Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43518 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43518 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
“Yep, there’s lemon, chocolate chip, strawberry cake, cheesecake…” I walk in on Cammy and Forest. Forest is caught red handed with a cookie up to his mouth. Knowing both girls will be requesting one, too, and judging by the size of the cookies, I’m sure dinner will be a wash. “I can’t remember the rest,” Cammy finishes. All Forest does is wink then move his eyes in a way that lets me know he wants me closer.
“Wookie, wookie, me want!” My jaw drops. Forest hurriedly puts the cookie down. Cammy, not wanting to miss a beat on the cookies, lifts her arms up, asking to be up higher. I’m unsure if she wants me to hold her or place her on the counter and too busy being gob-smacked that Piper has now formed a four-word sentence.
“Say it again for daddy, please?” Forest asks. Her eyes are already on the cookie and pointing. “Wookie, wookie, me want!” The way I watch as he wraps his little girl in his arms, breathing a sigh of relief, obviously, it was a worry, one I was unsure how to bring up.
“You want one?” I ask Cammy, placing her on the kitchen counter, then standing right next to her. Yes, I know she’s six and can climb jungle gyms, do somersaults, as well as swim like a fish. That doesn’t mean I won’t be on my A-game in case something happens.
“Yes, please.” With the cookies being massive, I place my hand on her knee, holding it there as I open the drawer, pull out a knife to cut them in quarters.
“Piper, you want some, too, right? Which flavor?” I ask, already knowing which one she’ll go after if it’s anything to judge by the afternoon snack she’s always after.
“Chocwit.” Forest takes the knife away from me, seemingly figuring out what I was doing, minus the one he was eating, which I’m pretty sure is some kind of red velvet flavor. Interesting to see that Forest Hughes has a sugar tooth.
“What about you, Cammy?”
“Strawberry, please.” Forest doles out the cookies for the girls.
“Pleased as all get-out Piper is using more words again.” He’s talking in general, but he’s looking at me, as if I’m the leading factor in the case. I don’t think that’s it at all. Obviously, I’m reading between the lines. The mother’s gone, an incident had to have occurred if this is new. I’m thinking Piper only needed time to do things on her own. “Which flavor, Bailey?”
“She’s doing great, and lemon, unless there’s pumpkin-flavored anything around.” Forest licks his lips and hands me the piece of cookie, and now it’s me licking my own. A heated glance is sent my way. Tonight is definitely going to be a long one, sleeping in his bed, surrounded by his scent, knowing exactly what happened the last time we were in bed together. Yeah, no sleep will happen at all tonight.
EIGHTEEN
Forest
Leaving my girls with tears in their eyes wasn’t easy. It was harder to not bring Bailey into my arms either, to kiss her goodbye. That would have to wait for another time, though. Work has to get taken care of. We needed to talk some more, but that didn’t relieve the ache in my cock. Another thing about Bailey is that her phone is never on her. She had to make a second trip back to the pool house because she left it the first time around when she grabbed a change of clothes as well as her toothbrush. I showed her to the bathroom. Her eyes lit up when they landed on the walk-in shower and the tub off to the side, freestanding, deep enough for two. Not that it was ever used in that way. For the most part, Cammy and Piper make full use of it more than anything.
“Fuck.” I’m attempting to look through my emails while on my brother’s jet, not that I’m getting much accomplished. My thoughts are being drowned out by the thought of being happy for the first time in way too damn long. I pull out my phone. Work can wait since I’m taking more time away from the girls than I previously wanted, a contingency plan that’s in place if this occurs as long as it’s not the engineer’s fault. In this case, it wasn’t. They wanted additions, and no matter how many times I sent them mock-ups, the owner wouldn’t approve them. So, here I sit on a plane when I could be on my couch with my girls or in the pool with them, Bailey in her swimsuit, and ending it in bed with her.
Me: Hey you, the girls being good for you?
I don’t expect her to answer, not with the way she placed her phone on the counter and walked away. The woman is a breath of fresh air. It probably doesn’t help that it’s around the time the girls are still awake. I should have waited to text her until it was their bedtime. Fuck, then I could have called her, spoken to her, gotten a pulse on how she’s feeling, answer any lingering questions she may have, and if I was lucky, she’d come in my ear as I whispered exactly what I would do to her had it not been for this damn pain-in-the-ass client.