Retrieval

by Aly Martinez

  Secondly, the idea of having a child using donor sperm felt wrong on so many levels. I had a man I was madly in love with; I wanted his babies. Ones with his silver eyes and his mischievous smile. Little girls with his big heart and his thick lashes. I didn’t just want kids; I wanted his kids.

  I stormed out of the doctor’s office that afternoon, pissed at a universe, who’d stolen the future we’d planned together, but I hadn’t made it to my car before I was wrapped in his strong arms. He held my face in his neck while whispering promises that we’d find the money.

  But money couldn’t fix us.

  A truth Roman had never fully grasped.

  In the end, he was the one who insisted we move forward with a sperm donor. He smiled a gorgeous grin and told me, “Biology doesn’t make families, Lissy. Love makes families.”

  Four months later, ten of my eggs were fertilized with a donor’s sperm.

  And, now, Roman was sitting on my couch, years after love had failed us, with only the biology of it all remaining.

  I was the only thing tying him to this mess. I needed to cut him loose of his responsibilities once and for all.

  Shifting away from him, I blurted, “I can handle this from here on out. No need for you to get involved.”

  His head snapped back. “Excuse me?”

  “I just mean…. You know. You can go. I’ll get back in touch with Detective Rorke and handle it from here. This isn’t your problem.”

  His hand fell away from my back as he stared at me for several seconds. “This isn’t my problem?”

  “Well…no. This is my problem.” I instinctively scooted over an inch, although I wasn’t exactly sure why. Roman would never hurt me, but the pissed-off vibe radiating from his pores was suffocating.

  He ominously swayed toward me. “Your problem?” His silver eyes darkened to a frightening shade of charcoal.

  I leaned away. “I just meant—”

  “Yeah, Lis. Please, tell me what you just meant.”

  “I meant…” I carefully studied his face before I found the courage to say, “We aren’t together anymore?” It came out as a question. “I just figured—”

  I stopped talking when he moved closer, one hand on the back of the couch, the other on the arm, caging me into the corner.

  “Say the words,” he ordered on a pained whisper.

  “I think you should leave.”

  “Not the words.”

  “Back up,” I pleaded, but he got closer. Mere inches separated our bodies—less separated our mouths.

  His breath breezed over my skin as he ground out, “Still not the words.”

  My pulse spiked at the same time my mouth dried.

  He was too close.

  Way, way, way too…

  I closed my eyes.

  He was wearing a different cologne, but the underlying smell of clean soap and shampoo was still my Roman, and the smell assaulted my olfactory senses at full force. But it was the subtle hit of beer on his breath that transported me back in time to a moment that seemed as though it had been nearly a million years ago, and it felt as though it had been even longer than that.

  After numerous plates of chicken parmesan—all of which were wrong—Roman and I went out dancing at a hole-in-the-wall salsa bar downtown. Neither of us knew how to salsa, but we both made fools of ourselves trying to learn. I proved myself to be a quick study. Roman not so much, but he never quit. He also never took his eyes—or his hands—off me.

  On the way home, we stopped at a food cart to pick up a two a.m. snack. Roman was almost as drunk as I was, and neither of us could stop laughing long enough to order.

  “Two gyros. Extra Z. Add feta,” he finally got out, blindly waving a twenty at the cashier. He pulled me into his arms and kissed the top of my hair.

  “Oh my God, you ordered for me again.” I feigned horror, playfully pushing him away.

  He grinned with pride. “Sure did.”

  “And what if I don’t like gyros?”

  He swayed toward me, gliding his hand up the back of my neck and into my hair. “Everyone likes gyros.”

  “Not everyone,” I laughed only to be silenced when he tilted his head down and brushed his nose with mine.

  He hadn’t kissed me yet. I wasn’t sure what the hold-up was, because God knows I’d given every signal I could think of—including a few I’d invented on the fly.

  He dropped his forehead to mine and stayed close as I silently willed him closer.

  When his mouth never made contact, I licked my lips and whispered, “I don’t eat lamb.”

  His other arm hooked around my waist to bring our bodies flush. The intoxicating scent of clean sweat and beer invaded my senses. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, holding it in for as long as my lungs would allow, engraining it into my memory so I could never lose it—lose him.

  As I exhaled, I felt his breath at my ear.

  “It’s a food cart, Lissy. I assure you these are beef.”

  It wasn’t a sexy statement by anyone’s standard, but it still made my knees weak.

  Pressing my breasts against his chest, I raked my nails up his back. Then I whispered my own unsexy reply, “Oh. Okay, then. I like beef.”

  He stared at me for several beats, his eyes heating despite our ridiculous conversation.

  My chest heaved impatiently.

  Kiss me.

  As though he’d heard my silent plea, his face split into a gorgeous grin.

  A nanosecond later, in front of a food cart, while a dozen hungry drunks stumbled around us, Roman Leblanc changed my life.

  But it wasn’t with a kiss.

  “Marry me,” he breathed.

  My eyes popped open.

  “Say the words,” he growled into my face.

  “Roman, please.” I pressed a hand to his chest and shimmied up the couch so he was no longer looming inches from my face—and my mouth. His eyes were still scary, but the way he watched me held more than just anger.

  That might have been the most terrifying part of all.

  “Look, I didn’t mean that you couldn’t be involved. I only meant that you didn’t have to be involved. You know…because—”

  “The kid wouldn’t be mine,” he finished for me.

  Yes. Exactly that. “No. That’s not it.”

  “Then. What. Is it?”

  Um…the kid’s not yours, and you didn’t exactly stick around after the first one.

  “We aren’t together anymore. I didn’t figure you’d want to get—”

  “I swear to God, if you say involved, I’m going to lose my mind.”

  I’d seen Roman lose his mind, and it was not pretty. I valued my coffee table, so I bit my lip.

  His jaw clenched as he sucked in a deep—and, I hoped, calming—breath through his nose. “I’m well aware of the fact that we aren’t together anymore. I’m also aware that we used a sperm donor. Not you. Not me. We. So whatever child was or wasn’t produced from that cycle of IVF is very much ours.” He arched an eyebrow, daring me to argue.

  This was, in fact, the truth. But it wasn’t as simple as he made it out to be. There were a lot of factors in play, the biggest being my heart. I feared I wouldn’t be able to handle it if I gave him the only morsel of trust I had left only for him to turn his back on me—again.

  But he looked really pissed, so I didn’t dare fill him in on that.

  Instead, I kept my mouth shut and nodded in agreement. I could write him a letter informing him of such after I’d moved to an undisclosed location where he couldn’t find me and pin me to a couch.

  “That means I’m involved in this one hundred percent,” he stated.

  I nodded again, fighting the urge to amend with, Until you get too busy at work to worry about anything else—including, but not limited to, me.

  “So I’ll repeat. My people are looking into it”—he paused and studied my eyes—“for us.”

  I had a million things to say to the man who had broken my heart and was
now claiming he wanted to be involved. None of them were going to get him off me so I could think clearly though. So I went with, “What’s for dinner?”

  He stared for a moment longer, and then a huge grin broke across his face. “Gyros.”

  “Are you insane!” she laughed.

  There was a strong possibility that I was drunk, but I wasn’t insane.

  I also wasn’t kidding.

  I’d known Elisabeth for a matter of hours, and I knew with an absolute certainty that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

  Sure, it was crazy and impulsive, but it was so fucking right.

  So I repeated, “Marry me.”

  “I don’t even know you. We’ve had one date, and you fed me the wrong chicken parmesan. That doesn’t exactly scream husband material.” She shot me a gleaming, white smile.

  “It was only wrong because you gave up. It’s not my fault you called it quits after plate number seven. I was committed to the cause.”

  “Your cause was wasting seven plates of chicken parmesan. You know there are starving kids in Africa, right?” She giggled and buried her face in my neck.

  “Is that a yes?” I asked, sifting my fingers through the back of her hair.

  Her head jerked up, those deep-green eyes smiling nearly as much as her lips. “Um, no. It’s a definite no. However, despite the fact that I now think you have mental issues, I will agree to a second date.”

  I teasingly squinted at her, and she bit her lips to stifle a laugh.

  “Fine, but you should probably head home and pack your belongings, because that date starts now and it’s going to be so long it lasts a lifetime.”

  She barked a laugh. “So, like, say…a marriage?”

  “Yes. Exactly like a marriage. Phew. I’m so glad we agree.”

  She shook her head and whispered, “Insane.”

  I trailed my lips up her neck to her ear and whispered, “Say yes.”

  “No.”

  I grazed my teeth over her earlobe. “Say yes.”

  “No,” she gasped, throwing her head back. The ends of her long hair tickling my hand at her back.

  Unable to stop myself, I placed a kiss on the soft flesh at the base of her neck. As chills spread across her skin, I murmured, “You know you feel it, too.”

  Fisting the back of my shirt, she moaned. “I’d like to feel more. Let’s go back to my place.”

  I could give her more.

  But I was taking forever.

  I glided my hand from her hair to cup her jaw and drank her in. She wasn’t particularly tall, even in heels, so at six two, I had her by several inches, but the way her body fit against mine was nothing short of perfection. Her makeup had started to melt, and her lipstick had been left on the lips of the wineglasses at the bar. But she was still stunning. I couldn’t explain why I’d fallen head over heels for that woman as quickly as I had, but I knew I was never letting her go. Whether it took a month, a year, or a decade, I was going to make her say yes.

  Sweeping my lips across hers, I murmured, “Fine. I’m not above coercing you into marriage with my sexual prowess.”

  She laughed so loud that I would have been offended—if I hadn’t already been in love with her.

  “Where’d you get beer?” Elisabeth asked as she scrambled from the couch.

  “Seth,” I replied, hanging my head and rubbing my eyes.

  Jesus, I’d wanted to kiss her. She was being a bitch, spouting shit she didn’t mean just because she was too scared to let me in.

  But, even through it, those plump lips were calling to me.

  I’d never been able to resist that woman. Despite that we’d fallen apart, it hadn’t changed. The hum for her was still in my veins. It never went away, but for two years, it had been dormant. I’d packed it down so tightly that I’d hoped it had died. But, with one look, my body began thrumming like a live wire.

  “Seth?” she asked as she bent over to straighten her tight, black pencil skirt.

  It was a rare occasion to catch Elisabeth in something other than a perfectly pressed skirt and a pair of heels. But she’d been sleeping all day. It was wrinkled all to hell and back. The only thing her efforts succeeded in was drawing my attention down to her legs.

  Legs that had spent many nights wrapped around my hips as she came while crying my name.

  Shit. I should go.

  But, after the way she’d latched on to me that morning, I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “My assistant,” I answered. “I had him pick you up a bottle of wine, too.”

  She blinked. “You have an assistant? Who delivers you beer? And your ex-wife wine?”

  “No, I have an assistant who does whatever the fuck I need him to do. And, luckily for us, beer and wine happen to fall into the whatever-the-fuck-I-need-him-to-do category tonight.” She fought back a smile as I finished, “So do gyros.”

  “Damn. I need to get one of those,” she mumbled to herself.

  I smirked. “Cash my checks and you could afford one.”

  It was a dick move, bringing up the money right then. But, despite her expert hand in decorating, that little starter house we’d bought with rose-colored glasses now needed a shit-ton of work.

  Her back shot ramrod straight, fury crinkling the corners of her eyes as she snarled, “I’m not cashing your checks.”

  I shrugged. “Guess you’ll have to figure out how to get your own wine and dinner after tonight.”

  “I think I can manage,” she fired back.

  “Suit yourself.” I pushed off the couch and meandered to the kitchen.

  I went to the fridge and leaned in, searching for anything I could snack on. With the exception of at least a dozen Tupperware containers, she didn’t have much in the way of a quick bite.

  Snagging a handful of grapes from the drawer, I made a mental note to send Seth to the grocery store after he’d delivered dinner.

  Popping the grapes in my mouth one by one, I felt her watching me in what could only be defined as silent awe. I decided my best move would be to ignore it. “You know, I should have invented Tupperware. You alone could keep me in business,” I told her, retrieving a beer and then shutting the door.

  She scoffed then muttered, “At least then I would have benefitted from you abandoning our marriage.”

  Lava fresh off the volcanoes in Hell boiled in my veins.

  I cocked my head to the side and questioned, “I’m sorry. Come again?”

  “You should go,” she snapped.

  Think a-fucking-gain.

  “Nah, I’m good. Got any movies?”

  I tipped the bottle to my lips, doing my best to calm the storm brewing within me, all while still fighting the desire to take her to the floor, plant myself between her legs, and remind her how that fucking attitude affected me.

  Clearly, she had forgotten.

  My cock had not.

  “Roman, it’s been a crazy day. Please don’t do this tonight.”

  “Do what?” I asked, leaning back against the huge, granite island.

  She threw her hands out to the sides in frustration. “What you always do.”

  “What do I always do, Lissy?”

  “This!” she yelled.

  I frowned and took another pull from my beer. “Haven’t been in our kitchen, drinking beer, in a long time. I hardly think it’s fair to say I always do it.”

  Her eyes nearly bulged from her head. “My kitchen, Roman. This is my kitchen. Not ours. And you know good and damn well that is not what I’m talking about.”

  My lips twitched as I pointed the neck of my bottle at her. “No. What I know good and damn well is that I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. Or why you’re slinging unnecessary and, might I add, undeserved attitude at me like a short-order cook at the bitch house.”

  “He did not say that to me,” she whispered to herself.

  When I lifted a shoulder in a half shrug, she swung a pointed finger toward the door and yelled, “Get out
!”

  I grinned, crossing my legs at the ankle. “You always were cranky when you were hungry.”

  And that was the exact moment her head exploded.

  “We are done here!” she declared, aiming her finger back at me. “Not another word more. I’ll hire an attorney tomorrow, and he’ll be in touch with yours regarding whatever our next step is with the cops. Hopefully, we can file something with the courts and get them to issue a DNA test or…whatever. But, in the meantime, you are not standing here in my kitchen, drinking my beer.” She paused and sucked in a deep breath. “Yes! My beer, I don’t give a shit if your fancy-ass assistant did deliver it. It’s in my fridge. In my house. It’s my beer!”

  I moved. And I did it so fast that she didn’t have a chance to react before she was up against my chest. “I don’t give a damn whose beer it is.”

  “Let go of me.” She fought in my grasp.

  “Not until you listen. While you were busy crying into my chest. And holding my shoulders like you couldn’t get close enough. Then falling asleep in my arms like it was the only place you ever fucking belonged.” I gripped the back of her hair and tipped her head back, leaning in close as I added, “Which it fucking is.”

  The fight left her. Her body sagging in my arms, even as her eyes flashed wide.

  Trailing my thumb back and forth over her cheek, I finished with, “I got some information from the cops. I’m not here to fight with you, so calm down, share a meal and a much-needed glass of wine with me, and let me fill you in.”

  “Roman,” she exhaled, her eyes flooding with tears.

  I wasn’t sure what part of that had softened her—or I would have repeated it.

  Again.

  And again.

  And maybe a hundred times after that.

  Because, with just the sound of my name, she gave me my innocent angel back.

  And it was that moment when I realized it had been a God’s-honest miracle I’d been able to breathe a single breath in the two years I’d lived without her.

  It was also then that I decided those days were done.