a cobblestone road in Tuscany after highwaymen made off with my carriage and escort, leaving me naked and alone and vulnerable.
He’d whip off his shirt and wrap it about me, surrounding me with the scent of sun-dried cotton and salty seas, then heft me into his chiseled arms and carry me to the nearest tavern, where he’d spoon-feed me broth and murmur low in Italian about how he’ll avenge my honor, and keep me safe until such a day as he’s run his dagger through the hearts of every highwayman in Europe.
Possibly I’ve been reading too many historical romances.
But it’s working.
My skin burns against my sheets, and I part my legs while I tease my nipples into hard nubs, ignoring the little detail in my fantasy that instead of a lean surfer’s body with sun-kissed brown hair, all I can see is a thick-necked, dark-scruffed, brown-eyed warrior in a leather kilt.
My fingers drift over my breasts and down my soft belly as I smile and stifle a whimper. My pussy’s aching. My clit is tingling. And I’m fantasizing about Westley Jaeger in gladiator gear, charging a raging bull trying to trample a baby, and holy fuck, why are men with babies so fucking hot?
I flick my clit to distract myself from remembering him pulling his shirt up, giving me a glimpse at a tattoo. At him staring my grandmother down like a warrior. At him bouncing Remy.
My head tilts back and I have to squeeze my lips tight together to keep from moaning.
I wonder if he’s as good with his hands on a woman’s body as he is with a baby.
No. No, Daisy.
Too close. He’s off-limits. For so many reasons.
God, off-limits is hot.
I want off-limits. I want to be bad. I want—
A high-pitched wail suddenly erupts in the next room, and I yank my hand out of my chacha and fly off the bed.
I fling the door open to the sitting room, remember I’m naked as West looks up at me, and I screech.
He screeches.
Remy wails.
And I dive for cover under my vanity.
I’m good with nudity. My body’s never going to earn me a strut down the catwalk during Fashion Week, but I know how to use it to maximum advantage.
Plus, I have these tits that just won’t stop.
Also, it’s flipping dark. No way he actually saw me.
So I don’t know why I’m shrieking and hiding.
Okay, that’s a lie. I totally know why I’m shrieking and hiding.
My grandmother would kill me if I tried to seduce West, which is actually the least of my concerns.
I do a lot of things she’d kill me for—I’m very good at walking that line between making her angry and making her head explode like a volcano before it reforms into a meaner version than before—but I make her enough money that she overlooks it. Mostly.
We both know I only make her a lot of money because people know if they don’t deal with me, they’ll deal with her. Without her name behind me, I’d need to get a door-to-door salesman mustache and the brown leather briefcase holding vacation timeshare brochures to make enough money to put food on my table.
And I don’t mean food on the crystal Aisu table in my under-the-sea lounge downstairs either. I mean a wobbly Formica table that I pulled out of the trash after I get evicted from my fabulous D-shaped hacienda.
Fucking up Julienne’s kid’s life would never be overlookable to The Dame.
Plus, West lives within driving distance of my house—obviously—and he knows my real name, which by default marks him off my list of people I’d like to sleep with. If co-inheriting my cousin’s baby with him is complicated, getting physically involved would be catastrophic.
Sleeping with Westley Jaeger is completely and totally off the table.
All the tables.
There will be no nookie on the Aisu table or any of the other tables in this house.
Or anywhere in Bluewater.
So being naked around him probably should be too. And it’s more expeditious to pretend I’m embarrassed to be naked than it is to stand there and tempt him with my goddessness while I tell him that we’re not happening.
Yep.
That’s my logic.
I drop my head to the floor and stifle a groan, and this one is definitely not a good groan.
He knocks at the door. “Do you have a rocking chair? Also, I’m not looking. Don’t see a thing. I have four sisters. I’m an expert in not looking.”
I scoot deeper under the vanity, which would be easier if I didn’t have