It Happened One Night

When they made love again—and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that was exactly what was going to eventually happen—he wanted them to take their time. He wanted them to explore each other thoroughly and completely until there was no doubt in either of their minds whom they were making love with.

Slowly easing away from the kiss, Josh took a deep breath. Looking down into her pretty brown eyes still glazed with desire, it was all he could do to keep from resuming the kiss and letting the chips fall where they may.

“J-Josh, I—”

“Shh, honey,” he interrupted, kissing the tip of her nose. He released her to walk over to the love seat and pick up her daughter. “Let’s get you and Emmie settled in my bedroom. Then I’m going to go upstairs and take a shower cold enough to freeze the balls off a pool table.”

Six

The following afternoon, Kiley sat on the couch watching as Josh let Emmie help him put a seven-foot artificial tree together in the corner by the fireplace. It was taking twice as long as it should to assemble the tree because of his “helper.” But he didn’t seem to mind and patiently waited for her daughter to bring him each branch from the piles he had sorted by length earlier that morning.

Yawning, Kiley laid her head back against the back of the couch. She was completely exhausted and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. The kiss they’d shared last night had made her feel as if she would go into total meltdown, and if that hadn’t been enough to keep her eyes wide open the entire night, Josh’s insistence that she and Emmie sleep in his room was.

The entire suite had that clean, masculine scent she’d come to associate with him, but when she’d crawled under the covers of his king-size bed, she’d had the sense of being surrounded by him. That had triggered memories of the night he had accidently made love to her, and an accompanying restlessness stronger than anything she could have ever imagined kept her tossing and turning the rest of the night.

“Mommy, see,” Emmie said, climbing up on the couch beside her.

Opening her eyes, Kiley smiled at her beautiful little girl. “What do you want me to see, sweetie?”

Emmie beamed as she pointed to the corner by the fireplace. “Twee.”

“It’s beautiful,” Kiley said as she watched Josh plug in the multicolored lights. “You did a really good job helping put it together.”

When the tree’s branches seemed to instantly come alive with hundreds of twinkling stars, Emmie’s eyes widened and she clapped her little hands. “Pwetty.”

“It does look pretty good, doesn’t it?” Josh grinned. “Would you like to put the angel on the top, Emmie?”

Nodding, Emmie scrambled down from the couch to hurry over to him. As they searched the boxes of ornaments for the tree topper, Kiley couldn’t help but notice once again the similarities between them. She had already noticed they had the same eyes and nose, but she now realized that Emmie’s hair was closer to Josh’s light brown shade than her own dark blonde.

As she watched, Josh lifted Emmie to place the angel on the top of the tree. When they turned to get her opinion, Kiley sucked in a sharp breath. Even their smiles were the same.

She still intended to go through the motion of calling Mark to ask about his blood type, but there was no longer any doubt who had fathered her precious little girl. Emmie looked just like Josh. Confirming the fact was just a matter of formality.

“How does it look?” Josh asked.

“Other than being a bit crooked, it looks fine,” she answered automatically.

Setting Emmie on her feet, he walked over to stand in front of her. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Y-yes. Why do you ask?”

“You just looked so?” he paused as if searching for the right word “?preoccupied.”

Shaking her head, she forced a smile. “I’m just a little tired. That’s all.”

He stared at her for several long seconds before nodding. “I didn’t sleep all that well myself.” He smiled. “I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about that kiss and—”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t able to sleep last night,” she interrupted, reluctant to admit to him that she had suffered the same problem.

“You didn’t have to, honey,” he said, reaching out to tenderly caress her cheek with his calloused palm. “The dark circles under your eyes told me that much.”

She wasn’t sure she liked Josh’s knowing that he had been the reason for her exhaustion. Thinking quickly, she grasped the first excuse that came to mind. “Children tend to be restless sleepers.”