Megan froze in her spot, her gorgeous mouth parted in midprotest, brows pulled high together in an expression that was pure, helpless disbelief.
But not elation. Not blissful surrender.
At the first blink, the sign she was breaking out of that stunned state of suspension, he panicked. He hadn’t said enough, hadn’t explained, couldn’t risk her response before he told her everything she needed to know.
So he pulled the lowest trick he had in his arsenal. This was too important to him—she was too important to him—to risk playing by the rules. And for the first time in his life, he didn’t damn his father for that bit of unscrupulous DNA spiraling through the darkest parts of who he was.
He embraced it.
Stepping forward, he caught Megan with one hand beneath the fall of her hair, silencing any denial she might have made with a kiss bursting with every bit of aching, unfulfilled longing, heartbreak, desire and need he’d suffered since the moment she left. He told her with his lips how he missed her, with his tongue the way of his want. Gentle bites hinted at the hold she had on him.
And when her fingers were wrapped in his shirt, her breath rushing across his lips and cheeks, her eyes again locked with his—he went on. Telling her what he’d only discovered for himself.
“Megan, I never wanted love. I saw what it did to my mother and didn’t want any part of it. All my adult life I avoided that kind of intimacy, holding myself at arm’s length and making unbreachable boundaries a part of every relationship. It was easy. Until I met you. In the span of a few hours, I’d married you and all the rules I lived by were a thing of the past. I swore up and down we’d have the kind of controlled marriage where no one could get hurt, but I couldn’t even control myself. Nothing halfway was enough with you. I made every excuse in the book, but I couldn’t admit what was really going on.”
“Connor...” His name passed her lips on a breath that barely dared to take voice.
“I said I didn’t want to be your friend, but it’s not true. I want to be your friend and your lover and your husband and the father to your children—” He broke off, swallowing past a well of regret without limit. “I know you’re going to tell me it’s too late, but Megan, it’s not.”
He dropped to one knee. Watching her eyes go wide, he held up the gallon of organic whole milk in one hand and, pulling the box from his pocket with the other, flipped open the lid, revealing the two rings nestled together within black velvet. One the diamond-encrusted wedding band she’d returned to him twice already but he couldn’t accept she didn’t want. The other a solitaire as weighty as the promise it conveyed. “I will love this baby like it’s my own. It will never know a single minute of doubt because I swear to love it as much as I love you.”
Megan’s breath sucked in at his confession. His revelation. His freedom.
“You don’t remember my first proposal, but I’m hoping this one will stick. Megan, I love you. And I’m asking you to let me give you a lifetime of what you’ve shown me matters most. Laughter, love, late-night conversations. I’m asking you to be my wife in the most conventional, traditional and time-tested meaning of the word, for as long as we both shall live.”
Heart slamming, breath held, he waited as his world hung in the balance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THIS COULDN’T BE HAPPENING. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t possible.
This was a nervous breakdown in action. It had to be. Something she should have seen coming...except the gallon of milk was the sort of surreal her brain typically didn’t conjure.
Which meant... “Oh, my God.”
Her breath left on a quiet sob and she reached for him, pulling at his shirt until he stood. Taking the milk from him, she set it on the secretary table with a small shake of her head.
“I’m not pregnant, Connor.”
He stared into her eyes a long moment, the muscles of his throat working as though he was trying to make words that wouldn’t come. And then he pulled her into his arms, his big body wrapping around her as ragged breath sounded against the top of her head.
Relief, powerful enough to overwhelm a man as strong as Connor, washed over her. It was humbling to witness.
“Your email was still open on the kitchen laptop,” he said, his words glass-and-gravel rough. “I saw the message about a requested donor being ready for pickup.”
Megan flattened her hand against his chest, the only reassurance she could offer within the decadent confines of Connor’s hold. “That message was in response to an inquiry I’d made months ago. Before we met. I wasn’t ready to move forward with those plans.”
They were still married, for one. And the way she felt about Connor... She couldn’t begin something so important with her heart still torn to shreds. She’d assumed her plans would be on hold for at least another year or two.
Releasing his python grip on her, Connor gently cupped her jaw as he tipped her face to his.
“I don’t care.” The steady calm of his words in direct contrast to the burning intensity in his eyes.
Her brow lifted in question.
“I want you anyway. Even if I don’t get a baby in the bargain.”
A soft laugh pushed past her lips. How did he do it? Make her laugh when her world was up in the air?
“You want me anyway?”
A nod. “I love you, Megan. I didn’t think it was something I had in me, but that was because I’d never experienced it before I met you.”
He loved her.
Connor searched her eyes, one corner of his mouth curling into a wolfish smile as the hands at her jaw slipped into her hair. Gently he urged her head back and lowered his mouth for a soft, sinking kiss that tasted like every promise she’d never allowed herself to dream of asking for. Then, fitting his lips more firmly over hers, he slid his tongue past her teeth to stroke against her tongue, once, twice, again and again, until her hands were locked in the fabric of his shirt and she was clinging to him with everything she had.
Never breaking the kiss, his hands began a slow roam over the contours of her body, following the curve of her waist and the lines of her arms. Threading through her fingers and making the world around her spin, until she was grounded by the unyielding resistance of the door to her apartment at her back. The seductive press of her wrists against the solid panels, and the mind-jumbling weight of Connor’s body in full delicious contact with her own.
“I love you,” he whispered against her lips.
“Oh, my God, yes.”
Both of them froze at the punctured illusion they were the only two people on the planet. In the room.
“Shhhh!”
Connor’s chin pulled back as he looked down into her rapidly heating face.
“I’m sorry—I forgot.” How could she have forgotten?
Together they turned toward the source of the invasive words, to where her abandoned tablet sat on the pass-through counter, three eager-eyed, utterly shameless faces filling the screen.
Connor straightened, pushing back from her to walk to the electronic device. “Sorry, girls, show’s over.”
“No, wait!”
“Heya, Connor, nice moves.”
“Dang it, Jodie! See what you di—”
Flipping the cover closed, he severed the connection and turned to face her.
She shouldn’t have laughed. Really.
“Funny, is it?” he asked, a smile on his face.
“Accident,” she swore, holding her hands up. “I was distracted.”
“So it would seem,” Connor replied, nodding toward her still-raised left hand.
Her gaze followed his to the fourth finger of her left hand, where her wedding ring glinted beside the new ring that had been nestled in black velvet when she’d last seen it.
“Sneaky,” she whispered, barely able to push the word past the well of emotion at seeing her wedding band returned to her hand.
“I was hoping seeing them on your finger might help me get the answer I’m waiti
ng for.”
“I love you, Connor. And I want everything you’re offering. I want to be your wife and the mother to your children. But—”
He stepped forward, all that cocky confidence falling away. “But?”
She smoothed her hand over the stubble-rough edge of his jaw before letting it drift to the buttons of his shirt. “But what would you say about waiting on the baby. Maybe taking a few months or a year—”
“A trial?” he asked, nodding quickly. Determination and resolve pushing past the disappointment and hurt that flashed across his face. “Anything to make you feel safe. Confident.”
Slipping the first button free, she shook her head. “No. I don’t need any trial.”
He searched her eyes. “Then what?”
“Maybe for a while, all I want is you.”
“Yeah?”
Working the next button free, she nodded. “After all, we’ve got the rest of our lives together. Now, Mr. Reed, I’m ready for my I-love-you kiss.”
That half smile pushed hard at Connor’s gorgeous lips until it spread, encompassing his whole mouth and then his face.
“Gladly, Mrs. Reed,” he answered, emotion making his voice gruff as he took her in his arms and dipped her back. “I love you.”
And then he gave her a kiss that was meant to be the first of its kind, but tasted so familiar there was no denying those undercurrents of love had been there all the time...just waiting to be recognized. This one, though, her husband delivered wholly. Without reservation. Without limit.
It was a promise of forever...and she believed.
* * * * *
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MIRA LYN KELLY grew up in the Chicago area and earned her degree in fine arts from Loyola University. She met the love of her life while studying abroad in Rome, Italy, only to discover he’d been living right around the corner from her for the previous two years. Having spent her twenties working and playing in the Windy City, she’s now settled with her husband in Minnesota, where their four beautiful children provide an excess of action, adventure and entertainment.
With writing as her passion and inspiration striking at the most unpredictable times, Mira can always be found with a notebook at the ready.
When she isn’t reading or writing, she loves watching movies, blabbing with girlfriends and cooking with her husband and friends. Check out her website, www.miralynkelly.com, for the latest dish!
This and other titles by this author are available in ebook format—check out Harlequin.com for information. Look for Mira’s next Harlequin® KISS™ title in summer 2013!
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ISBN: 9781460301463
Copyright © 2012 by Mira Lyn Sperl
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Mira Lyn Kelly, Waking Up Married
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