We rolled together, in tandem and in time with the beating of our hearts. I kissed her over and over again, relishing her taste. Her warmth. How her tongue felt sliding along my roof of my mouth. I sucked on her lower lip. I rolled deeply against her, raking my tight curls against her aching clit that poked out from between her swollen lower lips.
“That’s it.”
“Fuck.”
“So close. Gael, I’m so—”
“Come with me. Come with me, Syn.”
“Oh, Gael,” she whimpered.
I captured her lips as her body exploded. Her pussy clamped down around me, sucking me dry as I swallowed her sounds. She shook against me. Her tits pressed against my chest. I growled against her and rutted like a wild animal until my cock finally burst, coating her wet walls with my mark, thread after thread, until there was nothing left for me to give.
The room spun around my head as I slipped between her and the couch cushions.
I wrapped my arm around her, feeling her trembling as she backed against me. With her ass pressed against my dwindling dick and her back against my chest, I buried my face into her hair. I drew in her scent and slid my hand softly along her glistening stretch marks. I kissed her shoulder, watching her skin redden and pucker as my whiskers softly danced along her skin.
Then, my lips found her ear.
“I love everything about you,” I whispered.
She craned her neck back and smiled up at me, gazing up at me with those gorgeous, beautiful doe eyes.
“I love everything about you, too, Gael.”
I felt my heart swell as she nestled back against me, her body tucked against mine as I held her close. Devotion filled my gut. Love filled my soul. I’d never felt so alive in my entire life. I kissed along her shoulder and across the nape of her neck, peppering her with the affection I had missed giving her.
I’d never felt this way about a woman before. And I never wanted the feeling to go away.
Hell, I never wanted anyone as badly as I wanted Syn. Not my friends. As much as I loved my father, not him, either. Syn was in a completely different league. Both as a woman, and as the person who held my affections, and who held my heart. And to know she felt the same way about me rooted me in my decision.
I wasn’t going back to the Canary Islands.
“What was that?” Syn asked.
“Mmm, what was what?” I asked.
Then, I heard it. A soft knock coming at the door.
“I think we’re being summoned,” she murmured.
The knock came again, and I strengthened my grip around her.
“Whoever it is, go away! Or I’ll stuff your head up your own ass!” I exclaimed.
“Gael,” she hissed.
But her giggles gave her away. And my tone of voice must have worked, because the knocking stopped, and we were alone again. Just the two of us.
Well, three of us.
“You know, you’d be fired right now if you hadn’t already quit,” she said.
I kissed her cheek. “I don’t care. Being a good father to the child growing inside you is enough of a career for me.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
She shrugged. “So, if you needed to be a stay-at-home father because I wasn’t sure about giving up my career that wouldn’t upset you?”
“Syn, look at me.”
She wiggled and twisted until she lay against my chest, looking up at me with eyes that were still filled with so much uncertainty.
“I don’t care about any of that. We’ll make it work. If I’m the stay-at-home parent, or if we both work and get a nanny, or if neither of us work and we let it ride for a little while, I’m fine with it. So long as I have you and our child, I don’t care about the rest.”
She smiled softly. “You mean that?”
“Does it look like I’m kidding?”
She cupped my cheek. “A little.”
I chuckled, which made her laugh along with me.
“Well, I’m not kidding. Not one bit,” I said.
She patted my skin softly. “I know. I’m just yanking your chain a bit. Plus, that’s a bit of a relief for me to hear.”
I nuzzled against her palm. “Why’s that?”
“I just—I mean, don’t get me wrong or anything. You’re talented at what you do, but I don’t think I could handle you putting yourself in danger over and over again. Especially with a child involved.”
I turned my lips against her skin and kissed her palm softly.
“To be honest? Being married to you is dangerous enough.”
She barked with laughter. “Oh, thanks.”
I winked at her. “I aim to please.”
“Come here, you big lug.”
She wrapped her hand around my head and pulled me back down for another kiss, one that stole even my own breath away. She moaned into my mouth, invading me in ways I wanted to be invaded for the rest of my life. My heart felt so full I thought it would drop to my toes from its weight. My body rounded out against her stomach, making room for our growing family within her. And as she held me in her arms, wrapping them tightly around my back, I knew this was where I wanted to be. Forever. As long as we both lived.
With the woman I loved, and the family we created born from that love.
Epilogue
Syn - Five Months Later
The sunny California day almost made me forget it was a few days before Christmas. The beach laid out in front of me was deserted, its lonely waves lapping against the shoreline. Granted, it was deserted because people had blocked it off for the photoshoot currently happening. Semantics, I suppose.
“You ready?” Gael asked.
He wrapped his arms around me as I gazed out at the ocean. His lips fell against the crook of my neck, never ceasing to make me pucker with need for him. The sun hung heavily in the sky, casting a beautiful shade of yellow over the dark blue sea. The only thing that signaled the coming of winter was the bitter breeze that kicked up from time to time, making me shiver as sand squished between my toes.
“I’m still not sure about this. Are you sure about this?” I asked.
He turned me around before placing his hands on my shoulders.
“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, but I think you’re going to feel a great deal better once we do this,” he said.
I peeked behind him as the stroller parked safely in the sand. The visor, pulled over our beautiful baby boy, protected him from the harsh rays of the big ball of fire in the sky. I still wasn’t sure about putting our child in the limelight. But Gael kept insisting that a few pictures wouldn’t hurt. Not if we did them as a family.
“Look, this will help promote the show, but this will also give us family pictures to hang up on the walls. You’ve been talking about having something like that for weeks now,” he said.
“I know, I know,” I murmured.
“And Madison is being incredibly restrictive on where these pictures go and who can post them. She’s been working around the clock with the legal team to make sure this is done exactly to your specifications.”
“Can I have a few more minutes?”
He grinned. “I thought you might ask, so I have something for you.”
I paused. “What is it?”
His hands fell away from me, and he reached into his back pocket. And when he pulled out the familiar package, I furrowed my brow.
“I was wondering where that went,” I said.
“I was wondering if you ever opened it,” he said, chuckling.
I shook my head. “I couldn’t bear to after you left.”
“Open it. After all, it’s been yours for almost a year now.”
I took the small gift from him and turned it around in my fingers. It was the present that had gone unwrapped last Christmas. The one he’d left out for me on the kitchen counter before storming away for what I thought was forever. I hadn’t even thought about the gift. After Gael left, I
tucked it away in a cabinet and forgot all about it.
“Where did you find it?” I asked.
He grinned. “On the top shelf of the pantry, of all places.”
I snickered. “Well, time to see what this is.”
I slowly unwrapped the paper and handed it to Gael. The soft white box boasted of a piece of jewelry. But when I cracked open the top, the necklace made me gasp. The white-gold chain had a charm hanging from it. A small, delicate charm. A motorcycle, with two riders on it instead of one, the woman clinging to the man from behind as he hunched over the bars and sped them off into Neverland.
“It’s—it’s beautiful,” I whispered.
“Here, let me put it on you.”
I handed him the box, then pulled my hair back. I lifted it up and turned myself around, gazing out over the ocean again. I smiled as he slipped it around my neck and fastened the small white-gold chain before letting his hands run across my shoulders. I let my hair fall back into place as his hands traveled down my body, wrapping me up and pulling me close.
“I love it. Thank you so much,” I said.
He kissed my cheek. “Anything for my lovely wife.”
“How much longer do we have?”
“About three minutes.”
I nodded slowly. “How are things with Hunter?”
“That really what you want to talk about right now?”
I snickered. “Humor me.”
He nodded. “All right. Well, things are going fine. The academy is up and running, and our second class just paid half of their tuition. You know the details—it’s basically a three-month crash course in all things stunt related. And right now, Hunter and myself are the only two instructors. We want to keep it small, because this is a specialized community and only the fittest coming into the industry should be the ones graduating.”
“I think it’s really awesome you set all this up with him.”
“He’s really good at doing the back-end stuff, actually. I, apparently, have more charisma than him. So, he’s dealing with numbers and organization of classes while I’m recruiting students and reaching out to Hollywood sets to try and set up direct streams for our students in terms of finding jobs and internships after they graduate.”
“I’m really proud of you, you know.”
He kissed my cheek. “I’m proud of you, too.”
“How did your first graduating class go with getting jobs? I know you were struggling with a couple of them there.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, that’s one thing Hunter and I are going to implement. We didn’t do a very good job with reining in their expectations in terms of starter salary and jobs they’d take. But we’ve improved upon that for this second class, and I still ended up finding most of them jobs.”
“Hopefully that doesn’t look too bad on you guys.”
“Nah. I’ve had a couple directors already email us and thank us for the quality men we’re sending their way. It’s all men right now, and I’d eventually like to change that. Female stuntpeople are always needed. But for now, it’s a really good start.”
I smiled. “I think you two are going to do just fine.”
He chuckled. “You had doubts, didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “No more than you did.”
“I won’t tell Hunter if you won’t.”
“And break that poor man’s heart? Never.”
“All right, you two ready?”
The photographer approached us, and I drew in a deep breath through my nose.
“Ready,” I said.
Gael went and pulled our little man out of his stroller, and the photographer started positioning us. With Gael cradling our tiny bundle of joy in his arms, the sun struck us just right and the waves softly lapped against our feet. The water was cold as ice, but I didn’t let it affect my smile. After all, I was a professional.
And I loved what I did.
“Great. Wonderful. Gael, turn your head to face her, and Syn? Look up into his eyes.”
We did as the photographer asked while our sweet baby boy blew bubbles and flailed his little arms around.
“Perfection. Okay, I want Syn to hold little Nelo, and Gael? Wrap your around all of them.”
As we shifted around, I thought back to the interview I had given that would accompany these pictures. A seven-page family spread, focusing on our new family. The journalist had been kind enough, though there were a couple of questions we decided to skip instead of answer, much to the journalist’s dismay. But that was the agreement I had. If I didn’t want to answer anything that was too private or that pried way too much into some subjects, I held the right of refusal without criticism.
And the journalist stuck to that rule very well.
“Miss Sycamore, you don’t look a tad bit different from before you had little Nelo. What’s your secret?”
I smiled. “Sleep, sleep, and more sleep.”
She giggled. “Any advice for those mothers out there who can’t get sleep?”
“Find a good husband who will take shifts with the baby so you can get a few hours here and there. It makes a world of difference.”
The journalist jotted some things down. “Where did the name Nelo come from? I’m assuming it’s of Spanish origin?”
Gael nodded. “It is. Nelo is my father’s middle name. My grandfather’s middle name is the same. So is mine. It’s a family tradition we wanted to keep going.”
“So, Nelo isn’t your son’s first name?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not.”
“What is your son’s first name?”
But I simply smiled alongside Gael and waited for her next question.
“All right, all right. I can take a hint. A bit of mystery is always nice. So, moving on. How do you believe motherhood has changed you, Miss Sycamore?”
I smiled softly as Gael rubbed my back. Because I knew exactly how to answer this question.
“The biggest change is that it provided an opportunity to soften my image to the general public. To really let my guard down and show everyone the woman I truly am. Not this character I played on television that everyone wanted me to be in real life, too. It gave me a platform to show people that it is possible to be a strong woman and not always kick ass. That it is possible to be a strong woman and still enjoy things like fashion, and makeup, and bikinis. In this world, we assume the two things are separate. A woman can’t possibly be strong and stand on her own if she enjoys things like getting her nails done and having high-end makeup. Like, somehow, indulging in girly things is inherently weak. Becoming a mother and softening my image gives me a platform to properly address that dichotomy and how false it is.”
“Are you worried that your brand might suffer because of the stark change? That your fans might not like it?”
I shrugged. “Thankfully, I’ve got a loving husband and a beautiful son. That helps to remind me every single day that my brand isn’t everything. That there are more important things in life than capturing headlines or landing parts.”
“Well, you are in more demand than ever before. You might not struggle with something quite like that.”
I giggled. “Then, bring on the juggling act.”
“And speaking of juggling, how are you doing that? With both your career and motherhood and the success you’ve seen with your television show? It’s been renewed for three more seasons.”
I nodded. “It has, yes. And the only answer I have is an incredibly helpful husband.”
“Hi. Yes. I do help out a lot. My arm is currently going numb, too.”
I giggled as I reached over and cradled little Nelo against me, giving Gael a break while he shook out his arm.
“He’s really growing, huh?” the journalist asked.
I snickered. “Faster than I ever thought possible.”
“So, your husband really helps you out a lot, doesn’t he?”
I nodded. “He’s the most incredible father to our son, and he’s my rock. If I ever need something, I don
’t have to hesitate before going to him. Because I know he’s going to be there, no matter what it is.”
“Oh, that’s perfect. Don’t stop that. Just keep going. Candid pictures are the best kind.”
The photographer’s voice caught my ear, and I furrowed my brow. I heard Gael cooing softly and our son blowing spit bubbles. So, I craned my neck back. It took me a second to realize I was the only one still standing in the frigid cold waters, with my feet already numb and my calves not too far behind. But when my eyes finally found my husband and my son, my heart warmed at the sight.
Gael had little Nelo lifted over his head, gazing up at him as our son reached down for his father’s nose.
“Absolute perfection,” the photographer said.
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” I whispered.
As the camera’s shutters clicked and flashes strobed, I thought my heart might burst from the happiness. Gael made silly faces at our son and Nelo cooed with delight. Just smiled, and smiled, like I always did whenever Gael got on a roll with something. And as I crossed my arms over my chest, I sighed with relief.
This time, my smile wasn’t simply for show. This time, the interview wasn’t simply for an audience. And this time, my life was my own to control. To share. To enjoy instead of tolerate.
Now, my life was mine.
And it was perfect.
CEO’s Secret Baby (Sample)
Enjoy a free sample of one of my other novels.
1
Jessica
I balanced the tray loaded down with five bowls of Wednesday’s special— chili. I didn’t spill a drop. Not even when one of the truckers insisted he’d ordered his five ways instead of three ways. I just toted the bowl back to the kitchen for Tara to adjust. As soon as I’d delivered the chili five ways—which the dude had ordered three ways because I wrote it down myself—I noticed Tara waving at me from the kitchen.
“Nicki keeps texting me because she knows you don’t have your phone on you.”
“Is she okay? What did the walk-in clinic give her?”
His Secret Baby Page 18