Then he kisses me.
God. Yes.
It starts soft, just a brush of his mouth against mine, but when I kiss him back, he deepens it immediately, like he’s been waiting for the signal.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, his thumb brushing my skin, steadying me.
My fingers hook into his shirt and pull, because he’s close but not close enough, the kiss gets messy fast, hot, hungry, andit feels stupidly perfect. When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing harder than we should be.
His forehead rests against mine for a second. “Well,” he says. “That escalated.”
“Regrets?” I ask.
“Not even one,” he says. “And I’m hoping for a repeat.”
Then a small voice drifts from the other room.
“Daddy, are you kissing Charlotte?”
We both freeze. Liam looks like he’s calculating the odds of surviving the next thirty seconds.
“She has excellent timing,” I whisper.
He groans softly. “This is… I don’t even know.”
I straighten his shirt where I grabbed it. “We’ll figure it out.”
“We should talk,” he says.
“We will.”
“But not right now.”
“No,” I agree. “Not right now.”
We take one step apart just as Maisie reappears, she squints at us suspiciously, then shrugs.
“Can I have another cookie?”
Liam rubs his face. “Yes. Please. Take all of them.”
Maisie cheers and sprints toward the display case.
I look at him one more time, and he looks right back at me, and the pull is still there, stronger now.
Something is definitely changing, and I’m not sure either of us is ready for it.
Chapter 5
Liam
By the timeCharlotte leaves the bakery, I am not sure which part of me is working harder: my heart, my brain, or the part of me that really wants to drag her back and kiss her again.
She walks out with a flushed face and slightly swollen lips. I know they look like that because of me and that thought alone is dangerous enough.
The bell over the door jingles as she exits. The bakery feels too quiet in the space she leaves behind.
Maisie settles back at her table, crayons spread out around her. She draws a circle, a stick person, then a heart, humming softly like she didn’t just ask if I was kissing Charlotte two minutes ago.
