He had a new appreciation for his friends with kids and all the times they must have been cock blocked.
Just then the baby made a funny little squeal sound and suddenly farted again. But this time there was more than just noise.
“Oh!” Harper’s hand flew up to cover her mouth.
James grimaced as he felt warm slime cover his hand and slide onto his chest. He knew what it was. He didn’t need—or want—to look.
At least his erection and lusty thoughts were effectively dead now.
“Um… shit,” he said, in a feeble attempt at humor.
Harper made a choked, laughing sound behind her hand and squeezed her eyes shut. “This is so not how I envisioned our first morning in bed together.”
She’d envisioned a morning in bed together?
Even with baby poop on his hand and chest, he couldn’t just skip over that tidbit of information. “Tell me, in graphic detail, how you did envision it.”
She shook her head, smiling behind her hand, eyes still shut. “I can’t. Not with that smell and the knowledge that I have spit-up in my hair.” She took her hand away, pointing in the direction of the bathroom. “Go clean up. I’m going to grab a shower, too.”
She was leaving. “Wait. Don’t… go.”
Her eyes opened. “What?”
“Don’t leave.” The baby was squirming and fussing, and yeah, the smell was becoming impossible to ignore. James started for the bathroom. “Just… wait.”
“I really am just going to shower quick,” she assured him. “I’ll come back over. I don’t have a class until two.”
He spun. “You have to work today?”
“Well, yes.” She frowned. “Hey, you’re off today?”
“Yeah.”
Harper stood, and James took in the sight quickly. The thin pants hung loose on her hips, and it wouldn’t take much to push them to the floor. Did she wear panties to bed? Then she moved in front of the window, and the morning sun shone through the thin material of her top, showing the delicious outline of her perfect, perky breasts.
“Do you think she knew that? Do you think she planned to bring him over on a night when you’d be off the next day, on purpose?”
Her words jerked him back to the conversation. And the foul-smelling, slimy, wiggling baby in his hands. He stepped into the bathroom. “Hey, bud, it’s okay,” he said softly to the baby. The baby did not agree. He started yelling louder about how bad his backside felt and probably how hungry he was.
James looked around the bathroom. How was he going to do this? If he cleaned the baby up first, he’d get the kid dirty again when he picked him back up. He couldn’t very well just lay him on the bathmat while James showered. Plus then he’d get dirty again when he picked the baby back up.
“Uh…”
Suddenly Harper was in the bathroom doorway. “So it’s someone who knows you’re a firefighter. Does that help narrow down who she might be?”
He reached for the roll of toilet paper, tearing off a long strip and trying to wipe… something. Anything. The baby was squawking now, and James knew they were maybe a minute away from outright crying. “All the women I’ve been with know I’m a firefighter, Harper,” he said absently over the noise.
“You use that as a pickup line all the time?”
“It’s one of my strongest selling points.” He tried to wipe at his hand, but it was difficult to support the baby and wipe at the same time.
“That is so not true,” she muttered.
“What?”
But before he could ask her what she meant by that, she stepped around him and leaned in to turn on the shower. He was momentarily distracted by how great her ass looked, and how, if he’d been on the other side of her, he would have been able to see down her shirt.
Damn, even a squalling, poop-covered baby couldn’t get in the way of his attraction to this woman.
“Get in.” She stepped back, clearly meaning he should get into the shower.
He glanced down at the baby. “Uh.”
“Take him in with you.”
James shrugged. That would work. He flashed her a grin. “You wanna take my underwear down or hold the poopy baby so I can?”
She lifted a brow. “I think you can get in with them on.”
“Worth a try.” He stepped over the edge of the tub, turning so the spray would hit his back, blocking it from the baby at first.
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.