“I am a safe bet.” I pull the ring from my pocket and get on one knee in front of her.
“Get up,” she says. “I’m not about to fall for that again.”
She may as well have plunged a knife in my heart. “Peyton, I was scared. Fear made me think we had something that would hurt us both. I was a fool. Please…”
“Save it, Romeo. Funny how once you found this out you came running to me. Why not before?”
“This was a fluke, finding you. We both ended up in Seattle at the same time. I walked past the book store with your book in it. I had no idea it was your book until I called Max. His wife had seen you in Houston. I went right back and got the book. I love it by the way.”
Her eyes soften for a moment. “You do?”
I nod and try to hold her eyes. “Peyton, I can’t tell you why it’s only now that I realized how important you are to me. I can’t tell you why I found you so intriguing the first time I laid eyes on you. I can only tell you that I know without a shadow of a doubt that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I was going to tell you that anyway, even before I saw you.”
“How can I believe you, Kip?” she asks and looks away.
I take her chin in my hand and make her look at me. “Because I’ve never lied to you. Not once. I mean it. My plan was to beg you to come back to me. This is just an unexpected and happy surprise.”
Her eyes gloss over and she may be about to cry. “Kip, I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know that I can ever believe you want me back for me or what’s inside me.”
“It’s you, baby. I wanted you back before I ever saw you again. You need to believe me and let that doubt go. There’s no room for it. We have plans to make and this is just getting in the way. Now please, marry me.” I search her eyes for some sign of hope.
Her head shakes. “No, I won’t.”
“You really know how to screw up a proposal, Peyton.” I get up and run my hands through my hair.
“You really know how to break a heart, Kip.”
I turn away from her. “So damn stubborn!”
“Me?” she shouts. “I’m stubborn? What about you?”
“I was afraid, not stubborn,” I argue. “How much time do we have, three months, four?”
“Three. I have three months,” she says. “You have a lifetime as I don’t think you’re stable enough to be what you need to be. It’s important to be around. And if you thought what you felt for me was unhealthy and you had to run from it, then you’ll really feel your connection with this will be bad.”
“I don’t like you calling our child, ‘this’ it’s not very nice. Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I haven’t had a sonogram yet. To be honest, I haven’t felt up to it. Mom said she’ll go with me, but I don’t really want to find out with her. I think it’ll be better to be surprised. Kind of how surprised I was when its daddy told me that what we had was too much for him to deal with.”
“Peyton, if I could go back in time and change it all, I would, baby.” I go back and sit next to her. “I’m here now. I’m never going anywhere again. After tomorrow, I’m free from Silas and the contract.”
Her eyes dart up to mine. “Who was the girl?”
“You saw the paper?”
She nods. “A man had it in the book store. I saw your face, well, sort of. That beautiful woman had hers all up in yours, but I saw you. So who is she?”
“Her name is Gina, and she’s a small time singer. I’m pretty sure she thought I’d help her get into the business a bit better, but I assured her I wasn’t going to be that person for her. I told her my heart belonged to you. I told her I was going to change the way I’ve been doing things.”
“You told her?” she asks. “You talked to her that damned much?”
Her cheeks grow red with anger and it makes me smile as I know she still has it for me or she’d not be this jealous. “It wasn’t as long as I’m making it sound. Minutes really. Over the phone this morning. Her coming on stage or being there at all was a surprise to me. I found out later Silas had allowed her to come on after she talked to him.”
“I kind of hate that man,” Peyton says with a frown. “To be honest, I blame him for your actions just about as much as I blame you.”
“He was definitely a gnat in my ear.” I run one arm around her shoulders and with my other hand I touch her round stomach. “You look more beautiful than I remembered you being.”
Her hand goes over mine and for a moment I hold my breath as I’m afraid she’s going to move it. “You lie, but thanks. I feel pretty ugly most of the time. Fat, alone, and ugly.”
My heart aches and I run the arm I have around her shoulders up and cup the back of her head to make her look up at me. “You couldn’t be ugly if you tried and you aren’t fat at all. The only thing I see is that little belly where you’re carrying our child, Peyton. I swear to you that you’re gorgeous, you glow, sweetheart.”
Her eyes twinkle a little. “If I was to take you back, you have to know my brothers would give you a hard time. Maybe even a punch or two.”
“I deserve it, so I’ll take whatever they feel I deserve. I fucked up. I should’ve never been so weak. I really do feel awful I did that to you at the worst time in your life, Peyton. I really do.” Her mouth is mere centimeters from mine, but I have to wait before I kiss her.
“How can I trust you to stay with us? How can I ever feel safe about it? If I build our lives around you and you decide it’s too much for you, then what? Not only do I have my heart to protect now, but my child’s too.” Her eyes search mine and I feel terrible.
“That’s my child too, you seem to forget. I’m not about to freak out over feeling completely in love with my own flesh and blood. I might be a bit of a fool, but I’m not a complete one. So go ahead and ask me what you know you want to, Peyton.” My hand on the back of her head pushes her face a tad bit closer to mine.
“I’m really afraid, Kip. I’m not kidding about that.” Her lips tremble and I know she’s afraid I’ll end it again.
“You’ll have to trust me, baby. I swear I won’t freak out this time. So ask me already and end this torture,” I say and lick my lips.
“What if I don’t?”
“Well, then I’ll have to continue to argue my case until you see fit to give this idiot another shot.” The hand I have on her stomach I move, running it up over her stomach and then to her breasts.
Her breath hitches and she smiles. “This is probably the biggest mistake I’ll ever make. Kip, will you kiss me?”
“I will, but you have to promise to marry me first, Peyton Gail Reed.” I pull the ring back out of my pocket and wait for her answer as I hold her so close I can smell the sweet cinnamon on her breath.
Her hazel eyes are more green than brown right now and they dart back and forth as she thinks. Finally she blinks a couple of times. “Yes, Kip. I will marry you.”
My lips touch hers gently and I feel like I’m home for the first time since she and I parted ways, I feel whole again. The emptiness inside me fills as I pull her into my arms and run my hands through her blonde curls which have grown a good four inches since I saw her last.
As we kiss, I run my hand with the ring on the pinky down her left arm, and place the ring back on her finger, where it should’ve never left in the first place. My hand leaves hers and slips under the hem of her night shirt.
Her skin is soft as silk and her kiss is every bit as sweet as I remembered. How I let this go is something I can’t wrap my head around. I pull the shirt up and pull my mouth from hers only long enough to take it off her.
She kisses me back hungrily as my hands go right for her breasts which have grown larger. My tongue flows over hers and I push her back gently until she’s on the bed. Then I sit up and look down at her.
A red pair of lacy panties is all she has on. I peel them off her and take her all in. The small bump of our baby I run my hands over. Up h
er body I run them until I get to her breasts. I cup each one and smile as I say, “Now, these are very nice.”
She giggles, and it makes my heart twitch with happiness to hear her happy again. “You like them? I think they’re going to get bigger.”
“Bonus!” I grin, and have to feel one of them in my mouth.
I lean over her and gently massage one as I pop the other in my mouth. We both moan and her hands tangle up in my hair. Soft murmurs she makes as I go to another place with her voluptuous mounds.
Leaving her breast alone, my hand flows over her body, down until I find her wet folds and run my fingers all over them. I hear her hiss out a yes and move a finger into her to wet it, then stroke her clit while I feast on her tender and juicy breast.
She arches up and moans. “God, Kip, oh, I’ve missed you. And this. You make me feel like no one else can.”
A smile interrupts my taking of her breast and I pull my mouth only as far away from it as I have to. “I am all you have to compare to.”
Her body stiffens and I find that a little odd. “Kip, I should probably tell you this.”
Please, don’t let it be that she fucked another guy!
Peyton
Kip’s body tenses, and he looks up at me. He’s really enjoying my new, bigger boobs so I hope this doesn’t stop that, but he should know.
“First, let me start by asking you a question, because we both know that you were trying to forget about me. Also, there’s a baby inside me, so you need to be honest for its health. Did you have sex with anyone while we were apart? Tell the truth, I’ll try really hard not to be mad.”
The way his eyes go down pretty much answers me and my heart starts pounding as heat rushes through me. I try hard to hold on to my temper as we had been broken up, and it’s not as if he owed it to me to be faithful.
He nods. “I’m safe though. I used condoms.”
He can’t look at me as I ask. “Do I even want to know how many times and how many women?”
He shakes his head and my stomach lurches. “I’ll be right back,” I say as I jump and run to the bathroom.
Everything comes out and Kip opens the door. “Baby,” he says but I hold up a hand to stop him.
With a brief pause in the puking process, I manage to say, “Please get out, I’m naked and this is embarrassing as fuck.”
“I understand,” he says and closes the door.
Once my stomach is void of all food. I wash my face and give myself a mental pep talk.
I have news which will not make him happy either, so stop being such a pansy ass about this!
I wrap a towel around myself as the vulnerability of being naked and what I need to tell him don’t go well together. What we had going on out there may well end.
I go out and find him undressed and in bed. He pats the bed and I go sit. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Let’s never talk about it again. I’m safe and healthy and it will never happen with anyone but you ever again.”
“That’s good to hear and I can get past it. I had no expectations that Mr. Pop Rock would go without sex anyway. It just hit me hard to actually hear it, and when I get upsetting news I puke, thanks to junior here.” I rub my belly and he smiles.
“So come on back here and let me get back to the place we were.” He pulls at me.
I place my hand on his chest to stop him from pulling me to him. “My turn to make a confession.”
His eyes go wide and he shakes his head. “No, don’t. I can’t take it.”
“Kip, that would be lying.”
His hands go over his ears and he closes his eyes like a little kid and I get déjà vu of what our kids might look and act like. Suddenly he stops and puts his hands down. “Is there anyway the baby isn’t mine?”
I smile as there is no way of that. “It’s yours. It didn’t get that far. Just to the point of oral and that felt awkward and not as good as when you and I did it, so I stopped it before actual penetration….”
“Okay! Shut the story down right there.” He looks a little relieved. “Did you know you were pregnant?”
“Not then, no. But I threw up afterwards and two weeks later I took a pregnancy test,” I say and he smiles.
“You threw up afterwards?”
“Part of why it didn’t go any further actually. He was going at it and nothing was working for me and then my stomach clenched and I had to jerk myself out of the bed and run to the bathroom where I lost my cookies and told him that wasn’t working anyway.”
Kip’s smile goes clean across his handsome face. He pats my tummy. “Way to go, junior. Thanks for keeping your mum intact for your old pop.”
I smack him in his muscular bicep. “I wish you would’ve had someone stop your horny ass!”
He gives a sheepish grin. “Yeah, I bet you do. So who was it? I bet I know.”
“You don’t know him. He was a random guy I met at a club me and some college friends went to so I could forget all about you. He didn’t come close to making me forget though,” I say and lay down next to him. “So did any of those trollops make you feel better than I do? And be honest!” I say, but am not real sure I can take it if he says any of them did.
He leans on his hand as he pushes himself up on his arm and looks down at me. Pulling the towel away as he says, “I am not a liar and when I tell you that no one came close to making me feel what I feel with you, you can believe me. I love you and what we make is real love. Any other thing I’ve ever done has been meaningless sex. You and I have something special, love.”
I want so damn bad to believe him, but my stomach is knotting and my head is going in too many directions. “Kip, can we not do this tonight. A lot has happened and I really need to make decisions with my head, not my body.”
He strokes my arm then holds my hand up and kisses the ring he’s put back on my finger, even though it only fits halfway as my fingers must’ve gotten fatter. “What do you mean, make decisions? I thought you had?”
“Well, there’s a lot to consider. This is a lot to take in. The fact we found it necessary to sleep with other people says a lot about the reality of what we have. It doesn’t seem so permanent, so undeniable. You know?” I ask.
His blue eyes sparkle. “All you need to take in is me, love and this crap will all be behind us and we can start right back at where we were.”
“I don’t want to go back to that exact place. There’s so much to decide. So much to think about.” My head spins as there seems to be too much to take in.
“Shh.” His finger touches my lips. “We have nothing but time, you and me.”
In slow motion, his mouth comes down on mine and I let it all go. The jealousy, the insecurity, everything. It vanishes with his kiss, his touch starts a fire in me that has lain dormant for six, long months.
I pull at him to cover my body with his. It’s missed the weight and comfort it brought me. He moves over me and the way our bodies match even with my stomach bulge is amazing.
A heat runs through me as his large dick presses against me. I arch up and bend my knees to allow him complete access. He grinds his growing erection against me and my body is already quivering for him to fill me.
His mouth moves to my neck, and he kisses my warm flesh. “I love you, Peyton.”
My heart fills with emotion and a tear wells up then falls over my cheek. He’s back, and he’s mine again. Other women he’s had, but it’s me that he has chosen. He came back to me.
“Please, take me now. Make me yours again,” I whisper.
He pulls his head up and looks at me as he slides his hard, large and wide dick into me. I hold his gaze and though it burns as he spreads me apart to accommodate him, I don’t show any pain. “You are mine, forever.”
“I am,” I say and wrap my legs around him.
Slow strokes he makes as he looks into my eyes. The burning eases and I arch up to him. He lowers his face and finally his lips touch mine. His mouth is hot, and he tastes like coffee with a hint of mint and I m
issed that taste.
The muscles of his back I run my hands over. I missed them more than I even knew. His huge biceps I run them over next and nearly fall apart at how hard and big they are.
Harder he thrusts into me, making me grow hotter and the first little quiver begins. “God! Kip!”
“Cum, baby,” he says through gritted teeth. “Do it!”
I yell as I orgasm hard. “Shit!”
My body pulses all around his hard, magnificent cock and somehow he holds on. With a quick flip, I’m on my knees and he’s behind me. “I’m going to make you scream my name, baby.”
He slams into me and the orgasm I had going intensifies. “Kip! Fuck!”
My face I push into the pillow and make noises I didn’t know I could make. He yanks my hair back. “I want to hear you.”
Tears flow for reasons I can’t comprehend. I scream with every thrust as I cum harder and it never seems to end. My legs are shaking and my body is a tight bundle of intense pleasure.
He leans over me and I feel his teeth sink into my shoulder. I scream and cannot believe my orgasm goes to a new level. “Fuck!”
“You like it, baby?” Kip says and his lips move on my back with his words.
“Yes! Yes! Don’t stop!” I cry out as he rams into me harder.
His hand grabs a chunk of my hair and he pulls it hard as he slams into me. Incredibly the orgasm goes into overtime and I scream like I’m being murdered and hope Mrs. Simpson from next door doesn’t call the cops.
Kip makes a horrible groan and slumps over my back as heat shoots into me. Our bodies pulse around each other’s and all I know is we’re back and better than ever.
Once all the quaking slows down, he lets me lay down. I go to my side and roll to my back. He lays out next to me, stroking my stomach. His lips touch my cheek. “I hope he doesn’t suffer any brain damage from all that shaking.”
The Naughty One: A Doctor’s Christmas Romance (Season of Desire Book 2) Page 35