Getting Off Easy

by Erin Nicholas

  With her nose wrinkled up in an incredibly adorable way, Harper reached in to unfasten his diaper.

  James held the baby firmly against his chest, supporting his head and butt, so it took several swipes of her fingers over his chest, ribs, and abs to get the diaper off. It was the most she’d ever touched him, and it was the most ridiculous thing ever, but he was newly aroused by the time the poopy diaper was free, and Harper was holding it in by the very, very edge with one finger and thumb on each hand, looking like she’d never been so disgusted.

  It was pretty bad.

  And James still wanted her.

  Which said a lot about his state of lust for this woman.

  “You want to get in with us?” he asked with a grin. “You need to clean up, too.”

  “Sure, I’ll just strip down and shower with you and this baby that just showed up on your doorstep last night,” she said. “That wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’ve ever done.”

  He chuckled. The first time he’d seen her, she’d had her hair up in a neat bun, her glasses on, had been wearing a cream-colored skirt that flared at the bottom, a button-up baby-blue shirt, and a shawl. He hadn’t even realized that women still wore shawls. But sure as fuck, the hot, young, God-I-hope-she’s-a-librarian across the landing had been wearing a shawl. And he’d gotten hard.

  “It’s not like my hands are gonna be wandering anywhere they shouldn’t,” he said. The water was warm but not too hot, and he eased back a little, letting some of it run over his shoulders and down his chest, getting the baby just a little wet. The baby’s eyes widened, and he quieted at this new stimulation.

  “Yeah, well, I think maybe I need to do something with this.” Harper started for the door.

  “There’s a garbage bag outside on the landing. I’ll take them all down later. We have a lot of stuff we need to get.” A diaper pail was only one thing.

  She glanced back. “We?”

  Right. Him. This was his thing. The baby had been left for him. Even if it wasn’t his. Which it really might be. He shrugged. “Me.”

  But her shoulders relaxed, and she blew out a breath. “I’ll help,” she said. “Of course.”

  She would. Even if this meant that another woman would be coming into his life. He wasn’t too thrilled to think that he’d made a baby with someone who would just drop the kid off in a basket. He was pretty fucking pissed about that, when he thought about it, no matter who she was, and especially if he knew this woman. But if he had gotten someone pregnant, who had freaked out about it to the point that she’d felt she had no other options, then he had some work to do convincing her otherwise. If he could figure out who she was.

  But that didn’t change what he wanted to happen with Harper.

  Somehow he was going to have to prove that to her.

  Making her tend to dirty diapers and waking up with baby puke on her neck might not be the best way of talking her into giving this all a try, though.

  James concentrated on the baby in his arms rather than the woman who was tending to the dirty diapers. It would be easy for her to slip across the landing and shower in her own apartment. She could get dressed, make coffee, a whole bunch of stuff that would make her more prepared to face all this before she had to go to work.

  Or she might not come back over here at all.

  Ever.

  He wouldn’t blame her. This was a strange—at best—situation and not one of her making. This wasn’t an olive tree or a bearded dragon. This was… big.

  With his hand over the baby’s head, blocking his face from the direct spray, James moved back a little farther into the water, letting it run over the baby’s back. He squirmed but didn’t seem unhappy. James turned, so the water would clean the dirty parts and miss the little one's face. He ran his hand up and down the baby’s back, trying to help remove the mess, but as the kid got wetter, he also got slipperier. The baby squirmed, and James tightened his grip. He couldn’t hold him too firmly, and he couldn’t let go of his head, so he couldn’t really move his hand away from his lower back and butt. He hoped the spray would get all the stuff that needed to wash away.

  A moment later, Harper was back in the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. “Is he warm enough?” she asked.

  She had her phone out.

  “Are you Googling how to give a baby a shower?” James asked.

  “Well, I just thought—” She’d pulled the shower curtain back and stopped midsentence, staring.

  James lifted his eyebrows. “Harper?”

  “Uh.” It took her a second, but her gaze found his... “Yeah?”

  “Everything okay?” He looked down.

  “I just…” She swallowed. “I didn’t think that those could get any clingier.”

  He looked down again. To his boxer briefs. They were black, so they hadn’t turned see-through in the water like white might have, but the water had definitely caused them to mold to his body like a second skin. He looked up at her and grinned. “I guess you could have just taken them off of me after all.”

  She pulled in a breath through her nose, not even pretending not to take a good, long look. “All of this is just so…”

  “Huge?” he supplied. Helpfully. Kind of. If he hadn’t meant it with every single ounce of innuendo he was sure she could hear it in his tone.

  She snorted at that. And James fell a little harder for her. This side of Harper, when he knew the polished, sophisticated side was so much more natural for her, was fucking sexy as hell. It was intimate. She was vulnerable here, not put together, in no way on her usual turf. This was stuff she didn’t show most people. He loved it.

  “I was going to say unexpected,” she said. She lifted her eyes to meet his gaze. “But yes, huge does apply.”

  He gave her a wicked grin. Then the baby decided to stretch and wiggle.

  James felt his hand slip slightly, and he instantly focused back on the slick bundle in his arms.

  “Oh my gosh!” Harper’s hand came out instinctively, and she pressed it over James’s on the baby’s back.

  “He’s slippery,” James said. “I was just trying to figure out to actually wash him and hang on at the same time.”

  Harper paused for a moment, then she muttered, “Well, dammit,” and stepped over the side of the tub.

  James was sure his surprise showed on his face. But he was also sure it was instantly replaced by delight.

  She looked up at him. “So you got me in the shower with you.”

  “That was actually pretty easy.”

  She gave a soft laugh. “All you needed was a baby.”

  “You think I didn’t notice that it happened after you’d fully ogled me, Professor?” he asked.

  Her cheeks got a little pink, but her lips still curled. “A gentleman would have never mentioned that.”

  “Who the fuck said there was a gentleman here?” he said, dropping his voice to a husky near-growl.

  She was in his shower. After having been in his bed overnight. And he’d yet to really touch her. This was testing him in ways he’d never imagined, yet he was having a hell of a good time.

  Baby poop aside.

  Her eyes widened. “You can’t swear in front of the baby.”

  James looked down. “If this kid’s first word is fuck, I’ll give you fifty bucks.”

  She smiled. Her hand was still on top of his on the baby’s back. “You hold him, and I’ll wash him.”

  Okay, that was going to be torturous. Her hands were going to be brushing all over James’s chest and torso too as she did this. There would be no real way to avoid that. “Or you could hold him, and I could do the washing,” he said.

  Harper looked up at him, and he saw a glint of mischief there that shot an arrow of heat straight to his cock.

  “You think I don’t realize that to wash him I’ll be getting you pretty soapy, too?” she asked.

  James shook his head slowly. “I’m going to have to take that to mean you’re good with that situation?”r />
  “Maybe.” Her gaze slid over him again.

  Maybe, his ass.

  James had no hope of hiding his erection, but he was totally fine with that.

  Suddenly the buttoned-up, gorgeous, too-good-for-him professor from Apartment 3B had turned into a vixen. Who was standing in his shower in her pajamas. With baby spit-up in her hair.

  “Well, Professor, you’re not going to hear any complaints about you soaping me up,” he said. “Especially as you get wetter and wetter.”

  Her eyes flew to his, and he gave her a knowing grin. So she was wet. Very, very good to know.

  “What?” she asked, her voice a little choked and her cheeks a lot pinker.

  He looked down at the front of her pajama top. She wasn’t directly in the shower spray—yet—but the front of her shirt was getting wet all the same. And it was thin. And a light green color. That wasn’t quite as good as white would have been, but he could see skin and the darker pink of her nipples. The nipples that were nice and tight. From the water or the situation or his gaze, he didn’t know, or care. The fabric was every bit as clingy as his briefs were, and she looked like a hot coed who’d just been doused at a fund-raising car wash rather than the linguistics professor handing out term papers in a lecture hall.

  Harper glanced down, too, and her eyes went wide. She covered herself with her hands instinctively, and James chuckled. “You’re gonna need those hands for soaping.”

  She drew in a quick breath, squeezed her eyes shut, then dropped her hands.

  His body reacted, but he forced himself to focus.

  “Soap’s behind me.”

  “We need to get baby soap,” she said absently, as she attempted to reach past him without leaning in.

  Because if she leaned in, she’d touch him.

  Of course she couldn’t reach, and she had to not only lean but take a step forward.

  “We can do that later,” he said of the baby soap. He didn’t use anything too crazy, though. Nothing with major perfumes or anything in it, so he thought for one bath they’d be okay.

  He loved that Harper was reacting to him and obviously feeling some of the heat and want that he was, but he had to grit his teeth and look up at the ceiling as she finally reached past him, her breast grazing his side— her hard-tipped, nearly-naked-in-that-pajama-top breast.

  She leaned back with the bar of soap in hand and looked up at him. She was right there, her sweet, wet body nearly against his. If not for the baby in his arms, he’d have her up against the tile wall and be driving deep in minutes.

  But if not for the baby in his arms, she might not be here in the first place.

  Except…

  “Just so it’s perfectly clear, in case there is any doubt for either of us, the other night when I was on my way over here from the bar,” he said, “I fully intended to come to your front door and knock like I always did. But when you answered, I wasn’t going to say anything except, ‘put your glasses on,’ if you had them off. Then I was going to kiss the hell out of you, strip you naked, and take you on your kitchen table.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes widened, and her lips parted.

  “And if that fire hadn’t broken out and I’d had the pleasure of giving you five orgasms in one night, this baby still would have showed up, and we would still have to be figuring this out. I would just already know how sweet you taste and how fucking good you feel and how you sound when you come and if you prefer all fours or riding me.” He couldn’t move his hands to touch her, so he simply leaned in, putting his forehead on hers. “So what I’m saying is that the only thing different now is that we’re going to need to buy a crib today and get this kid to sleep early, and you’re going to have to be a little quieter than I’d like when you come so that we don’t wake him up.”

  She was breathing fast, the puffs of air coming quickly against his lips. But she didn’t step back or push him away. And she didn’t deny anything he’d just said. So James tipped his head and met her lips.

  He couldn’t kiss her the way he really wanted to, but he felt that it was vital in that moment to show her that not kissing her simply wasn’t an option anymore. Baby or not.

  She made a sweet little whimpering sound against his lips and pressed close for just a moment.

  And that was enough.

  For now.

  She wanted it. She knew he wanted it. And they were, by God, going to make this happen.

  After baby soap and cribs and stuff.

  James straightened, leaned back, and then turned the baby to face her.

  Looking slightly dazed, Harper focused on the baby. A tiny smile curled her lips as she looked at him, and that kicked James in the gut. The baby was freaking her out a little—well, the idea of the baby and the complications that were going to come with him—but the way she smiled at the little guy made James melt a little.

  Yes, melt.

  That wasn’t manly.

  He didn’t care.

  It was the same way he’d felt when he’d seen her feed Henry bugs the first time. She hadn’t liked doing it. She hadn’t chosen to have to do it. But she’d done it. For him. For Henry, mostly. But because James had brought a lizard and bugs into her life, and instead of telling him to go to hell, she’d just done what needed to be done.

  It was the same way he’d felt when he’d first seen her with Fred. She sure didn’t seem like the type to encourage puppy kisses, but the first time she’d picked him up from James after the dog had spent the day with him, she’d squatted in a pale yellow dress and heels and let the dog climb up into her lap, licking and wiggling, clearly over the moon to see her. She’d not only allowed the kisses, she’d leaned in for them.

  A woman had never made him melt before.

  Not because that wasn’t a manly thing to feel or acknowledge or whatever, but because there just hadn’t been a woman who had been like Harper before.

  Women in the past made him laugh. They turned him on. They sometimes even did things like make him breakfast or show up at the station with brownies.

  Harper had never once shown up at the station. She’d also never made him brownies. But he still liked everything about her more than he’d ever liked another woman. This was a softer feeling, something that he’d actually seen on the faces of the men he knew who had become husbands and fathers.

  Harper Broussard was the one for him.

  But he knew she didn’t know that yet.

  Harper smiled and talked to the baby as she soaped his feet and legs. James held him firmly as she ran her hands over the baby’s belly and arms and then used just the pads of her fingers on his face, even soaping his hair. James turned when she was done, letting the water rinse the soap bubbles away, then pivoted back and was about to turn the baby so she could get his back.

  Just then, however, he peed.

  On Harper.

  Since they were in the shower it was much less messy than it would have been otherwise. But because she was still wearing clothes, they did end up with more than shower water on them.

  “You should definitely take those off the next time we do this,” James said, trying not to laugh.

  She sighed. “We need to buy a baby bathtub today, too.”

  They probably did. “They make those?” Of course they did. But he thought this shower thing had turned out okay in a few ways.

  “They do.”

  “Damn. The guy who invented those clearly hadn’t had the pleasure of female help showering with a baby.”

  “It was probably a woman.”

  He grinned and turned the baby’s back to her.

  Finally, the kid was clean, and Harper stepped out first, grabbing a towel and holding it open. He handed the baby over, and she wrapped him up. James ducked his head back under the spray and quickly shampooed and soaped, even with his underwear on. He was tempted to strip them off now. What would she do? She’d freaking ogle him again, and he’d walk around all day with a hard-on, but that was pretty much al
ready where they were with things.

  He shut the water off and pulled the curtain back completely.

  Harper was just standing there holding the towel-wrapped infant.

  He lifted a brow.

  She watched the water running off his body.

  He lifted a hand and ran it through his wet hair.

  She swallowed hard.

  “I’m going to need that towel,” he said. He hadn’t thought to bring another in from the closet in the hall.

  “He might pee… or worse… on me.”

  “He might.”

  “Also…”

  “Also what?”

  “Five orgasms in one night?”

  He grinned and stepped out of the tub. He moved toward her, and she backed up until she was against the door with nowhere to go.

  He was dripping all over the floor, and the bundle of baby and terrycloth was between them, but James braced a hand on the door over her head, stretching his wet, mostly naked body over her, and leaned in. “Oh, yeah,” he said. Then he took her chin with his finger and thumb and kissed her again.

  He was able to go a little deeper and a little longer this time, sliding his tongue over her bottom lip and then in along her tongue, when she opened with a needy moan.

  He pulled back after just a few seconds, though. He took the baby from her, enjoying the dazed look on her face again and then taking the towel from around the baby and laying him down on the pile of towels he’d been using as a changing area. He quickly put a new diaper on the baby to prevent any more accidents then dried off before picking the baby up and standing. He turned to Harper.

  Who had been, apparently, watching the entire thing.

  “I need to get out of this wet underwear,” he said. He dragged his gaze over her and the nearly see-through top, the tantalizingly hard-tipped breasts, the pants that clung to her legs.

  “I’m, um…” She crossed her arms over her chest. Then dropped her arms. Then sighed. “I’m going to go shower and change clothes.”

  “Okay.” He could let her go now, because he felt more confident that she’d be back.

  “Can one of your friends go to the store with you today?”

  “One of my friends?”