Page 93 of Time Out

Davis jumped off the couch to grab me, but I found my balance before he could.

“I’m okay.” I was breathless and shaking with nerves.

“What is it? Did Ruth call?”

“No. I have a bigger problem.”

“Life sure isn’t boring around here, is it?” Jim kicked his feet up on the coffee table and rested back on the couch.

I loved that man.

It had to be an effort to calm me down, and it worked. Nerves popped like a pinprick on a balloon releasing some of my near-hysteria.

“Dad—” Davis warned him, but I placed my hand on his arm.

“It’s okay. I needed that. I was just starting to freak out. I mean, I just invited my seventeen-year-old sister, who I haven’t seen in three years here.”

“I know. I was there.”

“Here, Davis. I mean, you just asked me to move in with you, and I still have that apartment, but you didn’t sign up for this. A woman with a baby and a younger sister who’s on the road from god knows who and…”

“Woah. Slow your roll, sweetheart.”

His hand came up and covered my mouth. I inhaled the coconut scent of the hand lotion he kept by the kitchen sink and stared at him.

“I’m gonna keep this hand here and talk real nice and slow, so listen to every word I’m saying, okay?”

I glared at him, to his dad beyond him who was trying very hard to not look like he was paying attention.

“Hmmphf.”

Davis grinned. “Good. Now, I wanted you to move in with me so I can help take care of you and our child, right?”

I opened my mouth beneath his to speak before remembering I couldn’t. I mean, sure, I could, I could pull away, and he’d let me. But for some reason, I wasn’t.

I nodded instead.

“That hasn’t changed. And you’re not some woman, you’re mine. We’ve talked about this, right? Nod if you remember.”

My glare hardened, and yeah, we had, but…

“Just a nod, Maggie.”

I nodded. Something was happening to my stomach. My nipples. Was I liking this? Another humph left me, and I couldn’t bring myself to check to see what Jim was doing, but I swore… if he was seeing me get turned on by this….

“So you’re mine. My girlfriend and the mother of my child. We’re good. You’re moving in here. Right?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled beneath his palm.

“That doesn’t change. Ruth needs help, we’re helping her. That’s it. Simple as that.”

My brows rose on my head, and he smirked.

“It really can be that easy when you’ve got the right people at your back. What would Belle do?”

Belle would pack her up and move her in with her like she’d done to me. Or take her to her parents and never let her leave. She’d probably have her dressed in Free People and Lululemon and enrolled in the local high school before a plane touched down.

Which… was exactly Davis’s point.

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