She knew that she was driving him wild and it made her body burn hotter for him, turning up the heat for them both until he stopped her, breathless and panting, and in a voice strangled with need, he whispered, “I need you, now!”
In one swift movement, she found herself beneath him and he was pushing her legs apart, desperate to be inside her, just as desperate as she was to feel him in her. In a tantalizingly slow movement, he slid himself into her inch by inch, until she was filled with him and the inferno in them blazed. They rocked together and against each other, wrestling in the sheets, hard and sensuous, their mouths tasting, kissing, biting, their hands clenched and fingers pressed deeply into each other's bodies, building up to a passionate crescendo that they reached together, coming hard together and releasing all of their tension and energy in an explosive orgasm of white-hot flame.
They held each other close, their grips loosening as their hearts slowed and their bodies began to relax, and they laid back in the bed together, sinking into the pillows with smiles on their faces. He kissed her forehead, and then her lips, softly and gently, and looked at her with a sweet smile.
“You are an amazing woman.” he said with a wink.
She leaned in to him and kissed him back, softly. “You're quite the rock star, yourself.” She had done it. She had just had her first one night stand and it couldn’t have been better.
He laid with her for a short while, and then he touched her face with his fingertip.
“I have to be going. Fires to put out and things like that...” he trailed off. Then he slipped both of his hands on either side of her head and kissed her again; he kissed her like he meant it, and then he looked earnestly into her eyes. “Thank you for the best night ever.”
Then like a wisp of smoke on the wind, he was gone.
Chapter4
Alone in her house once again, Laura let the events of the previous night run through her memory with fondness. She walked to the living room and sat down on the sofa, letting her eyes wander to the window as they had done only the day before when all this had begun.
She certainly had no regret for what had transpired between them. Laura had promised herself one night of amazing, unforgettable sex, and she hadn't been disappointed, but she supposed she was a little sorry that it was over so soon.
Laura remembered every word spoken between them and all the ways that their bodies had communicated when their mouths had been silent. She had never been with a man who had commanded her attention quite like that and she had never found a man who had been quite so amazed by her as the captain had been.
People often talk of sexual chemistry and Laura had always believed that to be a myth. When a man and a woman are in close proximity, there is always enough of an attraction for sex to happen, but Laura realized now that this was not what chemistry meant.
Chemistry is when the desires of your body override reason. It’s when you forget yourself in his presence and become someone you never thought you could be, because you’re reacting to whatever it is in him that makes you come alive. It’s when the moment is suddenly more than words and dry conversation, and is filled with heavy glances and meaningful movements which convey so much more. Their meaning is simply understood, because your bodies want each other so badly that they decipher the signs you didn't think you were experienced enough to read.
Laura had never experienced chemistry before, not with Connor or David or Ray or any of the men that she had given her time to be intimate with them.
Among all the satisfaction that had happened with Daniel, there was definitely a little fear that she would never find that incredible chemistry again; that all her time as a confident, sexy, and sensual woman had been used up in one unforgettable night.
She languished over him for the rest of the day. Daniel had been everything a woman could want in a man. He was handsome, confident, and had his life in order. He was a captain after all, but beyond that, he made her feel differently about herself in a way that no other man ever had. He had set a standard for future men and Laura was afraid that she would never hit that mark again. Her sex life had peaked with Daniel and it was a depressing thought.
***
As the days and then weeks went by, Laura tried to put Daniel to the back of her mind, but she would still smile a little smile at certain memories every time she looked at her sofa or when she cooked bad Italian food for one person. She lost interest in looking to date other men and concentrated on her work instead, but even as she stood behind the counter at her little shop, there were times when her eyes would glaze over and she would be thinking back to that one incredible night—to the smile of that one incredible man—and would jump when her thoughts were interrupted by a customer wanting to buy a birthday card for Gran.
About a month after her night with Daniel, Laura began to feel a little unwell and she wondered if it was possible to be pining after a man so badly that it made your stomach swell and nausea rise. She pushed down her restlessness with chocolate and rom-coms, but when she was still feeling bloated and strange a couple of weeks later, she finally reasoned that perhaps it wasn't heartbreak causing her to feel off and began to wonder what else might be causing her discomfort.
It was one evening when she was sitting reading another magazine and eating a pot of noodles that her mind began to wander back to that incredible evening, as it seemed so often to do nowadays. She began to figure out how long it had been since she'd had her one-night stand with the captain. It must have been six weeks or so. It wasn't long after that she had first started to feel unwell.
A sudden clarity struck Laura and she nearly dropped her noodles. She set them down on the coffee table and placed an anxious hand on her stomach. When was the last time she'd had her period? It couldn't be... Could it? She and Daniel hadn't been careful. Laura had stopped taking the pill after her last awful first date. Before then, she had been taking the pill since she was eighteen and had never before had to think about contraception before having sex, but she couldn't be pregnant, could she?
“Oh God,” Laura moaned, running her hands over her hair in a panic and running over the dates in her mind once again. Her friend Emily had gotten pregnant last year, and she found out after she had started feeling sick and bloated, but Emily had been trying with her partner for months. Laura had just been after one night of no-strings attached sex and now there was the daunting and terrible realization that perhaps she hadn't taken enough care to ensure the “no-strings” part.
“Don't panic,” she told herself out loud. “You haven't even taken a test yet.”
Laura quickly got herself ready and picked up her purse, heading down the street to the pharmacy in town. All the while she was talking to herself in her head, wondering what on earth she would do if she was pregnant with the fireman's baby.
She had always been a sensible girl. Sophie had always made fun of her for always thinking so far ahead and being so organized. Laura had been starting her own business when Sophie was still living off of Mom and Dad and going to concerts every weekend. Out of all their friends, Laura had always been the one to have had her head screwed on right. Her life had a very clear plan: 1) Start a business; 2) Buy a home; and 3) Get married.
Having kids was somewhere way down the line on her schedule, if she ever had kids at all. It wasn’t in her plan to be a mother now, not when she was so unprepared for it and certainly not alone.
Laura walked into the pharmacy like a fugitive on the run and kept her head down as she headed to the aisle where the pregnancy tests were waiting for her like a sentence for a crime. She felt like everyone was watching her; like everyone would know that she was possibly pregnant with the baby of a fireman she had slept with one night six weeks ago.
She ran her eyes over all the different types of test: Clear Blue, First Response, Answer... Every type was claiming to be the most accurate, or able to detect pregnancy the earliest. Laura was in such a panic that she needed to be sure. She scooped six different test
s into her basket and then picked up some bubble bath as though that would disguise the fact that she had a basket full of pregnancy tests. Her skin flushed red as the cashier scanned them, one by one and gave her the total. Laura hastily paid and ran out of the shop, jogging slightly towards her house in desperation to know if this was all just some terrible mistake.
Once at home, she rushed to the bathroom and began the process of using each and every one of the tests in turn and lining them up side by side on the bathroom counter and then began the endless two minute wait which seemed to last a lifetime. One by one, the line of pregnancy tests began to reveal their results and with each line that appeared Laura felt herself become more and more terrified. Positive, positive, positive, positive, positive, positive.
Laura sat down on the edge of the bath, gripping the edges of the ceramic tightly and taking a few deep breaths. This was unbelievable. For a few minutes she tried to convince herself that this could still be nothing more than a mistake and it was something else making all those pregnancy tests show positive. She would have to book a doctor's appointment and confirm it.
Deep down, Laura knew that it would make no difference. All the signs were there. She had started to be sick in the mornings, her flat stomach had started to round out just slightly, she hadn't had her period this month, and six tests don't lie. Tearfully, she crawled into the bathtub and tried to figure out what she was going to do.
She would go to the doctor's the next day and if her pregnancy was confirmed, then she would have no choice but to seek out the captain, because there was no way that she was doing this on her own.
The young woman felt so small. She had given everything for one night of supreme pleasure, but all her attempts to be sophisticated, mature, and wild had come down to this and now she simply felt scared. What would Daniel say?
Perhaps he would be mad at her for not thinking about protection, but then again, he hadn't been careful, either. They were equally guilty in this conception, but was he the sort of man who would take responsibility for a young woman in trouble? When she thought once more of his handsome, sculpted body and the way he had spoken and held himself with such utter confidence and conviction in his prowess she wondered how many woman had fallen for his charms and whether she was the first woman to fall pregnant to this man.
It took her a long time to gather the courage to crawl out of the bath, but when she did, she emerged as a woman determined. Laura was not the sort of person to feel sorry for herself and let the world fall apart. Yes, she was afraid. Yes, she was alone, but she was a strong woman who had always managed being alone before. She had been single many times over the years and had still managed to be happy and build a business and find a way to scrape together the money to keep a roof over her head. So she was pregnant. She would find a way to cope still.
***
The next day at the doctor's office confirmed what she already knew, but Laura didn't break down again as she left the clinic and returned slowly home. In fact, her mind was back to its previous way of working: calm, methodical, and level-headed. She didn't let herself give into the panic that tried to curl its fingers around her heart, but began to reasonably ask herself what she needed to do now.
The first thing, of course, was to track down Daniel and tell him the news. Regardless of how he took it, at least they'd be able to make decisions together from then on and that would make it easier. So she went home, took down the address of the local fire station and headed over that Saturday afternoon to find the captain.
She had never been to a fire station before. As she approached, she could see the shutters of the garage open and three fire engines waiting inside with spaces for others which must have been out somewhere extinguishing fires. She entered through those open shutters and tried to find someone to talk to.
To her left she could see the equipment room with its red wire framing, helmets and uniforms all laid out. On the right was the hoist tower where several long hoses were hanging from a tall chimney-like structure to dry and more hoses were lined up in spirals on the ground to be fitted to engines later. Laura took all of this in and then began to step around the engines as she searched for someone to speak with. She could hear voices up ahead and followed them to a large break room beyond the garages where a group of off-duty firemen were gathered eating. She knocked tentatively on the doorframe to get their attention and they looked up at her with interest.
“The reception is that way,” one of the men told her, pointing in the direction she had just come from.
“Actually, I'm looking for someone who works for the department,” Laura told them. “His name is Daniel. He's the captain. He's kind of tall; has blonde hair, brown eyes.”
The fire fighter closest to her nodded in recognition.
“Yeah, we know Dan,” he told her. “But you won't find him here. He's gone with a whole group off to Colorado for the summer to fight the wild fires. Didn't you know?”
Laura felt her heart drop into her stomach and she closed her eyes briefly to steady herself, before opening them again and trying to find another way to reach him instead of panicking because he wasn't here.
“Well, do you have a contact number I could take?” she asked hopefully.
The firemen exchanged glances. A different man spoke to her this time. Laura recognized him as one of the other firefighters who had been there to put out Marie's house.
“You're that woman from that fire we were called to several weeks ago,” he recollected. “Sorry, but you're out of luck. Dan's off the books for the whole summer. You can try calling around the Colorado departments, but he won't be assigned a station as he is here. He could be anywhere and he'll have a different number out of state. I'm sorry, but we can't help you.”
“When will he be back?” Laura asked helplessly.
“It's hard to say,” the fireman shrugged. “It depends on how hot the summer is and how long the fires last. It depends on whether he's giving any training. It depends on whether we need him back here or whether they need him more out there. He could be back in a few weeks, or it could be months, if he makes it back at all.”
“Well, can I give you my number?” Laura persisted. “And will you have him call me when he gets back? My name is Laura. He knows who I am.”
“Look, Miss, I'll hold onto the number, but I don't know how long Dan will be away. If you're looking for a second date, I think you're out of luck,” he apologized.
Laura frowned but still wrote down her number on a scrap and handed it to him.
“Please give that to him when you see him,” she insisted. “It's important.”
She left the station feeling lost and uncertain. Her plan had been to find Daniel, tell him about the baby, and make a plan with him for what to do next, but Daniel hadn't been there, there was no way of getting hold of him for God knows how long and her plan had come to a dead end. Things hadn't gone according to her plans since she'd met that man.
At the other end of town, Sophie's radar must have been going off because Laura's mobile began to ring in her bag. She pulled it out, took a deep breath and answered it.
“Hello?”
“Hello stranger,” Sophie said brightly on the other end of the line. “Where have you been? I haven't seen you in almost two weeks. I hope you're not still pining after that fireman. It's been too long since I've seen you. When are you free?”
“Right now,” Laura told her. “Can I come over?”
“Sure, is everything alright?” Sophie asked with concern.
“I could use someone to talk to,” Laura confessed.
“Well, I'll put the coffee on then,” Sophie promised. “See you in a bit?”
“Ten minutes.”
Laura hung up and changed her course, turning on her heel to head over to Sophie's house instead. She had been hoping to have the first conversation about this unplanned pregnancy with the father of the baby, but as he was nowhere to be found, Sophie would have to do instead.
&nbs
p; Chapter5
The young woman arrived at her best friend's house minutes later and was welcomed in with a sisterly hug and a string of friendly chatter as Sophie set about pouring coffee and pulling cookies out of the cupboards.
“I was getting worried about you,” Sophie confessed. “It's unlike you not to call for days. I know that it was Mother's day last week, so I thought maybe you were just swamped with work, but that was last Sunday, so I was starting to get a bit worried that I hadn't heard from you still. Is everything all right?”
Laura sat down on Sophie's floral-print sofa with a cup of coffee in her hands and shook her head.
“I've gotten myself into a little bit of a mess, Soph,” she confessed.
“Ooh,” Sophie said mischievously, pulling her feet up onto the couch and curling into position that said she was ready for a good, long session of girl chat. She sat holding her coffee and looking at Laura over the rim of the cup with an expectant grin. “Does it have anything to do with that fireman? What is it? Has he asked you to do something kinky?”
“What? Sophie, no!” Laura exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “Why do you always think it's something like that?”
Sophie shrugged. “Well, it sounded like you had a pretty wild night with him not so long ago and you haven't been yourself since then. It's always the handsome ones that get weird in the bedroom.”
“Please Sophie, stop,” Laura pleaded, setting her coffee down on the table. “This is serious.”
Her best friend set down her own cup and dropped the joking. She could tell now that something was wrong and her intuitiveness for drama sensed what it was.
“Don't tell me that you're pregnant!” she gasped.
Laura nodded slowly. “I forgot I'd stopped taking the pill after Ray,” she confessed. “I thought I was going to be single for a while, remember? I was so caught up in the moment with Daniel that I just didn't think about it. I mean, it was just one night, Sophie. How could I get pregnant after just one night?”
The Baby Shower Page 90