fuck knows what I thought. In all honesty, I can’t blame the liquor, but maybe I can blame my upbringing because I was taught never to question any gift. I also wasn’t about to question the origin of such a gift, assuming one of the fuck heads at Ardeo had a hand in her delivery. Which makes the old adage about asses and assuming true. Goldilocks might’ve been looking for a bed, but she wasn’t interested in getting into one with me.
It might not have seemed that way in the steam-filled room or even when she’d followed me from the bathroom to my bedroom. I’d turned to find her standing in the doorway, the downy towel covering her from chest to shin. My gaze had fallen over her curves anyway.
I almost made some quip about her not covering herself on my account when I’d noticed how she held the towel in a death-grip at her chest. She’d lifted her chin and announced imperiously that, for my information, she was excellent at sharing beds, too. More specifically, she’d be sharing a bed with her four-year-old daughter that night, ‘so it was just as well I had hands because I was just going to have to bloody well entertain myself’.
She’d stomped out without a backward glance, pretty much leaving me with my dick in my hand. Figuratively, at least. Bad enough that I’d forgotten Rose’s friend would be using the place, but I’d also forgotten she had a child.
Well, fuck.
I thought I’d read the signs pretty well in the bathroom. The way her eyes had darkened, the catch in her breath as I’d held her ankle, and the way her nipples puckered under their thin veil despite the heat in the room.
I guess her head won over her libido. For one of us, at least.
“This owange juice is yucky. It’s got bits in it.”
I glance up and find the little girl using the napkin to wipe her tongue.
“Yeah, bits of orange. It’s called pulp, kid.”
“Tastes like bum.”
I set off laughing, biting back the inappropriate for the audience answer of I’ve come across a few peachy asses in my time, sometimes literally, but never savoured an orange juice-tasting one. “Those are the best bits,” I answer instead.
“You are so wong,” she counters seriously.
“I am, am I?”
“Yes. I jus don’t have the time or the cwayons to ’esplain it to you,” she answers with the kind of seriousness that sets me off laughing again.
Little Miss Lulu here had stumbled into the kitchen this morning while I was making coffee. Without removing the thumb stuck in her mouth, she’d mumbled something that sounded like ‘Norman is hungry’. Norman, I later found out, was the name of the stuffed bunny clutched under her arm. As I’d tried to work out what the hell I was supposed to do, she’d then pulled herself up onto a stool and announced that it was Saturday morning, and therefore, time for pancakes.
I, being the lady pleaser I am, acquiesced.
If I couldn’t please the mother, the least I could do was please the daughter. Which is not the kind of statement I thought I’d ever make.
“I do like pancakes with bluebs.”
“Pardon?” Pancakes with what the fuck?
As my mind plays catch-up, I let out a breath long and low. Bluebs. She said bluebs, which must be kid speak for blueberries. Nothing to do with pubic hair.
“That’s what Mummy says all the time. I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon!” Her parody includes a scornful shake of her little dark head. It doesn’t resemble the woman I’d found in my bath last night with big brown eyes, lithe limbs, and the ultimate blowjob mouth . . . which are thoughts inappropriate to be entertaining in the presence of a child. Especially as I realise she’s still talking. She pretty much hasn’t stopped since she’d turned up.
But she’s a lot more fun than the run I had planned.
“She also says what the fluff lots. And when she’s really annoyed, and she doesn’t think I’m listening, she says what the farrrk!”
“What the fu—fluff is going on here?”
“Mummy!” Lulu scrambles down from the stool, throwing her arms around her mom’s waist.
I stifle a smile. The pair may not look alike, but they are wearing matching nightwear. Unlike her daughter, sleep doesn’t cling to the mother. In fact, she looks wide awake and more than a little unnerved and—
Holy fuck!
It wasn’t Goldilocks she reminded me of. It was her—the girl from Saint Odile!
No way. I am