Pompous Player (Cocky Hero Club)

When I pick her up, she fusses, opening her mouth like she does when she wants to be fed.

“Okay,” I say, nodding. “We’ll get breakfast. You let me get like four whole hours of sleep, so I guess I’m good.”

I kiss the top of her soft little head. It took no time at all for Avery to wrap me around her little finger. She upended my life, but I’m not sorry. If life had gone according to my plan, I probably would’ve ended up married to a woman who handled most of the parenting while I worked.

Winter is definitely not that woman. She doesn’t take pity on me. There’s no help changing shitty diapers and no getting up with me in the middle of the night when it’s my night with Avery. She’s the opposite of the easygoing, compliant women I date.

The smell of coffee lures me into the kitchen, and when I walk in, Winter’s pouring herself a cup at the counter. She’s wearing a pair of blue cotton shorts that are really short and show off her long, lean legs and a gray tank top that leaves nothing to the imagination.

Damn, that body. Even with my infant daughter in my arms, I can feel myself getting hard.

“Could you stop looking at me like that?” she asks, annoyed.

“Like what?”

“You know what.”

“No, I don’t. Why don’t you tell me?” I ask, smirking. I love goading her, especially when she’s already snippy in the morning.

I walk over to the row of clean bottles on the kitchen counter, glad Winter washed all of them. Avery gets fussy as I put one together, and Winter comes over and takes her.

“Good morning, little sunshine,” she says in a sweet voice. “Are you hungry?”

Just the brush of Winter’s fingers over my bare chest as she takes Avery from my arms sends a charge of arousal through my veins. I can’t adjust myself right in front of her, so I make Avery’s bottle and hold my open arms out to Winter.

“Really?” She asks, her tone both amused and annoyed. “You’re going to feed her with a raging hard-on?”

I shrug. “She’s not gonna know.”

Winter cringes and reaches for the bottle. “I’ll feed her, you perv. Go find a magazine in your bathroom or something.”

“If you don’t want to see my morning wood, wear some clothes when you come out of your bedroom.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re only wearing boxers.”

“Yeah, but you don’t hear me complaining about seeing your nipples while you drool all over my boner.”

Winter stops abruptly on her way out of the kitchen, turning to face me. “You’re just trying to get a rise out of me, but it’s not gonna work. There were no nipples and there was certainly no drool.”

“It’s nothing to be sorry for. Obviously it’s been a long time since you were…you know.”

She sets her lips into a thin, angry line. “No, I don’t know.”

“Fucked.” I grab the coffeepot and see that it’s empty. “A word which also applies to me right now. You couldn’t even leave me a cup? I was up most of the night.”

Winter rocks Avery in her arms. “Make your own damn coffee, Harry. And for your information, my sex life is great.”

I laugh as I scoop a generous heap of coffee grounds into the coffee maker. “Liar.”

She adjusts Avery in her arms and starts feeding her. I admire the way she can do that. Winter can hold and feed Avery with just one arm when she needs to. I have to be settled in a chair to feed her, a burp cloth nearby and a pillow under one arm.

With Avery focused on her bottle, there’s nothing but heavy tension in the air now.

“When I want to, I can have sex anytime I want,” Winter says pointedly.

“I don’t doubt it. You’re beautiful, especially when your mouth’s closed.”

Her lips part with indignation, but she ignores the jab. “For the past year, I’ve been entirely focused on Mal and Avery. While you were off sticking your dick in anything with two tits and a pulse, I was raising your newborn baby, you pompous asshole.”

“Might want to watch your language, unless you want Avery’s first word to be asshole.”

She narrows her eyes. “Fine. But the point is the same.”

“I’m not the womanizer you think I am, Winter.”

“Oh really, Dirty Harry?”

Her fair skin is flushed with anger, and damn if it’s not sexy as hell.

“You been looking me up online?” I ask, sounding pleased.

“Hardly. I had to hear all about you when Mal first met you. Professional hockey hunk turned war hero turned businessman, with a reputation for making women…” Her cheeks darken as she searches for words.

“Making women…?” I give her an amused smirk. “I didn’t catch the rest of that.”

She clears her throat. “Making women think you’re into them when you’re really just into…bedding them.”