No Excuses

by Nikky Kaye

  “He asleep?”

  I nodded, knowing she would want to see him first. Understanding that. Accepting that. Appreciating that.

  When she came back downstairs, her smile had broadened and softened, and her blouse was tight over her chest. She swayed over to me where I was stretched out on the couch, and carefully straddled me.

  “Hi,” she said, dipping down to kiss me.

  “Hi.”

  “You survived.”

  I blinked at her, unsure if she was faking me out. Had she already laughed with Bobbie about my inept functioning? Or did she really believe in me? Either way, I felt like I didn’t deserve her loving, grateful smile—but there was also no way I was going to do anything to risk losing it.

  She frowned. “Maybe you don’t even need me.”

  I clutched her hips. “Believe me, we need you.”

  A beatific smile spread over her face. She kissed me again. Then wriggled on my lap a little. My hands moved from the sides of her luscious ass up her body.

  “How… did… it… go?” I asked between kisses.

  “Great. Their Legal department is sending over a contract.”

  “Good girl.”

  She winced a little as I squeezed her breasts. My hands dropped. She shimmied a little more on my lap. “I missed you, baby.”

  “We missed you, too.” God, so much.

  Her tongue swept into my mouth, tasting like sugary tea. She nibbled at my lower lip and moaned. “No, I really missed you.” I felt the heat of her core as she ground against me. Her nipples hardened against the material of her bra and shirt, which gaped between the buttons. “I want you to fuck me, Gage.”

  My head fell back as she sucked on my neck. “I’m a little tired, babe.”

  She froze. Rose up. “Seriously?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MADDIE

  I didn’t want to open my eyes, choosing to focus quietly on being in my husband’s arms. They were strong, firm, and warm around me as we spooned.

  “Mmmm. Glad you’re home,” he said huskily.

  I sighed my agreement, shifting against him. “Are you still tir—never mind.” I giggled, feeling his morning wood against my backside.

  His mouth latched onto my bare shoulder, and we luxuriated in the peaceful twilight between waking up and the beginning of the day. I shivered as his tongue made a sensual trail from my shoulder to my neck. Little quivers permeated my skin to all my underlying cells. My response to my husband never failed to amaze me, even after all this time.

  He hummed a wordless question, and I tilted my head back against him in response. Behind me, his hands lifted my nightshirt, skimming over my thigh and hip. His palm wound around me to cup my breast, which was full and tender.

  “Careful,” I warned him.

  All he did was flick my nipple with his thumb and I was keening. His hand flew up to gently cover my mouth.

  “Don’t wake the boy.”

  I nodded, my heart pounding as his hand trailed down to the spot where I was feeling so much, and yet not enough.

  His fingers played with my entrance, spreading my moisture around and just dipping in far enough to tease me. I could feel the heat of his erection rocking against me.

  “More,” I begged.

  With a growl, he shifted behind me to pull down the shorts that he slept in, and pushed me forward onto my stomach. His hand went behind my thigh and pushed my knee up to expose me. It took him only a few seconds to guide himself to my aching center and enter me.

  “Ahhh!”

  He swore under his breath as I let out a small cry, and we both froze, listening for movement down the hall. On the bedside table, a light flickered on the baby monitor, then it went dark again.

  We hadn’t realized we’d stopped breathing until we began again. Holding in my breath seemed to make my body more sensitive, and every one of Gage’s strokes reverberated through my body.

  Making love like this always felt so spontaneous, so randomly naughty. Almost impersonal and impetuous, like we barely knew each other but we just couldn’t resist, nor could we wait. It was swift, intense and lazy at the same time.

  Our positions didn’t allow for massive movements, but I felt every inch of Gage going in and out of me, his cock pinning me to the bed like a wanton woman.

  “Love you,” I gasped as my climax spiraled.

  He grunted the same, his body flexing against my ass, the curve of my back, my elbows and shoulders, the nape of my neck, and all the parts of my body that weren’t really supposed to be erogenous zones. They were, though, with him.

  His hand went to where we were joined as he felt for my clit. “Are you close?” he panted.

  I was always close.

  “Please,” I said. “I want to come, sir.”

  And a little rub of his fingers sent me flying.

  My orgasm triggered his, as though he was waiting for my body to give him permission. After a taut pause, he emptied himself into me, groaning.

  “Need to see you properly,” he muttered, turning me over so I was flat on my back beneath him.

  My first kiss of the morning, and it was after a spine-melting orgasm. That was part of what felt so scandalous about making love that way.

  We lay there cuddling for as long as we could, silently agreeing not to get up until we had to.

  “This was actually a good time of the month,” I said while running my hands up and down his arm. The dark hairs on his forearm smoothed out under my fingertips.

  He stilled with surprise. “You know, I hadn’t even thought of it.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I just wanted you.”

  I was pleased by that. “I think we’ve been forgetting about the fun part of procreating,” I said.

  He snorted. “Speak for yourself. I’ve been having fun.”

  “Yeah, but there’s been this expectation in the back of our heads, right? This could be the time. There’s pressure.”

  “Madeline,” he said, tilting my chin up to meet his gaze, “I never want you to do anything you don’t want to do. Do you feel like I unfairly pressured you into trying for another child?”

  I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the disappointment on his face. “A little, maybe?”

  He sighed.

  “Not much. You were right about getting help, and I did love being pregnant. Getting pregnant again wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.”

  “But not the best, either.” He withdrew from me and lay back on his side of the bed.

  “No, I haven’t been very fair to you. I resisted getting help with Jack or around the house because of my own stupid pride, when all you wanted was to make my life easier and me happier. I told you that I wanted to go back to work, but then I didn’t put any systems in place to make it easier for me to do that.”

  He nodded, folding his hands behind his head thoughtfully.

  I lay my hand on his belly, feeling his muscles tense under my palm. “All you asked for was to try.”

  “Do you think that I asked you to compromise too much or something?”

  “No, but I haven’t really been respecting your needs and desires enough, either. I’m sorry, Gage.”

  “You respect my desires just fine,” he said gruffly, lacing his hand through mine where it lay on his stomach. “We just need to work on communicating better.”

  “You’ve been improving.”

  “Not enough, apparently.”

  I rose up and kissed his lips. “You’re always enough, sir.”

  He craned his neck to kiss me deeper. “What did I do to deserve you?” he finally said.

  “It must have been something truly devious.”

  His smirk made my heart sing.

  After another few weeks, Gage was given the green light to ditch the brace, but he was still wearing a tensor bandage and going to physio twice a week. His ortho guy had decided that repairing my husband’s knee surgically had a poor cost-benefit ratio, and I teased him for n
ot committing fully to ripping his ligament.

  “There are no excuses for that kind of half-assed performance, Mister Gage.”

  “Take your panties off and I’ll show you a half-assed performance, Missus Gage.”

  Giggle. “Yes, sir.”

  We’d settled into a routine with Jeannie and I was finding the balance between letting her do things I didn’t need to do, and still doing the things I found meaningful. The reality was that I didn’t need to do laundry when I could be spending that time on the floor playing with Jack. Maybe in another few years, I could just train him to do it…

  In the meantime, I took over packing the diaper bag before Mommy and Me and found extra time to start doing other things with Jack, like a baby yoga class. Mostly he just sat there pulling stuff out of the diaper bag while I glared at him in downward facing dog, but we were there together.

  I also went back to work part-time. After a long discussion one night with Gage, he understood that it was important enough to me that the potential sacrifice of my time at home was worth it.

  Happy wife, happy life.

  Happy mom, happy dom.

  Umm, so to speak.

  The daffodils and crocuses were shooting out of the ground fairly late that year, buds sprouting like tears on the trees by the time I found out I was pregnant.

  I stared at the two pink lines on the test, not completely surprised. In fact, I shouldn’t have been that surprised at all. Truth be told, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it.

  Sitting down on the side of the bathtub, I looked down at my bare legs and feet. It was strange to know there would be a time—again—where I couldn’t see them. I did the math, and realized that this would be a Christmas baby.

  There was a queer feeling in the pit of my stomach, like excitement and dread all at once. It was different from the first time; now I knew what pregnancy and childbirth entailed, from experience. Of course, this could be the worst gestation in the world, and I’d be puking up my guts for the next six months straight… but I couldn’t think that way.

  No, I was happy about it. Really.

  Okay, maybe there was part of me that wondered “what if” I wasn’t pregnant—how would work go? How would balancing things go…? But then those questions would plague me, even with a baby in tow. I’d figure out a way to make it work, and I knew that I had Gage’s support in every aspect of it.

  Better than that, I had my own back now.

  It had taken me a few months to realize that I was a better parent and a better person if I could still work at my job and be a mom and wife. I’d tried so hard to be the perfect employee, then the perfect girlfriend, then the perfect wife and perfect mother that I forgot to be the perfect me. I was so damn lucky that I had the luxury of deciding how much I could work and how much I could stay home.

  Sleeping with the boss definitely had its perks.

  Speaking of which… Gage was still fast asleep in our bed.

  Feeling playful, I made my way downstairs to the kitchen, phone and pregnancy test in hand.

  And texted him a picture of it.

  Knowing my husband as I did, simply the vibration of his phone woke him up. He always woke up for messages. He claimed it was his job as head of a massively successful app development company, but I suspected he was just addicted to his smartphone.

  I heard nothing, then a muffled, “—the fuck!”

  Pause.

  My phone buzzed. -Where are you?

  I texted back. -Follow the trail, genius

  I heard him shift out of bed, the old floor creaking under his weight. “Ah!”

  He’d found the panties I’d left in the hallway outside our bedroom.

  My sleep pants were draped over the banister on the way downstairs, and he padded along the landing to retrieve them.

  “It’s not that big of a house,” he called out. “There are only so many places you can hide!”

  I stifled my comeback, knowing that it would be more fun if he played the game.

  On the bottom step I’d put the pregnancy test, pointing toward the back of the house.

  “What is this, some kind of spin the bottle thing?” he muttered. “I’ll just leave your pee stick here, okay?”

  My hand went over my mouth. God, my stomach was aching from holding in my laughter. I wasn’t just laughing at him, though. I was tense from anticipation, my body straining from joy and fear and love.

  He made his way back toward the kitchen, and found the t-shirt I’d slept in on the dining table.

  “You’re out of clothes now, Madeline,” he sang.

  I wrapped my arms around my naked body. Yep, I sure was. But it was a good scavenger hunt.

  His eyes widened, then narrowed as he spotted me leaning up against the stone-topped island. “Really?”

  Nod.

  “I knocked you up?”

  Nod.

  “Are you okay?”

  That was a loaded question. Did he mean physically, emotionally, psychologically, logistically?

  Nod. I stretched out my arms, and he moved into them.

  He kissed me like I was made out of glass.

  “I love you so damn much,” he said against my mouth.

  “I love you, too. Now really kiss me.”

  His lips curved against mine, and he devoured me. Stole my breath, met my tongue, and all the while his hands wandered over my hips and belly.

  Dipped down below.

  “You’re wet, Maddie.”

  Nod. “You make me that way,” I told him.

  He lifted me up onto the island, smiling as I yelped at the cold granite on my ass. I leaned back, propped myself up on my elbows, and waited as he palmed the area below my bellybutton.

  “Hi there.”

  He was talking to the baby, who was about the size of a grape. Maybe a plum. Why was it always fruit analogies with pregnancy, anyhow?

  His satisfied smile stretched his lips until I almost couldn't see them, for the blindness of his teeth.

  “Hello, baby Mario.”

  “No.”

  “Luigi?”

  I laughed. “No.”

  “Zelda.”

  “No.”

  “Kirby?”

  “Hell to the n—actually, that’s not so bad.” I tilted my head, considering it.

  With large, hot hands, he spread my knees and stepped in between them. “Madeline, you’re naked on our food preparation surface.”

  “So I am.”

  “That means I have to eat you.”

  “Shucks.” I shrugged my shoulders then squealed as he growled and dove down to my damp center.

  With one long lick from back to front, finishing at my clit, he brought me back to the place where I felt most secure yet most vulnerable.

  In love.

  THE REAL END

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With every book, it seems I have more people to thank. Either I’m requiring additional help, or I’m lucky enough to have more people in my corner. I’m going with the latter.

  First, Arianne Cruz for her kickass editing and cheerleading. Second, Adira August, for her prodding, insight, virtual eyes and ears, generosity, and tough love. Damn, I’m lucky to have you. This book literally could not have been written without you. I also owe a great debt to Neda Amini and Ardent Prose PR for their enthusiasm when this book was first launched.

  Thanks to my readers (I can’t believe I get to say that), for the positive feedback and encouragement. This one is for Susan Zimmerman, who wrote me after getting an early excerpt: "I'm waiting for you to give me great, I think this is it. Boot knocking, knee shaking, heart fluttering, panty wetting, palm sweating, hand shaking great. You up for that?" Suzy, I hope you got it. Also Gen, Patti, Candy, Linda, Amelia, Sarena, and everyone else who showed excitement for each time I peeled off more of the wrapper. LK Shaw for flogging me, and Julia Sykes for tying me up in Lebanon. Vivian, Crystal, Rhea, Chris for the support during the writing of this, and my whole DAMN family
(including my own “no excuses” advocate at home) for their continued understanding.

  Last but not least, Bobby Kim and Butterfly Publishing House. Bobby has been a beacon of positivity and encouragement for many months, and I am lucky to consider him a friend. Thanks a million to Leanore Elliott for her editing prowess, Michelle Hercules Soars for her gorgeous cover, and everyone involved in releasing this book. I am deeply grateful for your trust and faith.

  Stay tuned for two more bonus novellas—the Hearts of Stone duet of Bought By the Billionaire Brothers and Saved By the Single Dad SEAL.

  BOUGHT BY THE BILLIONAIRE BROTHERS

  (Hearts of Stone 1)

  CHAPTER ONE

  EVIE

  “This is, without a doubt, the craziest idea I’ve ever had.” I shook my head, unable to look away from the insanity on the screen of my laptop.

  “And yet you’re actually doing it. That’s even more whackadoo.” My next-door neighbor and new best friend Annie squinted as she peered into an empty wine bottle. Her idea of getting together for a Friday night drink meant I drank one glass of the cabernet she’d brought, and she polished off the rest.

  If only I was tipsy. That would explain what I was about to do. Oh dear god. “I can’t do this.”

  “Sure, you can. What have you got so far?” She stood up from the couch, swayed a little, then she stumbled the few steps through my tiny apartment to where I sat at my kitchen table.

  “Kitchen” was a generous label, actually, since I had a bar fridge, a microwave, and a hot plate—plus a sink. It was like living in a small RV that didn’t go anywhere. But the little secondhand café table was my dining room slash home office, and that was where Annie hovered over me.

  “College graduate ready to sell V-card. Not ugly, just shy and a little fluffy.” Her bark of laughter ended up in a hiccup, and she grabbed the back of the chair I sat on.

  My face heated as she leaned over my shoulder in a fit of drunken giggles.