Special Deliveries: Wanted: A Daddy. Amanda Berry

into him, the feel of a slow uncurling from the inside, reluctant almost to give in to him, and then as he moaned his release she shattered.

      She did, she just gave in in a way she never had, felt and delivered deeper than she ever had, and found out in that moment how much of herself she had always held back, the intensity fusing them for a moment in absolute bliss.

      She lay there trying to get her breath back as he rested on top of her, and still they were one as reality slowly started to intrude.

      She wasn’t ready for a relationship.

      He’d sworn to not get involved with someone from work.

      Penny.

      Promotion.

      Simon.

      Single mum.

      Simultaneously the real world flooded its lights onto them and they both turned looked at each other for a long moment.

      ‘Well,’ Jasmine said. ‘We must have both needed that.’

      He laughed, actually laughed on the inside too as he had when she had mouthed ‘sorry’, and the doubts that had started hushed.

      And they hushed some more as they lay in bed and drank Vanessa’s sparkling wine that hadn’t even had time to cool, and they congratulated each other on how fantastic that had been, rather than trying to work out where they were, and then she told him not what was on her mind but the truth.

      ‘I have to go to sleep.’

      ‘And me.’

      ‘I hardly slept yesterday.’

      ‘Me neither.’

      ‘Jed, I don’t know what happened. I don’t really know what to say.’ She was as honest as she could be. ‘I’m nowhere near ready to get involved with someone, so I don’t really know how we ended up here.’

      ‘I do,’ Jed admitted. ‘Why the hell do you think I’ve been avoiding you since I found out you weren’t married?’

      ‘What?’

      He just shrugged.

      ‘Tell me.’

      ‘You just …’ He gave an embarrassed grin. ‘Well, you know when you’re attracted to someone? I suppose when I saw you talking to Penny and then she said you were here for an interview and then someone called you Mrs Phillips, well, I was relieved you were spoken for.’

      Jasmine frowned.

      ‘I don’t like mixing work with things and thought I might have trouble keeping to that with you—it wasn’t a logical thing, just …’

      She did know what he meant.

      Maybe it hadn’t been quite an instant attraction, but that evening on the beach, when he’d lifted his T-shirt … Jasmine pulled back the sheet, looked at his lovely abdomen and bent over and ran her fingers lightly over the line there. He caught her hand as it moved down.

      ‘I thought you wanted to sleep.’

      ‘I do.’

      ‘Then later.’

      She set the alarm for that afternoon, before she remembered another potential problem. Penny.

      ‘And no one at work is to know.’

      ‘Suits me.’

      ‘I mean it,’ Jasmine said. ‘What happened yesterday at work was wrong.’

      ‘I’ll carry on being horrible.’

      ‘Good.’

      ‘So much for clearing the air,’ Jed said. ‘Now it’s all the more complicated.’

      ‘Not really,’ Jasmine yawned. ‘Just sleep with me often and buy me lots of chocolate. My needs are simple.’

      For that morning at least it really did seem as straightforward as that.

       CHAPTER NINE

      JED WAS NICE and grumpy at work and he deliberately didn’t look up when she walked past, and Jasmine made sure there were no private jokes or smiles.

      Gossip was rife in this place and the last thing she wanted was to be at the centre of it again.

      No one could have guessed that their days were spent in bed. She just hoped he understood that it couldn’t always be like this—that night shifts and her mother’s help had made things far easier than they would be from now on. In fact, Jed got his first proper taste of dating a single mum that weekend.

      Ruby was lovely.

      ‘I’m hoping to work overseas as a nanny,’ she explained to Jasmine, ‘so I’m trying to get as much experience as I can and hopefully by the time I’ve got my qualification I’ll have a couple of good references.’

      She was very good with Simon, happy to sit with him as he tried to bang square pegs into round holes, and Jasmine could tell Ruby was very used to dealing with young children.

      ‘My main problem is late shifts,’ Jasmine explained.

      ‘The crèche knows me,’ Ruby said. ‘I pick Liam up and I take him back to Vanessa’s. I give him his dinner and bath and I try to get him asleep for Vanessa but Liam likes to wait up for her.’

      Jasmine laughed. She and Vanessa had got the boys together a couple of times and Liam certainly had plenty of energy.

      ‘Well, Vanessa and I aren’t working the same shifts so much now,’ Jasmine explained, ‘so if we can try and work opposite late shifts …’

      ‘It will all work out,’ Ruby said. ‘I can always look after them both some evenings.’

      Jasmine was starting to think this could work.

      So much so that for a try-out Ruby suggested she look after Simon that night, and for the first time in a very long time Jasmine found herself with a Saturday night free. To her delight, when Jed rang a little bit later she found that she had someone to share it with.

      ‘It went well with Ruby, then?’

      He asked about the babysitter as they were seated for dinner.

      ‘She seems lovely,’ Jasmine said. ‘Simon didn’t even get upset when I left.’

      They were eating a couple of suburbs away from the Peninsula Hospital in a smart restaurant that overlooked the bay. Jasmine had taken a taxi because she hadn’t been out in yonks and she wanted a glass or three of wine.

      ‘I would have picked you up.’

      ‘I know.’ Jasmine smiled. ‘But I’ve a feeling Ruby might gossip to Vanessa. I feel like I’m having an affair. It’s too confusing to work out …’ She looked up from the menu and went cross-eyed and Jed started to laugh. ‘I can’t do that.’

      ‘It’s easy,’ Jasmine said. ‘You just look at the tip of your nose and then hold it as you look up.’

      ‘You’ve practised.’

      ‘Of course.’ She grinned.

      And, cross-eyed or not, she looked stunning, Jed noted.

      Her hair was loose as it had been on the day he had met her on her walk on the beach, but it fell in thick glossy curls. Unlike at work, she was wearing make-up, not a lot but just enough to accentuate her very blue eyes and full mouth. ‘What do you want to eat?’

      ‘Anything,’ Jasmine said. ‘Well, anything apart from chicken nuggets.’

      So instead of leftover nuggets there was wine and seafood, and conversation was easy, as long as it was just about food, about movies and the beach, but the second