Cam pushed his broad shoulder into the door frame and she saw the heat in his eyes. She glanced down and, yep, there was that telltale bulge behind the buttons of his jeans. “I’d be more than happy to take over when she gets tired.”
He would, too. He’d be gentle with her, kiss her slowly, investigate every inch of her battered skin and then he’d caress her in such a way that she’d not only forget that she’d been in an accident but her own name. If they started tasting and touching each other, everything else would fade.
Vivi pulled her eyes away, tipped her head back and stared up at the ceiling. She couldn’t go there, not with him. Their time to be lovers had passed. Now they had to find a new way of dealing with each other. A way that included Clem.
That was if Cam wanted to be part of Clem’s life. She didn’t even know. Right now, there were more important things to talk about, to figure out, than their crazy, combustible attraction.
Vivi gestured to her closet. “I’m going to get dressed and then maybe we can chat over a cup of coffee?”
Cam had the coffee ready when Vivi walked into her tiny, open-floor-plan living area ten minutes later. She’d changed into cutoff denims and flip-flops, pulling an open-neck, red-and-white-check shirt over her tank top and knotting it at the waist. Most of the bruises on her body were hidden and she’d toned down the ones on her face with some concealer. With her hair pulled back into a messy bun on the top of her head—her muscles ached too much to do anything more with the heavy mass—she felt 10 percent better and marginally human. She smiled her thanks at Cam as he pushed her coffee across the table.
“I left it black. That okay?”
“Sure.”
Cam pulled out her chair and Vivi wasn’t particularly surprised at his show of manners. Years ago, he’d opened doors for her, let her enter a room first. Held out chairs. Someone had drilled Southern manners into him somewhere along the way. Vivi watched as Cam took the chair opposite her, an unfamiliar laptop next to his elbow.
“That yours?” she asked, nodding to the state-of-the-art device.
A power cable snaked toward an electrical socket and a glass of water sat off to the right, next to a pile of folders. He’d arranged her small fan so that the air blew on him as he worked. She could see that all the windows to her small house were open. He’d also, at some point, sat on one of her small sofas—her cushions had been pushed to one end and a couple were on the floor. Cam McNeal had made himself very much at home in her space while she slept.
“Yeah,” Cam replied, lifting his cup to his lips. “I managed to get some work done while you were sleeping. Do you feel better?”
Vivi considered his question. “I’m sore but I’m not feeling so...emotional.”
“A near drowning will do that to you.”
As will waking up and seeing the father of your child next to your bed. It was time to address the elephant in the room. “We need to talk about Clementine, Cam.”
“Yeah.”
She suspected that only pride kept him from squirming. Oh, he looked so inscrutable, so calm, but in the tapping of his finger against his coffee mug and the slight shift in his chair, Vivi saw that he wasn’t quite as insouciant as he wanted to be.
“Let me tell you about Clem.” Vivi wondered where to start and decided that there was no point in pussyfooting around. “She’s strong-willed, bossy, demanding and energetic. She’s amazingly bright.” Vivi saw his skepticism and held up her hand. “I know, I sound like a doting mommy, but she genuinely is bright, and she has a hell of a vocabulary for her age. She must get that from you because I didn’t really start speaking until I was four.”
Mostly because her parents subscribed to the adage that children should be seen and not heard.
“She is just old enough to be excited about the idea of having a daddy but she’s also only two, so the novelty will wear off in about two seconds,” Vivi continued. She pushed her coffee cup away, rested her arms on the table and leaned forward. “You need to take some time to think about what your intentions are with regard to being Clem’s dad, Camden.”