AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hated to admit it, but I honestly bet he would’ve been a very distant, uninvolved parent.
That didn’t matter, though. Because I was here, and I’d help take care of his little girl for him, so she’d never want for anything.
“Hear that?” I leaned close to whisper to her. “I’m going to make sure you’re spoiled rotten. Uncle Vaughn’s going to get you whatever you want, okay?”
An hour later, the last thing she wanted was me.
Jiggling her lightly, I paced the living room floor, making clicking sounds with my tongue, but even that was getting on her nerves. She fussed and squirmed, needing something I obviously couldn’t give her.
She’d been irritable ever since she woke. I’d checked her diaper again and taken care of that, then learned pretty quickly that she liked it better when someone walked with her and made little sounds at her than someone rocking her quietly in a chair. But not even that was working now.
I rubbed a knuckle lightly against her lips, and she latched on to me ravenously, only to grumble a moment later when no milk came from my finger.
“Sorry, honey,” I murmured, circling the room for about the eighty-ninth time. “I don’t know where your milk’s kept.” There hadn’t been any bottles in the kitchen when I’d checked.
Footsteps on the carpet had me lifting my head just as Lucy emerged from the hallway, yawning and wiping her eyes.
“Hey,” I rushed out nervously, prepared to get raked over the coals for displeasing her daughter. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she mumbled at the end of her yawn. “I slept longer than I meant to.” Dropping her hand from her eyes, she blinked at me, then glanced around the living room. “Did my parents leave?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, swaying the baby some more as Ava turned even more irritable as if hearing her mother’s voice let her know it was her mama she truly wanted. “They said they had to go.”
Lucy froze and furrowed her brow in confusion. “So they just dumped Ava on you to babysit?”
When I shrugged and offered her a guilty smile, she huffed out a breath and hurried forward. “Oh my God. I am so sorry. You didn’t have to stay here and watch her like that. Someone should’ve woken me.”
As she reached out, I released the baby into her arms and then rubbed my own, feeling the loss of Ava’s heat and slight weight against me. “Sorry,” I murmured, already wanting the baby back. “But I didn’t mind watching her. We got in some good bonding time together. She slept and messed her diaper and…” I shook my head. “I think she’s hungry now. I tried looking for a bottle, but...” I shrugged helplessly.
>
Lucy’s smile was drowsy. “Yeah, she’s probably starving.” Glancing down at her daughter, she touched Ava’s cheek gently. “But I haven’t opened her package of bottles yet. I’ve just been breastfeeding her so far.”
“O-oh.” My eyes fell to her breasts against their will, and my face heated before I jerked my gaze back up. God, but her boobs looked huge. “I…I should’ve realized that.”
Lucy ignored me for a moment as she greeted Ava, murmuring happy sounds at her before nuzzling her face into Ava’s belly and then laughing and kissing her forehead. When she glanced up, I was struck by how much being a mother made her glow.
Even as tired as she looked with sleep-crazy hair and circles under her eyes, there was still this inner light about her.
Swallowing as I watched the light dim when she focused on me, I took a step back, realizing I wasn’t needed and was probably never actually wanted here. “I should probably be going.”
“Okay.” Lucy nodded and followed me to the door as I headed that way. “Well, thank you for watching her for me.” Her gaze moved to the gift bag I still had sitting next to the door. “And for the new gift. You didn’t have to…”
Her words trailed off as she looked up at me, only to realize that I’d stopped walking and had turned to face her. Jarring to a halt, she shuddered out an unsteady breath and then pressed her lips together before her gaze flittered down from my face and over my chest and then crawled back up again.
I just stood there the whole time, feeling heat bolt through my veins as she thoroughly checked me out. My libido didn’t seem to care that she was a new mother, that my brother had already had her, or that she wasn’t exuding any kind of seductive vibes at all. It wanted her with an intensity that momentarily rendered me braindead.
Need clogged my pores.
Squeezing my hands into fists at my sides, I took another second to pull myself together, and then I cleared my throat before answering, “I just saw it at the store and thought of her.”
Lucy smiled, and the ache inside me intensified.
This was my cue to leave, but I remained there, soaking in as much of her as I could get, until Ava stuttered out a short cry, letting us know that at least she was growing impatient with my departure.
We looked down at her together. I cleared my throat one last time and asked, “It’s okay if I come back again?”
Lucy lifted her face, and the surprise in her blue eyes was like an injection of pure arousal straight into the bloodstream. I honestly couldn’t recall being this attracted to anyone since…
