I shake my head and look away, but he tugs my chin back, so I have to look him in the eyes. “What do you want, baby?”
“I just want you. And I don’t want you to get mad when I tell you this next thing.”
He exhales slowly, still looking me in the eyes. “I’m not going to be mad.”
I nod and take a long, deep breath. This so didn’t go well the first time. I’m scared to hope that it’ll go better this time, so I clench my eyes closed, terrified to look him in the eyes.
“I’m pregnant.”
“Look at me.”
I simply bite my lip.
“Look at me, Gabrielle.”
I comply and feel the breath leave my body. His green eyes are soft. Tender. And if I’m not mistaken, a little misty.
And his voice is so damn soothing.
“Why in the world would that make me angry?”
“This conversation hasn’t gone well for me in the past,” I reply. “It scares me.”
He pulls me into his strong arms, holding me close, and kisses my forehead, then my lips. “No one wants this baby more than me,” he says. “You’re the best mom I’ve ever seen.”
“But it ties you to me forever,” I reply. “And I don’t know if you want that.”
“Well, that leads us to the next thing.” He clears his throat, then smiles widely, almost the way Sam does when he’s giddy. “I’m gonna be a daddy.”
“Yes, you are.”
“So fucking amazing.” He clears his throat again, and then his face sobers. “I love you, Gabby. You’re every hope, every dream I’ve ever had, and I didn’t even know it until I met you. No matter what happens in our life, every day I get to be with you is the greatest day of my life.”
Tears are now rolling unchecked down my cheeks. I can’t take my eyes off of him.
“You make me believe that love isn’t hard because you love everyone in your life so effortlessly.” He cups my jaw in his hands, his fingers mingle in with my hair, and his thumbs brush the tears from my face. “When you smile in that sweet way you do just for me, I swear I can see the next fifty years of my life.”
I smile and drag my fingers down his cheek. “I always think that you smile at me in a special way too.”
My heart stalls in my chest as he reaches in his pocket and pulls out a blue box with a slightly smashed white bow and places it in my palm. With shaking fingers, I unwrap the box and gasp at the gorgeous ring winking up at me.
“Rhys.”
“I need you with me, beside me, as my partner and my love, for the rest of my life, Gabrielle. Please tell me that you’ll be my wife. Have more babies with me. Let me give you and Sam my last name.”
Is this real?
“I love you so much,” I whisper through my tears. “I was so scared that I’d lost you.”
“Never.”
“I would be honored to marry you.”
“Oh no, sweetheart. The honor is all mine.” He lifts the ring from the box and slides it on my finger. It’s a perfect fit.
And suddenly, I’m in his arms and he’s carrying me into the house.
“Where are we going?”
“I can’t do what I want to do to you on the porch.”
“What do you want to do to me?”
His grin is slow and naughty as he carries me into my bedroom, lays me on the bed, then covers me with his body. “I’m going to make love to you.”
“Mmm,” I moan. “That sounds like a good plan.”
He kisses my lips sweetly and drags his nose down my jawline to my neck as his hands make quick work of shedding my summer dress and panties.
His hands are everywhere.
“I missed this,” I whisper before kissing his shoulder.
“I was going crazy in Chicago,” he says as he nibbles his way down my torso, paying special attention to my nipples on the way. “These are sensitive,” he murmurs.
“They’ve been sore,” I agree.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No.” I push my fingers into his hair, loving how soft it is. “I don’t think you’d ever hurt me.”
“Never intentionally,” he agrees and slides his hand down my stomach and into my already wet folds. “God, you’re so damn wet.”
“You’re doing sexy things to me,” I reply with a giggle, then sigh as he pushes two fingers inside me. “You’re so good at that.”
His thumb is wreaking havoc on my clit, making me writhe and moan beneath him.
I need him inside me!
“Rhys.”
“Yes, baby, sigh my name like that again.”
I smile. “Rhys, I need you inside me.” I’m yanking at his shirt, trying to get it over his head. “You’re seriously over-dressed.”
Finally, he rears up and sheds the shirt, works his jeans off, and I cup his impressive hard-on in my hand, pumping it firmly, wiping the bead of precum with my thumb.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he whispers.
“What a way to go,” I reply with a satisfied grin, and then he’s suddenly nudging inside me, pushing slowly.
So fucking slowly.
I try to tilt my hips up to meet him, but he’s holding me down, making me feel every incredible inch. And then he keeps the torture going with long, slow strokes, filling and emptying me, watching me with those amazing green eyes.
“I love you,” I whisper, holding his face in my hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
He kisses my palm and lowers himself over me, resting on his elbows. His lips are against mine, my arms and legs are wrapped around him.
I’ve never felt so physically and emotionally connected to anyone in my life.
“I should have told you too,” he whispers against my lips. “There aren’t words sufficient enough to explain to you how amazing you are. I promise you, I’m going to spend every day making sure you’re happy.”
“You do make me happy,” I reply. “You make me feel things that I don’t even have a label for, it’s so big.”
“That’s my cock, baby,” he replies with a naughty grin.
“You’re such a man.” I giggle and clench down on him harder. “You know what I mean.”
He pushes even deeper inside me, making us both gasp.
“Sex and love all at the same time is a powerful thing,” he whispers. “A very smart woman I know once said that. I had no idea just how powerful until you.”
His hands are in my hair, just as they always are. I hope he never stops loving my hair.
With his eyes on mine, he sets the pace, increasing the tempo, pushing harder, until finally we can’t stand it anymore, and fall apart at the seams, exploding into a million pieces, then falling back together again.
He collapses on top of me, panting and sweaty.
“I’m so fucking hungry,” he growls in my ear.
“I’ll go make you something to eat.”
“Oh, you think you can still walk?” He pulls back to stare down at me with a raised brow. “Then we’re not done.”
“How are we going to get food?” I ask.
“We’ll worry about that later. For now I’m going to make love to the mother of my children.”
My children.
I blink up at him in surprise.
“Yes, Sam is mine, just as much as this baby is mine.” His hand covers my belly. “Just as much as you are mine.”
“We’re all yours,” I agree. “And you’re ours. Always.”
He smiles at me, in that way he does that makes my toes curl.
“Always.”
Chapter Twenty-One
~Gabby~
Two Months Later
“Thank you for having dinner with us, darling,” Susan Waterbury, the wife of Rhys’s coach, says as she hugs me tightly. “And if you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to call me. We baseball wives have to stick together.”
“Thank you so much,” I reply with a smile, enjoying Susan very much. “It was
so nice to meet you.”
“Goodnight,” Rhys says with a wave, and with his hand linked with mine, escorts me in the opposite direction of the Waterbury’s toward our hotel room.
“That was nice,” I say and lean my head on Rhys’s shoulder. “Thank you for bringing me to Chicago to meet your team. Everyone has been very nice to me.”
Rhys kisses my head and squeezes my hand. “I needed the two most important parts of my life to finally meet each other. And Coach’s wife has been a baseball wife for more than half of her life.”
“She’ll be a great source of information,” I agree. “She’s sweet.”
“She’ll also be a great source of gossip,” Rhys says with a chuckle as he leads me into the elevator and presses the button for the penthouse. “Are you tired?”
“No, I’m feeling good.”
After the first trimester was over, my energy seemed to come back in full force. Morning sickness is gone. I feel great.
He pins me in the corner of the elevator and his lips tip up in that sexy smile of his. “I’m glad to hear that, because I have some plans for you tonight.”
“That sounds promising.”
He nods and kisses me soundly, passionately, until the bell dings and the doors open to our floor.
He takes my hand and leads me through the penthouse to the master bedroom. His body is tense. He’s been broody and intense all day. For the first time in a long time, I’m having a hard time reading him.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Fine.”
Hmm.
I kick my shoes off and reach for the zipper on the back of my dress, but Rhys turns me away from him and unzips it himself. He kisses down my spine as he slowly lowers it, then kisses his way back up as the dress falls around my ankles and I’m left in a black bra and matching black panties.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers against my ear. “And mine.”
“Yes,” I agree.
“On the bed, please.”
I glance back at him, still not able to read his mood, but I comply, crawling into the middle of the enormous bed and lying on my back.
“On all fours.”
“Rhys, are you okay?”
He raises a brow. “I’m fine. I’ve had a lot on my mind today.”
Okay.
“What do you need?”
“I need you to turn over, please.”
I’m watching him, his deep green eyes, his face. He’s still tense, but he’s also watching me with the love-filled eyes I just can’t get enough of.
So, I turn over onto my hands and knees, already wondering what he has planned.
“Do you trust me?” he asks. I can hear him shucking his clothing, and then the bed dips when he joins me, kneeling at my side.
“Of course.”
“Grab onto the headboard,” he whispers into my ear, sending shivers all over my body.
Oh, this is going to be so damn fun.
I grin and stretch out, the way I did when we were still learning each other, and grip onto the headboard. His hands are everywhere, rubbing down my back, my hips, my thighs, then up between them so he can tickle my folds with his fingertips.
“I have something I need to get off of my chest, baby.” His palm is circling over my ass. Gently, lazily, in big wide circles around the cheeks, up my center and crack, then around the opposite one.
It’s freaking amazing.
“What is it?”
SMACK.
I gasp and look back at him, my mouth gaping and eyes wide. “You just spanked me!”
“You let go of the headboard.”
His face is sober, but his eyes look…hurt.
I lean back down and grip the bed and Rhys resumes caressing my body, turning me on, making me sweat.
“You say you trust me, but you didn’t trust me before, Gabby. You immediately assumed the worst about me, believing that I’d left you for good.”
SMACK.
I bite my lip, caught between the sting of the slap and the pure pleasure of his hands and mouth all over me. I’m sopping wet. My hips are rotating, begging for more.
“You say you trust me, but you didn’t tell me that Colby had been harassing you the entire time I was with you.”
SMACK.
Oh my God.
I thought I liked being spanked before, and that was nothing compared to this.
“My actions speak for me, Gabby. I did nothing but support you. Care for both you and Sam. And you devastated me by jumping to the most horrible conclusion there was.”
SMACK.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper and bite my lip. He’s right. I told him I trusted him, but I didn’t. Not when it counted.
Not when he needed me to the most.
“Is it going to happen again?” His voice is raw now, full of what sounds like unshed tears, but I can’t move my hands from the headboard long enough to look at him.
I need to look at him.
“Rhys—”
“Not yet. Is it going to happen again, Gabby? What if there’s a misunderstanding again? What if I can’t communicate with you as often as you’d like when I’m on the road? Are you going to automatically assume that I don’t want you? Or that I don’t love you?”
SMACK.
“No, never.”
I can’t stand it now. I move my hands and flip around so I can take his face in my hands and look him in the eyes.
“You moved.”
“I don’t care. You can spank me again later. Rhys, I’m so sorry. Why did you wait all of these weeks to tell me how hurt you were?”
“I don’t think it hit me until we were here in Chicago and Susan was telling you about the number of marriages that don’t work, for all of the ridiculous reasons that they fall apart. And Gabby, jumping to conclusions is a big one. There will be times that I have to travel without you. I couldn’t handle it if I didn’t think you trusted me. And based on what happened before, you said you trusted me, but obviously that’s not true.”
“So you spanked me?”
His eyes flash. “Yes.”
He pushes me back on the bed and covers me gently, wraps my legs around his waist and slowly slips inside me.
“I thought you’d want to fuck me hard to go along with that spanking.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he replies and kisses me softly.
“You didn’t hurt me. Even the smacks didn’t hurt.”
“You’re pregnant,” he reminds me, as if I’m likely to forget. “And you like spankings, so it really wasn’t much of a punishment.”
“I love you so big,” I whisper against his lips. “I trust you with everything I am, Rhys. I will never, ever doubt you again.”
“It almost killed me, Gabrielle. I’m your constant. I’m what you can depend on. And you’re that for me. You can trust that, I promise you.”
I smile and wrap my arms around this amazing man. “I love you.”
He grins and moves so slowly that I have to bite my lip. “I love you too. Let me show you how much.”
***
Ten Months Later
“Look, Mom! There’s Daddy!” Sam points at Rhys, who has just taken to the pitcher’s mound in Wrigley Field. The crowd is going wild, as they always do when their pitcher enters the game.
God, my husband is fucking sexy in that uniform. And he loves it when I wear his jersey and nothing else to bed.
In fact, I think I’ll do that later tonight.
Ailish, our two-month-old daughter, squirms in the baby carrier I have strapped around me and lets out a little squeak, then settles down again, sleeping peacefully.
This baby girl has red hair, just like her aunt Kate, and I hope it stays that way.
“What is she doing?” Sam asks and peeks in on his sister.
“She’s just getting comfortable.”
He smiles up at me. “She’s cute.”
“You didn’t say that the other day when I suggested you change her dirty diaper
,” I remind him with a chuckle, then lean down and kiss his head. “I think you said she was gross.”
“Well, yuck,” he says, sticking his tongue out. “For such a little thing, she sure makes a big mess.”
“True.”
Very true. This little bundle of joy runs on her own timeline. Where Sam was super early being born, Ailish was two weeks late. Rhys almost didn’t arrive in time to see her be born because he had to be in Philly for games that week. But as soon as I called him, letting him know that I was in labor, he jumped on a chartered plane, and walked in the hospital room just in time to hold my hand while I pushed and cursed him for doing this to me, and then he held both me and Ailish while all three of us cried.
He’s an awesome dad to both of our kids. The same day we married, Rhys adopted Sam, and thanks to the iron-clad contract my father made Colby sign before Sam was born, Colby had no case, and is officially out of the picture, again.
Sam couldn’t be more proud to call Rhys his dad.
“Mom! Look!” Sam is jumping and pointing at us on the big screen, and I’m suddenly shy.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer bellows, “we are excited to introduce you to our Cubs pitcher’s family! This is Gabby, Sam and Ailish O’Shaughnessy!”
Sam and I wave at the board, and when I glance down at Rhys, he blows me a kiss, then waves.
I’m a lucky woman. Actually, no, luck has nothing to do with it. I deserve this life. I deserve this man and these amazing children.
I deserve this happiness.
“Let’s play ball!”
Epilogue
~Declan Boudreaux~
I don’t know why I’m still here. My set ended a half an hour ago, and I passed up a sweet piece of ass to stay.
I wasn’t even interested in the petite brunette that made it very clear that she’d be happy to share her bed with me tonight.
Instead, I can’t take my eyes off the owner of this club, Odyssey, as she bustles about, giving orders to the wait-staff and bartenders, getting the place closed up for the night.
“You’re still here,” Callie says as she approaches the bar. Her platinum blonde hair is up in some sort of complicated-yet-messy-looking knot on her head, showing off her slender neck and shoulders. Her lips are red, and her eyes are ice blue as they look me up and down.