Falling for King's Fortune / Seduction, Westmoreland Style: Falling for King's Fortune. Maureen Child

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СКАЧАТЬ and Mia’s tiny sigh sounded gently in the room. And Casey’s tears won the battle, stinging her eyes, blurring her vision until she had to fight to hold them back.

      As if sensing her presence, he turned, still cradling Mia, and smiled at her. “I’ve got a monitor in my room, too.”

      Casey walked close to them and reached out one hand to smooth her sleeping baby’s hair. “Of course you do.”

      His eyes narrowed a bit. “I am her father.”

      “You’re right,” she said, meeting his dark gaze. “I’m just used to being the only one getting up in the middle of the night.”

      The look in his eyes gentled some at that admission. His hand moved up and down Mia’s back, soothing, stroking. “I can understand that,” he whispered. “But you’re not alone anymore, Casey. I’m here. And I’m going to be a part of Mia’s life. I’ve already missed too much.”

      She took a deep breath and nodded. This was only their first night together. She was going to have to find a way to deal with Jackson’s rights as a father.

      Forcing a smile, she said, “You seem handier with babies than I expected.”

      Apparently realizing that she was willing to if not end their little war, then to at least declare a temporary cease-fire, Jackson smiled. “I’ve got two nieces, remember? Emma and Katie. Emma’s a little more than a year old and Katie’s about three months. I’ve put in my babysitting time.”

      Her surprise must have been stamped on her features because his smile widened into a grin that made her catch her breath.

      “Didn’t know that, did you?” he asked.

      “No. I mean,” she said, “I knew about your brothers’ children, I just never thought you would—”

      “What?” he challenged. “Love my family?”

      Well, that made her feel small and petty. She should have known better. Should have guessed. In the research she’d done on Jackson before meeting him in person, she’d learned just how tight the King family really was. She just hadn’t even thought that a man more interested in jetting off to exotic places would be so attentive to his infant nieces.

      “Of course not,” she said softly as Jackson turned and expertly laid a sleeping Mia back in her crib, “I just didn’t think a man like you would want anything to do with babies.”

      “A man like me?”

      She moved past him, bent over the top rail of the beautiful white crib and ran the flat of her hand down Mia’s back. Listening to her child’s quiet snuffles and sighs, she smiled. “You know,” she said as she turned back to him. “The playboy type.”

      He laughed quietly. “You think I’m a playboy?”

      She turned her head to look at him and almost wished she hadn’t. While he’d been holding Mia, he was gorgeous, but somehow safe. Now that he wasn’t…he looked much too tempting. All that bare, tanned, muscled flesh. The sleep-ruffled hair. The shadow of whiskers on his jaw. The heavy-lidded sexiness of his eyes.

      Oh, God.

      “I only know what I read about you,” she said and moved for the door. Best to get back to her own room fast, before she did something really stupid like reaching out one hand to trace the planes of those muscles of his.

      He was just a step behind her and when they moved into the hall, he caught her arm. Heat shot from his touch to rocket through her body like an explosion battering off a series of walls. She was forced to lock her knees to keep from swaying into him. His eyes were dark, fathomless and when he spoke, she had to fight for focus.

      “And just what have you read?”

      “I think you know the answer to that,” she said, trying to tug her arm free of his grasp. “You’re practically the poster boy for fast jets and faster women. So you can understand how seeing you, being so gentle, so tender, with Mia like that, could throw me a little.”

      He snorted. “You’ve got a narrow view on the world, don’t you?”

      “No, I don’t.” She tried again to get free, but Jackson wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. He parted her robe and ran one hand up her arm. Even though the terry robe she wore wasn’t exactly sexy, seeing the curve of her breasts beneath the soft fabric was enough to make him hard and ready and way too eager. Despite the fact that she had the ability to seriously annoy him.

      “Sure you do,” he said with a sneer. “You read some one-sided articles about me and decide that I’m what? Some rampaging guy, only interested in what he can take out of life?”

      She stilled and chewed on her bottom lip. He’d like to help with that, but he resisted.

      “Do you think the tabloids would be interested in doing a story on me babysitting my nieces? No,” he answered for her. “They want sensationalism because that’s what people like you want to read.”

      Her eyes, a dark, passion-filled blue, widened. “People like me?”

      “Not fun being judged, is it?” he countered. “Yes, people like you. People who see a headline about me on a grocery store paper and assume you know me.” He bent down, until their gazes were on the same level and his mouth was just a breath away from hers. “I’m not that guy, Casey. There’s more to me than that, just as I assume there’s more to you than the woman who seduced me just to get a DNA sample.”

      She tried to pull away again, but wasn’t successful. Jackson stared down into her eyes and felt the tug of the attraction between them arc like a downed power line, sparks flying, hissing, through the air.

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