One Little Indiscretion

by Joss Wood

  “Give me a sec, honey, I’m so close.”

  She didn’t want him in control; she wanted him wild and unhinged and thoughtless. Taking the initiative again, she pushed him back down and Sadie straddled him, brushing her wet warmth against his erection. Pleasure slid through her, warm and wet and wonderful. Not giving Carrick much time to react, she took him in hand, lifted her hips and slid down onto him, sighing as he filled her.

  They’d only been together once before, but she’d missed this. Missed him.

  Carrick pulled her close so that her breasts pushed into his chest, his arm snaking up her back to hold her head. He kissed her fiercely, and Sadie wasn’t sure where he started and she left off. For the first time in her life—okay, technically the second time—she felt completely immersed in someone else, like his heart was beating for her, like she breathed for him.

  It was powerful, insanely powerful, and Sadie felt her stomach and heart contract. With pleasure, in awe and with a healthy dose of fear that she might never feel this way again.

  “Sadie, honey, I need you to come because I can’t hold on,” Carrick muttered, his hips lifting, sliding in deeper. He repeated the motion and Sadie’s eyes crossed as she chased that tornado of pleasure across the dawn sky. Carrick pushed his hand between them and found her bud, rolling it under his finger. She hurtled toward the maelstrom, flying faster and faster until she was close enough to step into it and then she was falling, tumbling, screaming, riding, hurtling...

  Bands of pleasure tossed her around and then Carrick pistoned into her and she felt his release deep inside. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held her face against his, not wanting to step off this awesome ride.

  Her twister of pleasure slowly dissipated and Sadie released her tight grip on Carrick, her muscles loosening as she sank against him, confident he’d hold her weight. She felt breathless, weightless and crazy satisfied.

  Carrick’s hand drifted over her head, down her back. He was still inside her and she had no intention of moving, not just yet.

  “What the hell was that?” he softly asked.

  Sadie dropped a kiss on his collarbone before placing her hands on his chest and pushing herself up. “Good sex?”

  “Great sex,” Carrick corrected her. She felt him harden inside her and was astounded by the wave of pleasure that shot up her spine.

  She’d genuinely thought she was done. Her last orgasm had been so intense, she didn’t think she was up for a repeat... Not so soon anyway.

  Then Carrick smiled, dropped his hand to where their bodies joined and found her wet and wanting and throbbing.

  “I thought we were done,” she softly said, looking at his sexy mouth.

  “Hell, no, we’re just getting started.”

  Five

  After taking a shower in Carrick’s enormous en-suite bathroom, Sadie pulled on her clothes and walked back into his bedroom. It was dominated by an enormous king-size bed and an oversize oil painting above the headboard. Ignoring Carrick, who sat on the edge of the bed, dressed and pulling on a pair of socks, she crawled across the mattress to kneel on the pillows, searching for a signature on the painting. It was an impressionist landscape in greens and blues, a French river at dawn.

  Was it a Monet, a Manet? Judging by the breathtaking art elsewhere in the house, she wouldn’t be surprised.

  “You’re wasting your time. There is no signature,” Carrick told her, amusement in his voice.

  Sadie frowned at the painting. That wasn’t possible; he must have missed it. This painting was too good not to be documented. “Who is it by?”

  Carrick shrugged. “We have no idea. We have no record of how it came into the family, who the artist is, absolutely nothing.”

  That simply wasn’t possible. A painting of this quality had to have left its mark; there had to be a record of it somewhere. Sadie touched the side of the frame with reverent fingers as if it could speak to her.

  “Have you researched it?”

  “To death,” Carrick replied, standing up to tuck his button-down shirt into his pants. “I’ve researched it, Finn has researched it, my folks did the same. There’s nothing to be found.”

  Sadie refused to accept that. “I could try.”

  Carrick grinned. “Go for it, but I’m not paying you another exorbitant fee for you to trace down leads I know aren’t there.”

  “I’ll do it pro bono.” Sadie sat back on her heels and stared at the landscape, falling into the picture. There was something incredibly familiar about the painting, as if she recognized the artist or the subject or the brushstrokes. She’d spent time with this artist or scene before...she just needed to recall who and when and where.

  Carrick’s arm around her waist wrenched her back to the present. He pulled her up against his chest, but when her feet touched the floor, he didn’t release her.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, his breath warm against the shell of her ear.

  Since she’d started the morning with multiple orgasms, she felt absolutely fantastic. “Awesome. All loosey-goosey.”

  Sadie felt the rumble of his laughter. “Good to know, but I was actually referring to this.” He tapped her flat stomach with his index finger.

  Oh. Oh, right. She was pregnant with his child. Between the fabulous sex and the jaw-dropping art, she’d forgotten she was going to be a mommy. Her breath hitched and her heart threatened to jump out of her chest. “Fine.”

  “No nausea, tiredness, food cravings?”

  Sadie stepped back and Carrick’s arms fell to his sides. “How do you know about pregnancy symptoms?”

  Carrick’s shoulder lifted and fell. “Ronan has two boys, and he gave us a blow by blow of Thandi’s pregnancies.”

  She hadn’t known Ronan was married and told Carrick so.

  Grief flashed in Carrick’s eyes. “She died shortly after the birth of Aron, their second son. She started hemorrhaging and they couldn’t stop it in time.”

  Sadie winced. “That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a rough time,” Carrick admitted. “We all adored Thandi, and Ronan still grieves for his wife.”

  “I think he probably always will,” Sadie softly replied.

  Carrick ran his hand through his damp hair. “So back to you. How are you feeling?” His lips quirked upward. “With reference to your pregnancy, not the sex.”

  Sadie returned his smile. “I really am fine. I haven’t had any nausea and I’m as energetic as ever. I’m not very far along so everything is mostly as it was.”

  “I’d believe that if you hadn’t fallen asleep in the chair last night without waking up when I moved you to the sofa,” Carrick pointed out.

  Sadie crossed her arms and rocked on her heels. “I haven’t slept much this past week. I’ve been making plans. And rehearsing the best way to tell you.”

  Carrick frowned at her. “I’m that unapproachable?”

  Sadie sat down on the edge of the bed and rested her forearms on her knees. “I don’t expect it’s ever easy telling a guy you’re pregnant. And honestly, I didn’t expect you to react as calmly as you did.”

  Carrick walked into his closet and returned with a cobalt-blue tie, which he draped around his neck. He started to knot the ends, his eyes on hers. “I don’t believe in beating the horse because I left the stable door open. What’s done is done. We must deal with what is, not how we wish it to be.”

  “Talking of dealing with what is—” Sadie linked her fingers between her knees “—how are we going to do this, moving forward?”

  Carrick looked at her and Sadie felt pinned to the floor. “What exactly are you asking me, Sadie?”

  Sadie had to smile at the panic flashing in his eyes. “I’m not asking you to marry me, Carrick. I’m just looking for an indication of whether you’d like to be a part of the baby’s life. Or wheth
er you intend to bail.”

  “First, I’ve never bailed on a thing in my life.”

  Carrick had bailed on his marriage, but then again, so had she. Sometimes it was okay to walk away from toxic people and situations. Unfortunately, according to Tamlyn and Beth, Carrick had been the source of that toxicity.

  But since Sadie was neither marrying him nor falling in love with him, and as long as he kept any toxic behavior away from her baby, that wasn’t something she needed to worry about.

  “And, gut reaction, I want the baby. I might not want a relationship—” yeah, she heard his warning, thank you very much “—but I do want to be a dad.”

  Well, then. Okay.

  “But we don’t need to decide on the mechanics of our relationship today. We have time. Have you told anyone else you are pregnant?”

  “No, why?”

  “When the news breaks, the tabloids will make a big deal about it.” Carrick’s mouth turned down and his face hardened. “The press will devour this news. It will be a big deal. First pregnancies, so I’m told, often end in miscarriage so I’d prefer only to weather one storm of press attention. I’d hate to have to go back and explain that you’ve miscarried.”

  “Would the press really be that interested in this?”

  “Oh, hell, yes,” Carrick muttered, and Sadie recalled the internet search she’d done on him and the many articles she’d found detailing the most sordid aspects of his marriage.

  The press loved drama, especially within a high profile family like the Murphys, and there had been a lot of it five years ago.

  Carrick’s suggestion to wait made sense so Sadie nodded. “I’m happy to keep it a secret. It’s nobody’s business but our own.”

  “Talking about miscarriages, are you expecting any problems?” Carrick asked. “Do you have a family history of miscarriages? God, do you even have a family?”

  Sadie had to laugh. “I wasn’t found under a banana tree, Murphy.”

  Carrick pulled a face. “For someone I’m having a baby with, I know next to nothing about you.”

  That was true. They’d shared their bodies, the most intimate of physical acts, but they knew next to nothing about each other. “I’m the third of four kids and as far as I know, my mom popped us out with no trouble at all.”

  Carrick rubbed his jaw. “I think we need to change that, Sadie.”

  Change what?

  “If we are going to raise a child together, the least we can be is friends,” Carrick said, choosing his words with care. “We have this hectic attraction, but that’s not going to help us raise a child together. We need to get to know each other.”

  Sadie stared at him, suddenly realizing that she wasn’t in this alone; she was going to have a father for her child. Despite knowing that she could, and would, raise a child by herself, she was so damn grateful that she didn’t have to.

  But their chemistry complicated the situation.

  Sadie waved at the bed. “What about this?”

  “Sex?”

  Sadie placed her hand on the bed to anchor herself. She nodded, the edges of her vision a little fuzzy. “Uh-huh.”

  “Sex is sex, work is work, but there’s no rule that says we can’t be friends and not have sex, that we can’t work together and not have sex.”

  He was being so very rational, so damn reasonable. She’d expected a completely different reaction—a lot more fire and brimstone—and she was so grateful to have avoided a nasty scene. Sadie bit her lip, fighting tears. It had all gone so much better than she’d expected. Emotion and exhaustion clashed and she felt herself drifting...

  “You okay?” Carrick asked her, but his voice sounded like it was coming from a long way away.

  Sadie felt her head rocking and the room darkened. Then the air disappeared and the carpet came up to smack her in the face.

  * * *

  “You fainted?”

  Sadie heard the trace of amusement in Hassan’s question and frowned at his image on the screen of her laptop. Hassan, in Abu Dhabi, leaned back in his office chair, looking elegant in a three-piece suit.

  Yep, those deep brown eyes were definitely laughing at her. Sadie rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “I face-planted straight into the carpet. When I came around, Carrick gave me a lecture about my health and bundled me off to see a doctor.”

  “And what did the doctor say?”

  Sadie sipped her peppermint tea before answering. She had work to do, but she needed to talk to her old friend. Technically, he was Prince Hassan Ramid El-Aboud, but she’d known Hassan since they were both new students at Princeton a decade ago. He’d studied engineering and she art history, and while she knew he was from Abu Dhabi, she hadn’t known that he was a royal...

  Royal as in the nephew of the reigning king of the United Arab Emirates.

  Hassan might look like the Arab prince-hero of a romance novel, but to her, he was just her best friend. The person with whom she could share her and Carrick’s secret. In her defense, Hassan was her closest friend and she knew Hassan was a vault.

  “He said that I’m pregnant. That fainting is fairly common in pregnancy and that I’m as healthy as a horse. Carrick didn’t believe him.”

  “How do you know?” Hassan asked.

  “Because as we left the doctor’s rooms, Carrick called his PA and told her to get me another appointment with another obstetrician.” Sadie rolled her eyes. “He wants a second opinion.”

  Hassan laughed. “And are you going for a second opinion?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m pregnant, not ill,” Sadie said, allowing her frustration to seep through.

  Hassan tipped his head to the side. “And are you going to sleep with him again?”

  Oh, she wished she could say no, but she knew that the chances of her and Carrick ending up in bed together again were astronomically high. “I want to tell you we won’t, but I’d probably be lying.”

  Concern flashed in Hassan’s eyes. “Sleeping with him is one thing, Sadie, but falling in love with him is another.”

  Sadie balanced her tea on her knee. “Who said anything about love?” she demanded.

  Hassan’s brown eyes reflected his concern. “How does Beth feel about you having Carrick’s baby?”

  Sadie grimaced. “I haven’t told her.”

  Hassan’s eyebrows rose. “You do know you can’t keep it a secret from her forever?”

  “Carrick asked me to keep my pregnancy between us until the first trimester has passed. I’ve told you, but I don’t feel comfortable telling Beth, partly because Beth will lecture me about him, saying that he’s not the type of man I need in my life, that he leaves destruction in his wake.”

  “She’d also say you already went through hell with Dennis. Why would you want to put yourself through that with Carrick?”

  Strangely, Sadie’s first instinct was to defend Carrick. She wanted to tell Hassan that Carrick was nothing like Dennis, but logic and practicality refused to allow her to do that. She wanted to believe Carrick wasn’t anything like her ex, but she’d hardly spent any time with him.

  And, let’s be honest here, the time they’d spent together hadn’t required talking.

  Hassan leaned forward. “Look, I have no doubt that Tamlyn exaggerated Carrick’s sins. She’s not the type to take rejection lying down. But when you told me you were pregnant with his kid, I went online, did some research. I saw numerous photos of Carrick and his ex together. Sadie, they didn’t look happy. He wasn’t good for her.”

  But there was a difference between not being good for her and not being good to her. But no matter what had happened in his previous marriage, Carrick was going to be in Sadie’s life for a long, long time. He was her child’s father and they’d always have a bond.

  But that didn’t mean she had to be emotionally tied to him. Th
ey could be friends, be mutually respectful, but they didn’t have to love each other to be effective coparents.

  But it would be helpful if they could, at the very least, like each other, as she informed Hassan.

  “I respect that, Sadie, I do, but I’m worried about you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Hassan looked frustrated. “You’re an independent, strong woman, but a part of you still believes in the sanctity of a family unit, in bringing your child up with a mom and a dad, preferably in the same house. However you work this deal with Carrick, he’s going to be a very big part of your life. Are you going to meet and date and fall in love with anyone else or are you going to fall for him because he’s there and because he sets your panties on fire?”

  It was a good question and one she didn’t have an answer for. Sadie thought about her response. “When the baby comes, I’m not going to have time to date someone else, even if I wanted to. What’s wrong with sleeping with Carrick as we coraise our child?”

  “Because you are not the type who can separate sex from love on a long-term basis. If you don’t learn to do that, you will fall for him, Sadie. And he might end up breaking your heart.”

  She was too smart to repeat past mistakes.

  “He’s not going to make me cry, Hassan.”

  “How can you be so sure, Sadie?”

  “Because I won’t let him,” Sadie told Hassan, conviction in her voice. “There’s too much at stake for me to be stupid and allow the guy to hurt me. I’ve got this, I promise.”

  “Oh, Sades, I wish I could believe you.”

  * * *

  Ronan asked Joa for a meeting to discuss his lack-of-nanny situation and, as per his instructions, Joa walked down the icy path running along the side of Ronan’s house and gingerly climbed the steps leading up to the pretty entertainment area off the kitchen. The steps were like oiled glass and her feet felt disconnected from her body.