Page 83 of The Au Pair Affair

Didn’t mean he had the girl. Yet.

That thought handily erased the final traces of his smile and he tossed aside the covers, climbing out of bed. His back gave an ominous throb as he stood, a wave of queasiness rolling through him before subsiding, the ache settling into one he could manage.Wouldmanage.

You were amazing out there.

Well maybe you had a couple steps to spare.

With Tallulah’s voice in his head making him feel ten feet tall, a puny little backache was nothing. It no longer felt like an injury signaling the end of his career; it was a minor worry—and he had a major one that needed his attention.

Tallulah was endgame.

He needed her to get that.

Burgess brushed his teeth, finger combed his hair, and threw on a pair of sweatpants. He started to put on a shirt, then remembered his muscles seemed to be working wonders and left it off, padding out of the bedroom and down the hallway. He heard Lissa and Tallulah before turning the corner into the living room and had to pause, the rightness of it hitting him right in the jugular. He liked their voices together. He liked the gentle sizzle of pancakes and his daughter giggling about something Tallulah said. These things made his apartment seem like a home for the first time since he’d moved into it.

Furthermore, he didn’t feel like an intruder as he stepped out into the open. Didn’t feel guilty for showing up and trying to fit into the family unit after being absent, thanks to hockey.

He belonged. She’d made him belong.

Now he just needed to convince her she belonged with him.

And when she turned at the stove with a deer in the headlights expression, he knew that probably wasn’t going to be easy.

Fine. Fuck easy.

“Hey, Dad,” Lissa sang, her bag packed at her feet. A quick check of the clock said Ashleigh would be there in ten minutesto pick up their daughter. Shit, he should have gotten up sooner. Blame the gorgeous grad student who’d melted his bones last night. “Good job, last night. You were extra mean.”

Burgess’s lips twitched. “Was I?”

“The other team looked so sad at the end.”

“Losing is good once in a while,” Burgess said. “It makes you try harder.”

“Losing is good?” His daughter’s eyebrows went up. “For you, too?”

“Hell no. Not for me.Otherpeople.”

Lissa laughed. He started to walk past her, but decided to lean in for a hug instead, patting her gently on the back. “You’re good luck. Told you.”

She ducked her head, but he still caught her smile. “Yeah.”

Burgess locked eyes with Tallulah when he circled the breakfast bar into the kitchen, suddenly hungry for some acknowledgment that they’d given each other orgasms last night and slept in the same bed. He didn’t want to pretend it hadn’t happened. “Morning.”

“Morning,” she said back, pink filtering into the tan of her cheeks. “It’s raining.”

His attention drifted to the nearest window, taking in the gray sky, the droplets clinging to the glass. “Is it?” His eyes ran a lap around her face. “The sun is shining in here.”

She fumbled the spatula slightly, but caught it before it could clatter onto the surface of the stove, a telltale pulse moving at a gallop just above her collarbone. “Do, um... do you want pancakes or are you sticking to your Diet of Doom?”

“Have to stick. Especially during the season.” Playfully, he flexed a bicep for Lissa. “One pancake or peanut butter smoothie and this deflates like a balloon.”

Lissa snorted, digging into the plate of pancakes Tallulah set down in front of her. “No, it wouldn’t.”

Tallulah poured another circle of batter onto the pan, very obviously pretending not to watch him flex. “You know, half the joy of pancakes is sharing them with someone else. No one wants to watch someone eat egg whites while they’re adding a second layer of syrup to their breakfast. You enjoy it more when you get to watch someone else enjoying it, too.”

“Maybe in the off season.”

Lissa and Tallulah traded an eye roll.

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