘I’m sure Victorian misses got involved in some kissing when nobody was looking,’ she retorted naughtily.
‘Only the wicked ones,’ he rasped, fitting his mouth to hers. She had read his intention but she still gasped at the contact, then groaned when the pressure deepened as his tongue slipped between her parted lips.
‘Checking I’ve not been at the cooking sherry?’ she whispered against his mouth.
‘You don’t taste of sherry, but you don’t taste of me. I think we should work on that...’
Her heart was thudding like a drum. ‘I d-don’t know...’ she faltered.
‘Oh, I know... I know many things I think a wicked lady might enjoy, and I am a very good teacher.’ She raised herself on tiptoe and linked her arms around his neck. ‘Am I wicked?’
‘With me you are deliciously wicked.’ He glanced at the door. ‘Is he likely to wake again?’
‘It’s always a possibility with a baby.’
‘Then let us not waste time,’ he said, matching his suggestion with action as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to the bedroom and the bed.
Much later she lay with her head on his damp chest listening to his heartbeat. His fingers were tangled in her hair.
‘You are a g-good teacher,’ she said, lifting her face from his chest and gazing at him through her lashes before she kissed his chin and burrowed back down against him.
