“Okay,” Zach said, pulling the millionth sticker from the paper. “This is the very last one.”

Zach was lying on his stomach on the floor. His back hurt and his bad shoulder was killing him. He’d been there for two freaking hours, putting the dollhouse together, assembling all the tiny furnishings, adding stickers to the building. The damn house was two feet taller than Sophia.

His daughter ran over from the opposite side of the dollhouse where she was arranging furniture. With her Pegasus tucked beneath her arm—she hadn’t put it down once—she gingerly took the sticker from Zach’s finger with what had to be the hundredth “Thank you” of the night. The kid was ridiculously polite. And sweet. And funny. And a-freaking-dorable. Zach still couldn’t believe she was his.

“Look, Mommy, ballet slippers.”

Tessa glanced up from her computer where she sat curled in a corner of the sofa. “Pretty. Where are you going to put them?”

Sophia looked at Zach. “Where does they go?”

“Let’s look at the box.”

Sophia crouched a little, pressing her hands to her knees as she studied the box with a wrinkled brow. She pointed to the picture. “There.”

“Wow, you’re good,” Zach told her. “Bet you’d find Waldo in record time.”

“Who’s Waldo?”

“A cartoon character. He hides in pictures. I’ll get you a book, and we’ll look for him together.”

“Okay,” she chirped, then carefully pasted the portrait of ballet slippers on one of the interior walls.

Tessa pushed from the sofa, picked up Zach’s empty glass, and wandered to the kitchen. He shouldn’t be ogling her jeans-clad ass. Shouldn’t be wishing he could slide his hands down the backs of those creamy thighs. Shouldn’t be remembering just how he’d spread her legs and driven deep into her body when they’d been together that one night. But he did all of the above until she turned into the kitchen and disappeared.

“Mommy.” A whine laced Sophia’s voice. “Can I have apple juice?”

“You’ve already brushed your teeth. I’ll get you water.”

She harrumphed and dropped to the floor. “I no want water.”

“Sounds like someone’s tired,” she said, turning the corner into the living room again, carrying a fresh glass of iced tea for Zach and water in something called a sippy cup for Sophia. She handed the drinks to them and told Sophia, “Maybe you can get Zach to share his iced tea since it’s not sweetened.” Then she said in a sing-song “But you have to ask nice.”

Sophia walked on her knees to Zach’s side. She got so close, Zach could see the shards of hazel in her off-color eye and smell the soap Tessa had wiped her down with before tossing on a frilly, pink pajama top. Sophia pushed out a tired, pathetic “Peeeeez?”

Zach smiled and offered her the drink. With Pegasus tucked under her arm, Sophia reached for the tea. As soon as he handed off the glass of tea, the way it wobbled in her little hands told him he’d made a mistake.

“Oh no,” Tessa said. “Sophia don’t—”

Too late.

Neither of them could grab the glass away before Sophia tipped it back, lost control and spilled the whole glass on herself—and Pegasus.

Zach scrambled to his knees and grabbed the empty glass at the same time Tessa reached out and supported Sophia’s back to keep her from tipping over and hitting her head on the floor. But Sophia was already screaming.

“Is cold, Mommy. Mommy, I spilled. Pegsis. Pegsis is wet.”

“Shh, I know,” Tessa said, lifting Sophia by the arms and setting her on her feet. “You’re both fine. We’ll dry you off. Get you new jammies.”

“I’m so sorry,” Zach told Tessa. All the joy he’d been feeling crashed into despair. “Can I help?”

Tessa was sweet enough to smile at him. “Believe me, it’s not the first time. She’ll be fine.”

But Sophia had gone from happy-go-lucky to blubbering blob in mere seconds. And Zach felt helpless. With soft reassurances to Sophia, Tessa walked her into the bedroom and the bathroom beyond. Zach stared at the tea and ice cubes on the cream carpet. Right now, Zach might cry too if he’d had a bucket of ice water tossed on him.

The dark brown liquid seeping into the light carpet registered. “Shit.”

He jumped to his feet and searched the small kitchen for towels, then sopped up the mess on the rug. He’d gone through all the towels he could find by the time Tessa and Sophia came into the living room again. Sophia was wearing what looked like one of Tessa’s T-shirts, which would have hung down to Sophia’s feet if Tessa hadn’t tied a knot in one side. She carried Pegasus by one hoof.

“Thank you for doing that,” Tessa told Zach, then tapped Sophia’s diapered butt. “On the couch. We’ll watch a little of the Minions before you go to bed.” She took the soaked towels from Zach and lifted her chin toward the sofa. “Cuddle with your girl. I’ll get this.”

Zach moved to the sofa, and Sophia looked up at him, her whole expression drawn and weepy. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he told her. “I didn’t know the glass would tip.”

She sniffled, her mood subdued. “Mommy gave me her sparkly kitty shirt.”

She held out the shirt to show a stylized cat rimmed in rhinestones.

“Wow, that’s pretty fancy. Is Pegasus okay?”

“Yeah. All clean.” She patted the sofa. “Sit. You like Minions?”

Zach had no idea what she was talking about, but said, “I love Minions.”

“Mommy is putting them on for us.”

Zach had suddenly turned right back into the bundle of nerves he’d been when he’d walked in hours ago. The fact that this little creature could go from chipper and fun to a life-as-we-know-it-is-over meltdown unnerved him. Now he was just waiting to make another mistake to send her into the screaming zone.

But he sat, and when Tessa turned on the TV and punched a few buttons on the remote, the little yellow guys filled the screen, and Sophia smiled and told Zach, “Minions.”

“Minions,” he agreed.

Then she crawled close to him, snuggling up to his side with Pegasus clutched tight. Zach’s apprehension melted in a deep, overwhelming kind of love he couldn’t begin to explain. A love like nothing he’d ever even known existed.

Sophia held out her hand opening and closing her fist. “Come, Mommy.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” she said, sitting on the other side of Sophia and smiling at Zach before tickling the girl.

Sophia’s giggle brightened a spot deep in Zach’s chest. “I not Your Highness.”

“You sure act like it.” She pressed a kiss to Sophia’s head. “Now settle down. Even princesses need sleep.”

As Sophia snuggled between them, Tessa met Zach’s gaze. Her smile was soft and melancholy. And Zach experienced something foreign but powerful. He couldn’t define the feelings rolling toward the forefront. Not exactly. A lot of gratitude and affection, but something more, something he didn’t feel often. Admiration? Awe? He could face hundred-foot walls of crushing water with an attitude of unquestionable dominance, but this three-foot, pint-sized female mystified him. A little potential hellion that Tessa had molded into a thoughtful, grateful, compassionate angel.

He reached out and stroked his fingers down Tessa’s cheek, but the best he could come up with was “Thank you.”

She covered his hand with hers for a moment, holding it against her cheek. Then something happened on TV that made Sophia laugh, and the spell was broken.

Zach spent the next twenty minutes watching Tessa and Sophia, while Tessa and Sophia watched the Minions. All he could think of was the way Josh had talked about wanting a kid with Grace. “I love the idea of that cementing force of my own family. Of working with Grace as a team toward something we both cherish. It’s…I don’t know, grounding or something.”

Or something was right. Zach was experiencing exactly what Josh had described. Something he hadn’t even known existed until this moment. Now, Zach found himself wanting the same. He didn’t want to lose this. But he didn’t even know what do with it. Let alone how to hold on to it.

These two females were like riptides. They’d snuck up on him, grabbed hold, and dragged him under.

What a crazy, beautiful mess this had become.

Zach would never have believed he could fall in love instantly, but the little angel slouched between them already had him wrapped around her finger. Only a few hours with her and Zach couldn’t imagine living without her. And he was terrified to admit he was already halfway gone over Tessa too. The way she interacted with Sophia, the obvious and pure love she had for the girl, turned Zach’s heart over in his chest.

Tessa had been texting off and on for the last twenty minutes and seemed to grow more agitated with each message. After she finished the latest text, he lifted his hand from the back of the sofa and stroked it down her hair. She glanced over at him.

“Is that work?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” she said, distracted. “It’s crunch time. Everyone’s decided to wait until a few weeks before the bill goes to Congress before they read it. Now they all want changes.”

That didn’t make any sense to Zach. In fact, he had to admit, it didn’t even interest him. “Do you like it? Your job?”

“When I can focus on it and give it my all, yes. It’s challenging, and creating law gives me the opportunity to help others. It gives me purpose, pays the bills. The last couple of years, though…” She shook her head. “It’s been rough.”

Purpose. That resonated with him. “Is it something you want to keep doing? Seems like there are a lot of different types of law you could practice.”

“I’m up for a junior partnership. Once this bill goes through with my name on it, I’ll be cemented as an expert in health care reform, which will bring a ton of business to the firm. In Washington, something is always changing in health care, so it means a steady roster of clients who are willing to pay top dollar to be heard.”

“Hmm.”

She smiled. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

He grinned. “Nope.”

“Not many people do. Let me put it this way, it provides security for Sophia and a future for both of us. So, yeah, I feel like it’s where I’m supposed to be right now.”

“Feels isolating, I bet,” he said, “when no one understands what you do or why you love it. Especially now that Corinne’s gone. Sounds like you two really got each other.”

She nodded and turned her gaze back to his, thoughtful. “You must know how that feels, because no one could unless they’ve been through it.”

“Let’s just say I’m the black sheep of my family,” he told her with a smirk. “Surfing isn’t exactly a household hobby, and it’s definitely not the scholarly pursuit my parents groomed me for.”

“What pursuit was that?”

“Well, my older sister is a surgeon, my older brother is a lawyer by education, but a campaign manager by profession, and my youngest sister is finishing up her masters in clinical psychology.”

“Wow, you really did fall through the cracks.” Tessa chuckled. “How’d that happen?”

He shook his head. “Switched at birth or something.”

“How did you get into surfing?”

“Just a weekend trip to the beach with family when I was five. My uncle taught me how to skimboard. I was hooked. A skimboard turned into a boogie board. The boogie board into a surfboard. I lifeguarded as a teen. Just one building block after another. The amount of time I spent at the beach slowly grew to become a point of contention between me and my parents. They wanted me hitting the books harder, but I had a four-point-o and I stayed out of trouble, so they didn’t have any reason to restrict my surf time.”

“All that”—her gaze made a sweep of his body—“and smart too. Weren’t you the golden boy?”

“Not to my parents. I tried to get out of college, but they wouldn’t hear of it. I caved under the pressure and tried it. I really did. Gave it two full years. But it didn’t stick.”

“Where did you go to college? A JC?”

“No.” He laughed the word softly. “No. If it had been a JC or if I’d been struggling, maybe they wouldn’t have been so hard on me. But I was at Pepperdine.”

“Pepperdine?” she asked, shocked. “The Pepperdine?”

“That’s exactly how my parents looked at me when I told them I was dropping out to go pro.”

Tessa winced. “That could not have been a fun conversation.”

“Nope, it wasn’t.” The thought of catching not only his parents’ wrath but his whole family’s wrath—and not that one time, but continually over the years—still created a twinge inside him.

“When did you drop out?”

“Summer between sophomore and junior year.”

“What were you majoring in?”

“Pre-med.”

Her lips turned in a thoughtful, amused sort of smile. “I would never have guessed. Did you like it?”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t bad. I love science. The problem was that I wasn’t interested in anatomy and physiology. I angled my classes and electives toward oceanography and marine biology.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time, and he was expecting her to come back with a softer version of your parents were right, you’ve wasted your life.

“I imagine that had to be miserable for the first few years,” Tessa said. “But they came around once you started winning competitions and doing film and magazine shoots, right?” When he didn’t immediately answer, she said, “You really can’t refute the accomplishment of being the youngest inductee to the Surfers’ Hall of Fame. That had to make your family look at things differently. I mean, you’re still just as successful, just not in a conventional way.”

Zach replayed her words, trying to find the slight he’d expected. And it took him a minute to realize—there hadn’t been one. When he searched her expression, all he found was the open, sweet woman he’d met that first night.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “they were only more disappointed. Instead of seeing it as an achievement, they saw it as a colossal waste. ‘Think of how you could have excelled in life if you’d put your efforts toward something worthwhile,’ they told me. And I get what they’re saying. I mean, I don’t exactly do anything worthwhile, I guess. I’m not furthering the betterment of society in any way.”

He shrugged, turning his gaze back to Sophia, who was now sound asleep, then stroked her soft curls and thought at least not until now.

“That’s not true.” Her words were soft, and her gaze had lowered to watch his hand slide over Sophia’s curls. “Everyone touches the world in some way. Sometimes it’s in ways we can’t see or don’t even understand. Sometimes we make a difference for one person that we don’t even know about, yet that person goes on to do something great. I saw it over and over again at the hospitals where Corinne was treated. Those people—doctors, nurses, technologists, even admin clerks—touched the lives of their patients every day, but they didn’t see the way it rippled through everyone that patient touched. I don’t see it firsthand in my work, but I know it happens. I know the laws I craft help and protect people.”

She shrugged and smiled at Sophia. “Maybe it’s Sophia who’s meant for great things. Maybe your purpose was to create her. Maybe your purpose now is to nurture her. You could be an example to her growing up. She can look at your achievements and know she doesn’t have to live by societal norms. That if she wants to break a world record or even just crash through a glass ceiling, she’ll know it’s possible because of all you did. She’ll know it’s okay to search for her heart’s desire and live fully and happily in any way that fits her. With the way the world changes so fast now, she has unlimited possibilities.”

She lifted her gaze to Zach. “And who knows how many other children or young people you’ve inspired to do the same? It’s not for someone else to judge whether we’re contributing to the world. Only the world knows the real story.”

That was a view he’d never heard. Never even considered. “You have to be a gem in your family crown. An attorney writing law. Hell, you could be the attorney general someday.”

She laughed. “No, thanks. I don’t like politics that much. I deal with them because it’s a necessary evil to get things done. As for family”—her gaze lowered to Sophia—“Sophia is my only family.”

A rock bottomed out in his gut. “What about your parents?”

She shook her head. “My parents died in a car accident. Drunk driver.”

“Oh my God.” His stomach clenched. “How old were you?”

“Ten.” Her expression sobered. “I was in the car with them when it happened.”

“Oh God.”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything. I hit my head, was unconscious. I consider that a blessing of sorts. My grandmother did the best she could, but she had diabetes, and I ended up taking care of her more than she took care of me most of the time. She passed away before Sophia was born.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “Why haven’t you married? Had kids of your own?”

“No time, no money. I worked my way through undergrad and law school. Someone I was dating, someone I thought I might have married someday, bailed when he found out Corinne had cancer. He saw the writing on the wall—that Sophia was my immediate future—and didn’t want to have any part of it. He had bigger aspirations and, evidently, wanted a wife with the same. Those didn’t include Sophia.”

Zach had to bite his tongue not to apologize again—or call the guy an asshole.

“Now, between Sophia and work…” She shrugged, and he thought she’d tell him she didn’t have time, but said, “I have enough.”

Enough. What an odd way to think about life. As if having enough was…well, enough.

But looking at Sophia, sleeping like an angel, Zach wondered if being her father would give him a sense of enough. He was guessing she would. She’d already given him a sense of purpose he hadn’t had just last week.

Tessa’s phone buzzed for the sixth time in the last hour. She sighed and lifted her phone to read the message with a barely muttered “Seriously? It’s called English. If you can’t understand it, you probably shouldn’t be a senator.”

A smile lifted Zach’s lips as he watched her return a text, her fingers lightning fast on the phone. “Senators text you? That’s wild.”

“Not usually,” she said, still typing. “Usually I talk to their staffers, who are—sometimes, but not always—easier to deal with. This particular senator is new and overzealous. Give him six months and he’ll be delegating like he should. Right now, he’s a pain in my ass.”

When she was done, Tessa lowered her phone and slid her gaze back to Zach. This time, he was waiting. And they just held each other’s gaze for long, silent moments infused with Now what?

Zach was also thinking about how badly he wanted to kiss her. And what a mistake that would be in the long term. Women generally didn’t respond well when Zach walked away. And this woman had complete control over the new love of his life. Too bad his body wasn’t listening to his head.

“She’s amazing,” he whispered. “You’ve done an incredible job with her.”

The angst in her eyes transitioned into warmth, and a sweet smile curved her lips. “It wasn’t all me. Corinne didn’t have the strength to care for her day-to-day needs over the last couple of years, but they spent a lot of time together, talking and reading.”

Zach’s heart hurt—for so many reasons. Knowing the mother of his child had suffered when he could have been helping. Knowing three precious years of Sophia’s life had passed, and he could never get them back. Knowing how hard these years had been on Tessa.

Zach reached over and cupped her cheek. Tessa’s eyes closed, and she leaned into his touch. The small show of desire stirred the embers in his body. “I’m sorry this has been so hard for you.”

She opened her eyes and met his, but didn’t move away from his hand.

“The studio wants me to take the lead in the show next season,” he told her. “Once I find a new agent, I can sign a contract. It will give me stability and income. I’ll be able to take good care of her.”

A flicker of panic cut through her gaze. “That’s not…” She lifted her head from his hand. “What are you saying?” She didn’t wait for his response before she went on. “You’re not her only parent, Zach. I may not have given birth to her, but I love her as if I had. And I’ve already told you, I’m not giving her up.”

“I know that, and I’m not asking you to give her up,” he said, fighting against his natural tendency to compete. “But you can’t expect me to give her up either. I just found her. I’ve already missed so much of her life. We need to find a compromise—”

“Living part-time in Hawaii and part-time in DC may be a compromise, but it isn’t stable. And having her raised by a nanny sixteen hours a day while you’re filming isn’t taking care of her.”

“I didn’t say anything about where she’d live.” The argumentative words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “And you have a nanny.”

“That’s because Corinne was sick. And then she died. I’m trying to adjust. And when I make junior partner, I’ll be able to afford to move closer to work and cut my commute in half. I’ll be able to work at home a few days a week.”

“I won’t have any commute, and I’ll be able to bring her to the set. She’ll be able to go to school with the other kids. She’ll get a one-on-one premium education. Having Sophia live alone with me is no different from having her live alone with you.”

“It’s a lot different,” she said earnestly while keeping her voice down. “With me, she won’t have a string of one-night stands wandering in and out of her life. Watching her father hook up with different women all the time isn’t the way for a young girl to build confidence or self-esteem. And it’s even more unsettling for a girl whose mother died and who is separated from the woman who raised her. Sophia has enough hurdles to overcome as it is. She doesn’t need mixed messages about a woman’s role in—”

“Stop,” he ordered in a low but firm tone so he didn’t wake Sophia. “Just stop. This conversation took a very wrong turn somewhere.”

She pulled in a breath, held it, and closed her eyes again.

“I’ll admit I’ve played my life fast and loose. But I haven’t been raising a child. I realize none of this will be easy—on either of us. But just the few hours I’ve spent here tonight has shown me the trade-off will be worth all of it.”

She exhaled heavily. “Let’s put her to bed. I don’t want her waking up while we’re talking about this.”

Zach clenched his teeth. He felt so out of control. He was never out of control. His life was always moving in the direction he wanted it to move. And while he might not be going places as fast as he’d like, he was still going where he wanted to go.

Until now. Now, he was at sea in a hurricane.

Tessa slipped away from Sophia, shifting the little girl’s weight to Zach. Then she turned and reached for Sophia. But her phone buzzed again.

“Dammit,” she whispered, pulling her phone from her back pocket and sighing her answer into the phone, “Good evening, Senator Rose. It’s awfully late in DC.” She propped a hand on her hip. “Yes, I understand your concerns.”

She went quiet again, listening, and when Zach realized her call wasn’t going to end anytime soon, he gently pulled Sophia close to his body and pushed to his feet in an awkward move Surfer magazine certainly wouldn’t be raving about.

Sophia murmured and shifted. Zach froze, fearing she would freak if she woke and found Zach holding her, not her mother. But Sophia’s eyes stayed closed. Her lips parted on an unintelligible word, then relaxed into a rosebud pucker. Her cheeks were round and rosy, her blonde curls wispy against her smooth skin. She looked different sleeping. Like an infant, not a three-year-old. For an instant, Zach saw a glimpse of the years he’d missed, and another dagger stabbed his heart.

He managed to get his legs working and followed Tessa into a bedroom while she continued talking on the phone in undertones. Zach stopped listening to her side of the conversation when she said something about constituents. Politics was way the hell out of his wheelhouse, which made him wonder—again—why he was still so attracted to Tessa. He had more in common with Kerry and Candy, surfer girls with no future, looking for nothing more than a good time.

At least he had until this precious little thing came into his life.

Zach laid Sophia on the bed with her Pegasus, trying to figure out what the hell was going on inside him. Tessa’s sparkly T-shirt rode up around Sophia’s belly, exposing perfectly smooth baby skin and her nighttime pull-up diaper—something he hadn’t even known existed before tonight. Sophia rolled onto her side and buried her face in a pillow.

Zach watched her for a moment. He’d caught glimpses of himself in her face tonight—in her eyes and nose, the shape of her face. Sophia certainly had the intense side of his personality, though he wasn’t sure that kind of thing was genetic. She looked deceptively small in the big bed, nothing like the force that had jumped on him to say thank you earlier. Her legs, belly, and face were still softly rounded with baby fat. She was delicate and perfect, and just looking at her made Zach’s entire chest ache.

“Kiss-kiss…” Sophia murmured without opening her eyes.

Without a clue what that meant, Zach pulled a sheet over her.

“Kiss-kiss peez,” she said again.

Zach looked at Tessa, who covered the mouthpiece of her phone and whispered, “She wants a kiss good night.” Then she lifted her hand and told the senator, “I hear what you’re saying, and I assure you, all parties are making concessions to find common ground.”

Zach bent, placed his hands to the bed on either side of Sophia, and kissed her forehead. He let his lips linger and breathed in her unique, sweet baby scent—powder and bubbles.

She hummed happily and offered a whisper-soft “Night-night.”

“Night, angel,” he whispered back before straightening, stuffing his hands in his back pockets and staring down at his daughter.

His daughter.

Another stab of terror pierced his heart.

My daughter.

Jesus, this was wickedly surreal.

Tessa’s touch drew his gaze away. She closed her fingers around one hand and tugged him toward the door. She was still on the phone, distracted—and frustrated, if he were reading her right—and released his hand after they passed the threshold. But Zach wasn’t ready to let go and closed his fingers around hers as he pulled the door to the bedroom closed quietly.

With Sophia safely tucked into bed, soundly sleeping, and the rest of the condo empty, some of the walls Zach hadn’t realized he was holding melted away, allowing his desire to rush forward. He wanted to take that phone out of her hand, hang up on the politician, strip her naked, and sink into her right then, right there. Which made him wonder if having sex when a kid was in the next room—even if she was asleep—was taboo.

There was so much new territory to learn about, he felt like he was tumbling in the surf, fighting to figure out which way was up.

Tessa pulled out of Zach’s grasp and wandered toward the open sliding doors and the terrace beyond. “Those were minor changes in sentence structure,” she said into the phone. “They don’t alter the meaning within the text.”

He followed her out to the terrace, where the night was cool and humid. His gaze roamed over her—the fall of dark hair, her white tank and the bra beneath, her jean shorts that exposed creamy thighs.

He moved close, reached around her, and gripped the railing on both sides. She cut a look over her shoulder and stiffened—until he eased the front of his body against the back of hers. Then her lashes fluttered, and her eyes closed. For a moment, she leaned into him, and that tiny show of desire rushed through him like flames.

He released the railing and wrapped his arms around her waist. Nudging her hair off her neck, he laid his lips there and kissed a path to her ear. A wisp of the soap she’d used on Sophia touched his nose, opening a deep warm spot inside him. Then Tessa’s scent swallowed the sweetness with a powerful tang of musk and spice and exotic flowers. One that immediately stirred erotic memories. The combination of emotion and desire acted like oxygen to a flame. Her spine arched, her ass rubbed against him, and Zach’s body reacted instantly.

His mind calculated how much time they had before Abby got home and what he could do to her in that amount of time when Tessa said, “Yes, sir.” Her voice had turned breathy. “I’ll be sure to look over that section again and see what I can do to add the language you want.”

But the conversation on the other end of the phone continued and the serious tone of an older man’s voice filtered through the phone. He lowered his lips to her ear and whispered, “Get off the phone.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, making Zach smile at the thought of her speaking to him, not the senator. “The National Association of Hospitals pulled that language from the bill. Yes…I’ll let you know as soon as the changes have been made…of course…thank you for your input, sir.”

Zach closed his teeth at the base of her neck where it curved to meet her shoulder and growled with impatience.

She disconnected the phone. “Zach. You can’t maul me while I’m on the phone with a freaking senator.”

“This isn’t mauling.” He flattened his hands on her belly and slid them up her torso, cupping her breasts. “This…is mauling.”

When she gasped and turned her head toward him, Zach covered her mouth with his and let his hunger indulge. She tasted warm and sweet, but it wasn’t enough. He lifted one hand to her face and turned her head a little more, capturing her whole mouth and sinking his tongue deep into her warmth. He pulled back and let her catch her breath, but only for a second. And the moment her lips formed words again, he dragged her back. Her mouth softened, opened, and a low moan rolled from her throat.

She wrapped her arm up and around his back, sank her fingers into his hair. But a moment later, she broke the kiss. “We can’t do this.” Her blue eyes sparkled to life in the moonlight’s cool glow. “This is already so complicated.”

“Baby, we’ve already done it. Doing it again isn’t going to change anything.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “And I want you more now than I did that night.”

She closed her eyes, her brow tightening. He knew she wanted him. Was sure she was going to say yes. Was about to nudge her that direction when the tinkling of keys caught his ear.

With a frustrated growl, Zach pushed away from Tessa. “Damn.”

“Tess?” Abby called softly.

Tessa’s eyes squeezed closed a second before she said, “Out here.”

Zach sat on the edge of a chair and leaned forward on his thighs to hide the bulge in his jeans.

Abby strolled across the living room and paused in the doorway, looking at each of them in turn. “Looks like someone got spoiled tonight.”

Zach smiled a little and looked down at his hands. Abby’s tone made it clear she didn’t approve, but Abby’s opinion didn’t matter to him. “Guilty,” he said, then glanced at Tessa. “I like to spoil my girls.”

“You’re back early,” Tessa said.

Abby turned her gaze on Tessa, who was tucking her hair behind her ears. “I was going to try to be home for Sophia’s bedtime.”

“She hasn’t been asleep long. Go give her a kiss.”

“I’ll get out of your way,” Zach said, pushing to his feet. “But, Tessa, we need to find some time to sit down and figure this out.”

The subject change was enough to get Abby to move. She wandered toward the bedroom and peeked in, then slipped through the door and disappeared.

Tessa pressed a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. “Zach—”

He pulled his room key from his pocket and slipped it into her free hand. “Come over later. Tell her we’re talking about Sophia.”

“We do need to talk about Sophia.”

“I know.” He snuck a quick kiss and stroked his hand across her cheek. “So come over. We’ll get around to talking. Eventually.”