Baby Daddy Wanted (Crescent Cove 5)

Fitting, since my heart might as well have projectile leaped right from my body.

“Is that a yes?” His voice was low and deep.

“So much a yes.”

“First one yes? Or second one yes?”

“There was a second one?” I rubbed my finger over the smear of lipstick on his chin. “Sorry, you’re wearing me.”

His eyes lit in a carnal way that spoke to every one of the same dirty thoughts living inside me. “Leave it there.”

I glanced down at my shirt and groaned. “Yeah, my impulsive moves never work out well.”

“Says who? I think it worked out fine.” With a wry smile, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at all the interested faces at the other tables around us. “Pretty sure they’d agree.”

“Whoa. I didn’t even notice they were watching.” I smiled sheepishly and dropped back down into my seat. And picked off a blob or two of scrambled eggs.

At least he hadn’t gone for over easy like I had.

I glanced farther down my shirt. More eggs down there. Those were mine. Lovely. It didn’t matter who’d gotten what, I was a buffet of all of it.

“I didn’t notice either until they started to clap.”

Giggling, I bowed my head to avoid the curious glances—so much for keeping us kind of on the down low, copious hand-holding aside—and focused on dabbing my shirt with the napkin. “I so missed that.”

“Yeah, we were pretty occupied. I’ll take you home to change.”

“Nah, I followed you here in my car, remember?”

“Maybe I just want to extend our date.”

Giving up my shirt as hopeless, I tossed aside the napkin and grinned. “Is that what we’re calling this now?”

“Yeah, I guess so. But I’d like to take you on a real one.”

Yep, that kicked my fluttering heart back into gear. “What does that consist of?”

“Well, depends what you’re up for.” He picked up his fork and dug into his eggs, making me laugh. “What?”

“I probably dropped fifty dog hairs in your food.” I pushed my own plate away. As hungry as I was, wearing half my meal killed some of the desire for it.

But I didn’t regret kissing Murphy in front of the world. My only regret was we’d taken so long to get to this place. Not that it didn’t feel damn worth it right now. Maybe all the steps had been necessary to reach where we were.

For it to matter this much.

“Still delicious.” He frowned at my plate. “You don’t want yours?”

“Not to worry, Ivy Beck to the rescue.” Our waitress hurried to the table and tugged our plates away, leaving Murphy holding his fork in mid-air. She presented new breakfasts for both of us, going so far as to set down a new coffeepot and take the perfectly fine old one away. “Don’t say I don’t believe in romance,” she added with a wink before heading into the back with what she’d cleared away.

But only an astute sort like me could see the heaviness in her eyes despite her cheerful demeanor. Not to mention she’d been at the support group meeting, indicating her dating life had probably not been awesome thus far.

“We’ll leave her an extra big tip.” I dug into my piping hot eggs. Delicious.

And it turned out romance made a girl hungry.

Murphy shrugged and reached for the ketchup bottle, saturating his eggs one more time. “The old ones were great.”

“Latte hair and all,” I teased.