Free Sweet Seduction by Daire St. Denis

that?”
    â€œOh,” Daisy said, blinking and wriggling out from beneath him, pulling the sheet around her as she stood. “That’s breakfast.”
    * * *
    C HOCOLATE CROISSANTS , COFFEE , orange juice and fruit salad. It was barely six-thirty on a Sunday morning and the woman had whipped up a feast for him. The croissants were still warm from the oven: homemade pastry with rich, dark chocolate hidden inside. Decadent and delicious.
    As he chewed, he gazed at Daisy sitting across the table from him. Decadent and delicious described her, as well. Though, as he watched her drink her coffee, he noticed she seemed to be having a hard time looking at him this morning. The uncertain woman, the one who activated the protective gene in him, was back. It was strange to see her this way, such a shift from the wildcat he’d barely been able to control between the sheets.
    â€œYou never answered my question,” she said, glancing up before focusing on her coffee again.
    â€œWhat question?”
    â€œWhere’d you get the bruises?”
    He swallowed the pastry and chased it with a gulp of coffee. “I own a place. To work out.”
    â€œLike a gym?”
    â€œMore like a club.”
    â€œWhat, like a fight club?
    â€œKind of.”
    â€œIs it legal?”
    â€œIs an illegal club sexy?”
    â€œNo.” There was a smile hiding at the corners of her mouth.
    â€œLiar.”
    Her smile broke, and it was the most beautiful thing in the world. She was the most beautiful thing in the world.
    He rubbed his eyes. Jesus. Who was this woman? “You’re bad for me, you know that?”
    â€œBad enough to spank?”
    He dropped the croissant and stared. “Stop it.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re like...the perfect woman right now.”
    She reached across the small table and punched him on the shoulder. Kind of hard. “Is that better?”
    â€œWorse.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause I liked it.” He grabbed her fist and held it. “And perfect women don’t exist.”
    â€œOf course not, idiot. Neither do perfect men.” She took a bite of croissant. “But perfection? It’s real. It’s fleeting, but every once in a while you can find it.”
    Her statement was so naively sweet, he almost wanted to believe it. They stared into each other’s eyes until Jamie watched the smile fall away from her lips while her eyes clouded with something. Not the uncertainty of before, but something else.
    What that something else was, Jamie didn’t want to know. After slowly placing her hand back on the table, he cleared his throat, feeling desperate to escape all of a sudden. He finished his croissant in one bite and swallowed the rest of his coffee. Pushing away from the table, he glanced around, looking for something. The exit? His sanity?
    His jacket was lying on the floor by the door, and he strode over to pick it up. After shrugging into it, he turned, intending to thank Daisy for breakfast. “I’d like to see you tomorrow.”
    What?
    He hadn’t planned on saying those words; they’d just come out of him. The weird thing was he didn’t regret them.
    â€œOkay,” she answered softly before frowning. “I’d like that.”
    â€œGood.” He exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Seriously. He had to get the hell out of there before he said something else he might or might not regret. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
    * * *
    M ONDAY MORNING , J AMIE sat at his desk, staring at the pile of Dissolution of Marriage documents that needing to be filed in court for his clients. He sifted through them, figuring there were about twenty. Twenty more reminders that the idea of a permanent union between two people was a myth. Was he jaded when it came to marriage? Absolutely, and he’d lived his life accordingly.
    So why did he keep seeing Daisy’s face