Her Baby's First Christmas

But as he squeezed paste onto his toothbrush, he suddenly realized she would fight him about who would sleep on the bed and he groaned in frustration. Everything with this woman turned into a battle.

Ready to simply tell her she was sleeping on the bed and he was sleeping on the floor, he marched out of the bathroom only to find her standing in his path, holding a coin, ready to flip it.

He stopped dead in his tracks. Her pretty red hair glistened in the light of the lamp on the dresser. Her T-shirt skimmed her breasts and hinted at the curve of her waist, the swell of her hips. The sharp, spicy scent of her shampoo mixed with remnants of the soap or shower gel she’d used and floated to his nostrils.

Reaction ricocheted through him. And again his brain sort of froze, unable to believe what was happening. He hadn’t felt an actual attraction to a woman in so long that the responses rolling through him right now were foreign, novel. Yearnings and needs that had lain dormant burst to life. For the first time in five years his hormones demanded control.

But Elise was the absolutely worst woman to be awakening his sexual urges. Not just because they were traveling together, but because she reminded him of the abused women he’d prepped for trial as an assistant district attorney.

What if Elise had been abused?

She probably wouldn’t have trusted him enough to ride across the country with him if she’d been physically abused. But from his two years as an A.D.A., he did know that emotional abuse could make a person antisocial. Overly independent.

Yeah. Something was definitely up with Elise and he wouldn’t do anything to make it worse.

He snatched the coin from her fingers before she realized what he was doing. He tossed it in the air, caught it and set it on the back of his hand with a smack. “Heads or tails?”

“Tails.”

He peered down. Saw the tails side of the coin and said, “Too bad. It’s heads. I sleep on the floor.” Then he tossed her coin back to her.

She caught it deftly. “Wait! I didn’t see the coin.”

“You have it in your hand.”

“You know what I mean. I didn’t see that it really was heads. You can’t just bully me…”

“Bully you into sleeping on the bed?” He laughed and walked to the closet, where he extracted the extra pillow and blanket. “Wow. What a horrible man I am for giving you the bed.”

“But I—”

“—Won the toss and get to sleep on the bed,” he said, walking to the open space at the other side of the room where he could spread out a blanket and drop his pillow. No matter how far away he walked, he could still smell her.

Yeah, it was better for him to sleep on the floor.

CHAPTER THREE

JARED awakened to the sound of laughter. He bounced up quickly and groaned. Not only was it still dark, but sleeping on the floor had played hell with his back.

He turned and saw a small strip of light coming from the bathroom, then heard Elise say, “Oh, you like that, do you?”

Her soft, feminine voice reminded him of how much trouble he’d had falling asleep while surrounded by her scents and listening to her rustle the bed sheets as she tossed and turned.

He pulled in a breath to banish all that from his mind and called, “Everything okay in there?”

“What?”

“I said—” He stopped, hauled himself off the floor and went to the bathroom door. Though it was partially open, he turned his head, not venturing to look inside. “I asked if everything was okay in there.”