protested briefly at the exchange, then attached himself to Ryder. Travis continued to scream, so she lowered her mouth to his ear and began to quietly sing a lullaby from her childhood. Travis cried, but the sound grew less intense. She kept singing and he made sad little yelps, then finally quieted.
“Aren’t you the magic one?” Ryder said.
“Luck,” she said and cooed at the baby, swirling him around in the water. “Doesn’t this feel good?” she murmured.
By the end of class, they’d switched off again and Travis was cackling and shrieking with joy as he splashed and kicked and Ryder whirled him around in the water.
As soon as they stepped from the pool, they wrapped the boys in snuggly towels. Ryder rubbed Travis’s arms. She did the same with Tyler and he smiled at her. Her heart swelled at his sweetness. “You are such a good boy. Isn’t he?” she said to Ryder.
“You bet,” Ryder said and pressed his mouth against Tyler’s chubby cheek, making a buzzing sound. Tyler chortled with joy.
“That sound is magic,” she said.
Ryder nodded as he continued to rub Travis. “Yeah, it is.” His glance raked her from head to toe and he shook his head. “You look pretty damn good.”
Bridget felt a warmth spread from her belly to her chest and face, down her legs, all the way to her toes. “It’s just been a long time for you,” she said and turned away to put some clothes on Tyler.
A second later, she felt Ryder’s bare chest against her back. An immediate visceral response rocked through her and she was torn between jumping out of her skin and melting. “Yeah, it has,” he said. “But that shouldn’t make you so damn different from every other woman I’ve met.”
Her stomach dipped. “Stop flattering me,” she said. “Get your baby dressed. You don’t want him chilled.”
After pizza and a raucous bath time, Ryder and Bridget rocked the babies and put them to bed. Ryder would have preferred to usher Bridget into his bed and reacquaint himself with the curves he’d glimpsed in the pool, but he would have to bide his time. Hopefully not too long, he told himself as his gaze strayed to the way her hips moved in her cotton skirt. He’d thought he was so smart getting her out of most of her clothes by inviting her to the baby swimming class. Now he would live with those images all night long.
“Wine?” he asked, lifting a bottle from the kitchen before he joined her in the den.
She had sunk onto the sofa and leaned her head back against it, unintentionally giving him yet another seductive photo for his mental collection. One silky leg crossed over the other while the skirt hugged her hips. The V-neck of her black shirt gave him just a glimpse of creamy cleavage. For once, her lips were bare, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to kiss her.
Her eyes opened to slight slits shrouded with the dark fan of her eyelashes. “One glass,” she said. “I think everyone will sleep well tonight.”
Speak for yourself, he thought wryly and poured her wine. He allowed himself one glass because he wasn’t on call.
“It’s amazing how much they can scream, isn’t it?” she said as he sat beside her.
“They save up energy lying around all the time. It’s not like they can play football or baseball yet.”
“Have you thought about which sport you’ll want them to pursue?” she asked.
“Whatever keeps them busy and tired. If they’re busy and tired, they won’t be as likely to get into trouble,” he said.
“So that’s the secret,” she said with a slow smile. “Did that work for you?”
“Most of the time. I learned at a young age that I wanted a different life than the life my parents had.”
“Hmm, at least you knew your parents,” she said.
“Can’t say knowing my father was one of my strong points.”
“Well, you know what they say, if you can’t be a good example, be a terrible warning.”
He chuckled slightly and relaxed next to her. “I don’t want to be the same kind of father he was. Drunk. Neglectful. Bordering on abusive.”
“You couldn’t be those things,” she said.
“Why not? You’ve heard the saying, an apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”
“You’ve already fallen a long way from that so-called tree,” she said. “Plus, you may be fighting some of your feelings, but you love those boys.” She lifted her hand to his jaw. “You have a good heart. I liked that about you from the first time I met you.”
“And I thought it was my singing voice,” he said and lowered his mouth to hers, reveling in the anticipation he felt inside and saw in her eyes.
She tasted like a delicious combination of red wine, tiramisu and something forbidden that he wasn’t going to resist. Ryder was certain he could resist her if he wanted. If there was one thing Ryder possessed, it was self-discipline. The quality had been necessary to get him through med school, residency and even more so now in his position at the hospital and with the twins.
For now, though, Ryder had decided he didn’t want to resist Bridget. With her lush breasts pressing against his chest, discipline was the last thing on his mind. She was so voluptuously female from her deceptively airy attitude to her curvy body. He slid one of his hands through her hair as she wiggled against him.
A groan of pleasure and want rose from his throat as she deepened the kiss, drawing his tongue into her mouth. The move echoed what he wanted to be doing with the rest of his body and hers. He wrapped his hands around her waist. He slid one down to her hips and the other upward to just under her breast.
He was so hard that he almost couldn’t breathe. She was so soft, so feminine, so hot. With every beat of his heart, he craved her. He wanted to consume her, to slide inside her….
Ryder slid his hand to her breast, cupping its fullness. Her nipple peaked against his palm. The fire inside him rising, he tugged a few buttons of her blouse loose and slipped his hand under her bra, touching her bare skin, which made him want to touch every inch of her. He couldn’t remember wanting to inhale a woman before.
The next natural step would be to remove her clothes and his and after that, caress her with his hands and mouth. After that, he wanted to slide inside her … She would be so hot, so wet….
All he wanted was to be as close to her as humanly possible.
From some peripheral area of his brain, he heard a knock and then another. Her body and soul called to him. He took her mouth in another deep kiss.
Another knock sounded, this time louder, but Ryder was determined to ignore it.
Suddenly his front door opened and Marshall burst into the room.
“Whoa,” Marshall said. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Ryder felt Bridget pull back and hastily arrange her shirt. “Who—” she
