Her Best Friend's Lover

by Shiloh Walker

  “ ‘Kay,” he muttered, his eyes drooping.

  “And then let’s go back to bed.”

  His eyes flew open at that. “Are you suggesting we spend the day in bed?”

  “Why not?” she asked, tipping her head back to meet his eyes. A smile came and went as she brushed her hand across his cheek. “You haven’t started anything that needs work. And I can’t paint a damn thing lately any way.”

  “Why not?” he repeated, the idea very appealing.

  It was even more appealing a short time later when the clouds opened up and rain came in a steady down pour. Dale lay propped against the headboard, Lauren between his legs, curled against his chest.He stroked the tight smooth skin of her belly, marveling at the feel of it. A tiny fist bumped his hand and he grinned. “What’s it feel like?”

  “Hmm?” Lauren asked, drowsily. Her eyes opened half way, flying all the way open when steady pressure was applied in her pelvic area. “Good grief,” she muttered, sitting up as the pressure increased.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

  She laughed, pressing a hand to her belly. “It feels like the baby is trying to push its way out,” she answered.

  “What?” he half shouted, jerking up from his relaxed slouch so suddenly, he dislodged Lauren.

  After resettling her body, she patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. Dr. Flynn was saying I might start feeling something like this. It’s just the baby getting ready.”

  “For what? You’ve got two months left.” His eyes were wide and panicked in the dim light and he looked slightly gray.

  She laughed and rolled to her knees, wrapping her arms around him before she said, “Think of it like the Olympics. They train for weeks and months and years ahead of time. The baby’s got to train, too.”

  “I think we should go to the hospital,” he muttered, ignoring her words as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He glanced down at himself and snagged his jeans, tugging them up over bare skin. Before he could button them, slimmer, paler hands covered his.

  “Calm down, Dale,” she told him, laughter lurking in her voice. I’m fine. Forget I said anything.” She wrapped her arms around him from behind, hugging herself to his naked back.

  Queasy, Dale asked, “Is it too late to rethink this baby thing? Isn’t there another way?”

  Thinking of her swollen belly, Lauren laughed and said, “I think it’s definitely too late to rethink anything.” Then she sobered. “Dale, you’re not rethinking, or regretting, this, are you?” she asked, her voice soft, uncertain.

  He turned around and caught her up against him. “No. No,” he repeated. Holding her tightly against him, he whispered, “This is the best thing that ever happened to me. You are the best thing that ever happened to me.” Leaning back he studied her gray eyes, seeing the doubt there. Lowering his head, he brushed her mouth with his. “I love you, Lauren Stoner. And this has been the most amazing few months of my life.”

  With gentle, knowing hands, he caressed the bulge of her belly, delighting at the feel of the life within. No. He wasn’t rethinking this.

  And the only thing he regretted was not being the one who helped create the baby.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lauren awoke, achingly aroused, to the feel of Dale’s hands on her body. His mouth was at her breast, feasting on her sensitive nipple while his greedy hands roamed the curves and contours of her body. He shaped the firm flesh beneath his hands, molding and stroking. His eyes were closed and his movements were hard, greedy, demanding. The way they had been that very first time.

  They hadn’t been like that since. Always so careful, so…gentle. Well, maybe gentle wasn’t exactly the right word. But even the previous morning, when he had been so forceful, so demanding, he had taken care, care not to do anything he wasn’t sure she was willing to do.

  Right now, he didn’t care.

  Finally.

  His big, hard hands buried in her hair and forced her head down, until she was on a level with his cock. Then he used his fingers to slip past her lips, until her mouth opened. Before she could pull away, he thrust his cock halfway down her throat before pulling back, urging her mouth into a steady rhythm, while he freed one hand from her hair and used it on the base of his cock. She quivered and jumped when he came inside her mouth, thick pulsing jets of come sliding down her throat.

  And then she was flipped, rather carelessly, onto her back.

  A throaty moan broke the silence when his free hand found her center, cupping her in his hand. His mouth cruised up her neck to hers and he took it at the same time he parted her flesh and plunged his fingers deep inside her body. Her short nails dug into his shoulders and she whimpered when he nipped at her lip before working his way back down her body.

  “Oh, please,” she whispered, as he dallied at the circle of her navel, pressed a kiss to the crease between thigh and groin. Hot hands cupped her bottom and lifted her up. Hot breath blew across her sensitized flesh and Lauren cried out when Dale pressed his face to her, drinking from her body as she climaxed quickly under the skill of his mouth.

  Her breath was still caught in her chest when he moved, covered her quickly. His hands parted her legs, wrapped them around his waist and before she had time to come back down, he buried himself inside her body, buried his cock all the way down to his balls. Each hard, near brutal thrust shoved her closer and closer to orgasm. A second climax tore through her and she screamed, her flesh rippling and flexing around him.

  Even as he put his hands on her, he knew he was dreaming. Like every other time, he would bury himself in her body and then, he would wake up, in bed beside his sleeping wife, sweaty and achy and needy. The need was a slippery, greasy thing that ate a hole in his gut every time he did this.

  He didn’t know her name, didn’t even know her face. He only knew that this was the woman he wanted like no other, save for Lauren. And there were times when his obsession for her, whoever she was, paralleled his need for his wife. He knew when he woke, he would feel guilty, but for now…

  Her throaty sigh caressed his ears as he learned her body by touch. Long slender legs, narrow feet with elegant high arches. Graceful wrists, fine boned hands and slender, tapered fingers. Was her waist thicker? Her breasts fuller? Her taste, her scent, was the same, innocence and musk.

  He fought the urge to cover her and take her, knowing the moment he did, he’d wake up and the dream would end. Silky hair brushed against his skin and he caught it in his hands, pinning her thrashing head to the pillow, taking her mouth with his. He nipped and suckled at a full lower lip, dipped inside a sweetly moving mouth before pulling back.

  He rolled onto his back, taking handfuls of the silky, thick hair and urging her down to suck on his cock. When her mouth closed around him, he shuddered and bucked, a climax ripping its way through his body in one quick, startling flash as she took him deep inside her mouth. He flooded the small tight caverns of her throat and mouth before pushing her away, and onto her back.

  He moved to her mouth, pressing soft gentle kisses, then rough biting ones against her sweating flesh as he shifted and moved until he could lie between her thighs. He ate her wet pussy, licking and biting and thrusting his tongue as deep inside her as he could, lapping more and more of her tasty cream as he started to fuck her with his fingers, working her closer and closer to climax.

  It burst from her with a gush, soaking his face and hands, while he suckled and probed inside her body.

  Ravenous, needy, he moved, spreading her legs, piercing her. Her tight, wet vagina closed around him, like a hot silky fist. She convulsed around his flesh even as he buried himself to the hilt. A dream, he thought. How can a dream feel so real?

  He wanted to see her face, wanted it so badly, he would have paid nearly any price.

  A thin cry rent the air.

  And Dale was jerked into complete and total awareness. He was atop a very familiar, very sexy woman, her legs wrapped around his waist, her hair wrapped around his hand
s. He could feel the swell of her belly against his and instinctively lifted his weight off her. At the same time, his demanding hands gentled. “Lauren?” he muttered even as he thrust deep inside her.

  Beneath him, her eyes closed, face sheened with the sweat of good, hard sex. Lauren arched her hips up to meet his as she came. She was drifting back down to reality when his words echoed in her ears.

  “…what?”

  He shook his head, as if to clear it, then he groaned as the tiny silken muscles in her body caressed the length of him. Hot little tendrils were spreading out from the base of his spine and then before he realized it, his own climax was upon him. Regardless of the firm mound of her belly, he reared back and slammed into her, pumping his hips, working her against him with demanding hands. He came in an explosive rush, riding it with closed eyes, holding her hips tightly against his.

  Moments later, Lauren shoved at his chest. Weakly, totally lost, he rolled from her body and lay staring at the ceiling. The bed shifted beside him and moments later, light filled the room. Lauren was standing by the door, tugging a discarded tee shirt over her head. Then she folded her arms over her chest and stared at him.

  “Who were you dreaming about?” she asked, her voice quiet and calm. Her heart was breaking inside her.

  “What?” Dale asked, his mind still foggy, the blood still pounding in his temples.

  The sweet, heady delight of knowing how much he wanted her, needed her had disappeared and in its place was sickness and pain. He hadn’t been making love to her, to Lauren. He’d been dreaming of, making love, to another woman. It hadn’t been her he had urged down on him, hadn’t been her who had torn a vicious glorious climax from him almost the moment her mouth closed over the head of his cock. Hadn’t been her body he had filled with one hard thrust that had set her body to quaking.

  “Who was she, Dale?” Lauren asked, unable to keep the quiver from her voice this time.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, but he averted his eyes as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  “No? Why were you surprised when you opened your eyes and saw me?”

  “I was asleep, Lauren,” he answered edgily. “I wake up, pounding myself into you like there was no tomorrow. And you’re pregnant.”

  “Yes. I’m pregnant. Of course, that didn’t stop you from tying me up and fucking my brains out yesterday, did it? Of course, you were in complete control then. I wake up with you touching me, like there was no tomorrow, and you were dreaming of another woman. Totally out of control. Why can’t you touch me like that? Who was she?” she demanded, her voice rising.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, please.” Lauren rolled her eyes. Then those cloudy gray eyes met his, turbulent and dark with pain. “I already know it wasn’t me. Knowing who it was isn’t going to hurt, now is it?”

  “I said, I don’t know, Lauren.” And he didn’t. And guiltily, he knew that he desperately needed to know who it had been. He was obsessed with knowing who she was. Again, feeling ill with the guilt, he turned his head away from his wife, away from the hurt he saw in her beautiful eyes. He stood and pulled his discarded jeans on, then turned to look out the window.

  Lauren pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, fighting to hold back the tears that came so easily. “Your precious Nicole, I imagine,” she finally said, her voice acid. “Looks like I became one of your little airheads, after all. How many times have you put her face on my body while you were inside me?”

  Not Nicole’s face. There was no face to go with these images of the woman. But he had closed his eyes before, imagining that his tender love making to Lauren was the hard, fast greedy sex he had with his obsession. Dale certainly couldn’t tell her that. If she was this hurt over thinking it was Nicole, how hurt would she be to realize he had been dreaming, fantasizing, over a woman he had been with only once?

  A woman, who if she came up to him now, he wasn’t certain he could turn away.

  So he remained silent, his gut churning with self-disgust.

  Lauren read his guilt, in the slump of his shoulders, his refusal to meet her eyes. “So this isn’t the first time,” she said softly, a tear trickling down her cheek. “I’m such a fool. I actually thought you loved me.”

  At the despair he heard in her voice, he turned. “God, Lauren. Don’t, please, don’t.” He crossed to her and wrapped his arms around her rigid body. “I love you more than life itself.”

  Her bitter laugh tore at his heart. “Sure you do. That’s why you’re dreaming of another woman.”

  “It has nothing to do with you,” Dale insisted. Catching her face in his hands, he forced her to look at him. Her gray eyes were wet with tears and her wide mouth was trembling. “I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to do with me,” she repeated. Jerking her face from his hands, she stepped back. “Nothing to do with me. Well, you got one out of two right. You are a sorry ass bastard, but it has everything to do with me.

  “I’ve loved you for years,” she said passionately, backing away from him. “And you were too damn blind to see it, too damn blind to see I was the one you needed. You mooned over that stupid brainless fool who let her man run around on her and chose him, a faithless jerk, over you. He knocked up some stupid woman and married her, but when he came crawling, Nikki took him back, the spineless, foolish little bitch. What a woman, Dale. And now you’re dreaming of her, and it doesn’t concern me?”

  He opened his mouth to tell her it wasn’t Nicole, but he stopped himself. At least she knew about Nicole. She knew nothing of this other woman, when it had happened, where. Only weeks before he had realized he loved Lauren. Better the devil you know.

  “What does she have that I don’t? What makes her so damn special? She’s a writer, but big deal. She probably couldn’t draw a stick figure to save her life. I’d think she had a better body than I do, but I’ve seen pictures of her. She a scrawny little whey faced brat of a woman with the brains of a goat.” She paced the width of the bedroom, tears streaming down her cheeks, hands clenched into fists at her sides. She whirled to face him, her hair whipping around, falling in a glorious tangle around her shoulders. “What does she have, Dale, that keeps you from wanting me like you want her?”

  “I’ve never wanted Nikki the way I want you. I never loved her the way I love you,” Dale said, jamming his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. There was only one woman he had ever wanted the way he wanted Lauren. And he didn’t know her damned name.

  “Then why haven’t you ever made love to me like that? Like you’d die if you couldn’t have me?” she asked, her voice breaking, tears streaking down her cheeks. “Today was the first time…” her voice trailed off before she could say, since the night you got me pregnant. “Why don’t you want me that way?”

  “Lauren, you’re pregnant. I don’t want to hurt you-”

  She cut him off with one icy glare. “Pregnant doesn’t mean fragile, Dale. And you weren’t exactly handling me with kid gloves when you fucked me senseless yesterday, huh? If that hasn’t gotten it through your head that I can take it, then nothing will.”

  “Yesterday shouldn’t have happened the way it did,” Dale said stiffly, closing his eyes and remembering, with mingled self-disgust and a satisfaction that was mind-boggling. “I never should have done that.”

  She absently wiped a hot tear away as it streaked down her cheek, staring at him with hollow eyes. “Shouldn’t have happened,” she repeated. It had been exhilarating, mind shattering, and wonderful beyond words for her. And he didn’t think it should have happened. “Well, it did. And you know I’m fine. The baby is fine. Get it through your head, pregnancy doesn’t mean the same thing as fragility. But apparently it does mean stupid. Otherwise, I’d have realized I was your substitute.”

  Angrily, jealously, Dale snapped, “Well, if you’ve loved me for years, as you keep telling me, why in the hell are you pregnant with another man’s kid? Why were you slee
ping with another man while you were pining for me?”

  “Because I wanted it. I’ve got needs, too, Dale. I got pregnant getting those needs met.” I got pregnant because I needed you too much to care that you just wanted a woman, any woman. I got pregnant because I had to be with you, even if it was only that one time. But she’d be damned if she would tell him that now. Mournfully, she stared at him. He didn’t love her after all. How could she have been so wrong?

  “I’d have been happy to take care of those needs, Lauren. I would have been more than happy to give you a quick fuck. All you had to do was ask. Why in the hell didn’t you ever tell me how you felt?” If she had, maybe he would have been the one to plant that child inside her. Maybe he wouldn’t be dreaming of wild jungle sex with a woman he could never have.

  “And have you feel sorry for me? Make love with me out of pity? I’ve got some pride, Dale. And you’re walking all over it.”

  “Pride? You spent the night screwing some bastard who doesn’t love you, because you’re horny and ended up pregnant. Where was your pride then? Where was your pride when he didn’t care enough to live up to his responsibility?”

  “This baby isn’t a responsibility, Dale. And you and I apparently have different ideas of what pride is. I had too much pride to go crawling to the man who seduced me, and cry, ‘I’m pregnant. Help me.’” Lauren could have kicked herself, but the words had already left her mouth.

  “Seduced you.” Livid, Dale advanced on her, caught her arms in his hands, his grip gentle, but unbreakable. “Seduced you. One might see that as saying he took advantage of you, used you. Who was he, Lauren?” Who in the hell had seduced his woman, the other half of him?

  Lauren saw the anger, the rage in his eyes, not knowing he was angry at himself, for not knowing, not seeing how much she meant to him in time to keep some Don Juan from using her and tossing her aside. “I tried to tell you once before. And you didn’t want to know. That was your only chance,” she said coldly.

  “Who is he, Lauren?” Dale shouted. He had never been so angry, so furious. Who in the hell had touched her and turned his back on her? Who had hurt her that way? And it had hurt her, he knew it. Deep down inside, he sensed the pain she was holding in check.