She nodded. Her knees were still shaking from the violence of the passion that had flared between them, but she knew he was right. And she agreed. Finally she heaved a sigh, offering him a wry grin. “You’re right. I don’t like it, but you’re right.” Then she stepped forward and raised herself on her tiptoes, pressing a gentle kiss against his stubbled jaw. “Thank you for stopping.” Her voice was low. “I’m not sure I would have…thought to stop.”
He groaned, taking her face between his big hands and taking her mouth in one last hard kiss before releasing her completely. “Great. Thanks for sharing that. I’m going to have enough trouble sleeping without knowing that if I’d kept my big mouth shut—”
She put a hand over his mouth, laughing. “But what a noble gesture. You’re quite the romantic—” She stopped as his face changed. How stupid had that been? She should be the first one to remember that there had been nothing remotely romantic in their marriage agreement.
Ryan cleared his throat. “You’d better go to bed now. You’ve been on your feet enough today.”
“Yes.” She couldn’t wait to escape before she gave in to the tears that were pushing behind her eyes. “I think I will.”
Seven
In early May. Jessie and Ryan went on an introductory tour of the hospital for expectant parents. The tours were arranged by due date, with women who’d signed up for childbirth classes near the same time in the same tour groups.
She was the only woman in their group whose belly already led the way, and she decided it was time to acquire some maternity clothing. Ryan insisted on going along. They purchased a new wardrobe of items that were made for women who were going to wind up with roughly the same dimensions as a water buffalo.
On the way home they drove past her old apartment. She’d sublet it the month before to a young urban professional type who looked as if she would take good care of it.
They headed southwest to Brookline and home. Home. It was home, she realized, in a way no other residence in which she’d ever lived had been. Even her condo, which she’d made hers with art and other decor, had been just a place to live, not a place she’d ever felt attached to. At the Brookline house her whole body relaxed the moment she stepped through the door, and a sense of cozy rightness enveloped her.
Growing up, she’d never quite felt like she belonged in her grandparents’ home. She’d felt tolerated. With a new flash of insight, she suspected that her mother probably had felt that way, as well. She’d give a lot to know what her mother’s life had been like as a young woman, before the indiscretion that had been held against her for the rest of her parents’ lives. She doubted it had been much different. She couldn’t imagine her grandmother as anything other than stiff and unyielding, her grandfather quietly rigid and unaffectionate. Both of them had died during her high school years, but she’d been able to manage nothing more than a dry regret that their lives hadn’t been happier.
Her mother hadn’t changed appreciably after they were gone. She’d been beaten down too many times to recover, Jessie supposed. Or maybe she’d lacked the maternal instinct that even now stirred so strongly in her own breast. Jessie could hardly wait for the day when she’d hold her own babies. In any case, her mother’s death during Jessie’s senior year in college had been unexpected but not a life-changing trauma. Deep down Jessie had been alone for a long, long time.
Now you’ll never be alone again.
The thought was quite a shock. But it was true! She was going to be a mother, a good mother. Her children weren’t simply going to tolerate her, nor she them. And she had Ryan, as well. Even though he didn’t love her, even if he didn’t want to stay married to her, as she feared he wouldn’t once the excitement of sharing parenthood wore off, she hoped they’d stay close, in more than a physical way.
Knowing that he was attracted to her was a sweet joy, one she could hardly wait to explore. But it wasn’t enough. She longed for his love, even though she knew that was a hopeless dream.
And she was very, very good at not letting herself dream. Life had taught her to be a realist, to work hard to achieve the goals she knew were within reach with a lot of hard work. But life also had taught her how to discern when a goal was out of reach. Ryan was definitely one of those out-of-reach goals.
But they would always share these precious children and deep inside she couldn’t suppress a small flicker of hope that Ryan would come to care for her a little, for the babies’ sakes, of course.
Of course.
After dinner that evening Jessie went up and got ready for bed. Although she had been feeling well, and the fatigue of early pregnancy no longer dragged at her constantly, she still was exhausted and more than ready for bed.
She was already in bed, reading a book about breast-feeding twins, when Ryan knocked on the connecting door between their rooms. They shared the bath but each of them had been scrupulously polite about keeping their respective doors into the bathroom closed and knocking before they entered to be sure it was unoccupied.
“Come on in,” she said. She was sitting up with the covers to her waist—or where her waist had once been—wearing one of Ryan’s enormous T-shirts, which she’d found made wonderfully comfortable nightshirts.
When he walked through the connecting door, she caught her breath involuntarily. He was wearing a T-shirt and navy gym shorts, and his long, muscular legs were bare but for a dusting of dark curly hair. The shorts were a soft, stretchy fabric that clung to his lean thighs and did little to hide the raw power of his male body. In one arm he carried several books.
“Baby names,” he said. “We should get started. People at the office are beginning to ask me.”
“We still have a while to decide,” she said mildly, but she patted the opposite side of the bed. “It can’t hurt to think about it.”
“There are literally thousands of names in these things,” he said, indicating the books. He came around the foot of the bed and dumped the books between them, then punched several of the extra pillows into place and settled back against the headboard.
She laughed. “Well, since we know they’re girls, that helps a lot. Why don’t we each write down twenty or so names that really appeal to us and then we’ll cross-reference our lists.”
He shot her a skeptical look. “That sounds incredibly organized. Can’t we just go through them and shoot some possibilities into the ether?”
“No, we cannot.” She leaned over and opened the drawer of her bedside table, withdrawing a writing pad and two pens. She tore off two sheets of paper, handed him one along with a pen, and said, “There.”
Ryan made a face of disgust but obediently picked up one of the books and started reading. After a few minutes he said, “Are there any ground rules?”
“Ground rules?” She laid her book facedown on her stomach. “Such as?”
“Do you want names that rhyme?”
“Uck.” She made a face. “No way.”
“Names that start with the same letter? Have the same number of syllables?”
“You’re making this harder than it has to be,” she pronounced. “I just want two names that we both like. They don’t have to have anything in common but that.”
He nodded and went back to his book.
An hour later, she laid down her pen. “I have a pretty good list. How about you?”
He surveyed what he’d written. “Yeah. Let’s compare. You start.”
“Okay. What do you think of Margarita?”
His blue eyes widened an instant before he hooted. “Like the drink? Are you kidding? She’d never live that down.”
“It’s Spanish,” she said huffily, “and very pretty.” But she struck it off her list. She’d just been testing him anyway. “Renee, Renata, Lisette, Phoebe.”
“Keep Renee and Lisette. Deep six the other two.”
At the end of her list, she still had six of the names she had suggested, plus an additional three that had been on both of their lists. Ryan read his lis
t and they added five more.
“Not bad,” she said, “for the first try. At least now we can roll some of these around in our heads and see how they sound after a couple of days.”
Two mornings later he had showered and was dressing for work early in the morning when he heard Jessie call his name. There was an odd quality in her voice, and adrenaline rushed through him as he tore open the door to her room. Was something wrong with her?
She looked up as he entered, and the fear subsided immediately. Her face was positively glowing. Her dark hair was ruffled from sleep and she still wore the T-shirt she’d slept in. She was sitting on the side of the bed with both hands on her stomach.
“Come here, quick!” she urged him.
He hitched up the trousers he’d already donned and sat beside her. His weight pressed the mattress down and she slid against his side, so he casually put an arm around her, delighting in the soft pliancy of her body. “What?”
“Here. Feel here.” She grabbed his free hand and planted it on her stomach through the shirt.
A shiver of shock ran up his spine. He flattened his hand over the firm mound of her belly, ignoring the pulse drumming in his veins. Just then, his focus on her was distracted by a slight but distinct bumping against his palm. “They’re moving!”
“Mmm-hmm.” She circled his wrist as far as she could and tugged his hand slightly to one side. “I think you can feel them more over here.”
He could. And for several moments, they sat motionless as the tiny beings stretched and turned. But it wasn’t enough for him. Reaching for the edge of her T-shirt, he said, “May I…?”
A flush touched her cheek but she nodded and he took a deep breath, fighting the nearly irresistible desire to kiss her. He tugged the T-shirt up, exposing her swollen flesh, and laid his hand possessively on her, curving it over the smooth, warm globe where his children were safely ensconced, feeling the satiny texture shift with each small movement of a baby.
A feeling of content like nothing he’d ever known before permeated his entire being. This was the life he’d been meant for.
Impulsively he kissed the top of her bent head. To his surprise and pleasure, she responded with a quiet murmur of pleasure, resting her head in the curve of his shoulder and cuddling against him in a sweet intimacy that made him wish for moments like it on a daily basis.
They stayed like that for a long time, feeling their babies move, until she looked up at him and said, “They seem to be settling down now. I’ve been feeling movement for weeks but never anything like that!”
He couldn’t resist the urge. Bending low, he reverently kissed her warm, silky belly, caressing her with his hand before straightening and tugging her shirt back into place. “Sorry,” he said. “But thank you for sharing that.” He had to clear his throat. “It was…a thrill.”
“I know.” She cleared her throat, too, and her voice was soft but her eyes were steady as she said, “Ryan, you can touch me anytime.”
His heartbeat doubled at the look in her eyes. “No,” he said. “I can’t. Not the way I want to.”
She nodded, sighed. “Right.” And his heart beat even faster at the acceptance implicit in the single syllable. Then her hand stroked lightly up and down his forearm, her fingers leaving a trail of fire in their wake. “But I could…touch you, if you like.”
What? He realized he’d croaked the single, shocked syllable aloud. As her words arranged themselves in meaningful syllables in his brain, his entire body tightened. A distinct stirring in his groin made him shift uncomfortably.
“I said…”
“I know what you said! I just…just…ah, hell, never mind.” He raised both hands and speared them through his thick dark hair in utter frustration.
“Ryan?” Her voice sounded surprisingly unsure. She waited until he looked at her. “Am I wrong about this or were you planning on consummating this marriage when it’s medically allowed?”
“Jess.” His voice sounded like someone was strangling him. “You know I want you. I haven’t made it a secret. But we haven’t even… We can’t—”
She smiled gently. “I don’t mind if we do things in reverse order.”
Another lick of fire flashed through him and the stirring became a potential embarrassment. He exhaled heavily. “God, woman, sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever know you.”
She laughed and stood up, taking his hands, and he let her draw him to his feet, facing her. “Oh, you will. I can definitely promise that you will.”
She was twisting everything he said, giving her words sexual overtones that he could barely resist. “I have to get to work,” he said desperately.
Then she leaned into him, and as her belly pressed hard against the rigid evidence of his interest in her, she smiled. “So who’s stopping you?”
“You little tease.” He slipped his hands free of hers and gathered her closer, dropping his head and seeking her mouth. He tried to gentle himself, but he was so aroused and hot for her that the kiss was a wild mating of twisting, frantic tongues. He tore his mouth from hers, pressing a trail of openmouthed kisses along her jaw and down the sensitive flesh of her long, lovely neck. When he reached the neck of the shirt she wore, he caught the fabric in his teeth and tugged the overlarge neckline aside to bare one slender ivory shoulder.
“Ryan.” She yanked handfuls of his T-shirt out of the way until she could run her palms up his bare back. She traced the muscles beneath his skin with shaking hands, then he felt her fingers sliding stealthily along his ribs, burrowing between them to seek out his nipples and tug tenderly until the small buds stood out for her ministrations, sending lightning jolts of arousal straight to his loins.
He groaned, dragging his mouth back up to take her lips in a deep, thrusting imitation of what he really wanted to do. She responded by sliding her hands down his belly, making the muscles contract sharply. And then, to his shock, she didn’t stop, but ran one small hand deliberately down the distended fly of his jeans, caressing his swollen flesh with sweet pressure until he grabbed her wrist and held her hand away.
“Stop,” he gasped.
She smiled against his lips. “Why?”
Why? He didn’t have an answer for that one, his passion-fogged brain sluggish and dazed. She reached for him with her free hand, but he caught that one as well, drawing them up to press a kiss into each palm and hold them well away from his body.
“No.” He realized he was panting, and he grinned despite his discomfort and the desire raging through his system that urged him to let her finish. He looked deep into her eyes, trying to make her understand. “Don’t get me wrong, Jess. There’s nothing I’d like more than to make love with you, but…I don’t want it to be like this. I want us both there, all the way.”
Her belly brushed against his body, and he swore beneath his breath. “I want a medal of honor for this, dammit.”
The comment broke the tense sexual moment and she laughed, finally letting him move her a pace away. “All right.” She put a hand to his cheek. “You’re definitely too noble for your own good, Mr. Shaughnessy, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
He kept away from her after that, knowing the limits of his own self-control, giving her chaste kisses on a daily basis but avoiding any repeat of the heated intimacy they’d shared in her bedroom.
In early June he got called to Seattle on an unavoidable business trip. It was the first time he’d left her since she’d been hospitalized, and her small, heart-shaped face looked woebegone when he told her what he was planning.
“Have you been postponing travel because of me?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” he hedged. It wasn’t entirely a lie. Though he’d had a few things come up, his presence wasn’t essential to anything vital, and he’d sent one of his executive team in his place. “I haven’t needed to be anyplace urgently.”
“But you normally travel more than you have lately.” It wasn’t a question. She knew full well that he’d been in and out of town frequ
ently in the past.
“I did.” He took a deep breath. “But I’ve been thinking about changing some of that. The past few weeks were sort of a test—I sent some of my top people out in my place, and things went just fine.” He put his hands on her shoulders and gently massaged. “I don’t want to be a father whose work is more important than his children, so I’m going to start shifting more of the travel responsibilities to other employees. There still will be a few things I won’t be able to get out of, but for the most part I’ll be home.”
She had a pensive look on her face, something sad and lonely lurking in her eyes. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said. “I’m sorry I won’t be here for the sixteen-week checkup.”
She smiled then, though the expression he couldn’t quite interpret was still buried in her green eyes. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m a big girl, and Finn won’t let anything happen to me. And the checkup is no big deal. There’s no sonogram scheduled.”
“I know.” He hesitated, then took the plunge. “Miss me?”
To his shock, her face crumpled. “Yes,” she whispered. She stepped forward into the arms he held out, and he hugged her tight to him, the bulge of their children sandwiched between them.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said, feeling helpless when he heard her sniff.
She nodded, stirring, and when he let her go, she stepped back. “Don’t mind me. I’m just one big emotional wreck these days.”
But he did mind. He hated leaving her, though he knew he couldn’t tell her. And the way she’d clung warmed his heart all out of proportion to the act. Telling himself it was only that she was pregnant and feeling vulnerable didn’t do a single thing to mitigate the elation that rose within him. He stepped forward, pulling her to him for a gentle kiss, then grinned at her and opened the door. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Billionaire Bachelors: Ryan Page 12