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"Shit, Gracie," hebreath "That was intense"

All I can do is nod as I turn my face away from the pillow to look at hilazed with satisfaction

I let my head drop back to the pillow, coasth left to smile back at him

Chapter 21

Marek

I look at the pancake bubbling nicely in the pan before looking over lued to Moana on Netflix It's only about the hundredth ti to Maui's song "You're Welcome"

I look back to the pancake and feel pretty darn proud ofby ju into the bed with us We had been wrapped around each other, but luckily the covers were pulled up to our shoulders Lilly didn't seee about her ether She just started bouncing up and down on top of us, saying that she was hungry

"Lilly, did you go potty this ?" Gracen asked her

Lilly grinned shyly and shook her head

Gracen gave her a stern look--so that I have not yet mastered with Lilly--and pointed to the bedrooo have breakfast"

Lilly is such a great freaking kid she rinned at her mom and in a chirpy, happy voice said, "Okay, Mommy"

She bounded off the bed and ran out the door

I turned to look at Gracen, as shter I reached out and pulled her closer toa hard kiss on her ood kid And she listens to you so well"

Gracen gave a deep laugh and pushed at my chest "Oh, she has you so fooled You haven't seen Lilly in full-blown tantrum mode that only a toddler can pull off"

"And I don't want to see it," I tell her with a laugh "You can handle all of that and I get to do just the fun stuff"

Gracen laughed again "If only parenting worked that way Let o down and make her breakfast"

"No," I told her unexpectedly "You stay in bed and relax I'll go make breakfast" Gracen arched a beautiful eyebrow at esture with her hand toward the door "Go get her, tiger"

And now here I a how ed in just a month

I look over at Lilly again and back to the pancake, which is in need of flipping I feel a little frisky aboutabilities, so I take the silver handle of the pan and give it a sharp snap upward from the flame I expect the pancake to launch off and into the air, whereby it will tu back bubbly-side down in the pan To ainst the Italian tiled backsplash behind the stove before it slides down leaving a trail of batter behind

I snicker toa note that I will never try to flip a pancake again I look over my shoulder and find that Lilly still has her eyes pinned on the TV My neck, however, flushes red as I see Gracen standing there with arive her a sheepish grin and turn back to the stove using the spatula to scoop up the broken pancake from the wall

"Was just trying soain"

Gracen laughs joyfully over"I' pancakes Most of the time I just use the frozen ones that you can nuke in the microwave"

Chuckling, I slice a pat of butter to throw into the pan to melt "I'll make a note of that"

After Gracen fixes her cup of coffee, she coainst the counter She put on a pair of gray yoga pants and a tank top, the forination She looks sexy as hell, and if Lilly weren't in the rooht now, I'd have her on the kitchen floor

Or the counter

Or against the wall

Stop it

"How et a hard-on that Iin front of my child

"Two"

I nod and pour some batter into the pan "Let et you next"

"I'm in no rush"