A Daddy for Her Daughter (11 page)

“Showing you that there's nothing wrong with a little laughter.” He grinned and slid his body into the water until he was facing her, the bottoms of his feet sliding up her calves, over her knees and working their way up her thighs. “As long as that laughter ends with me making love to you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

H
IS
JEANS
WERE
staying on. Because if he took them off, it was all over. The look of shock on her face had made the pain of not being able to immediately take what he wanted a little easier to bear. He would get there. Soon enough.

“So this is your tub.” He stretched both arms along the ledge on either side of him. Set into the corner of the room, the white fixture was definitely big enough for the both of them. He was able to fully extend his legs without a problem. The only thing wrong with the setup was that she'd put so many damned bubbles into the water, he couldn't see a thing.

Do you promise not to laugh?

When he'd realized what she meant, the words had hit his gut like a freight train. He couldn't imagine anyone laughing at Maddy.

But she'd felt insecure enough to think that he might.

“Was I right about its size?”

“You were. It's far too big for my liking, in fact.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “It is?”

“Absolutely. You are much too far away.” With that, he ducked his arms beneath the water until he found her calves. He wrapped his fingers around them and tugged. Maddy came sliding toward him with a small screech. She laughed again, making him smile. “That's better.”

He slid his ankles around her backside, his body erupting with need when his bare feet met nothing but her skin. Okay, so the jeans might not have been a good idea after all. He was going to have a hell of a time getting them off when the time came. Especially since he could well imagine which parts of her body were now resting against his lower half.

Trying to forget about that, he cupped her face and leaned in to kiss her, taking up where they'd left off in the other room. Maddy's hands went to his shoulders, her wet fingers warm from being submerged in the water.

“You need to take your jeans off.”

The whispered words echoed his earlier thoughts.

“I will in a few minutes.” Some kind of long beige sponge lay to the left of them along the edge of the tub. He touched it, surprised to find it wasn't soft and spongy at all, but firm.

“That's the loofah.” She took it from him and poured some kind of liquid onto it. “Turn around.”

“Not a chance.” The last thing he wanted to do was face away from her.

She leaned in and kissed his cheek, her chin rubbing along his jawline. “I promise I'll make it worth your while.”

Dammit. Now she had him thinking all kinds of crazy things. Unhooking his ankles from behind her, he stood, turning to face the far wall, which had a large mirror attached. He sank back into the water, his eyes meeting Maddy's. This time, she was the one with the smile.

“Back up so I can reach you.”

He did just that, her legs coming around his, feet tucking beneath his thighs. The sponge connected with his back and she scrubbed with just enough pressure to make his nerve endings stand up and sing. “Hell.”

Maddy laughed. “Really? Because I always thought it felt like heaven.”

Heaven. Hell. They were kind of all squashed together in his head right now.

Leaning forward a bit, he closed his eyes, unable to keep a low groan from coming out. She continued to move the sponge over him, gradually working her way up until she reached his shoulders.

Then something soft pressed against the skin of his back and his eyes popped open just as he realized what it was. Her breasts. Before he could do anything, Maddy looped her arms over his shoulders, sliding the top of the sponge down his chest and over his abdomen until it dipped beneath the water. Then it pressed against a part of him that was beginning to protest. Loudly. Insistently.

He grabbed the sponge from her and set it back where it came from.

“Now, Maddy,” he said, staring at her in the mirror and realizing he was fighting a battle he had no desire to win. “Now it's time to lose the jeans.”

* * *

Something was tickling her ear.

Not physically, but...

Sound. The gentle trill of...an alarm clock?

No. She shifted her hand and met warm flesh. She snuggled closer, an arm coming around her waist and dragging her fully against him.

And there were no jeans to come between them this time.

The noise came again. Melodic. Distant.

A phone? She blinked her eyes open for a second. Her hand slid along his bare arm, enjoying the rough feel of masculine hair against her palm.

The singsong tune morphed into something not so pleasant. She didn't want to listen to it anymore. In fact, she didn't want to listen to anything except...

Something banged repeatedly against a hard surface.

The figure behind her sat up and turned her onto her back, a slight smile playing around the edges of his mouth.

Kaleb. Wow. So it hadn't been a dream.

None of it. Heat swept over her body as she remembered the second he'd lowered that zipper.

Light peeked around the edges of her curtains. It was morning.

Something pounded again. It was a little too early for repairs, wasn't it?

“Someone's at your door.” His thumb came out to slide along her lower lip. A shiver went over her.

She stretched, enjoying what met her eyes. His chest was naked, the sheet just barely covering his...

...at the door?

“Maddy? Hello? Are you home?”

A voice... The sound was no longer outside, but inside the apartment!

Inside!

Wrenching herself upright, she stared at Kaleb, no longer in admiration, but in abject panic as she recognized the sound. “It's my sister,” she hissed. “You have to get out of here. Now!”

He leaned closer, that lazy grin sliding across his face. “Do you want me to leap from your window?”

“No, I just...” She cleared her throat and made her voice loud enough to be heard. “Just a second, Roxy. I'm just now getting up.”

Scrambling from the bed, she stripped his shirt from her chest and tossed it at him. “You. Dressed. Now!”

Maddy dragged her clothes on as fast as humanly possible, not caring that it was the same outfit she'd worn yesterday. Then she yanked her fingers through her tangled hair. “Coming.”

She didn't stop to check whether or not Kaleb was doing what she asked; she simply whisked through the bedroom door, pulling it shut behind her. As long as she could keep Roxy—or, worse, Chloe—from discovering that Kaleb McBride had spent the night in her bed, she would be fine. She hoped.

The man had to have known he rocked her world. No one had made love to her like that in...well, forever. There were no comparisons, and that scared the hell out of her.

She strolled down the hall and into the living room, wearing the biggest smile she could muster. “Hey, you two...”

Her voice died. Because, yes, Roxy and Chloe were there. In fact, her daughter launched herself into her arms and hung on tight. But standing just behind them was someone she hadn't expected.

“Mom? What are you doing here?”

Keeping one arm around Chloe, she glanced back at the bedroom, hoping against hope that Kaleb was not going to pull that door open and let everyone know he was there.

Roxy, she could handle; her sister had had her share of lovers over the years. Not so much recently, but in their younger days. Maddy could have even come up with some kind of funny explanation for Kaleb being here—although nothing sounded particularly humorous to her at the moment.

But her mom?

Oh, no. She would see right through the ploy. She would know. She always did.

Her mom laughed and came over to kiss her cheek. “I'm happy to see you too, dear.” She glanced around the room. “You've been trying to get me to come out here for a visit for a while, and after...well, what happened with Matthew, I wanted to see where you lived. I would have come for your birthday yesterday, but Roxy told me she'd promised you a night alone.”

Oh, Lord. She'd definitely not been alone. Not then. And not now.

“Mommy? My head hurts.”

The words came from Chloe, and while she did her best to concentrate on what they meant, she was still trying to figure out why her mom had really come. Today of all days. How was she going to get Kaleb out of that room?

“I'm sorry, sweetheart,” Maddy said. “Do you need some medicine?”

“No. It's not a sicky headache, just a normal one.” Chloe got migraines from time to time, but it had been months since her last one. She always wondered if she'd handed her daughter some kind of defective gene. If maybe her asthma had passed itself off as migraines in Chloe. Ridiculous. She knew it was, but there was always a tiny shard of guilt every time her daughter suffered through one of her bad headaches.

She decided she was going to have to enlist her sister's help if she was going to get through this. “Chloe, how about if you show Nana your room? Jetta was sleeping on your bed last time I saw him. Maybe he's still there.”

So what if the last time she'd seen the cat was after midnight, just as Kaleb was carrying her to bed after making love to her in the bathroom? Maybe the cat really was still there.

“Sure! C'mon, Nana. It's right down this hallway.”

Her mom threw Maddy a quick frown, but followed her granddaughter. As soon as they were out of earshot, she grabbed Roxy's arm. “You've got to keep them in there for about five minutes.”

Her sister tilted her head. “What are you talking about?”

“There's no time to explain.” She half dragged her down the hallway. “Just do it. Please.”

Maddy stopped with her hand on the doorknob to her bedroom. Her sister's eyes got wide. She whispered, “You...you've got a
man
in there.”

That struck her as insanely funny for some reason. “Well, it's certainly not a pony.”

“Oh, my God, Maddy. You are so going to spill when this is all over.”

At this point, she didn't care what she had to do. So long as Kaleb was on his way out of her apartment before her mother came out of that room.

Roxy hurried down the hallway, her voice much louder than necessary. “I haven't seen good old Jetta in ages. Can I join in?” Her sister threw Maddy one last grin before disappearing into the room.

Before she could turn the knob on her own bedroom door, it opened so fast she practically fell inside.

“You have to leave,” she whispered. “Right now.”

“That's what I'm trying to do.” His voice didn't sound nearly as friendly as it had a few minutes ago. “What's wrong with Chloe?”

“Wrong?” She tried to hurry him along, thanking God they'd had the foresight to throw his jeans into the dryer last night. She did her best not to remember how those same jeans had felt scraping over her legs as he'd climbed into the tub.

“She said her head hurt.”

“Oh. Yes. She gets headaches periodically. She's fine.”

Kaleb's face unexpectedly blanched, turning a sickly white. Probably worried about getting caught, just as she was. She wouldn't be surprised if her own face was rather pasty right now.

They made it to the front door, and she quietly opened it. “Thanks for everything.” She closed her eyes for a minute. “I mean... Well, you know what I mean.”

“Yes.” He stepped outside the door and paused. “Have you had them looked at?”

“Sorry?” She was doing her best to keep her voice down to a whisper, but she was running out of time. And patience.

“The headaches.”

“We've already been to a couple of specialists.” She did her best to smile. “I really, really don't want my mom to find you here. Sorry.” With that, she shut the door with as soft a click as she could and prayed he hadn't left anything lying...

Yanking in a quick breath, she raced through the hallway and glanced into the bathroom. Nothing there, thank God. She tiptoed back a few steps to peek into her room. Unmade bed, but that was to be expected. It was barely—she glanced at her watch—eight o'clock.

Just then she spotted two towels beside the bed. She went in and grabbed them, hoping she could hurry to the bathroom and throw them over a towel bar. Just as she came out of the room, her mom and the rest of her entourage appeared. And two pairs of adult eyes swung to her hands, which clutched one blue towel and one white towel. Her mom's eyes slowly shifted back to hers, a question in them Maddy had no intention of answering.

“Just cleaning up from last night.” Realizing how that sounded, she hurried to add, “Roxy kept Chloe for me and sent me home with a bag of spa treatment goodies, and so I took full advantage of it.”

“Full advantage. I'll say.” Roxy's amused voice held a wealth of meaning, but Maddy ignored it the best she could.

“One towel for my hair and one for the rest of me.”

Her mom's brows cranked up in steady increments. “Why are you explaining, dear?”

“Well, because...” She was so going to get struck by lightning for lying. “...I wouldn't want you to get any strange ideas.”

“I'll just put these away so you can go make us some coffee. It looks like you could use some.” Roxy plucked the towels from her hand, leaning down to whisper, “If she didn't have any ideas before, she certainly does now.”

“Just what I need,” Maddy breathed in return. But really she was glad to have something to do. And that Kaleb had made it out of the house unnoticed.

Just then the doorbell rang. Oh, no! What more could possibly happen? She looked through the peephole and was met by a familiar face. Her heart careened through her chest. Sending up a quick prayer, she opened the door and pretended he was a complete stranger. “Yes? Can I help you?”

Kaleb wasn't smiling. And the flirtatious demeanor from this morning was long gone. But at least he kept his voice low. “I think I left my keys in your bathroom.”

Roxy appeared beside her. She glanced at Maddy and then at the man in the entryway. “I think you might be looking for these.” She let the keys dangle from her fingertips.