Chapter 20 Holly
HOLLY
I may need to rethink my Christmas wish list this year. Just saying.
—Holly’s Secret Thoughts
Sleep doesn’t come easily.
How could it when every single time I close my eyes, I see Camden sitting there on his couch? Messy hair. Bare chest. Stormy green eyes locked on my every move.
Every. Damn. Second. It all plays on a loop like a movie I can’t look away from.
I should be horrified. Or mortified. I’m sure there’s a few other ‘fieds I could come up with if I really try, but seriously . . . I’m ready to throw on sweats and my Uggs and run back to my bedroom at the vineyard and hide until New Year’s.
Maybe longer.
But I don’t. I can’t. I won’t leave. Because I’m not horrified or mortified or any other ‘fied. I’m aching. Aching for Camden Monroe. I breezed right past fun and flirty and went to a place I wasn’t expecting and can’t stop thinking about.
And by the time morning finally comes and the sun starts leaking through the kitchen window, I’ve already downed my second cup of coffee.
Yup. Coffee. Me.
Who am I?
Oh right. I’m the asshole who needed a distraction and decided baking an entire batch of cinnamon rolls might take my mind off my stupidity. Do I need them? No. But sugar is always a good distraction. The cinnamon mixing with it covers the stench of regret.
Madden licks the applesauce off the floor by Sophie’s high chair while my little sugar plum throws her star-shaped puffs at her face as she tries to get them into her mouth.
I wipe her cheek and shake my head, then catch her small hand mid-launch.
“We don’t throw food, baby girl,” I coo.
“Pretty sure I made a big enough mess for the both of us.”
Her big green eyes, so much like her daddy’s, blink up at me like she knows exactly what I mean, and she’s embarrassed for me. I groan into my mug, which might just have more sugar in it than coffee, and hang my head in shame.
Perfect. Now I’m confessing to a baby.
The kitchen is cleaned up, Sophie’s bottles are washed and dried, and all my baking supplies have been put away by the time I hear it . . . The slow creak of footsteps coming down the stairs.
Don’t look. Don’t. Look. Do. Not. Look.
Shit. I look.
And there he is. Gray sweats hanging from those lean hips, and a tight black T-shirt that does inhuman things to my heart rate.
His hair is still damp from a shower, and a golden-brown curl falls over his forehead and into his eye.
He’s got that just-woke-up scruff working for him and a bruised shadow along his jaw that makes me remember exactly what my fingers felt like against his skin.
“Morning,” he murmurs, his voice sounding as rough as mine.
Meanwhile, I focus way too hard on cleaning up the applesauce from the floor. The same applesauce Madden has licked every inch of already. “Morning. Coffee’s fresh.”
He steps closer, as I stand up, and reaches around me to grab a mug. The cool, crisp scent of his soap, masculine and delicious and unfairly sexy, wraps around me. “Thanks,” he says quietly as he pulls down the Naughty List mug. “We should talk about last night.”
“You really don’t have to say it.” I spin on him before he can finish.
Camden’s brow furrows. “Say what?”
My heart sinks.
Great. He’s going to make me say it instead. “That it was a mistake.”
The words taste more bitter than this stupid coffee.
He studies me, his jaw tightening, and I think I pissed him off.
Great. Any other way we want to make this day suck?
“Is that what you think?” he asks, and my throat goes dry.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” I murmur.
“The hell it doesn’t.” His voice is sharp, and there’s something in his eyes when I finally bring myself to pull up my big-girl panties and look at him. They’re exhausted and pissed and soft all at once.
The air hums to life between us. Electric and familiar and confusing as hell.
Sophie squeals from across the room, slapping her hands against her tray and sending those puffs flying.
Camden’s lips twitch. “She’s got good timing.”
“She clearly gets that from you,” I whisper, turning back to pick up the mess.
He chuckles, and I wish that sound didn’t do things to me, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. “Holly . . .”
“Don’t,” I whisper without turning back to him. “Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”
His gaze burns into my back, but after a tense silent minute, he sighs. “Fine. For now.”
The way he says it makes something almost dangerous spark under my skin.
When I finally dare to look up again, he’s crouched beside Sophie, tickling her until she’s squealing with belly laughs. Her puffs are forgotten, and she’s happy. So is her daddy.
The sight should settle me.
It doesn’t.
Because the way he smiles at his daughter—with so much, so much tenderness . . . it only makes me want him more. And that right there . . . that might be the most dangerous thing of all.