Billy's Baby - Annie J. Rose Page 0,36

gone, leaving cold sheets and regret behind. He wasn’t sneaking out or making excuses to leave in the dead of night. He asked if he could stay. I looked over my shoulder at him. “Then stay here. It’s too cozy to move,” I murmured. He hugged me then, squeezed me into his chest and kissed my head. I subsided back into sleep, a deep, relaxed slumber. The next time I woke, I was sprawled across his chest, my tangled hair in my face. His arm was wrapped around my back, holding me there against him. I could feel the rise and fall of his chest, hear the steady thrum of his heartbeat. It felt so good, so right. I just let my eyes drift shut again and slept on his chest.

At last, early in the morning, I felt him move. He settled me onto my own pillow, tucked the covers around me snugly. I blinked and saw him bending over the nightstand, a crinkle of concentration on his brow. He was writing me a note.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he said, “I’m sorry I woke you up. I was just leaving you a note. I don’t want to skip out on you, but I have an early hike and dive excursion with Mickey. I want to see you later. Are you free?”

“Yeah,” I said, sleepy and disappointed that he was leaving.

He leaned across the bed and brushed his lips to mine. “I’ll see you later, beautiful,” he said. I fell back asleep with a smile curving my lips.

Chapter 12

Billy

It was going to be a long excursion. Sometimes Mickey and I did combo events for large groups. It was profitable and fun, but today I didn’t have the bandwidth to focus on anything other than the X-rated flashbacks of sex with Morgan. The instant replay in my mind was enough to make a man fall off a cliff from distraction.

I tripped on a root and turned my ankle. Mickey thought it was the funniest damn thing he’d ever seen.

“You need bifocals now?” he asked. “That root’s been there since before you were born, so don’t tell me you didn’t expect it to be in your path. How many times you done this trail?”

“One too many by the looks of it. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” I said by way of excuse.

“Because of that pretty little blonde?” he asked.

“Excuse me? I thought you were, I don’t know, bound for life to the mother of your child. Are you checking out my girlfriend?” I said.

“Girlfriend? Really?” he said, laughing his ass off. “I haven’t heard that word out of your mouth since high school. It must be serious. Is this the restaurant critic?”

“Travel writer,” I corrected. “Baby keeping you up at night?”

“Yeah, travel writer keeping you up at night?” he countered. I shrugged, a half-smile on my face in spite of myself.

“Let me look at your foot,” he said, exasperated.

I was pissed at myself for not paying attention, and for the fact that one of our clients could have gotten hurt there instead of me. I cleared my throat and asked them to wait a minute while I got my ankle wrapped. “Just a trail mishap,” I said. “Take some pictures, don’t forget to hydrate, and we’ll be coming up on the dive portion of the trip in about half an hour,” I announced.

I sat down while Mickey made quick work of wrapping my ankle.

“It’s not bad,” he said. “And you can bear weight on it. It’s just such a rookie mistake.” He chuckled. “You gotta keep your head in the game little bro.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just go,” I grumbled.

I didn’t have my mind on my work or on the task at hand. Mickey had gone easy on me. Distraction like that got you killed in the service. I knew better. Even in civilian life, I was always alert, always keyed up and ready to jump into action. I couldn’t let one hot night with one hot woman throw me off my game like this. I was lucky no one else got hurt.

As soon as I was bandaged up, I returned to the group and made more of an effort to engage them and make sure they were noticing every detail along our path. I pointed out a bird high above us and waited for them to take pictures. After about half an hour, I was able to hand the excursion over to Mickey for a diving run. I helped