by Heidi Betts
She nodded, but her teeth worrying her lower lip belied the motion.
“I think so. I’m not sure you’ll like where I put everything. I had a lot of stuff and had to move some of your things around.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
She cast a glance over her shoulder and Cullen rolled his eyes, deciding he had to do something or she’d fret herself sick the rest of the night.
“Come here, Misty,” he said softly.
Her gaze turned back, landing on him. Without question, she drifted toward him, her pink low heeled slides nearly disappearing in the tall thick nap of his bedroom carpet.
As soon as she was close enough, he reached out and engulfed her in both arms, pulling her snug against his chest. “Don’t be nervous,” he whispered into her hair. “You belong here. With me.”
She didn’t respond, but he felt the shudder roll through her body. He pressed a kiss to her temple, then her cheek, then her lips, a burst of pleasure filling his chest as she opened her mouth beneath his.
His fingers wound through her hair, holding her in place as their tongues parlayed. Every dormant hormone flared to life and started coursing through his bloodstream like a forest fire.
It had been four months. Four long, dry months when he’d dreamed of Misty, fantasized about taking her to bed, but had been unable to do so because she’d been avoiding his phone calls, hiding her pregnancy from him.
He waited for anger or annoyance or a need for revenge to rear its ugly head, but he felt nothing along those lines. Only lust and a protective instinct so sharp it nearly crippled him.
His hand slid down the line of her body, coming to rest on the mound of her belly. On his child.
He lifted his head, breathing heavily. “I want to make love to you, but I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” she said, her voice thin and feathery.
With his left hand cupping her stomach, he brought his right hand around to cradle her face. “But I’ve never made love to you before while you were pregnant, and you just got out of the hospital.”
She mimicked his posture, putting one hand at his waist and placing the other along his jaw. “I was in the hospital because I wasn’t careful enough with my health, not because there was something wrong with the baby. They kept me there until they were sure I was okay, and you’ve taken excellent care of me ever since. You won’t even let me walk around on my own, if you’re there to carry me,” she added with a teasing grin. “I’m fine. And I want you to make love to me.”
His gut clenched until he thought he might double over with the impact her words had on him. She had humbled him, while at the same time making him feel like the most powerful man in the world. She treated him like a hero…her hero, and damned if he didn’t want to be one for her.
He released her long enough to walk around the bed and fold back the covers, dimming the lights while he was there. When he returned to her side, he tipped her head back and kissed her, letting her know how much he wanted her, how he felt about her.
At the same time, they began to slowly undress. His hands slipped beneath the hem of her sweater, luxuriating in the silken smoothness of her waist as he pushed the top upward. Her fingers fiddled with the buttons at the front of his shirt, loosening them one by one.
Raising her arms, she allowed him to strip the top up and over her head. As soon as she was free of the garment, she returned the favor by running her hands over his bare chest and pushing his shirt off his shoulders. Her touch raised trails of blazing heat beneath his skin, causing his breath to catch.
She pressed her lips to the hollow at the base of his throat and Cullen had to clench his fists to keep from throwing her down on the bed and taking her like some hardened criminal newly released from prison.
He focused his attention instead on the front closure of her robin’s-egg blue slacks, shucking them down her legs and letting her use his shoulders for balance while she stepped out of them, leaving her shoes on the carpet, as well.
Straightening once again, he took in her tall lush form. She was only a few inches shorter than his own six foot one, and she’d always been curvy enough to make a grown man weep.
But now, four months into her pregnancy, she looked positively mouthwatering. One part Madonna, one part sex kitten. Cullen wondered what he’d done in his life to deserve such a gift.
Beneath the lacy cups of her demure white bra, her breasts were larger than before, but it was her belly that drew his gaze. His child rested inside that hard, half-a-basketball-size mound.
Dropping to his knees, he settled his hands on either side of her waist, then leaned forward to press his lips to her taut skin. He had the sudden, inane urge to talk to the little life on the other side. To say hello and tell his child he couldn’t wait to meet him or her. To promise his unconditional love and protection.
Instead, he tilted his face up, meeting her emerald eyes. “What does it feel like?” he asked in a low tone. “To be pregnant?”
For a minute, he thought she might laugh at such a ridiculous question. He should have known better. Misty would never mock another person’s sincere, heartfelt emotions.
The tips of her fingers feathered his hair as she looked down at him, a small smile playing on her lips. “What part?” she wanted to know. “The morning sickness? The tender, enlarged breasts? Or the bizarre midnight cravings?”
“Everything. I want to know everything.”
Still on his knees, he turned her until her back was to the bed, then shifted her around to sit on the end of the mattress. It wasn’t easy to stay where he was, but he needed to hear this, needed to know what he’d missed.
“The morning sickness wasn’t fun. I suffered with that from the moment I woke up in the morning until mid-afternoon every day for the first three months.”
She made a face and the corners of his lips tugged upward.
“My breasts are getting bigger,” she told him with a pointed look at her chest, “but I imagine you’ll enjoy that. And they are tender, but not unbearably so. Just be careful.”
He nodded. She didn’t need to worry about that. She already felt like a porcelain doll in his big hands. He had no intention of doing anything that would hurt or even discomfort her.
“The cravings have been interesting. I’ve been told they’ll get worse the farther along I am, but I’ve already found myself starving for strange things like asparagus and maraschino cherries.” She lowered her gaze, her cheeks turning an attractive shade of pink. “And there was one time that I raided an all-night convenience store for powdered donuts. I bought every box they had of both the regular size and the minis, then went home and ate them all with about six glasses of milk while I watched re-runs of I Love Lucy.”
He chuckled, imagining the sight of her curled up on the couch amidst an avalanche of white powder, and wished he could have been with her. Wished he could have been the one to run out at 3:00 a.m. to find whatever odd food item she was hungry for at that particular moment.
“What about the baby? How does it feel to have a brand-new life growing inside you?”
She licked her lips, her breasts rising as she drew a deep breath. “Do you really want to know?” she asked.
More than anything. “Of course.”
“Terrifying.”
His brows knitted in a frown. That wasn’t at all the sort of answer he’d expected.
“Every day,” she continued, “I wake up to find something else changed about my body. My breasts will be larger, my stomach will be rounder, my hands or ankles will be swollen. And then there’s the thought of how little the baby is.”
She splayed her hands over her middle, covering his own hand that still rested there.
“I know it’s growing more every day, but it’s still just a tiny, completely helpless being, relying on me to take care of it for nine whole months. I worry about everything I put in my mouth. About how much sleep I get, the shoes I wear, if I’m sitting too close to
the television…”
Her expression turned earnest and she clutched at his wrists. “I mean, I’ve been so careful, honestly I have, but look what happened—I still ended up in the hospital. Can you imagine what might have happened if I hadn’t been paying attention to every meal and every step I take?”
Tears filled her eyes as her voice drifted off, and he reached up to dab the moisture from her lashes. “You’re doing a great job,” he reassured her. “You were just working too hard, and even that was for the baby.”
Her lips continued to tremble, so he covered them with his own, hoping to kiss away any lingering doubts she might have about her abilities as a mother. He kept them light and comforting, sipping at the sweet nectar of her mouth rather than devouring her the way his libido urged.
When he pulled back, the uncertainty had fled her face, replaced by a simmering passion that mirrored his own.
“Have you felt the baby move yet?” he asked, not surprised when his voice came out rough and ragged.
She nodded, and the gesture sent a jolt of arousal straight to his groin.
“Will you let me know the next time it happens? I’d really like to be there, feel it for myself.”
“Of course,” she all but whispered.
It was enough. Now that he’d gotten the answers to his questions, they could move on to more pleasurable pursuits.
Shooting her a wicked grin, he rose to his feet, hooked her under the arms and lifted her farther back on the bed. He stretched out above her, admiring the view and thinking of all the things he wanted to do with her. They might not get through the entire list tonight, but they had time.
With luck, they would have a lot of time together.
He ran his fingers through her hair, spread in a brown and blond halo around her head. “Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?”
Her lips turned up at the corners. “Not that I recall.”
“How remiss of me,” he murmured, kissing the slope of her shoulder.
He slipped his index finger under the strap of her bra and slowly drew it down her arm. Then he repeated the process on the other side.
“You are, you know. Beautiful.”
She arched her back a little as he reached beneath her and released the set of hooks at her spine. The filigreed cups came loose from her voluptuous flesh and he removed the garment altogether, tossing it over the edge of the bed.
“I thought so the very first time I saw you. You were on stage with all those other dancers. Attractive women, every last one, but still you stood out.”
She inhaled sharply as his fingers and then his tongue found a nipple and began to play.
“I saw you, too,” she rasped. “Every once in a while, through a break in the lights, I would look out and there you were.”
Her nails raked his biceps, her breaths coming in pants as he took turns licking and teasing the tender peaks of her breasts. He remembered what she’d said about their sensitivity and was careful to use just the right amount of pressure.
He slid his hands down, over her distended belly to her hips, catching the lace of her panties with his thumbs. She moved for him, helping him to get them down her legs and over her dainty feet with their rose-tipped toes.
“It’s your turn to undress,” she told him, when he returned to nibbling her lips. Her bare knee rubbed against his jeans.
“Mmm. Let me just take care of that. You will be here when I get back, won’t you?” He shot her an errant grin, knowing full well he had her right where he wanted her.
“I’ll try not to run off,” she returned with a grin of her own.
While he moved off the bed, kicking away his shoes and socks and shrugging out of his pants, Misty wormed her way higher on the mattress. She fluffed the pillows at her back, reclining like an Egyptian princess awaiting the dutiful attentions of her myriad servants. If he’d had a bunch of grapes, he would have been more than happy to feed them to her one by one as he worshipped her ripe, luscious body.
But he didn’t have any grapes, so he would have to simply worship.
Naked now, he crawled toward her, like a great cat stalking its prey. He didn’t need a mirror to tell him his eyes burned with longing. He could feel it pulsating through every cell of his being, heating his blood, raising his temperature, sending pulses of desire to his already throbbing erection.
Kneeling in front of her, he pulled her up by her wrists. He stared at her for several long seconds, taking in her heart-shaped face, the glow of her emerald-green eyes and her velvet smooth lips, swollen from his kisses.
Wrapping one hand around her neck, beneath the curtain of her hair, he kissed her again. Devoured her mouth, suckled her tongue. He could kiss her forever, he thought, and never grow tired of her feel, her taste, her scent.
His lips still locked with hers, he shifted his weight until he was lying flat on the mattress, Misty hovering above him. Her stomach nestled against his, her breasts brushing his chest. She straddled his hips, coming close enough for her feminine heat to seep into his skin.
“It’s been too long,” he said, drawing her closer, urging her to take him inside before he exploded.
“I know.”
Reaching between their bodies, she caressed him, making the breath hiss through his teeth and his hips hitch off the bed, straining for more of her magical touch. And then she slid down, taking him to the hilt. She fit him like a glove and felt like heaven, surrounding him with her warm wetness.
Four months since he’d last tasted her sweet mouth, cupped her full, bountiful breasts, had her tight sheath clasped around him.
How had he ever survived that long without her?
How had he ever thought another woman could take her place, or adequately fulfill his needs in between trips to Las Vegas?
And it wasn’t just the sex. His head arched into the pillows and his mouth opened on a gasp as she rose up, then dropped back down, sending ripples of ecstasy coursing through his nervous system.
When he could breathe again—albeit raggedly—he realized his last thought before she’d sent his brain spinning was still true. The sex was great—fabulous, amazing, earth-shattering—no doubt about it. But there was more to this attraction than that.
He’d asked her to marry him back at her apartment because he thought it was the right thing to do for her and for the baby. But now…now he actually wanted it for himself, too.
Being saddled with Misty for the rest of his life wasn’t the worst thing he could imagine. And having her in his bed each night would be the icing on the cake.
Bracing her hands on his chest, she increased her pace, driving all rational thought from his mind. He squeezed her hips, helping her to rise and fall, rise and fall. Faster, stronger. Her inner muscles clenched around him and he gritted his teeth to keep from flying apart too soon.
“Cullen,” she moaned, tossing her head back so that her hair fell in glossy multicolored waves over her naked shoulders and biting her bottom lip so hard, it turned white.
“Misty,” he returned with equal emotion.
She cried out again, a high-pitched sound that reverberated into his skin, his bones, his very soul. She shuddered above him, her nails curling like claws into his pectoral muscles as she came, and he followed her. Followed her into bliss…into their future.
When she started to collapse, he caught her and rolled them to their sides to accommodate her rounded belly.
“Well,” she said, tiny beads of perspiration dotting her blushing cheeks and brow, “that was certainly an impressive way to welcome me to your home.”
He chuckled, hugging her tighter and tucking strands of damp hair behind her ear with its sparkling blue-and-green stones dangling from the lobe.
“That wasn’t welcome-to-my-home sex,” he told her. “That was this-is-just-one-of-the-many-perks-you-can-expect-by-marrying-me sex.”
He felt her stiffen in his arms even before he met her shimmering gaze, but didn’t give her time to reply. “Marry
me, Misty. Say yes.”
Six
T he lovely warmth of afterglow coursing through Misty’s veins cooled at his words.
If only he knew how much she wanted to say yes.
Like most little girls, she’d spent much of her childhood and adolescence imagining her own personal happily ever after. Meeting her Prince Charming, having him sweep her up onto his white steed and carrying her off to a castle far, far away where they would live and love forever, just like a fairy tale.
But the older she’d gotten, the more she’d come to realize how much of a fantasy those daydreams had been. Men were only human, it seemed. There were very few princes in her kingdom, and many of them had more in common with the ogres who lived under the castle’s drawbridge.
Cullen was definitely one of the better ones, more princely than most, but it didn’t take Merlin to figure out how mismatched they were. She just wasn’t the right princess for him.
Her lungs emptied on a resigned sigh as she traced patterns on his bare chest, avoiding his intense gaze. “Cullen, I told you before, I can’t marry you.”
Instead of arguing with her, as she’d expected, he merely shrugged one broad bronzed shoulder and said, “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
She could, but she wouldn’t. The fact was, even though she couldn’t accept, she found his offer—offers—extremely flattering. And it only made her respect him more for wanting to give his child a real family and his very influential last name.
“Just…don’t ask me again, okay?” she asked softly. It was too painful to be reminded of what she couldn’t have, and she knew it was only going to get harder to turn him down.
“Sorry,” he replied glibly, turning his body until he hovered above her and braced his weight on his strong muscled arms. “I can’t make any promises.”
And then he was kissing her, making her forget all her reasons for saying no.
The next morning Misty’s pulse was racing and she was sweating as though she’d been sitting in a sauna for the past two hours. Her stomach lurched, and if she didn’t know better, she would say she was suffering from morning sickness all over again.