“I win!”

“Nice work, Summer.”

Megan couldn’t imagine a single one of the guys she’d dated playing this game with Summer, let alone enjoying it. Not to mention dealing with her antics so well.

“You have school tomorrow. Time for bed,” Megan said. “Go brush your teeth and get your jammies on and I’ll read you a story.”

“Can you read it to me tonight, Gabe?”

Perhaps Megan shouldn’t have been shocked by Summer’s request, but she was. No one else had ever read her daughter a story, not even her father, who’d always preferred to be outside on the grass playing with her when she was a baby than indoors with her teething and chewing on a book on his lap.

“Megan?”

Rather than answering Summer’s question, Gabe’s eyes were on hers, and she could read the question on his face: Is this okay with you?

Every minute the three of them spent together, she watched Gabe and Summer draw closer. They were two people who genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.

Her daughter had fantastic taste in men.

And yet, for some reason this felt like another big step, after so many other big steps. First, spending a Friday night together at Fisherman’s Wharf, acting like a family. Then, kissing Gabe in front of Summer. And now, Gabe telling her a bedtime story.

What if something happened to him? What if Summer got used to Gabe playing games with her and reading bedtime stories and then—

She caught herself a split second before her brain reeled off into panic land.

I need to try. Just keep trying.

“Sounds great to me.”

Gabe scanned her face, the smile she’d pasted on it. “Maybe,” he said softly, “we could all read it together.”

Relief swept through her, love fierce on its heels. She’d never thought to meet a man who understood her this well, who could read her secret thoughts without her saying a word.

Thirty minutes later, Summer was tucked into bed and they were headed out to the living room.

“I loved listening to you read The Magic Tree House to Summer, the way you did all the characters.”

He shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Sophie’s pretty good at putting on the pressure to get us in there to read to the kids during story time at the library.”

Megan loved the thought of Gabe sitting on a little plastic chair reading to a bunch of kids...and their drooling mothers. She could only imagine the kind of fantasies he must inspire in those women during what had to be the best thirty minutes of their month.

The very same fantasies he inspired in her.

“Ready for your bedtime story?” He pulled her onto his lap on the couch.

“But I’m not tired yet,” she said softly.

His beautiful mouth moved up at the corners and she thought he was going to kiss her. Instead, he nuzzled into the curve of her neck, making her shiver with his tongue.

“Once upon a time there was a man.”

“Not a prince?”

“No,” he said with a soft nip at her chin. “He was a perfectly average, ordinary man. But one day he got lucky and met the prettiest woman in the entire world.”

“Are you sure she wasn’t average and ordinary, too?”

His teeth found her earlobe, sending thrill bumps over the surface of her skin. “I promise you, she was extraordinary. She was so pretty he couldn’t believe she was talking to him.”

“Did they kiss?”

His mouth moved closer to hers as he said, “Oh yes...and those kisses rocked his world.”

Finally—finally!—he was kissing her mouth and her toes were curling from the passion erupting all through her. But despite how frantic she was to make love with him, she somehow managed to remember that her daughter was sleeping down the hall.

Megan had decided it was okay for Summer to spend time with Gabe, for outings and game nights, even for bedtime stories. But there was no way she would ever be okay with her daughter seeing a man come out of her mother’s bedroom in the morning. Not until things were far more serious, not unless there was going to be a wedding soon.

Considering she couldn’t even bring herself to say I love you, she knew better than to keep kissing him like this with her daughter only a couple of walls away.

She shifted on his lap. “Thank you for coming over tonight.”

“Thank you for inviting me.”

Judging by the thick bulge in his pants and the hunger in his eyes, she knew he was just as ready for wall-banging, crazy-monkey sex as she was.

Feeling like the worst kind of tease, she said, “I want you to stay, but—”

One finger covered her lips. “I understand, Megan. I would never want to do anything to hurt Summer, either.”

She very reluctantly climbed off his lap and they walked, hand in hand, over to the door. After another long kiss good night, and another sweet I love you, he was halfway down the hall when she called out.

“You never told me how the story ends, Gabe.” She held her breath, waiting for his response.

His expression held all the love and desire she knew he felt for her.

“It doesn’t.”

* * *

Megan was blurry from lack of sleep when she walked Summer to school on Monday morning. Her body had been buzzing from Gabe’s kisses, but she hadn’t bothered trying to take care of it herself. Not when it wasn’t the orgasm she needed.

It was the man, himself.

She’d never been a woman who chased after men, partly because she’d married so young, but mostly because it just wasn’t her personality. But it was pure female instinct that had her heading away from Summer’s school in the opposite direction of her house.

Ten minutes later, she rang Gabe’s doorbell, her heart pounding from how quickly she’d covered the pavement to get to him. But as she waited, she suddenly realized she had no idea whether he’d be there or not, whether he was out for a run or picking up bagels for breakfast. And when he didn’t immediately open the door, she could practically taste her disappointment.

She was just turning to head back home when the door opened.

“Megan?”

Clearly, the universe was doing her a favor, because not only was Gabe home, but he was wearing a towel wrapped low around his hips. She was still busy gaping at his sculpted muscles when he said, “Come in, sweetheart.”

His hand was warm on the small of her back. “Is everything okay?”

She finally noticed his concerned look at the way she’d shown up like this, out of breath and likely wild-eyed in her desperation to see him. To be with him.