If I hadn’t been watching with my own eyes, I’d never have believed it.

The closest my daughter had ever come to a shared experience had been to allow me to feed her or dress her without a struggle or outright refusal. I gripped Will’s shoulders as much from gratitude as for the support. My knees were shaky underneath me and the dizziness was back. The puppy whined softly, needing out. Violet was watching her, a curious look on her face…

“I’ve got her,” Will said, standing up and catching me in his arms. “Come keep me company,”

Miri ran for the kitchen door as we followed after her. “You told me she could play,” he said, his voice hushed but excited. “But I had no idea… It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”

I closed the door behind Miri and leaned back against it. “It’s not the music,” I said, staring up at him. “The incredible thing is that she played the song with you, Will. She’s been playing since she was able to get up on the bench by herself. But she’s never done anything with someone… as a team…”

“Fiercely independent… like her mother,” he teased gently, moving up to press the length of his body into mine. “Instead of trying to draw her out of her world, I thought it might work better just to meet her there.” He leaned into me and a thousand tiny flames inside started to burn.

“Spaghetti,” he said, dropping kisses down the side on my neck… along my collarbone…

“...what… What?”

“Does Violet like spaghetti? I make a helluva sauce… I not only cook, I wash dishes, too.”

“And you’re asking us to dinner…?”

“I’m inviting myself to dinner…” He continued his way down my neck and trailed his lips teasingly over the mounded tops of my breasts. The wind outside had started to howl in earnest. “It’s getting cold outside and the scent in here is amazing…,” he said into my warm cleavage. “You don’t really want to send me home without a taste… do you…?”

The man was many things.

Intense, seductive… persuasive as hell. One minute he was tying me up in a secret room, or fucking me into sweet oblivion in a sex club…

The next, he was washing pots and pans in my kitchen, looking right at home with a dish towel thrown over his shoulder…

“Violet’s fine,” I said, standing in the doorway, watching him. I’d just gone to check on her, and she and Miri were both curled up on the sofa, their full, round bellies lifting and falling in unison. “I’ve never seen her eat so much… I should probably get her tucked in for the night…”

He opened a drawer to put away the wooden spoons he’d finished drying and I caught a reminding glimpse of the bag from the pharmacy…

So close, and yet so far…, I thought wryly. Maybe in the morning…

“I’ll take her,” he said, as I shifted the growing puppy. Together, we carried them both into Violet’s room and slipped them into bed. Neither woke, but they curled into each other in a warm, familiar way. “She’s okay in her jeans and top?” he asked. “No peejays?”

“Once she’s asleep, she’s pretty much out cold,” I answered, leaning back against his chest. “Thank you for tonight… for dinner… and for being so wonderful with her. I know it might not seem like much to you…”

“It’s huge,” he answered back. “It means just as much to me to earn her trust, as to earn yours.” He led me out and I closed her door softly. The fire was starting to burn low in the fireplace and sheets of rain buffeted the roof. He wrapped me in his arms and kissed me until the heat between us felt like it could warm the entire house.

“Ask me,” he demanded, pulling back so he could look down into my eyes.

“...This is you… meeting me… in my world…?”

“Ask…”

“Stay with me…?”

The soft flesh of my breasts swelled between his spread fingers. I leaned into his hands even harder and he cupped them, supporting my weight so I could roll my hips into his groin. I’d come over and over again. And his seed was warm and wet between our bodies. His cock was still huge inside me… my walls clenched against it in a deliriously sweet rhythm…

“I’ve never done this before,” I whispered, savoring the languid look in his dark eyes.

“I beg to differ,” he shot back gently. “And I should know…” He took a hold of my hips and rolled us together until the tables were turned. He teased me with his cock, in easy slow strokes. He smoothed my hair back and stared down into my eyes.

“I mean… this,” I bucked my hips lightly, “with my daughter in the other room.”

He smiled. “Parents do it all the time,” he whispered. “Just very quietly…” He pushed in deeper and I had to bite my lip. “It makes it even hotter, don’t you think…?”

“Play fair,” I warned him with a smile, although the word parent was running circles in my head. “I just meant…”

“I know,” he answered, rolling us onto our sides. He ran a rough palm leisurely over my nipples. It seemed so familiar… so comforting. “You’ve been mom and dad. And you’ve done an incredible job.”

“She’s been the most important thing in my whole life,” I said. “It didn’t matter that she wasn’t planned, or that we’ve had some extra challenges. I can’t imagine my life without her… without being her mother…”

And he moved his hand purposefully from my breast to my belly. “The same way I can’t imagine…

not being a father.”