He was tall, at least six one, maybe six two. And muscled. He wasn’t slim at all. His body was built of lean, compacted muscle that had some bulk to it, sure, but I wouldn’t call him huge now.

Since babies didn’t come out muscled, I wondered if he wasn’t a big baby but a long one.

It hit me then that, while I was distracted, he’d rounded the island and was getting close. I stopped thinking about his weight as a baby and his current size and started retreating at the same time I came out of la-la land and back into our current scenario.

“I want you to leave,” I stated firmly.

“Yeah,” he replied, still coming at me and I hit the side counter as he kept coming and talking. “I get that, but clue in, Tess. I ain’t leavin’.”

Then he was right there. So right there that I could feel his heat and I had to tip my head way back to look up at him, seeing as I was barefoot and not six foot one or two but five foot six.

“Please leave,” I stated a fair bit less firmly.

He leaned in, settling his hands on the counter on either side of me and I lifted my hands (and the pastry bag) between us.

He also again ignored me. “You didn’t call.”

I stared into his angry eyes. “I didn’t call?”

He glared at me with his angry eyes. “No, babe, you didn’t call.”

“I didn’t call,” I whispered. My heart, already beating fast, started to pound.

“Three months,” he declared but said no more.

I stared into his glittering, silver eyes.

Then I lost my ever-lovin’ mind.

“Are you nuts?” I shrieked.

“Tess—”

“Fuck you!” I shouted and pushed at him with my pastry-bag-filled hands. A thin stream of pale yellow icing shot out onto the floor beside us as well as on his Charlie Daniels tee.

I found the bag not in my hands and watched him twist his torso and toss it on the island next to the cake and twist back to me.

That was when I put my hands on the hard wall of his chest, shoved, and repeated on a shout, “Fuck you!”

He rocked back a couple of inches, then moved right back in. His face got into my face and he growled, “Fuckin’ listen to me.”

“No!” I yelled. “No way. No fucking way. You used me.”

“It’s my job,” he ground out.

“Do you think I give a shit?” I asked.

“Maybe, if you’d calm the fuck down and listen for a goddamned minute, you’d understand why I do think you should fuckin’ give a shit.”

“I can assure you, Brock Lucas, that nothing you can say will make me understand why I should give a shit,” I informed him.