by Tami Lund
Chapter Four
This. This was when they worked best together. Their bodies fit so perfectly, two halves of a whole. Physically, sexually, they were more in tune than the baby grand in the sitting room of Chad’s parents’ house.
His lips were like magic, or maybe a drug, one she’d craved since the day they met, and had missed as desperately as an addict while he’d been away. Actually, his hands were the magic, as he danced his fingers up and down her spine, stroking, trailing, teasing, until his hands slipped around to cup her breasts and shit, she was this close to orgasming already. But damn, those babies were sensitive these days, and him stroking his thumb over her hardened nipple through the thin material of her top was rough and sensual all at the same time.
He palmed her breast while he continued thrumming her nipple, almost like he was reacquainting himself with the feel of it, or maybe he was marveling at how big they’d become, because yeah, they’d grown an entire cup size with this pregnancy. When he slipped his hand into the neckline of her shirt to scrape against her skin, she arched her back, pushing into his touch while moaning into his mouth. He swallowed the sound and then the next she made in protest when he extracted his hand. She wasn’t ready for him to stop yet.
He pressed his other palm against the small of her back, holding her steady and massaging slightly, which was nice considering her lower back was pretty much a constant ache these days. And then he smoothed his hand over her belly, underneath to the waist of her pants, slipping under the elastic, his fingers brushing along the edge of her panties before delving into those, too.
She was already drenched for him; she could feel her arousal pooling between her thighs before she even widened her stance to allow him easier access as he stroked his fingers farther south. And then he slid his digits through her wetness, his thumb rubbing her clit while two fingers entered her, fucking her, giving her exactly what she so desperately needed at this moment.
She clung to him, her hands fisted in his shirt, while he took her higher and higher, and she threw her head back, breaking the kiss. He shifted his lips along her cheek to her ear, sucking and nipping at her lobe while he continued stroking and she began panting like she was in heat.
“I’m…I’m…”
“Tell me, baby,” he whispered against her ear. “Tell me how it feels.”
“Chad…It feels…Don’t stop…So fucking good…so, so…I’m coming, oh God…”
Her knees buckled as the orgasm swept through her, which only shoved his fingers deeper, triggering a second, mini-gasm. He wrapped his other arm around her back and held her up as he kept pumping until she finally grabbed his arm to still him for a moment so she could catch her breath.
He guided her to the couch, where he stuck his fingers into his mouth and sucking her essence down, and, holy hell, she wanted him inside her so badly she couldn’t even formulate the words. Grabbing her pants, she shoved them down her legs, kicking at them until she was free of the annoying material, and then she rolled over onto her hands and knees on the cushions, glancing over her shoulder to make sure he was on board with her plan.
His jeans were already around his ankles, and he knelt behind her, his hands caressing her bare ass. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears; it was drowning out whatever he was murmuring under his breath. And then he wrapped his hand around his cock and stroked a couple times, and she turned to face forward, biting her lip, anticipating that first thrust.
When it came, when he filled her, it was like coming home, even though she hadn’t been the one who’d left. But he’d taken a piece of her with him to Scotland. Her soul, maybe. Whatever it was, she had not felt complete since the moment he’d walked out her door. Until now.
“Yes, yes, yes. Oh God, Chad, fuck me. Ride me hard. Give it all to me.”
He grabbed her ponytail, wrapping the curls around his hand, the way he liked to do, the tension against her scalp adding a delicious bit of heat to her already overwrought nerves. With one hand in her hair and the other on her hip, he dug his fingers into her skin and nailed her, over and over and over, relentless and so good, while she balanced herself on the arm of the couch with one hand and reached down to rub at her clit with the other.
The climax rolled through her this time, more like a tidal wave than smacking into her like a brick wall. A slow, steady roar that made her entire body shudder as he began thrusting mindlessly, until he gave a shout and stilled for a few seconds, and she felt his seed filling her, warm, oddly comforting.
After a few moments frozen like that, save for the heavy breathing and shaking limbs, he pulled out and tried to drag her back onto the couch with him. She resisted his efforts, instead climbing to her feet and hurrying to the bathroom.
“Where are you going? Come back,” he complained, his arms outstretched, inviting her to cuddle. She missed cuddling.
“I’ll be right back.” She stepped into the bathroom and partially closed the door. “When you’re pregnant, the, ah, fluids are like tenfold,” she called out to him while cleaning herself up.
“How do you know that? I thought this was your first time having sex while pregnant.”
She peeked through the crack in the doorway and tossed him a cheeky grin. “It is. With another person in the room.”
He glanced down at his cock, lying across his thigh. “Great, now I’m getting hard again.”
Laughing, she snagged a washcloth and brought it back to the living room with her, tossing it into his lap before grabbing her pants and dragging them over her legs.
“Well, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to work.” As much as she wanted to lounge on the couch and bask in the afterglow until they were ready for round two, she really had a great deal of work to do to prepare for this baby’s imminent arrival. And if he wanted to help sort through all this baby stuff, she sure as hell was going to take advantage.
“Out of the way?” He did that one eyebrow arching thing again before focusing on wiping away the evidence of their incredibly hot encounter and tugging his jeans over his hips. Then he headed into the bedroom, presumably to toss the washcloth into the clothes basket, calling out over his shoulder, “That was just to take the edge off. I figure we go in two-hour cycles. Two hours to put all this crap away, two hours to be naked together. And, by the way, I noticed the picture of us on the nightstand. Did you pull it out of the closet this morning, or has it sat there the entire time I was gone?”
Of course it had never left the nightstand. Well, except when she picked it up to stare at it while lying in bed, wondering how to tell him about the baby and fearing things would never be the same between them. “You have to ask? And by the way, we have to work eating into those two-hour cycles. Because that’s pretty much how often I need to stuff my face these days.”
“You didn’t even finish your breakfast.”
“Yeah, that’s because this kiddo is taking up all the space in there, and my stomach’s been squished to, like, half its normal size. Since I can’t eat very much at each sitting, I’m pretty much starved all the time. Hey, will you go back and grab that laundry basket, please? We need to sort through the clothes and decide which ones we’re going to wash before the baby comes.”
“I’ll make sure you’re fed regularly,” he promised as he returned to the bedroom. “And well. Gramps slept a lot, so it was pretty boring there most of the time. He had a chef who’d been with the household for like a million years, and he was thrilled to have someone other than Gramps to cook for, so he was forever whipping up these crazy meals. I started hanging out in the kitchen with him and picked up a thing or two. He told me I’m a natural.”
Jenna dragged a chair from the dining alcove into the living room and started sorting through baby clothes, separating them into piles: girl, boy, neutral, and then newborn and older ages.
When Chad dropped the basket next to her piles and sat cross-legged on the floor, she pointed at the newborn neutral pile. “Take the tags off those so we
can wash them. The rest I’m not going to touch until we know the sex.”
Reaching over that pile, he picked up a pink onsie with Mama’s Girl scrawled across the front. “You sure you don’t know the sex?”
She shook her head. “I swear. I have no idea why people would deliberately buy me anything pink. Or even that little sailor suit over there. It’s cute and all, but let’s be honest. If it’s a girl, I’m not going to dress her in it.”
“If it’s a boy, he’s not going to want his picture taken in that.”
Chuckling, Jenna watched him toss the offending garment across the room. As she continued to sort clothing, she commented, “So, you discovered you like to cook, huh?”
His nod was surprisingly enthusiastic. Had Chad truly, finally found something to hold his interest?
“I’ll make us dinner tonight, and you be the judge. Although we might have to go grocery shopping first.”
“That’s fine. I probably need to anyway. Let’s just see if we can get through at least half this pile first.”
“And have sex again.”
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide the smile creeping across her face. She’d admittedly been afraid Chad would be repulsed by her new, pregnant body. Especially the swollen abdomen. While he hadn’t ever committed to a future together, neither had he left, not for good at any rate. But when you added a baby to the mix…
* * *
Sure, Chad had shopped with her countless times before he left for Scotland. But his involvement each time had been to add the occasional six-pack of beer to her cart or maybe a bag of pretzel M&Ms.
Not this time. He wandered down the aisles, referencing recipes he pulled up on his phone and scanning the shelves for exactly the right vanilla extract, dismissing this box of sea salt for that one. He spent far more time among the fruits and vegetables than he ever had before. And then he only chose organic.
“This is going to cost more than I spend on groceries for an entire month,” Jenna complained.
“I got it.”
“These groceries are for my apartment, right? So they’re mine, which means I’m paying for them.”
He paused in his analysis of a fennel root and frowned at her. “I’m making you dinner. And these are the ingredients. Therefore, I’m paying for them.”
She gave the loaded grocery cart a pointed look. He rolled his eyes.
“Come on, Jenna. Why do you always get so pissed off whenever money is involved?”
“Because I don’t have enough of it and you have too much, and you have no concept of how the other half lives.”
“Trust me, I do. You remind me so damn much, I don’t have a choice.” He tossed the fennel root into the cart and grabbed the handle, pushing it with far more force than necessary.
With a sigh, Jenna waddled after him.
The rest of their time at the grocery store passed uneventfully, mostly because they didn’t speak other than Chad asking if she had a certain spice (the answer was typically no) or some other ingredient necessary to whatever he planned to do for dinner.
But after he piled everything into the trunk and they climbed into the car to leave, he turned to her and said, “It’s not my fault I was born into money, you know. Yet you hold that fact over my head whenever I want to spend it. Which is such bullshit. If I have it to spend, what the hell does it matter?”
She grabbed the steering wheel. He’d offered to drive, but when he added that bit about worrying he’d forget which side of the street to use, she insisted on doing it herself. “It matters because unlike you, I have to actually live on a budget. I have to be careful how much fun I have, so that I have enough money in my account to make it through the end of each month. I have to plan for my retirement. And now my child’s education. And it’s driving me crazy that you aren’t thinking about any of that.”
“Guess what, Jenna? I am. Now that you have that”—he stabbed his finger at her abdomen—“growing inside you, you don’t have to worry about any of that anymore.”
“You are not going to toss money at this baby and figure that makes you a good parent. That’s not how it works.” She shook her head so vigorously that her curls whipped her in the face. “You’re either going to be a parent or not. There’s no in- between.”
“Jesus Christ.” He threw his arms into the air and turned around to face the front windshield. “I’m saying I’m going to take care of you and the baby. What more do you want?”
The rest of their lives. Together.
A commitment.
But she opened and closed her mouth several times, yet no words came out. Finally, with no other option immediately available to her, she cranked the engine, shifted the car into gear, and headed back to her apartment. “Unless you want me to take you to your parents’ house?” she said, as if he’d been privy to her mental conversation.
“All my stuff is at your apartment. And I’m supposed to make dinner, remember? If I don’t, you’ll be even more pissed off over me buying all these groceries than you already are.”
It really irked her when he got all logical about her, admittedly, irrational irritations.
Chapter Five
Cooking helped him relax. Which was weird, because in the beginning, it had been stressful as hell. But after months of practicing under the guidance of Master Chef Andre Rossi, that stress didn’t even factor in anymore.
Okay, maybe it did tonight. Because he wanted Jenna to be proud of him. He wanted to show her he actually did have a skill, something he could devote his life to perfecting.
Like this baby. Why was she acting like he wasn’t all in? Did she really think he would have turned around and left again once he saw her swollen belly? He hadn’t ever left before—not permanently, at any rate—so why was she acting so damn paranoid now?
“How much time are you taking off work?” he asked as he served her perfectly grilled lamb chops with a side of asparagus and duchesse potatoes. He’d dug out a couple of candles and turned off all the lights except the one in the kitchen and set the table so that it looked like they were in a restaurant. Jenna had arched her brows as she sat down but so far hadn’t uttered a word.
“I’d like to take twelve, but I’m not sure I can do it,” she replied as he placed his plate and a bottle of Pinot Noir on the table. He added a splash to the glass in front of her and then half filled his own.
“Trust me,” he said, indicating her glass. “Try a little after your first bite of the lamb chop. I know you aren’t supposed to drink, but I want you to at least have the experience.”
“One sip,” she said, lifting the glass and breathing in the earthy aroma. And then she smiled, which, from experience, meant she was over their earlier argument. Now all he had to do was ensure another one didn’t flare. Talking about her work was probably not the wisest choice if that was his goal, but he wanted to know her plans so he knew where he could help.
“Why don’t you think you can do it?” he asked, watching her take her first bite. She would probably say money, which was stupid, since she knew damn well he could take care of her while she was on maternity leave.
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, after she slipped the first bite off the tines of her fork, she closed her eyes and chewed slowly and then moaned. She looked like she did when she was on the verge of an orgasm.
“Damn, that’s hot,” he blurted.
She chuckled. “Damn, that’s good. It’s better than good.” She gobbled up a forkful of duchesse potatoes and then stared at him. “This is amazing, Chad. I can’t believe you’ve been hiding this talent from me all this time.”
“I didn’t realize I had this talent until I went to Scotland,” he admitted.
She took a bite of the asparagus. “This is restaurant quality.”
“Thanks.”
“No, I’m serious. Like, you could work in a five-star restaurant.” Her eyes lit up. “You could buy a restaurant,” she said in a breathy voice.
He shook his head
. She wasn’t going to like his response, but it was the truth. “Too much work. I see how much time you put in, and I don’t want to do that. Especially now that we have a kid to raise. My parents were never around, Jenna. I’m not doing that to my child.”
She winced. “I get that your parents pretty much ignored you when you were growing up, and, yes, that sucks. But working and providing for your family does not mean you are ignoring your child. You’re showing him or her to be responsible.”
“You can do that without working twelve-hour days.”
Instead of responding to his jibe, she dropped her gaze to her plate, focused on slicing another chunk of lamb chop before chasing it with a slug of water from the glass he’d thought to place next to her wineglass. “This is so amazing. This is a talent that should not be wasted.”
“Bed and breakfast,” he blurted. She furrowed her brows and he shook his head. “I don’t want to work in a restaurant or even own one. Andre told me all about it when he was training me. He’s owned four and worked in twice that many. It’s twelve- and fourteen-hour days, every week. No vacations, no time to go to the kid’s school play. I’m not interested in that.”
He paused, took a gulp of wine.
“But what if you and I went into business together?” Andre had put this idea into his head, too. It was the chef’s retirement dream, and Chad had been intrigued from the get-go. And now that Jenna was about to have his baby, that they were about to become a family, well…
She took another bite of meat. “I’m listening.”
“A bed and breakfast. In some small town not too far from here since I know you won’t want to be far from your family. Maybe on one of the wineries up in the Traverse City area. We can live there and rent out rooms. We control how often we have guests. I’ll cook for them, and you’ll do the books, manage sales. My parents’ housekeeper has family up there, and she’s great. I bet we could convince her to go with us. She’d probably even help with childcare when we need it.”