First Comes Baby

by Janice Kay Johnson

  AFTER LUNCH AT WILD GINGER, Laurel and Caleb went to his parents’ house to pick up Lydia. She hadn’t gotten up from her nap, for which Laurel was grateful. Her breasts ached, and she would have had hours of discomfort if Lydia had just guzzled a bottle.

  Caleb’s father was at the office, but Laurel had to sit down and tell his mom what had happened.

  She gave Laurel an affectionate hug. “How frightening. I’m so glad Caleb wasn’t in Brazil or someplace, so he was here to take you.”

  “Dad offered, too.” Laurel had used Caleb’s cell phone to call her father at work and tell him what had happened. Tonight she’d call Nadia, too.

  “I’m proud of you,” he’d said.

  It was the first time Laurel had felt a prickle of tears. She liked feeling as if she deserved his pride.

  Now his mother cocked her head. “I think I hear Lydia.”

  Laurel went up to the bedroom and nursed in private, smoothing the soft curls on her daughter’s head and savoring her weight and the tug at her breasts.

  “I love you, pumpkin,” she murmured, as she burped her afterward.

  Lydia beamed at her.

  “I bet Grandma took good care of you, didn’t she?”

  Lydia waved her arms.

  Laurel hugged her hard and whispered, “I wish your other grandma had had the chance to spoil you, too.”

  Shaking off the moment of grief, she repacked the diaper bag and she and Caleb left after profusely thanking his mother.

  “Home?” he asked.

  “Are you going to go to work?”

  “Nope. I’m yours to command.”

  “I’m low on diapers. If you wouldn’t mind…”

  He swore he didn’t. They grocery shopped, and he carried her bags in while she managed Lydia in her totable car seat.

  He put away groceries, then played with Lydia, bouncing her, swooping her above him into the air, making her grin when he made funny sounds.

  Feet tucked under her as she sat at the other end of the sofa, Laurel watched. He was going to be the world’s best father. Just as, she suspected, he’d be the world’s best husband once he gave his heart. Caleb had been loyal to their friendship beyond what she’d deserved. For all his looks and charisma, he’d be as loyal to the woman he loved.

  She wanted suddenly, terrifyingly, for that woman to be her.

  Lydia began to wind down, and he changed her diaper and then handed her over to Laurel.

  “Poop, eat, sleep.”

  She laughed to cover the emotions swirling inside her.

  “I assume you don’t need me to stay over tonight.” He reached down and zipped his overnight bag, stowed next to the coffee table.

  He was going home. She should let him go. Think about this. Not jump into something she wasn’t ready for.

  “You don’t have to go,” she heard herself say.

  He looked up in surprise. “You nervous?”

  “No.” Laurel bit her lip. “I just…um, I like having you here.”

  “If I’m going to do many sleepovers, you’d better buy a new couch. This one is at least a foot too short. Why don’t you sleep over at my house?”

  Lydia was asleep at her breast. She eased her away, not realizing how she’d exposed her nipple until she saw Caleb’s gaze lower to it, and then his head turn sharply.

  She fastened her bra with a hand that shook. “Just a minute,” she said, standing.

  For the first time ever, she carried Lydia into the second bedroom and laid her on her back in the crib. She stirred, and Laurel held her breath hoping she wouldn’t wake up and be alarmed. But she sighed and sank deeper into sleep. Laurel pulled a fleecy blanket up to her chin, then slipped out of the room.

  Caleb was standing in the living room, his gaze meeting hers the minute she appeared.

  His voice was slightly hoarse. “Trying out the crib?”

  She nodded. “It seemed like time I have my bedroom back.”

  “You might both sleep better.”

  Sleep wasn’t what she’d had in mind.

  Say it. Laurel crossed her arms tightly in front of her. Talking fast, she said, “I thought that maybe if you stayed, you wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch.”

  He went completely still, only his eyes fiercely alive. It was the longest time before he asked, “Are you propositioning me, Woodall?”

  “I…I think I am.”

  Caleb said something, low and rough, that might have been “Thank God.” Then he came to her, stopping a foot in front of her, still not touching her. Sounding shaken, he asked, “Are you sure?”

  She tried to smile and failed. “No, but I want to try. If you’ll try with me.”

  He let out a ragged sound that widened her eyes. “Oh, yeah. I’ll try.”

  Finally, his arms closed around her and with a sob she rose on tiptoe to meet him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  IF YOU STAYED, YOU wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch.

  Caleb had come damn close to giving up, accepting that he’d never hear those words from Laurel. Now that he had…God help him, he was terrified.

  He’d never in his life wanted anything as much, and never been so afraid he would foul something up. Sex for the first time with anyone was weird. Sometimes awkward, or even downright embarrassing. Sometimes good, too, of course, or nobody would make it to a second time.

  But this…sex with his best friend after ten years of a platonic relationship. Sex with the woman he suspected he’d loved for those entire ten years.

  Sex with a woman who’d been brutally raped and had never intended to let a man touch her intimately again.

  What if he lost control? Wasn’t gentle enough? What if she freaked?

  He had one shot. One. And if it went bad, he wasn’t the only loser. Or even the main loser. Laurel was. He could see in her eyes that she’d grabbed for every ounce of courage. If she panicked and couldn’t go through with it, Caleb couldn’t imagine that she’d ever be willing to take a chance again.

  Talk about performance anxiety. Their futures depended on his skill as a lover.

  When he took her in his arms, she uttered a little sob and lifted her mouth to his. For just an instant, he let himself crush her mouth with his. Her response was eager, helpless, as if she’d given herself into his hands, and that awareness penetrated his powerful arousal.

  Caleb lifted his head and looked down at her. At this moment, the sight of her stopped his heart. Why this face, this woman and no other? He didn’t know, just savored the sight of her flushed cheeks, her parted lips, her lids lifting to reveal eyes filled with tumultuous emotion.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “You’re so beautiful.”

  Always before she’d argued. This time she lifted a hand to his cheek and murmured, “I’ve always thought you were the sexiest man I’ve ever seen.”

  Caleb gave a choked laugh. “Do you know what that would have meant to me when I was nineteen and skinny?”

  “Well, maybe not always.”

  They shared another laugh, quiet and tender, before he kissed her again, softly this time. They tasted and suckled and nipped. The tip of his tongue touched hers, teased, stroked, as if they had all the time in the world. He’d give them that time, even if the need he’d bottled up for years had him aching to be inside her.

  He backed her into the hall, with them bumping the corner, then the doorframe to her bedroom, shushing each other. When she giggled once, he swallowed the sound with a kiss.

  Just inside her bedroom, Laurel went tense when she realized where they were. He stroked her arms and kissed her neck until she sighed and tipped her head back, her hips bumping his as she arched to give him access to her throat.

  Caleb licked the hollow at the base, then nuzzled between her breasts.

  Against she stiffened. “I’ll leak.”

  Caleb laid both hands on her breasts and gently rubbed. “Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to watch you breast-feed?”

/>   “Oh!” Her startled gaze sought his. “No. Really?”

  “I’ve been dreaming about your breasts. Your nipples.” He squeezed, rubbed, cupped. “You’re a mother. Leaking doesn’t make you any less sexy.”

  This “Oh” was more of a gasp.

  He paused to wrestle his shirt over his head. “Touch me.” He took her hands and laid them on his chest.

  Her exploration was curious and both delighted and innocent, as if she’d never felt a man’s nipples harden or his muscles spasm beneath her hands.

  She didn’t protest when he eased her shirt off, too, only momentarily crossing her arms in front of herself. “My bra is so ugly.”

  He laughed, the sound husky. “We can take care of that.”

  Shyly, she let him unhook her bra. Her teeth sank into her lower lip and her gaze stayed downcast as he looked for a long, aching moment at her glorious, full breasts with large areolae and stiff, puckered nipples. He wanted to suckle but wouldn’t, not this time anyway. Instead, he contented himself with touching and stroking and teasing until she let out small, throaty whimpers.

  When he gripped her buttocks with sudden urgency and fitted her against him until her breasts flattened on his chest and his arousal pressed her belly, he said, “If we get all our clothes off and then Lydia starts to cry, I’m going to have to kill myself.”

  Laurel’s laugh was as much a moan. “I think…” Her breath caught as he kneaded her buttocks. “I think we might have to ignore her.”

  Would she be scared if he laid her on the bed? He didn’t want to ask, Are you ready? and get her thinking. Thinking was bad. Once she started examining her feelings, she’d find anxiety, then keep searching for it.

  “Milady.” He picked her up, plopped her on the bed in a sitting position, then knelt on the floor in front of her before she could react to his manhandling. He slipped off her shoes, stripped off the socks, then massaged her feet as he studied them.

  She had long toes, just as she had long fingers, and an unusually high arch in her instep. She giggled as he hit a sensitive spot, murmured when he tugged on her toes.

  “Your feet are too soft. You don’t go barefoot often enough.”

  “I never go barefoot anymore. I don’t know why. I get out of bed and put on flip-flops.”

  “You need to feel the grass under your toes.” He lifted a foot high enough to kiss it, then to nip her littlest toe.

  She squeaked. “You should talk. I noticed last night how white your feet are.”

  “Last time I went for grass under my toes, I stepped on a slug.”

  Laurel giggled again.

  Good, Caleb thought. Laughter and panic weren’t natural partners.

  He stood and kicked off his own shoes, then pulled off his socks. “We’ll compare feet.”

  He sat next to her on the bed and they held out their feet. His bony size twelves and her far daintier size… He didn’t know. Six maybe? Seven? Her feet just looked feminine.

  “You have sexy feet,” he decided.

  She turned laughing eyes on him. “Can feet be sexy?”

  “Yours can.” He bore her backward as if it was the most natural thing in the world and began to kiss her again. There it was again, that innocent pleasure. The surprise, as if she hadn’t expected to feel this way.

  He reached down and unbuttoned her slacks. She sucked in a breath, but didn’t go rigid. Startled, a little nervous, but not scared, then. Encouraged, Caleb unzipped.

  He kissed her again, then murmured against her mouth, “Your turn.”

  “Oh.” If anything, her cheeks turned pinker. “Okay.”

  She rose on one elbow so she could see what she was doing.

  As erect as he was, his pants were painfully tight. She struggled momentarily with the snap. He gritted his teeth as she inched the zipper down with excruciating slowness, her fingers trailing in its wake. God. He wasn’t going to make it in her, not at this speed.

  Hang on. He struggled to empty his mind, to concentrate on breathing. If women could forget pain in childbirth, he could regain patience.

  “Your underwear…” She hiccupped. “They have, um…”

  Oh, damn. He’d worn ones given him as a gag. He’d grown rather fond of them. They had pink hippos on a navy-blue background.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he growled. “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Do you know how funny it looks to see an erect penis and…and pink hippopotamuses?” She fell onto her back, her hand clapped over her mouth, her eyes watering at her effort to avoid howling with laughter.

  “Yeah, well, yours have…” He looked. “Violets. I told you! You’re girly!”

  A giggle exploded around her hand. “You’re…you’re… I don’t know what you are!”

  “One of a kind,” he said with dignity.

  “Oh!” Laurel held her sides as if they ached. Then she said guiltily, “Oh, dear. We should be quiet. We don’t want to wake Lydia.”

  “God forbid,” he agreed fervently.

  He kissed her again, tasting her laughter as if it were wine lingering on her tongue. Then he slipped his hand inside those violet-sprigged panties, feeling muscles quiver in her belly as his fingers curled in her hair.

  Suddenly impatient again, Caleb sat up and pulled her pants down with her cooperation. There she was, hips deliciously round, belly still a little soft from childbirth, dark curls rioting. With his fingers he parted her, found her hot and wet. As he stroked, she made the most erotic sounds: sighs and moans. Her hips lifted from the bed and he kept pleasuring her, watching her face. Even if it killed him to wait, he was going to give her a sample of what was to come, relax her body so that it accepted him more easily.

  With his fingers he made insistent circles. He felt the first quivers as soon as she did, kissed her deeply as she came against his fingers.

  As she lay lax and flushed, he stripped off his slacks and pulled out the condom he’d optimistically put in his wallet back when she and Lydia were living with him.

  He parted her legs and started to fit himself between them, his weight on his elbows to each side of her.

  And that was when her body went rigid and her eyes opened wide, her stare so blind he knew she was fighting to hold on to the image of him above her and not that monster. “I…I’m sorry,” she gasped.

  He got off her. “No. It’s okay,” he lied.

  “It’s not!” Her voice was high, unhappy. “I want…”

  “You can touch me.”

  “No! Just do it.”

  Just do it. Climb on top of her and screw her while she lay there stiff and scared out of her mind. Sure. There was the path to happiness.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” He pulled her against him, felt the dampness of tears.

  With her head on his shoulder, her hair tickling his skin, he had an inspiration.

  “Hey. Your turn to make love to me.”

  “What?” She lifted her head.

  He stayed flat on his back, spread his arms out. “You’re in charge, lady. Have your way with me.”

  There was a hitch in her breathing. She sneaked a look down the length of his body. “Really?”

  “Really.” And please, have mercy, do it fast.

  “Oh.” She sat up, touched his chest. Tentative at first, her exploration grew bolder, his suffering more acute.

  Then she climbed atop him, bent over to rub her breasts against his chest. “Does that feel good?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, in a strangled voice.

  The sight of her above him, white belly, voluptuous breasts, eyes as green as he’d ever seen them, brought him close to exploding.

  “Take me into you,” he managed. “Now.”

  Fingers awkward with inexperience, she lifted him to her opening, then settled back. It was all he could do not to grab her hips and thrust upward.

  Let her stay in control.

  His fingers dug into the mattress.

  She sank slowly, slowly onto him, the tiny muscles inside her
flexing. The feeling was exquisite, water to a dying man. A groan felt torn from his chest as she paused with his entire length inside her.

  “Again,” he croaked.

  Her teeth caught her full, lower lip as she lifted, lifted, then sank. Did it again. Made excited sounds.

  He held on to a ragged shred of patience. He had to make this good for her. For her sake.

  For his.

  Finally he couldn’t bear it. His hips shoved upward to meet her. He grabbed her buttocks and ground her down against him. She let out a shuddering cry as he lifted her, pushed her down, rolled his hips.

  This time when her muscles contracted and her back arched with surprise, he let himself go. He pushed as deep within her as he could reach and let his release blast through him like Fourth of July fireworks, glittery and huge, filling his world.

  Laurel subsided onto his chest, seeming as spent as he felt.

  After a long, long time, he lifted a hand to stroke it down her spine.

  “You okay?” he finally asked.

  “Okay?” She croaked as if she’d lost and had to rediscover her voice. “I’m…I’m better than okay. I’m fantastic. I feel incredible! Caleb, that was…”

  “Amazing?” He grinned at her when she lifted her head to look at him. “Did it blow your socks off?”

  “You’ve already taken them off,” she pointed out, his ever-literal Laurel. “But if you hadn’t, they’d have gone flying.”

  “So, we should’ve done that ten years ago.”

  “Maybe.” She thought about it. “But maybe it was better this way. Heightened anticipation, and all that.”

  “Oh, it was heightened.”

  Her laugh lit up her face and made it even more beautiful. “It was heightened.”

  “It could be again.”

  “Really?” She sounded equal parts skeptical and hopeful.

  The hopeful part, he liked.

  “You’re a genius, you know.”

  “I am?”

  “Letting me, um…”

  “Climb on top?”

  She nodded, for a moment looking shy again. “I don’t think I’ll ever be scared again.”

  “Yeah, you will. But it’s okay. We’ll work through it.”

  Right now, Caleb felt so optimistic he had complete faith he could lift a semi if he had to. Leap Lake Union. Climb the Space Needle without a rope.