Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(68)

I slide a hand down his chest, and a low growl rumbles deep under my fingers before he pushes deeper into the kiss.

Lips parting.

Tongue tasting.

His mouth claiming me like I’m a gold-dusted caramel pistachio truffle that needs to be savored.

I don’t glide into kisses.

I leap headfirst into the deep end without actually verifying it’s the deep end, because I’m into kissing because I like kissing, but more because I want the grand finale.

I want to toss my clothes over the balcony and get hot and sweaty and see how many different paths I can take to the land of the grand O.

But normally, I’m seizing the moment before the moment ends. Before my weekend is over, before the party breaks up, before I have to go back to my normal life.

West is my new normal.

He’s every moment.

And this kiss—it’s different but perfect.

It’s a hello, so that’s who you are.

It’s a nice to meet you.

It’s a yes, actually, I do like you and I could spend all morning kissing you from every angle to learn what you like and what you don’t.

And right now, he seems to like pulling me into his lap so we can tackle this kiss head-on.

Best way to tackle a problem, if you ask me. And it’s definitely a problem that I haven’t yet been able to test for myself exactly what these bulgy biceps feel like.

“We—should—” he starts.

He’s going to say stop, and I don’t want him to, so I rock in his lap against the hard ridge pressing into my hip.

Seriously, just look at us getting along so well right now.

We should kiss all the time.

His grip tightens on my thigh, and I slip my tongue into his mouth, gliding against his while he groans and matches me stroke for stroke.

A seagull swoops by with a cry that sounds like warning, warning!, but I ignore it, because who wants a seagull warning when I’m practically naked and he’s showing off his morning salute and he’s kissing me like he would’ve died if I’d died choking on that carrot last week?

He wrenches back. “Daisy.”

Fuck.

I sigh and drop my forehead to his shoulder.

His nice, round, solid, dependable, highly-lickable shoulder that I can’t bite right now, because I know that tone.

It’s the we can’t do this tone.

“See?” I say, pretending I’m not breathless and sorely disappointed in places I don’t get disappointed—like that little muscle in my chest. “Every morning is better when we get along. Go on. Get dressed. We’re gonna knock that social worker’s socks off so she’ll go tell the Rodericks to pound sand and get the fuck out of the court system.”

Belatedly, I remember that getting out of the court system means he leaves. I plant a kiss on his neck as I slide off his lap, because I can’t help myself, and I don’t want to think about him leaving. “Meet you in the salon in twenty!”

It’s rare that I want to find my sanity. I prefer life without it.

What’s life without the fun?

But fun isn’t all I have to live for anymore. I have to be a responsible, dependable person, and it’s not even that I can’t parent Remy alone.

My grandmother could cut me off tomorrow, and I could give away ninety percent of my bank account and still die a rich woman. I can afford all the help in the world.

But money can’t buy what I want from West more and more every day.

He’s figuring out my secrets. He’s seen me choking, having allergic reactions, and falling in love with a baby.

He’s seeing me.

And he’s staying.

I can’t deny Remy the opportunity to have that kind of dependable, family-is-what-you-make-it, people-are-more-than-their-accomplishments-and-bank-balance example in his life.

Life isn’t simple. It’s complicated and messy. No matter how much I try to believe that it’s just a big party with a side of hard work to make the partying possible, there’s still heartbreak and tough times and loneliness.

All three of my very best friends in the entire universe have gone through hell this year. And all three of them have come out on top, and in love with amazing men to boot.

But I don’t do love.

It lies. It cheats. And it hurts.

So West and me?

We’re going to be friends. Hopefully friends who are close enough that he’ll agree to still be part of Remy’s life after all the legal challenges are over.

Part of my life.

But only as friends. And that little voice inside me asking for more can shut the fuck up.





Twenty-Nine





West



I don’t know what happened in Daisy’s room this morning with that kiss, but I know it won’t be the last time.

Watching her panic last week, worrying she’d hurt Remy—she wasn’t faking.

She loves him.

And that changed everything.

This past week, waking up in her house, seeing her every day, talking to her every day, joking with her, just hanging out with her—it’s been a glimpse at a woman I very much want to know more.

Falling for her now would be like falling into the same trap all over again. Single mother. Kid who doesn’t have another solid father figure. Circumstances that make it seem right.