“Oh, no. Well, yes. It’s for you. Charlie got the name of a maternity boutique and coordinated the delivery of a selection of clothes this morning. No more itchy seams...you know...touching you.”
Maternity clothes. Delivered. So she wouldn’t have to go out in clothes that bothered her.
This man was thoughtful in ways most people would never think of.
“Thanks, Jeff.” Then forcing herself to bring up what she really wanted to forget, she started, “About when you woke up...”
Jeff set the phone down on the counter behind him. “I knew you still got sick. But I haven’t really seen the way it affects you for a while.”
“Not exactly what you had in mind, I’m guessing.” Not after all the seductive promises and racy talk.
A short breath. “Not exactly.”
How could it be?
Jeff crossed to the counter where Darcy was seated and braced on his forearms. A muscle in his jaw started to jump.
Darcy forced herself not to shift on the stool, not to look away from his remorse-filled eyes when he said, “I’m sorry.”
This was it. He was going to tell her it was a mistake. He shouldn’t have asked her to come.
She’d agree, and look relieved while she said it, even if it killed her. Because she’d known better. And because what mattered was keeping their relationship amicable. For their baby and themselves.
“Don’t be. Neither of us was thinking straight,” she offered, backing up her words with a lightness she didn’t feel. “Seriously, let’s chalk it up to lack of sleep and pheromone overdose and—”
“Darcy, what the hell are you talking about?” Jeff demanded, whatever guilt there’d been in his eyes now replaced with a sharp accusation. Then, “Forget I asked. I’ve got it, but clearly you don’t. I’m not sorry my morning sex kitten fantasy got rained out by a little reality. What I’m sorry about is you going through this alone. I’m sorry I haven’t been there every morning and through whatever part of the rest of the day this sickness occupies from the start. I’m sorry you’re so used to being on your own, that even now when I’m right here, you’re more comfortable sending me away. Darcy, I’m just sorry it hasn’t been easier for you.”
“Jeff—”
“And you aren’t moving out, so don’t even start about it. I just got you here. And damn it, you’re going to let me take care of you and you’re going to like it.” Catching the back of her neck with one hand and her stool with the other, Jeff planted a firm kiss on her, stepping between her legs as they softened together.
“You brushed right?” he asked, a mirthful smile quirking his lips until he looked down between them, apparently noticing the swell of her breasts within the too-tight blouse for the first time. “Never mind. I don’t care.”
He kissed her again. Deeper. Longer.
Darcy broke away, threading her hands between them to link around his neck. “I brushed,” she murmured, leaning into the heat of his bare chest where she pressed her own soft openmouthed kiss at the center. “And flossed.”
The next kiss landed at the tight bead of his masculine nipple, and was followed by a flick of her tongue and Jeff’s rumbling groan.
“Baby, I love it when you talk oral hygiene to me.”
Darcy couldn’t help her laugh, even as her body turned hot and needy. Looking up at him from beneath her lashes, she purred, “I rinsed, Jeff. Mouthwash. A full sixty seconds.”
His hands caught her hips, and without so much as a strained breath, he lifted her onto the counter, positioning himself between her legs, so they touched in all the most critical ways.
Jeff looked down into her eyes and let the humor fall away. “Darcy, let me be here for you.”
And like that, the part of her she’d steeled against this man crumbled. Because when he looked into her eyes like he was, when he let her see how badly he needed her to let him in, there was no defense against it.
And so long as she remembered that no matter how good it felt to give in to Jeff, this was temporary...she’d be okay.
TWENTY-ONE
Darcy stared into the half-fogged mirror, admiring the round swell of her belly as she turned from one side to the other. The swirling wisps of warm steam pinwheeled through the air as the bathroom door opened and then Jeff’s reflection joined her an instant before his hands became solid, gathering the wet tendrils of her hair so it twisted to hang down her chest.
“Talk about an incentive to come home early,” he murmured in her ear, their eyes locked in the reflection before them. Her, a naked bounty of soft and round and ripe, and him, a devastating contrast of disheveled and immaculate as always.
“Only in your world is seven early, Jeff.”
His hands smoothed down the length of her back, his thumbs working gentle circles into the muscles strained from carrying the weight of two bodies in one. And then they slid forward over the hard swell of her belly, coasting in that reverent caress of here and there before succumbing to the temptation he could never resist. He cupped her breasts, gently taking their weight in his palms.
“Used to be your world, too.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t at the office at six-thirty in the morning, either.”
Those wicked thumbs made their first pass across her nipples and her breath rushed out in a shuddery gasp as she grabbed for the marble vanity in front of her.
She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and bury her face in the front of his shirt. Breathe in the masculine scent of him, but that would mean she couldn’t watch.
Satisfaction gleamed in the eyes still holding hers as Jeff now brought his mouth to the curve of her neck, wetting that decadent spot with the slide of his tongue that had her body reacting in ways she couldn’t control.
Her hips pushing back into the strong thighs braced behind her. Her lips parting on a ragged breath.
“God, I love coming home to this.”
To this.
Not to her.
He loved this heightened, ever ready state of semi-arousal that had been the hormonal flip side to all those months of nausea. It wasn’t news. And it wasn’t a blow.
It was a reality she’d accepted and made peace with a month ago. Embraced. Because with his mouth moving against her skin, his thumbs making one slow circling pass over her nipples after another—she was so sensitive—his erection thickening long and hard against her bottom, she loved it, too.
She loved the release. Loved how sexy he made her feel. Loved the hot look he was giving her now.
And more than that, she loved the way this man never stopped surprising her. She loved the spontaneous unstoppable side of him that, last week, had him pulling her out of her seat at the tapas bar they frequented and spiriting her off for a night flight over L.A. in his helicopter. She loved that low growl rumbling against her neck every time he put his arms around her and the way, just before he fell asleep, he always pulled her that much closer.
She loved that he held her hand when they walked along the beach and, no matter where they found themselves, a gallery, the symphony or local market, the insatiable man always had something decadent and outrageously wicked to whisper in her ear.
And she loved that he knew it drove her wild.
It was so good. Like nothing she’d dreamed could be possible.
Not enough.
The words whispered through her mind, unwelcome, but not entirely unfamiliar.
Only she wasn’t supposed to want more. She knew better.
But how was she going to give this up? How was she going to give him up when she’d already fallen—
“What’s the matter?” Jeff asked, a furrow between his brows, his hands on her breasts still.
She shook her head. “Don’t stop.”
He stared at her through another b
eat, those too-perceptive eyes searching until she bit into her bottom lip, drawing his focus back to the need between them both. Then, “Please.”
Their time was limited. She didn’t want to waste a second.
* * *
The balmy night air surrounded them as Jeff watched Darcy suck and lick her last spoonful of brownie batter ice cream, if not totally immune to what she was doing to that spoon, at least in a place where he could control his physical reaction to the pleasured moans accompanying it. Though possibly his newfound control had more to do with knowing an hour before, he’d been the reason for Darcy’s moans, and they’d put this paltry ice cream business to shame.
Still. He leaned close to Darcy’s ear as they walked. “You know my ego’s working itself into a snit right now.”
Darcy slanted him a questioning look, her lips still wrapped around the spoon.
“With all that moaning, he’s going to have something to prove in a serious way when we get home.”
Her brows pulled together in some sort of faux apologetic look totally belied by the deliberate way she then slid the spoon in and out between her lips, adding a sultry little moan wholly different from the unconscious ones she’d been delivering moments before and Jeff’s head shot around looking to see if anyone on the street was watching. But thankfully no one seemed aware, and then Darcy was just laughing, filling the street around them with that easy gorgeous sound he couldn’t get enough of as she tossed her empty dish into a trash.
She was so relaxed now. Untroubled. Different from when they’d been making love and suddenly she wasn’t in the same sensual place they’d been sharing the moment before. He’d let her put him off, but now he wanted to understand.
“Earlier tonight, Darcy, where did you go?”
She knew what he was talking about. He could see it in the instant of deliberation flashing through her eyes before she made the decision to trust him with the truth.
“I never realized what I was missing before,” she answered, staring down the street ahead of them. “I mean I saw couples together, saw them having fun, but I always wondered what happened when they went home and no one was around to see, whether those bright smiles turned to fear.”
Jeff’s stomach turned to lead, and he pulled Darcy to a stop. “Did someone make you afraid?”
She seemed to consider, almost as if she didn’t know the answer. In the end, though, she found her way to it. “Not a boyfriend of my own. I didn’t really let guys get that close. But yes. My mom wasn’t so discriminating and some of the guys who took us in—they made me scared.”
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do anything but take her hand because he needed to hold it, and wait for her to tell him the rest.
“Some of them had tempers that could get physical. And some of them would look at me in ways they shouldn’t. And some of them just liked to play the kind of control games that might mean going hungry or not being able to go to school or to sleep.”
“How the hell could she have let you live like that?” he asked, sickened and enraged by the actions of a woman he knew to have died in a car accident years before.
Darcy wouldn’t meet his eyes. And when she answered, the hollow sound of her voice was like a blade to his heart.
“She said she didn’t have a choice and we’d starve without someone to take care of us. She told me she couldn’t risk leaving me alone with them to get a job, that we couldn’t leave until she found someone else. Someone better. But that was a joke. The guys she found...” She shook her head. “I don’t know what was wrong with her. But the guys she gravitated to were all just different shades of the same sick. And the worst of it was, I actually believed she didn’t have a choice. I thought she was trapped the same way I was. I didn’t know there were programs to help us. I didn’t know she was actually choosing to live that way, to make me live that way until I got the full-time job that let me pay rent. Now that I’m going to be a mother and the need to protect this baby is so strong within me, it’s like a tangible thing—more than ever I want to know why. But it’s too late to ask, and I don’t think I could have believed anything she said anyway.”
Jeff pulled her into his arms, stroking her hair as a part of him died inside thinking of those beautiful gray eyes he’d seen so many ways filled with fear, their innocence draining away years too soon.
“Baby, I’m so sorry.”
Now he got it. This was why she’d dropped out of school.
Why she’d been afraid to trust him enough to let him take care of her.
Why with all the money and resources at his disposal, he’d never be able to give her the thing she wanted most in her life. To be totally independent. And worse, that hard-won freedom she’d sacrificed so much for? He was the reason she’d lost it. He’d taken it away.
And when he looked at the round swell of her belly, he couldn’t even regret it.
All he could do was show her there was another way. Prove that he never wanted to hold her back or hem her in or take away the opportunities available to her. He’d make certain she never felt trapped because of him again. She’d never need to escape.
Cradling her jaw in his hands he met her eyes.
“I know you don’t believe in the fairy-tale rescues and you’ve already saved yourself, Darcy, but I’m behind you now, too. Nothing will ever be like that again. Not for you. Not for our baby. I swear it.”
Blinking back tears, Darcy nodded and said the most amazing thing. “I already know.”
* * *
“Locker-room talk?” Connor scoffed, his voice oozing the kind of censure only a best friend could muster. “I thought you were above all that.”
Jeff paused in the act of relocating the stacks of papers and files from his desk to a mirror position on the conference table at the other end of the office.
“It’s not like I’m starting a daily blog.” He looked at the half-cleared desk, and then at the clock, his heart kicking up. “But holy hell, man—”
“Yeah, I’ve got it. The hormones. They’re like the sea. And the tide’s turned or whatever.”
“She was at the door. Waiting, Connor. At the door. I didn’t make it past the coat stand. For. An. Hour.”
Connor made an indifferent noise that had Jeff shaking his head in stunned disbelief.
“Good to hear she’s feeling better. So what’s Gail think about the move?”
“Yeah, yeah, Darcy’s feeling much better. Aside from the mornings, she hasn’t been sick for about two weeks. And my mom—she’s not pressing. I told her I was more comfortable with Darcy staying with me. Didn’t want to miss out on anything, yada, yada, yada. But forget about my mom and pay attention. About the hormones, because seriously, you and Megan might want to—”
“Enough. I get it. The sex with your pregnant non-girlfriend lover—”
“Darcy.”
“Okay, sex with Darcy is insane. But I’m starting to feel a shade dirty, hearing about it.”
Jeff stalled where he was. Yeah, truth was, he didn’t want Connor thinking about Darcy like that, either. He wasn’t nuts about the few details he’d been subjected to about Megan. There was just something different about being subjected to details about a guy’s wife.
Not that Darcy was his wife.
The intercom from his desk sounded. “Ms. Penn here to see you.”
With a quick goodbye for Connor, Jeff started to return the phone to his pants pocket, then thinking better of it, tossed it onto a chair. In one sweep, he had the rest of his desk cleared and the stack dumped in a heap on the conference table. And then he was striding to the door, swinging it open with a welcome greeting that didn’t make it past his lips once he saw Darcy waiting for him in a shirt he knew for a fact she’d decided was too tight the week before. His eyes went momentarily unfocused as his tongue all but rolled
out of his mouth.
“Hi, Jeff,” she said. And he was sure it sounded completely innocuous to anyone who hadn’t heard all the incredibly, fantastically naughty things coming out of her mouth when she’d called him thirty minutes before.
“Darcy, glad you could come. By. To talk.” He coughed into his hand, mentally giving himself a violent shake. “Come on in.”
Her gauzy layered skirt swung around her calves, showing off the slender turn of her ankles and hinting at the sexy length of what hid beneath.
Pulling his door closed behind them, he ducked back out offering a quick, “Hold my calls.”
And then Darcy had hold of his tie and was pulling him deeper into his office. Tugging at him with hands that were everywhere at once.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she gasped, when he jerked his tie loose and was halfway down the buttons of his shirt. “Faster.”
“Wrong with you? Not one damn thing,” he assured, wishing he had four hands instead of two so he could get them both naked in the next six point two seconds. Because now that she was here, he needed to make good on the promise she’d breathlessly reminded him of from the backseat of her car.
“You said you’d take care of me.”
Apparently she’d been at the organic market shopping for dinner when she’d started feeling restless as she’d explained it. And then she’d started thinking about his desk. The high shine airplane wing that was the prize in his collection. With him on it.
Jeff freed the last button and started in on his fly, at which point he realized Darcy’s eyes had glazed with lust and she’d only gotten her blouse half open before abandoning the task, in lieu of watching him strip.
Which reminded him of the night at his mother’s house...
Slowing it down, Jeff methodically unbuckled his belt and then pulled it free of the loops.
“What—what are you doing?” Darcy asked, the breathless tremble in her words sending blood pounding toward his groin.
“Making you wait.” He rolled the belt and set it on the desk chair. And shrugged one shoulder out of his shirt and then the other. “Letting you watch.”