by R. C. Martin
“No. You don’t. I’ve arranged for the Honda to be hauled off tomorrow.”
“Hauled off. Hauled off.” She repeated the words slowly, as if trying to make sense of them. She then blurted, “Are you crazy? I can’t drive that car!”
“Sweetheart, I think you’ll find you’re perfectly capable of—”
“Of driving a Mercedes?” She didn’t give me a chance to respond before she turned back around to stare at the silver, CLS, four-door, Mercedes Coupe which now belonged to her. “I can’t accept this. You have to take it back.”
“No.”
“No?” she cried as she spun to face me once more.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I hope you realize, I was never going to let that old, dying car into this garage.”
“But—but it’s mine.”
“And now this is yours.”
“Oh, my god.” Anxiously, she swept her fingers across her forehead. “That car—that car probably cost as much as my tuition.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she lifted her left hand in front of her face and asked, “How much was this ring?”
My eyebrows knit together in a scowl. “I’m not telling you that,” I replied.
She dropped her hand, and her shoulders sank in defeat. “Please take it back.”
“The ring?” I teased, quirking one side of my brow.
“No—the car.”
“Not going to happen.”
Her gaze locked with mine and I watched as she silently pleaded with me. When I offered her nothing in reply, I saw her eyes gloss over with tears before she brushed by me.
I gave her a few second’s head start, and then I went after her. I was prepared for whatever argument she would throw my way, but I still needed a moment to remind myself to remain calm. I knew how to cut her with my words. I’d done it before, and I didn’t want to do it then. Nevertheless, I intended to win the battle.
“Teddy,” I called, following the sound of her footsteps into the bedroom.
I stopped short when I found her sitting on the edge of the bed, wiping tears from her cheeks.
“Sweetheart, why are you crying?”
“You bought me a car. I’m going to drive a car nicer than my dad’s. It’s—it’s—Judah, it’s outrageous. It’s generous and amazing and outrageous. I’m never going to be able to give you outrageous. My gift to you is—it’s stupid by comparison.”
As I made my way across the room, I gently reminded her, “It’s not a competition.”
“But marriage should be fair.”
I frowned as I occupied the space next to her. When she didn’t look at me, I took hold of her chin and lifted her face until her eyes found mine. “I don’t want to have this argument over and over again for the rest of time. You need to understand, I take care of what’s mine. That includes you. If I want to buy you a car, I’m going to buy you a car.
“You say marriage is fair? What kind of man am I to own not one, but two luxury vehicles while I let my woman drive around town in a car almost as old as she is?” She opened her mouth to speak, but I shook my head and continued before she could get in a word. “That’s not a reflection of you, it’s a reflection of me. We’re not going to fight about money. What’s mine is yours. That Mercedes is yours. End of discussion.”
She stared at me in silence a moment longer. “Okay.” She sniffled, then reached up to dry her cheeks once more. “Sorry,” she murmured bashfully. “It’s—thank you.”
“I gave you yours, how about you give me mine?”
Her eyes danced around my face in confusion. “Your Christmas present?”
I dipped my chin in a nod and she drew in a deep breath. The next thing I knew, she stood in front of me, wiggling her way out of her leggings. As soon as her legs were bare, she straightened and paused. I narrowed my eyes in an expression of my own confusion before she caught the hem of my sweater and began to peel the garment from her body. My eyes widened, and a rush of blood headed straight for my crotch when she revealed what she was wearing underneath.
It was a black, sheer, one-piece, with lace covering her sex and her breasts. In conjunction with her tatted thighs, she appeared just as fierce as she was soft. Teddy looked so sexy, I could hardly take my eyes off of her.
She filled the silence when she murmured, “I got you underwear. This, and a few others.”
I stood when my erection made it uncomfortable to remain seated and closed the short distance between us. Taking Teddy’s hand, I pressed it against my slacks over my hard length. She sucked in a quiet gasp and gave me a squeeze. A groan crawled its way up my throat as I slid my hand around the back of her neck and drew her close.
“Baby?”
“Yeah?” she breathed.
“Your gift isn’t stupid.” I bent until my lips brushed against hers and muttered, “You’re body trumps the damn car—every fucking time.”
“So, you like it?” she whispered, holding my bulge as she pressed up on her tiptoes.
“Unzip me, sweetheart, and I’ll show you how much.”
Chapter One
His
Two Years Later
I pushed a call through for the second time, listening to the ringtone as it reverberated through my Mercedes. When I received no answer, I didn’t try her again. As I pulled onto our street, I glanced at the time. It was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon. Friday evening rush hour traffic would begin in no time, and I wanted to do everything within my power to avoid it. First, I had to find my wife.
I didn’t ease my vehicle into the garage beside hers. Instead, I parked in the driveway before I hurried into the house. “Teddy?” I called, all the while headed for the basement. Not surprisingly, I received no answer. This only filled me with more certainty of her whereabouts. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, the heels of my dress boots marked time to the beat of my pace as I crossed my at-home gym.
“Teddy?” I repeated. When I approached the closed door of her darkroom, I paused and tapped twice, waiting to be called in.
“Judah?” she muttered distractedly. “You can come in, it’s okay,” she announced. When I eased open the door, I saw her back was toward me from where she stood, on the far side of the small room. Even in the dim hue of the red light, I could tell she was wearing my old Cub’s t-shirt and a pair of leggings. Her hair was pulled back into a droopy ponytail, and I knew this meant she’d done little more than get lost in this room for the majority of the day.
“Sweetheart, you’re not answering your phone.”
She finished hanging the print in her hand and then turned to look about the room. “I—I don’t know where I put my phone. Sorry, I—”
“Doesn’t matter,” I interrupted. “I’ll find it. You need to get dressed.”
She gasped before she cried, “Oh, my god! She’s in labor?”
“Yes. If you hurry—”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming. Fifteen minutes. Can I have fifteen minutes?” Teddy rushed by me, not pausing to hear my answer. On her way up the stairs, she yelled, “After you find my phone, can you be sure to load the basket in the car?”
A smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth as I trailed after her. My phone in hand, I pushed a call through to her number and listened for the ringtone. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for, abandoned in the kitchen beside the sink. I pocketed both devices and then did as I was told. The basket she’d been carefully and thoughtfully filling with baby boy clothes, toys, and blankets for the last several months was tucked in a corner of my office.
After I’d stowed the large carrier in the trunk of my SUV, I went to the closet to change out of my suit. I opted for a pair of fitted, olive khakis and a long-sleeved, beige polo shirt. I was lacing up a pair of casual, white sneakers when Teddy breezed into the room.
“Did you get the basket?”
Her hair had been redone, now draped over her shoulder in a long side-braid. She hardly looked at me as she quickl
y stripped out of my t-shirt and her leggings.
“I got the basket,” I assured her.
I watched as she jumped into a pair of skinny, dark-washed, distressed jeans before throwing on a long-sleeved white top. She then grabbed her pale pink, fleece vest, shrugging it on as she reached for her tan, suede, ankle booties.
“Okay. Purse—jacket—then I’m ready.”
She practically skipped out of the room, and I smirked once more as I followed after her to the coat closet. As she slid into her gray, wool peacoat, I took my maroon bomber jacket from the hanger and eased into it. I was just shutting the closet door when Teddy turned to face me.
She breathed a huge sigh and then eliminated the space between us. Slipping her arms underneath my jacket and around my waist, she smiled up at me and murmured, “The baby’s coming.”
“Indeed, he is.” Teddy pressed up on her tiptoes and puckered her lips. I was quick to give her what she wanted. With my mouth still grazing hers, I tapped the side of her ass and mumbled, “Let’s go.”
She giggled, but was quick to let me go, and then we were off. It took us just over an hour to get to Denver. When we were within fifteen minutes of the hospital, Teddy insisted we stop at a nearby party store so she could pick up balloons. I questioned whether or not that was entirely necessary, to which she responded, “This isn’t just his birthday—it’s his birth day. Baby, please—this day will not be perfect if there are no balloons.”
Knowing better than to argue with her on matters regarding birthdays of any sort, I obliged. Thirty minutes later, we were walking through the hospital—the basket in my left hand, a dozen blue and white balloons in her right, and our free hands joined together as we headed for our destination.
When we found their room, we didn’t worry about knocking before we made our entrance. We weren’t the first to arrive, my mother and Samuel having beat us there. Harper’s face lit up at the sight of us, and she laughed as she said, “Not even in the world yet, and his aunt is already spoiling him rotten on his birthday.”
“Of course I am.” I heard the tears in Teddy’s voice before I saw them in her eyes.
Harper pointed at my woman and demanded, “Theodora Rose, don’t even start.”
Teddy squeezed my hand and whispered, “I’m just so excited.”
“Me, too, babe,” she muttered. Holding her arms out, Harper silently beckoned her sister across the room. Teddy handed me the balloons, and I let her go as she went to embrace her sister.
While the two of them had their moment, the rest of us greeted each other. Before too long, Sean and Renee Fitzpatrick arrived, and the room was filled to capacity. The closer together Harper’s contractions became, the fewer of us she wanted in the room. Sean, Samuel, and I were the first to head out to the waiting room. My mother was soon to follow, Teddy joining us when Harper started the delivery process.
It was Benjamin who came out, forty minutes later, tears in his eyes as he announced the arrival of Theo Kingston Delany.
Sean and Renee were the first to be invited back to meet their grandson. While Teddy and I waited our turn, she clung to my arm, silently resting her head against my shoulder. I wondered what she was thinking, but I didn’t ask. I knew it was neither the time, nor the place. Nevertheless, I also knew my woman. I knew her in ways I didn’t think were possible to know someone other than myself. She’d never said the words, but I knew there was a part of her that struggled for the duration of Harper’s pregnancy. Never before had she been so close to something she’d never have.
Yet, at the same time, she was as exceptional as always. She loved Theo before we even knew he was going to be a boy; before Harper and Benjamin informed us they wanted to name him after Teddy; before we were asked to be godparents—she loved him and had anxiously waited for his arrival.
My stomach growled just as my mother and Samuel got up to take their turn with the newest Delaney. Shifting a little, Teddy propped her chin on my shoulder and whispered, “I’m hungry, too.”
I didn’t say anything, but merely turned to meet her pretty, brown eyes.
“We won’t stay long.”
“We’ll stay as long as you’d like,” I countered.
Teddy inhaled deeply and blew a breath out of her nose before she reached for a kiss. Propping her chin on my shoulder once more, she murmured, “I love you.”
“Tell me again tomorrow.”
A small smile played at her lips, and she kissed me again before she said, “I’m sure Harper’s exhausted. We’ll just stay a little while and then we can go. I’ll come down and stay with them when you’re on your trip.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
For a moment, we simply stared at one other. In the silence, in the waiting, I listened to everything she wasn’t saying. Her silence used to drive me mad. In marriage, I’d learned that sometimes, her silence was a plea. Sometimes, all she wanted was the reminder that I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Tell me you love me,” she whispered.
“Mrs. St. Michaels—you know I do.”
Smiling, she readjusted her hold around my arm and rested her cheek against my shoulder, where she stayed until it was our turn with Theo.
Chapter Two
Hers
Holding Theo was magical. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was the most beautiful baby I’d ever met; and while I didn’t know many babies, I was convinced that didn’t make my opinion any less valid. When I handed him back to my sister, it was only because my heart was so full I thought it might burst.
However, the closer Judah and I got to home, the more deflated my heart became. Staring out the window, hardly seeing the night we drove through, I confronted my reality. I was never going to be able to birth a child. On my best days, I accepted it. On my best days, I believed life worked out the way it was supposed to. I was married to a man who loved me deeply, who supported me fiercely, and who made sure I wanted for nothing. He was my family, and I loved him more than I loved anyone. On my best days—that was enough. We were enough.
Except, every day wasn’t my best day. On my worst days, I struggled with the reality of my damaged body. On my worst days, I questioned whether or not I wanted a child—any child—or if I wanted Judah’s baby—the baby I couldn’t give him. It had been almost three years since I found out I had lived with a sexually transmitted infection for too long—an infection that led to a disease that ruined my insides and robbed me of my choice.
I had been robbed of so many choices.
Within those three years, I thought I might be pregnant twice. I thought, just maybe, the doctor got it wrong. The first time, I missed my period two months in a row. When I finally worked up the courage to buy a pregnancy test, the bleeding started. The second time was the same. Only, I didn’t buy a pregnancy test—I just waited and cried at the first sight of blood. The worst part was, I still didn’t know what it was I wanted. At twenty-five, I knew I still had time to make up my mind, and a husband who was happy with our life as it was; but it was frustrating and mentally exhausting to grapple with the question.
If I had a choice, what would I choose?
It seemed silly to still ask myself the question. The truth was, I didn’t have a choice. But I couldn’t help it. When Harper told me she was pregnant, I was thrilled—but I was also jealous. I was jealous that she could give her husband everything, and I couldn’t. It didn’t matter that Judah never asked me for a child. I knew he never would. He’d told me more than once he didn’t want children—but I knew his desire, or lack-there-of, came from a place of hurt and abandonment from his own father. I often wondered—if he had a choice, what would he choose?
“Hey.”
I didn’t realize we’d stopped moving until I felt Judah’s hand on my thigh. I pulled in a deep breath and turned to look at him. His gray eyes studied me intently as he announced, “We’re home.”
“Right. Sorry. I was—sorry.”
He gave my leg a squeeze and then let me g
o. We both climbed out of his SUV and headed inside. It was nearly midnight, so it came as little surprise that we each went about our nightly routine, preparing for bed without a word. After I stripped out of my clothes, I opted for one of Judah’s t-shirts. I pulled the garment over my naked body and then made my way to the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I took the time to unfasten my braid, then headed for bed. Judah was still in the closet when I tossed the extra pillows on the floor and turned down the sheets. I switched his lamp on but kept mine off before I turned the overhead light off and slipped between the sheets.
I got lost in my thoughts again, hardly noticing when he entered the room. I felt a little sad when he got in bed next to me and switched off his lamp without a word. Though, I couldn’t exactly justify my feelings. None of what I was struggling with that night was his fault, and we both knew it. But then he touched me. He touched me, and the release I felt was unexplainable.
At first, he simply rested his hand on my hip and gave me a squeeze. My eyes fell closed, and I concentrated on the warmth of his touch. Then he slid his arm around me and tugged me back against him. The heat from his body was everything, and I felt like he was melting me from the inside out. Then, when he gently cleared my hair away from my neck and pressed a soft kiss there, he unleashed my need.
It wasn’t purely sexual. It was more than that. Deeper than that. He was everything. He made me whole—and in that moment, I wanted to feel whole. I needed to feel whole.
I turned until I was facing him, and not a word was required. I reached for a kiss, and as he filled my mouth with his tongue, he sought out my center with his fingers. I was wet for him in seconds, moaning into his mouth shortly thereafter. He coaxed my desire tenderly, and I wrapped my arms around him, needing him closer.
It wasn’t long before I was on my back, my legs spread wide as he brought me closer to orgasm with his fingers inside of me and his palm rubbing my swollen bundle of nerves. He devoured my mouth, and I surrendered to him completely. When I came, he swallowed my cry as I clung to him—but I needed more. I needed all of him.