by Aria Ford
She scrabbles away from me, sobbing, and picks up her clothes. She puts on her shirt, steps into her panties. She keeps her back to me. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“I don’t hate you,” I say, although I’m not sure why I have to say it when it’s so obvious. “Do you think that we just had hate sex or something? Because I took one look at you tonight and had to have you. When you said the baby was mine, I have never wanted anything more than I wanted you right then.”
I get up and gather her in my arms, hold her close against my chest, “I would never think that you were trapping me. I wouldn’t. It’s okay. I didn’t exactly bust out the condoms that night. It’s as much my responsibility as it is yours, to use birth control. I’d never blame you—either of us, because this is how it’s supposed to be.”
I kiss her softly. She shudders, sniffles. I help her with her clothes, then straighten mine up. I take her out the back. I’m ditching another private dinner to leave with the same waitress. I can’t believe my good luck.
I call my driver. I tell him to get her purse and meet us out front. Within two minutes, we’re in my car. I settle in to put my arm around her, but she crawls into my lap and puts her arms around me. I cradle her against me and rub her back with one hand to comfort her. She’s really upset. I can’t imagine how she’s been feeling these last few weeks, alone and pregnant. How did she think she’d manage financially on her own? How could she think I wouldn’t want my child—our child? How could she think I wouldn’t want her?
I take her to my apartment. Once I have her there, I leave her on the couch and go to my closet. I come back with a blue shirt for her.
“This is how I’ve pictured you a thousand times. In my shirt.”
She dodges into the bathroom, washes up and changes. When she comes out in my shirt—just my shirt—I can almost taste her in my mouth. I want her so much. I beckon to her and she sits beside me on the couch.
“I haven’t touched another woman since you,” I confide, “I couldn’t. I went out with a few, but I made these stupid excuses so I didn’t even have to kiss them. I wasn’t attracted to anyone. I looked for you everywhere, so you better tell me your real name. I want to know the name I’m going to change. I’m going to give you my name,” I say, stroking her hair.
I loosen her ponytail and let her hair down. I’ve missed her hair in my hands. I’ve missed all of her. I kiss her hair, her cheek, her forehead.
“I can’t marry you, Griffin. My name is Caleigh North. I’m almost twenty-three years old. I’m going to be a mother, and I’m not going to marry you so you can feel like you did the honorable thing. I don’t regret the night we spent together. I never will. I don’t regret this baby. I’ve heard his heartbeat, Griffin—it was so beautiful. I won’t ruin a miracle, won’t use this child to get you and keep you.”
“You don’t have to. I want you both. How can I prove that to you? How can I make you understand?”
I’m begging her now. I want her to tell me what I have to do or say to make her stay here forever. She’s in my shirt, on my couch. She’s right where I want her, but she’s refusing to see that I need her to stay. I don’t care that I’ve never had to chase a woman, that she should be relieved that we can be a family. I don’t care about anything but keeping Caleigh, making her my wife.
“Marry me,” I say. I take her hands in mine, both of them, and clutch them. I sound desperate. I am desperate. “You’re mine. The baby is mine. I’m not letting you go, either of you.”
“You don’t get to let me do anything. You’re not in control,” she says.
That’s what bothers me. She holds all the cards here. I’m used to making deals where I have something the other person needs. I don’t have that now. All I have on my side is money, which doesn’t count for a hell of a lot when you’re offering a woman your heart and your name and she’s saying, hell no.
“Then I’ll have to persuade you,” I say.
I can’t use money to win her over—she’s too horrified by the idea of being a gold digger, so I’ll have to use the only other weapon I know I have. I’ll seduce her. She trembles lightly beneath my fingers as I stroke her cheek. She is glorious, ripe and lovely. I want her again. I want her always. I kiss her lower lip softly as I can.
“Let me make love to you then. Let me show you,” I say.
“Yes,” she breathes the word on my lips.
I blink at her, my eyes burning with what might be unshed tears. Then I kiss her again. I have to make her see, make her feel the truth. I lay her back on my plush couch. She leans back willingly, her hands on my buttons. She wants me too. That is my solace, Caleigh wanting me despite everything. Despite the fact that I knocked her up and never went to find her. Despite the fact that I was nursing a bruised ego over her one-night-only pronouncement while Caleigh was ill from pregnancy.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to her. I kiss her collarbone. I want to be gentle and tender with her this time. Earlier, I was so driven by the need to join with her that I was rougher than I should’ve been with her. I whisper again, “I’m sorry for everything. Did I hurt you earlier?”
I kiss her temple and search her face for any signs of pain or sorrow. She shakes her head, “I needed you so much. I still do. I just can’t have you.” Her pretty brow crinkled with anguish. I tried to smooth her worry away with my fingers.
“You already have me, silly girl. I’m yours. Let me show you.”
I lay my palm reverently on her stomach, shut my eyes and hold my breath. I swear I can feel life in there. Not a heartbeat, of course, but something real, something bright and something ours. I can feel the power of the miracle she spoke of. The life we created together by accident in the heat of passion. I peel open my shirt to reveal her body to me. She is so beautiful and I don’t miss the opportunity to tell her so. I kiss her gently, stroking her breasts with light, teasing touches. I revel in seeing her writhe and chew her lip as desire twists her.
I trail my fingertips down her cheek and across her lips. She captures my finger in her mouth and licks it, sucks it. I draw in my breath sharply as I feel the persistent pull all the way down to my groin. She has already opened her legs for me. She wants me. I don’t know how I can make this up to her. I don’t know how I can explain.
She’s so rosy and beautiful. I whisper to her as I touch her and kiss her and ready her. She drags her hands restlessly through my hair as my lips linger at her thigh. I dip my head, lick her cleft once—a long, delectable stroke of my hot tongue. She seizes up, clenching, pulling my hair. She’s ready. I move up her body, poised at her opening. I press my shaft to the molten heat of her. Inch by inch, I fill her to the hilt. I take her knees in my hand and press them back to her chest so I can go deeper. She’s crying out, her nails raking my arms as she begs for more, begs me not to stop. I’m taking her to the edge of sanity. I can see it in the brightness of her eyes, the soundless O shape of her pretty mouth as I drive into her. Pleasure rockets through me, and I climax hard with a groan. I’m still pumping when I take her hand in mine and lead it to the spot between us. I take her finger and rub her with it. I control the speed, the pressure. She’s sweating. I can see the sheen of it on her lip, her chest as she bites her lips in concentration. The desperation holds her body taut. For a long moment, I rub her in tight circles. I feel her getting closer and closer. I kiss her lips, catching her bottom lip in my teeth. This tips her over into the spiral of orgasm. She shakes in my arms. I feel her clench around me.
When she stills at last, subsiding into small shivers, I roll off her, pull her onto my chest, and hold her. I drag a blanket off the back of the couch and cover us with it. She burrows into my chest, curling up, making herself small.
“How can you not see that I love you? How can you refuse to marry me?” I demand, my hands in her hair.
She tips her face up to look at me.
“You what?”
“I love you. Of course, I love you. No one has ever known me as
you do, touched me the way you do. I couldn’t look at another woman, Caleigh. I thought of you constantly. I am completely obsessed with you. I’m in love with you for the rest of my life.”
She starts to laugh. It is a crazy, half sobbing laugh. She presses her fist to her mouth to try and stop it, tears streaming from her eyes. She rains ecstatic kisses on my face until I capture her lips with mine and kiss her until she is still. I hold her against my chest like an anchor, like I’ll never let her go.
“I’m done with being notorious,” I tell her, “I just want to make you mine. Be my wife.”
There are tears shining in her dark eyes when she smiles at me.
“Yes,” she whispers. “I’m yours. I always have been.”
Just like that, she gave me all I’ve ever wanted in this life. I shut my eyes and kiss her again. I kiss her because I know I never have to let her go.
Mine.
The End
PREVIEW OF ARIA FORDS BOOKS
CHAPTER ONE
Brooklyn
“Parker! Can you get the phone?”
I yelled it over the dull whine of the electric mixer as I made a valiant attempt to mix batter for fruitcake. My daughter, luckily, has the great hearing of a six-year-old and heard my request over the din.
“Coming, Mommy!” she called.
I distantly heard her clatter down half a flight of steps and the skitter of her feet on the hallway tiles. Three seconds later I was bending down and taking my phone in flour-covered hands. “Hello?”
“Hi, Brooklyn,” a drawling voice declared over the phone. “Happy holidays!”
“Hi, Aunt Sheena,” I said, recognizing the voice without needing to see the number. “How’re you?”
“Excellent, dear. I’m sorry, but I have bad news.”
“Oh?” I asked, feeling crestfallen. I scraped a strand of auburn hair out of my eye and looked around my crowded kitchen, wondering if one more piece of bad news could fit. I was doing my best—three days before Christmas—to prepare for everything. It just all seemed to go wrong somehow.
“Nothing serious dear…just that I might have to say no for dinner.”
“Oh?” I frowned. I wasn’t sure if this was bad news or not. My mother’s eldest sister, a dignified and strangely quirky lady in her late sixties, Auntie Sheena would at once have been an asset and a liability at dinner. “You’re okay, though, Auntie?” I asked.
“Oh, fine, dear. Great. I just can’t get down there. My car’s in for repairs. Would you believe it? The fan belt or something…I don’t even listen to these things when mechanics tell me. I just let them get on with it.” She giggled apologetically.
“That’s too bad,” I said, cradling the phone against my shoulder as I lifted the bowl to scrape batter into the two cake tins. Parker was standing in the middle of the floor, making questioning eyebrows at me.
“Auntie Sheena,” I lip-synched to her. She nodded.
“Sorry, dear?” Auntie Sheena asked me.
“Oh! Nothing. Just making cake…” I trailed off as I did a balancing act with the two full tins, carrying them to the oven. It had been preheating for the last half hour, and if I left it much longer I might as well get Santa to pay my electricity account.
“Oh!” Aunt Sheena sounded contrite. “Well, I’m so sorry, dear, that I can’t make it.”
“No, it’s okay…” I said, setting the trays down carefully and then bending to open the oven with my left hand while I took the phone in my right before it slid off my shoulder. “You didn’t exactly decide to get engine issues.”
She giggled. “No. It’s the last thing I’d decide. Well, you sound busy. So I’ll leave you to it.”
“Oh. Thanks, Auntie,” I said, wincing as the oven door almost did its spring-closed-on-your-arm trick. “Have a nice day.”
“You too, Brooklyn. Bye-bye.”
“Bye!” I called.
I put down the phone, slid the cakes into the oven, shut the door and turned to Parker with a grin on my face.
“She’s not coming,” I explained. “It’ll be just us, then.”
“Oh.” Parker, my six-year-old daughter, took that somewhat undecided. She gave me a little frown. “Just you and me, right?”
“Yup, that’s right.”
“And Daddy?”
I dropped the spoon into the sink, letting the vehemence of the gesture diffuse some of my stress. I sighed. “Daddy’s away, sunshine.”
“Oh.” She put her thumb in her mouth, looked up at me with those heavenly blue eyes. I wanted to cry.
Daddy—also known as Richard Price—was my ex-husband. I sometimes wished he had been as nice on the inside as he’d been on the outside, but if looks were deceptive then he was the master of deception. Stunning on the outside, remorseless and emotionally dead on the inside. His daughter had all the good looks, fortunately, and none of the character.
“Daddy sent his love, sweetheart,” I said. Not exactly, but the thought was there. At least it was worth saying so.
“Oh!” she brightened. The thumb came out of her mouth and she grinned. “Yay!”
I leaned on the sink. Looked out of the window. Heard her scamper into the hallway saying something about Bluey, her doll, and let myself cry.
Richard, you bastard, I wanted to swear. You could at least send your kid a card.
He hadn’t, though. He hadn’t said a word. Last thing I heard he was in Hawaii. I think he only phoned to show off.
He doesn’t feel things the way you do—the way anyone else does. He only cares about getting attention on himself.
My therapist had told me that and I finally was starting to believe her and walk away, slowly, from the crimped-up place of blame I’d hidden in for the last almost eight years or so.
“Mommy!” Parker yelled, running in. “Why’s there smoke coming out of the oven.”
I gasped. Turned around, my train of thought coming to a spectacular halt. Parker was right.
“Oh…” I held back the swearing. There was a child in the room. I bent down and together we stared into the oven. The wax wrap was smoldering. As we watched, flames kindled.
“Wow, Mommy!” Parker said, eyes like pie plates. “That’s cool.”
“No, it’s hot,” I said succinctly. “Our cake will burn!”
I reached for a towel, covered my hands and hauled out the first cake, then the second. We both coughed as acrid smoke poured out of the oven. I couldn’t help it—as I fanned away the smoke I looked at my daughter’s enchanted expression and burst out laughing.
She caught my ebullience and started giggling. Soon we were both huddled in the center of the kitchen floor, our arms round each other, howling with mirth.
One thing is sure—we couldn’t have done that if Richard was around. I shuddered to think of the recriminations, the shouting, the cruelty, that would have poured out of him had he been here now.
As it was, Parker thought it was brilliant.
“Mommy! Can we do it again?”
I laughed. “No, sweetie. If it catches fire again, we might not get the cakes out.” As it was, they were ringed with a sort of crisp collar of cinders that would have been funny if I hadn’t been worried about how to lift them out again when they cooked up.
Brooklyn, don’t be silly—just turn them upside down. They’ll fall out.
I sighed and opened the oven door again, then slid them into the same places again.
“Right,” I said, turning to Parker. “Now we have to finish the tree.”
“Tree!” she effused. “Let’s go! I want to put the angel up…”
“You can’t, honey,” I said, chuckling as I followed her up to the attic to fetch down the baubles and tinsel and other things. “You can’t reach.”
“I can climb the ladder,” she retorted, those pale blue eyes glinting with ambition. I grinned.
“Maybe next year.”
“I want to climb it now!” she insisted. “I’m a big girl, Mommy. I’m a meter tall!�
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I bit back my laugh. “Yes, you’re a big girl, sweetheart. Can you carry this for me?” I asked, passing her a bag of glittery green tinsel.
“Yes, Mommy!” she nodded. She took it in both arms, running down stairs.
I sighed and found the other things, walking quickly down to the sitting-room behind her. While she pranced in with her armloads of tinsel to throw at the branches, I paused and glanced sideways in the mirror, scraping curls of hair off my damp brow.
The reflection showed me a woman of thirty-four: medium height, with a cloud of auburn wavy hair, brown eyes, and a worried frown. I wasn’t bad looking, I told myself with that constant surprise. My eyes were almonds, my lips full, and I had high cheekbones and a heart-shaped face.
I don’t know why Richard made me feel so worthless and ugly. But even now I kind of expected to look monstrous until I checked in with myself. I shook my head. I had been divorced for two years. I really should move on from those patterns of pain that had become such a habit with me.
“Mommy…” a voice came from the sitting room.
“Yes, darling?” I gasped, dumping the armload of decorations on the chair and looking around.