“I’m not worried. I can talk you into having my babies. So, about those kids we’ll have one day—should we let them believe in Santa or bypass that whole thing?”
“You know, with everyone being at our grandparents’ home and having to travel to get there, we never got to do the Santa thing. I think we should do it for our kids. Don’t you? Did your family do the Santa thing?”
Shaking my head, I say, “No. I think we should do it for our kids too. I think it would be fun to watch them be surprised on Christmas mornings.”
“Me too.” She kisses me again. “I think we’ve just made our first decision as parents, Blaine.”
“Weird, huh? Since we don’t even have one kid yet,” I say, then laugh. “Maybe it’s time to open the presents we bought for each other. I’m kind of dying to know what you got me.”
“Me too. But that huge box has me totally without a clue as to what you have in there. I can’t think of a thing that big, except maybe a dishwasher, which I do not need,” she says as she looks at the huge box next to the tree.
“You haven’t commented on the wrapping job I did.”
She looks at me with a grin. “I was told if I didn’t have anything nice to say, then I was not to say anything at all. But since you asked, it looks like a monkey wrapped that box.”
“Yeah, just wait until you pull that wrapping paper off,” I tell her, then kiss her and find her soft lips yielding to mine as her hands move over my back with soft caresses.
Before I know it, we’re getting carried away, and I’m lifting her up to straddle me. Then I remember what I’m about to give her and stop the kiss that became passionate much too quickly. “Let’s slow things down a bit. You give me your present first.”
With a sigh, she climbs off me and goes to get the present she got me. Coming back with it, she sits down, Indian-style, and I imitate her. Then she hands me the present. “This comes more from the heart than the pocketbook.”
“Good. I like those kinds of presents the best. And might I say, the wrapping paper is lovely, baby.” I pull the large, red, shiny bow off the box, then untie the red ribbon that’s holding the box shut. When I take the lid off, I look up, see her biting her lip, and looking a little on the anxious side. “Don’t worry. I know I’ll love it.”
“It’s just that you have everything, and I had no idea what to get you. If you think it’s lame, just tell me so I never repeat this,” she says, then leans forward to peek into the box. “Good. I was afraid the lady used the wrong frame, but it’s the right one—the gold one.”
Lifting the frame out of the box, I see it’s a picture of me, my sister, and my brother when we were kids. “This is the sweetest thing I’ve ever been given, baby.” My parents loom above us with smiles on their faces, as if watching over us from heaven. “I don’t know how you managed to get all these pictures into one, but this is cool.”
“The lady who did it just needed a picture of each of you, and she kind of collaged them together to form this one. Kate sent me the pictures through our phones. That lady is pretty artistic, isn’t she?” She moves to sit next to me and looks at the picture with me.
“Thank you, baby. This is the most thoughtful thing I’ve ever had, and I will cherish it forever. I wonder where I should hang it.”
“You know the entry room, Blaine?” she asks as she takes the picture out of my hands, gets up, then places it on the sofa. “I think that’s where our family pictures should go. You know, so people who come to visit us can get a glimpse of who we are and where we come from as they come into our home.”
“I can see it now, pictures of our wedding day, the day our kids are born, things like that. I like it!”
This woman is going to make the best wife ever!
Chapter 7
DELANEY
I can see it in his yes—he does like the picture and that makes me very happy. I was a little worried he’d think it was cheesy.
He’s sat me on the Queen Ann chair that’s near the Christmas tree and is going to get the huge box my present is in. I really have no clue what it could be. When he picks it up as if it weighs nothing, I find that hard to believe.
“What did you get me, Blaine? A box of air?” I ask with a laugh.
“You’ll just have to open it and find out.” He sets the box down right in front of me. “Here you go, ma’am. Have fun.”
“So, should I just rip into it or what? Is the thing inside breakable? Or alive? Should I be very careful?” I ask, as I have no idea how to go about getting to the contents of the large box.
“Just start pulling the wrapping paper off and go from there, Delaney.” He stands there, watching me with a big, old smile on his handsome face.
I shred one large piece of reindeer-covered paper at a time until I get to the box. Opening the top of it, I find another present inside. Pulling that one out, I give him a quizzical look and find that smile still plastered on his face. “Okay, Blaine, what are you doing here?”
“Just keep unwrapping, baby. You’ll get there soon.”
This box is wrapped a little better. It has nice snowflake-covered wrapping paper and a large, white bow on top. And when I get to the box top, I open that and find yet another wrapped box. “Blaine?”
“Just keep going,” he says, with what’s going into a goofy smile.
I unwrap the plain, red paper-covered box with a black bow on top and find a ton of black tissue paper inside of it. “Finally, the real gift.”
At the very bottom is another box. This one is small and expertly wrapped in black, velvety cloth and tied up with a pretty, silky, red ribbon. As I pull the ribbon to untie it, I catch Blaine biting his lip out of the corner of my eye.
Inside, I find a little, black box and notice Blaine going down on one knee in front of me. As I open the lid, he says, “Delaney Leeann Richards, I’d like to ask you an important question tonight. The ring inside of that box is a token to remind you that you are loved. You are loved more than you will ever know, and I am the one who is giving you that love. In return for the love I give you, I’m asking you to give yourself to me. I want to make you mine forever. I want to make you the part of me that’s been missing. Delaney, will you marry me?”
The word is stuck in my throat under a knot that’s grown there. The ring is exquisite. There’s a large diamond in what looks like a platinum setting. Small diamonds encircle the large one in the middle. It looks like it cost a fortune, and I’m overwhelmed by it and the fact this gorgeous man is actually asking me to marry him.
I feel the tears falling down my face and then his hands are on my cheeks, wiping them away. “Well?”
I nod and choke out, “Yes. Yes, Blaine, I’ll marry you.” Sobs come out of my mouth for reasons I can’t comprehend. I’ve never been so happy that I’ve cried before. It’s an odd feeling.
Blaine takes the box out of my shaking hand and takes the ring out of it. Steadying my left hand, he slides the ring onto my finger, and I feel the weight of it—a weight that will remind me that I am not an ‘I’ anymore. I am part of a ‘we.’
I’m pulled up and hugged and my heart is pounding. This is real!
I’m going to marry a billionaire!
I am going to marry the man I never, in a million years, ever thought I’d even meet. He was our enemy, and now I will be his wife!
Shock is moving through me, slowing my tears and my heart rate. “I love you,” I tell him, then kiss his neck.
“And I love you, baby.” He takes my arms and holds me back to look at me. “And you and I will soon be a family. I have one more thing to ask you.”
Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I ask, “What would that be?”
“I want to forgo the condom and start trying to have a baby. I want to start tonight.”
“Wow! I mean, wow! Um, uh, that’s a lot to think about.”
With a sexy smile, he says, “You just committed your entire life to me. I think a baby is small potatoes to that, don’t yo
u?”
“No,” I say as I shake my head. “Blaine, that really is a big step. I don’t know about that just yet.”
Taking my pajama shirt by the lapels, he pulls me close to him and starts to unbutton it. His knuckles graze my naked breasts as he pushes the shirt open, then off my shoulders. It lands on the floor with a soft sound, then he hooks his thumbs into the elastic waist of the pajama bottoms and pushes them down too, leaving me naked in front of him.
Taking my hand, he leads me back to the blanket on the floor in front of the fireplace and tosses a pillow off the sofa onto it. He moves me to lie down on the blanket and props my head up on the pillow. Then he stands back up and unbuttons his shirt, revealing a bit of his muscular torso a little at a time. The way the fire and Christmas lights bounce off his perfect body has me mesmerized. When his PJ bottoms hit the floor, my eyes are drawn to his erection.
At this point, he’d usually be putting on a condom, somewhat discreetly. But he’s not doing that, and as a matter of fact, I did not hear the tell-tale sounds of one in the pocket of his pajamas.
My eyes must be telling him what I’m thinking as he says, “I threw them all out.”
“You were pretty sure of yourself,” I tell him as I give no hint of what I feel about that.
“I want to see a version of us running around this house. I want to see your tummy swollen with that little version of us. Aren’t you curious at all about who we’ll create together?”
His hand moves up and down his cock, making it grow a bit more, and my mouth starts watering. I lick my lips and wiggle my finger for him to come to me and let me taste him.
He stands perfectly still as his hand keeps moving up and down his long, thick dick. His head shakes slowly, and I can’t believe he’s doing this to me.
I don’t know what choice I have!
Chapter 8
BLAINE
Her green eyes dance as she looks up at me. “So you want to become a daddy, do you?”
I nod and keep moving my hand along my cock to entice her. “So, what do you say?”
She wiggles her finger at me again. “I say come here, Daddy. Let’s make a baby.”
Heat fills me with her words, and I am on her before she knows it. Pressing her shoulders to the floor, I hold her down as I pull one of her juicy tits into my mouth. She moans as I suck hard and lick the nipple over and over until her body is shaking with her first climax.
“God, I didn’t even know I could have an orgasm like that,” she says, then I flip her onto her stomach and straddle her back, barely sitting my ass on hers as I rub her back, making her moan again. “That feels so good.”
“I’m going to pamper you so much you’re going to be spoiled by it.” Leaning over, I kiss all over her back and move down so my lips can graze over her luscious ass.
Spreading her legs, I kiss her from behind, running my tongue back and forth between her two openings. Her body starts shaking again after mere minutes of this attention and her groan tells me I’ve sparked orgasm number two.
I’ve been reading about ways to help ensure a sperm meets an egg, so I get up and grab another big pillow off the sofa and lay it on the blanket next to her. Turning her over, I lift her up and place her ass on top of the pillow to elevate it. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?” she asks.
I nod, and a tear runs over one of her cheeks. She holds her arms open, and I move into them at the same time I move into her. I kiss the tear away. “I want you to have my baby, Delaney. I want you and me to become a family.”
As I enter her, feeling her flesh to flesh for the first time, I have to moan with how amazing it feels. I never want to sheathe myself from this feeling again.
My cock grows even larger with the sensations of her silky, warm inner lining as it moves back and forth, creating a need in me I’ve never had before.
Faster I go, making her body quiver with each hard thrust. Her nails gouge into my arms as she holds them tightly. I ease up to see her face as I slam into her. “Tell me you want this.”
She looks deep into my eyes, her head moving with each thrust I make. “I do. I want to have your baby, Blaine. I do!” She grits her teeth with another orgasm. It squeezes me, but I’m not about to give it up yet.
“Ahhh!” she screams and wraps her legs around me, pulling her body up to mine and hanging onto me. “Blaine!”
Leaning back down, I kiss her neck, then bite it, making her body shake and continue to pulse. I can feel her nails digging into my back as she writhes underneath me.
Her body is on fire and her breathing is hard and ragged. I go on and on until her body goes loose again and the orgasm is all the way over. Then I pepper soft kisses all the way down her neck as I slow my strokes.
Small kisses I give her until our mouths meet. She takes my face in her hands and holds me while her tongue does some magic in my mouth. Her foot runs up and down the back of my leg and her body squeezes me tighter each time her knee comes up.
I grab her leg and pull it up so I can go deeper into her and feel like I’m bottoming out so I thrust as hard as I can to reach that point over and over until her body is quivering again and she moans, “Please, Blaine. Please, give it to me.”
Her body is begging me too and I can’t hold back any longer. The liquid heat moves out of me and into her and I can’t even think as it shoots out with a vengeance.
Our breathing is so loud it fills the room with the love we’re making. Her moan is low and long as she gets what she wanted. Her hands move in slow circles over my back.
I hold her in the same position, her leg pulled back and our bodies pulsing around the others until nothing is left. Then I let her leg move back down, but I stay where I am, inside of her.
She wiggles on the pillow. “Can this thing be moved?”
“Let’s wait a few minutes to let things soak in.”
She giggles a little, then runs her hands through my hair. “Blaine, I want you to know that I really love you. I can’t even think about my life before you came into it. It’s so crazy. It’s like that was just time—not anything special. Then you came along and every day has a special place in my memory bank. It’s so weird and amazing at the same time.”
“I suppose that’s what happens when you meet the one for you. I feel like life was merely lived a day at a time before you came along and filled my mind, heart, and soul.” I kiss her with a soft, sweet kiss. “I promise to try my best to make you happy every single day.”
“There will be bad days, too Blaine. Don’t think every day will be so happy,” she says.
I pull back and look at her, then give her a wink. “Baby, even a bad day with you beats a day without you. I’ll take the bad with the good. I get it now. Things happen, both good and bad. There are times in everyone’s life where the bad outweighs the good and vice versa. I’ll take them all with you by my side.”
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you.” Her voice is shaky, and I can hear the tears that are about to spring forth again.
So I kiss her cheek. “Shh. No more tears for the rest of the night.” I move off her and lie on my side, wiggling the pillow out from under her. “Tonight is all about you and me starting our lives together, for real. So let’s decide some things. The first thing I want to decide, so we can tell everyone tomorrow when they come, is what day we will get married on.”
“I’d like to get married on a date that has importance to you. Say, your mother’s or father’s birthday, perhaps.” Her eyes sparkle as she looks up at me and runs her fingertip over the bow of my top lip.
Taking her finger, I kiss it, then say, “I’d like to get married on New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas.”
“That’s a week from today,” she says as she shakes her head. “That’s too soon. There’s no time to make any plans. How about in the spring?”
“No,” I say and pull her to me, then turn over with her on top of me. “I want you to carry my name when the new year begins. I want that belly big
by the spring, and I don’t want our first kid thinking we weren’t married when we started making him.”
“Or her,” she says with a giggle. “I thought I’d have a church wedding.”
“They have chapels in Vegas.”
“You know where else they have a chapel, Blaine?”
“Everywhere,” I say. then tug her close so I can kiss her. “So what do you say to Vegas for New Year’s Eve? I’ll bring the whole family if you want, or it can be just you and me, alone.”
“I say no to that. But I have an idea. It can still be on New Year’s Eve, but it will be at the hospital, so the kids can be there. They were there when this whole thing began. I’d like them to be there when we say our vows too.”
Her idea sounds good. But there most likely won’t be one very special little girl there, and that empty place would dampen my spirit.
I wonder how Delaney will take being told no to where she wants to have our wedding. Badly, I bet!
The Gift
Book Seven
Chapter 1
DELANEY
December 25th:
Oranges and pinks seemingly stain Blaine’s skin from the reflection of the embers of what’s left of the fire that was raging in the fireplace when we first settled into the evening in the den. The lights on the tree went out with the timer they were set on, telling me it’s past midnight.
“Merry Christmas, baby,” Blaine whispers in my ear as he holds me loosely in his arms. The blanket on the floor isn’t enough to keep us warm any longer, as the fire nearly dies out. “Ready to head up to bed?”
“I am.”
Effortlessly, he picks me up, wrapped in the blanket, and carries my satiated body to the bedroom we share. We’re now an engaged couple with no way to agree on where to get married.
I want to be married at the chapel in the hospital, and he’s against it. He won’t say exactly why he would rather fly out to Vegas instead of having something a little more traditional, but I have a strong hunch little Meagan has everything to do with it.
Under Her Skin Page 91