Then he remembered Liliah. He remembered the humiliation of realizing he’d totally misjudged her and the anger when she abandoned their kids. He remembered he barely knew Tory and that she had a secret.
He bounced from the sofa. “You know what? I’m more tired than I thought.” He pivoted and headed for his bedroom. “I think I’ll just call it a night.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SOUND OF THE BABIES crying woke Tory a little after three and she popped up in bed. Shoving her arms into her pink chenille robe to the music of two wailing babies, she limped to the nursery door. Her leg always bothered her after hours of sitting or when she first awoke, so it didn’t concern her. She opened the door from her room to the nursery just as Chance opened the door on the other side, the one that connected to his room.
His short dark hair spiked out in all directions. His eyes blinked against the light she’d turned on. And he was topless. He wore only black sweatpants that hung low on his lean hips, revealing a firm chest peppered with hair as black as the hair on his head. Even his feet were bare.
Her breathing froze. Their moment on the couch rolled through her brain. The shivery heat that had rattled through her flooded her again. She’d never felt anything like that for a man before. Not even Jason. Which made it incredibly wrong. Incredibly. It had to be.
She quickly headed for Cindy’s crib. “I thought it was my job to get up with the babies?”
The question stuttered out of her, but she had to say something. Not only did she need to get them past the ridiculous once-over she’d just given his body, but she also wanted to get them beyond her gazing at him like a lovesick fool while they were on the sofa. He might be gorgeous, with a fantastic, sexy, sensual body. But that wasn’t his fault. It was nature’s. After the way she’d stared longingly at him when they’d accidentally sat side by side on the sofa, she had to show him she could behave appropriately around him. Like a nanny.
He ran his hand down his face. “A full night’s sleep last night was wonderful. But there are two of them and two of us. It will just make things easier if we work together.”
His deep, masculine voice set off a chain reaction of tingles and fluttering inside her. She wanted to ask herself what was wrong with her but she knew. Just as nature had graced Chance with good looks, it was interfering with her biology now. She was a normal twenty-five-year-old woman. Her hormones might have been suppressed for the years she’d gone through surgeries and rehab but they were awake now.
Still, she could ignore them. She had to ignore them.
They made short order of the diapers in silence. When the last snap was snapped, Chance walked over to Cindy’s changing table and motioned for Tory to put her on his free arm.
“Since I can hold both, you get the bottles.”
She slid the baby onto his arm, taking great care not to touch him. Then she scooted out and raced to the kitchen. She took two bottles from the refrigerator, and headed back to the nursery. Nudging open the door with her shoulder, she found Chance struggling with his two screaming bundles of joy, both of whom appeared to want to crawl onto his head.
She raced over with the bottles, simultaneously handing Chance a bottle and taking Cindy from his lap. “I see what you mean about them crawling all over you like cats.”
Sliding the nipple into Sam’s mouth, Chance only grunted. She sat on the other rocker and slid the bottle into Cindy’s mouth.
Except for the eager sucking of two hungry babies, the room was silent.
Tory drew in a long breath. They shouldn’t talk. The kids should eat and then fall back to sleep. But not talking made the time seem so intimate.
She snorted a laugh in her head. The intimacy was only her perception. A guy who jumped off the couch and ran to his room rather than sit too close to her and grunted his responses wasn’t feeling intimate. She had to get ahold of these weird feelings and stop misinterpreting things. He was her boss. She was a nanny. He needed her. And she liked being needed. She liked being around the kids.
Sam finished first. Chance expertly burped him and put him in his crib with a soft good-night kiss. Without a word, he left the nursery, confirming that all these things she thought were happening were only in her head.
Sleepy Cindy sucked slowly and drifted off to sleep.
“Hey,” Tory whispered. “You can’t fall asleep until you’re done eating.”
Cindy blinked up at her as if saying her talking helped her to stay awake, so Tory smiled. “You like a little dinner conversation?”