by Anthology
“How was your day?” he asks between kisses. His cold hands slip beneath my shirt and I hiss and draw back, but he just laughs and presses harder against my skin. “Just wait a minute. You’re so warm and I’m so cold. Warm me up.”
His hand rises to cup my breast, and I’m not wearing a bra since I’m already in my pajamas.
“Mmm,” he hums. “That feels nice and soft.” He sweeps a thumb across my nipple. “Except right there. That feels kind of hard.” He flings my pajama top up and takes my nipple into his mouth.
“Easy,” I say. “They’re a little tender.”
He hums around my nipple, tugging it gently now. “It’s not that time of the month.”
“No…” I wince. “I haven’t had one of those in a couple of months.”
His head jerks up. “What?”
“Umm…”
“Oh, God, Madison,” he rushes to say. He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “A couple of months?”
“You’ve pretty much been inside me at least once a day for the past few months, you idiot.” I push back from him. “You should know this as well as I do!”
“Hell, I just thought I was lucky!” he yells.
“Well, you can forget about getting lucky ever again!” I yell back. Tears sting my eyes but I refuse to cry in front of him. I go to the bedroom and slam and lock the door.
He pounds on the door. “Madison? I’m sorry. Can you let me in?”
“Go away!”
“I’m not going away! Let me in!”
“What are you going to do? Huff and puff and blow the door down? I’d like to see you try!”
“Madison, open the damn door.”
“This isn’t my fault!” I cry. “It’s all because of that overactive penis of yours!”
“My penis is not overactive,” he grumbles at me through the crack in the door. “And if my penis is overactive, then so is your vagina.”
I fling the door open. “Don’t you dare refer to my vagina like that! The only time it’s active is when you’re in it, you asshole!” I slam the door shut again.
I sniffle and I guess he hears me because his voice gets soft. “Sweetheart, are you crying?”
“You’re talking shit about my vagina!” I yell back.
He talks through the crack in the door. “Will you let me in if I promise not to talk about your vagina anymore?”
I sink down with my back to the door and I catch a tear as it rolls down my cheek, swiping it away.
“Madison?” he says, and I can tell he’s down on my level. “Please let me in.”
“I was really happy,” I say quietly.
“I can’t hear you.”
“I was really happy!” I shout.
“I heard you that time,” he calls out. “Why were you happy?”
“Because all I could think was that we had made something special together. And I was so excited to tell you. But then you had to go and warm your fucking hands on my boobs. And they’re sore all the time, and you didn’t even know it.”
The door cracks open and he sticks his hand in, then shoves it a little harder, his movements soft and slow but powerful. Finally he sits in front of me so that we’re knee to knee. “Madison…”
“Don’t talk about my vagina,” I say over a sniffle.
“I love your vagina, sweetheart. In fact, I’d like to say hello to it right now, but I doubt that’s on the table.” He brushes my hair back from my face. “You surprised me, that’s all.” His voice is soft and low, like he’s trying to soothe a wild beast.
“How did you want me to tell you?” I modulate my voice so every syllable comes out distinctly. “I’m preg-nant, you ass-hole.”
He gathers me up and pulls me into his lap. I curl into him, because there’s nowhere else I want to be.
“Are you angry at me?” I whisper.
He sets me back so he can look into my face for a second. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m not angry at you. It’s not like you got pregnant all by yourself.” He chuckles.
“I’m pretty sure you were in the room,” I mutter against his chest. I wait a beat. “You sure you’re not angry?”
“I’m not angry.” He cuddles me tighter. He goes still. “Are you angry? Angry that I didn’t take better care of you, preventing all this?”
“I was happy,” I whisper. “Until you came home and you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t unhappy. I was just stunned. And in my head, I was planning all the ways we can both stay in school, and when we can get married, and—”
I sit back. “Married?”
“Yes. Married.” Each word is its own punctuation. “You will marry me. My kid will have a mother and a father. And my name. And all my love. Well, all my kid-love. You have all the rest of it.”
Tears roll down my cheeks and I clench my fists in his shirt to wipe my face on it. “You want to marry me?”
He reaches into his pocket. “I wish I’d been able to ask you before all this.” He holds out a small wrapped package.
“What’s this?” I take it and heft it in my hand.
“It’s your Christmas present.” He nudges me. “Open it.”
“It’s not Christmas yet.”
“Open it!” he mock-yells.
“Okay, okay!” I cry. “If you’re going to nag me, I’m going to open it!”
I tear off the paper and flip open the lid. Inside, there’s a tiny diamond, set in an engagement ring. “I didn’t have a lot of money,” he says. “Later on, we can get a bigger one.” His brow furrows. “Do you hate it?”
I shake my head, so overcome with emotion that I can barely speak. “I love it.” I shove it back at him. “But I can’t accept it.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because I will forever be the girl who got married because she got knocked up if I take that.” I shake my head. “Nope. I can’t do it.”
He sighs. “I should have seen it. All the signs were there.” He flips me onto my back, yanking my pajama top over my head during my fall. I cross my arms over my naked breasts. He pulls them back, looking down at me. “Your body has been changing. I noticed. Your boobs are bigger. And your nipples are harder and more sensitive.” He blows across my nipple, and then takes it gently into his mouth. He talks in my ear. “And the other day, when I was taking you from behind, you complained about your boobs hurting, and I had to let you get on top. Do you remember?”
His words are soft, and he keeps talking as he hooks his fingers in the hips of my pajama bottoms, pulling them down along with my panties.
His hand covers my belly. “Our kid is in there,” he says.
I look at his face, and I see that he’s blinking back emotion. “Are you scared?”
“Scared I can’t take care of you both? Yes. Scared of you and me and our baby together? No. Never. I want a family with you. I always have. I just wasn’t planning on it happening so soon.”
“It’s all my vagina’s fault.” I chuckle over the emotion that wants to slip from my body.
“And my penis had something to do with it.”
“Sneaky bastard,” I whisper.
He grins. “My penis wants to celebrate with your vagina.”
“Can we celebrate right now?”
He laughs and carries me to the bed.
When we’re both sated, he covers my belly with the flat of his hand. “I thought I was happy, with there being just the two of us,” he says. “But three is even better.” He looks into my eyes. “What do you think? Boy or girl?”
“I have names already picked out for both,” I tell him.
He laughs. “So I don’t get a say in any of it?”
“Nope.”
“So, what will the names be?” His fingers tickle across the baby bump that’s not even evident yet.
“Reagan if it’s a girl. Lincoln if it’s a boy.” I stare at him and wait for his response.
“Presidents?”
“Give them something they have to live up to.” I say
with a chuckle. “I’m named after Madison. My grandfather is Grant.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Did he seriously just agree with me about something?
“Okay,” he says again. He whispers at me. “Hey.”
“What?” I whisper back.
“Do you think your vagina would consider my penis overactive if he was ready to go again?”
“I think my vagina would be delighted.” I laugh as he pulls me on top of him and lowers me to take him inside. I hiss out a breath.
“You’re going to marry me,” he warns as he raises his hips, hitting the perfect spot inside me.
“Okay. Just be still and let me come first.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After a few minutes, I fall onto his chest, completely satisfied and ready for a nap. But I feel him sliding the ring he gave me onto my ring finger. I close my fingers once he has slid it on. “Yes,” I say, and I yawn.
“Best Christmas ever,” Bob says as he pulls the covers over us both.
He wraps around me, one hand cupping my sore boob and the other covering the baby we made, the new life we created, the promise that we are and will be more than we had ever hoped to become.
About the Author
More from Tammy Falkner in the Reed Brothers Series
Tall, Tatted, and Tempting (FREE!)
Smart, Sexy, and Secretive
Calmly, Carefully, Completely
Just Jelly Beans and Jealousy (FREE!)
Finally Finding Faith
Reagan’s Revenge and Ending Emily’s Engagement
Maybe Matt’s Miracle
Proving Paul’s Promise
Only One
Beautiful Bride
Zip, Zero, Zilch
Christmas with the Reeds
Good Girl Gone
While We Waited
Holding Her Hand (October 28, 2015)
Underneath My Christmas Tree
by Tawdra Kandle
Copyright © 2015 by Tawdra Kandle
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Chapter 1
Friday before Thanksgiving
Elizabeth
“Hey! Lady, didn’t you hear me knocking?”
With no little effort, I pulled my eyes from the computer screen and looked toward my office door, frowning. “What? No. I’m sorry, what do you want?”
For the millionth time, I kicked myself for not hiring a secretary, let alone a receptionist. When Darcy had talked me into moving to Florida to be her law partner, she’d also convinced me that with our computer skills, we didn’t need to hire an office staff yet. Pretty sure she was wrong.
The man standing in the doorway was staring at me as though I’d lost my mind. He was in jeans so faded they were barely blue and so tight they didn’t leave much to my imagination. His gray T-shirt fit pretty damn well, too. But it was the scowl on his face that grabbed my attention.
“Is that your Beamer out there in the parking lot?” He hooked a thumb in the direction of building’s front door.
“Uh, well, yes, if you mean the dark blue one. Oh, God, did you hit it?” Dismay filled me; I didn’t have time to deal with a wrecked car today.
“No, I didn’t hit it.” If it were possible, the guy looked even less friendly. More annoyed. “It’s in the way.”
“I’m sorry, in the way of what now?” My finger twitched over the keyboard. I really needed to get this motion finished.
He stuck his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and leaned against the door jam. “We’re trying to set up the tent for the trees, and your car is the only one that wasn’t moved.”
A vague memory sparked in my mind of an email from Logan Holt, reminding all of his building’s tenants to park on the side instead of out front. Was that today?
“Trees?” I blinked at the man in my doorway.
“Christmas trees.” He spoke slowly, as though to help me understand. “We’re selling Christmas trees. We drove all the way down from Michigan, we got a tent to put up and a tractor-trailer full of trees, and your car is the only one in our way. Can you move it?”
I looked down at the computer screen. “Damn, it’s almost four.” Adrenaline surged through my veins, and I fought to keep my hands from shaking with it. “Listen, I’m sorry about that. About the car. But I’m under a time crunch here. I have to have this motion finished and delivered to the judge’s office in forty-five minutes, or I’m screwed. The keys are in my purse, hanging on the hook behind that door. Can you possibly move it for me?”
The man squinted at me. “You want me to go through your handbag and drive your car?”
I tossed up my hands. “Listen, buddy, right now, this motion is all I can think about. Go through my purse. Help yourself to any cash. Check out all my personal stuff. Tampons are in the zippered pocket. Do whatever you need to do, but just let me finish this.”
He stared at me a minute more, and I made a noise in the back of my throat meant to convey exasperation before I turned my attention back to the computer screen. In one part of my distracted consciousness, I heard him muttering to himself as he dug through my purse, but I tuned out all other noise and focused.
Thirty minutes later, I leaned over and tugged the final page from the printer tray. Shrugging into my suit jacket—Judge Gardiner was a stickler for propriety in all things—I grabbed my handbag from the hook behind the door and spent the next two minutes digging through it, looking for my car keys before I remembered.
Damn.
I slammed my office door behind me, not bothering to lock it. I wasn’t going to be gone long, and Crystal Cove wasn’t exactly the crime capital of Florida. Plus Logan and his admin were still upstairs, and the people who worked in the title company office here on the first floor would be around for a while longer.
Sliding sunglasses over my eyes, I stepped outside, and for a moment, I was disoriented: the warmth of late afternoon confirmed that I was still in Florida, but the almost overwhelming scent of pine made me feel like Vermont might’ve moved in next door. Christmas trees were everywhere: under the huge tent that took up most of our parking lot, leaning against the front of our building and some still in the truck. Two men were hefting the trees onto their shoulders and moving them into the tent.
I glanced around, looking for the guy who’d taken my keys. When I finally spotted him in the far corner of the tent, working the stump of a six-footer into the square of a makeshift stand, I practically sprinted over to him.
“Hey. I need my keys.” I thrust out of my hand, as though he might simply deposit them there.
He grunted and looked at me over his shoulder, that same frown from earlier still wrinkling his forehead. “Huh? What’re you talking about? Joe brought you back your keys.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know who Joe is, but no one returned them. And I’m in a hurry. I need to get—”
“Yeah, yeah, to the courthouse.” He gave the tree a small shake, testing its stability, I guessed, and then pushed himself to stand. I realized he was a good head taller than me. “I remember. I moved your car, and then I gave Joe the keys and told him to run them back inside to you.”
“He didn’t.” Nervous tension made me feel like I was about to jump out of my skin, and I shifted my weight from foot to foot.
“Are you sure? I mean, you were pretty much zoned out when I came in, so maybe he dropped them on your desk and you didn’t even notice.”
A moment of doubt flittered over me, but I shook my head. “No, I would’ve seen him. And the keys weren’t there.” I didn’t think they were, anyway.
“Well, hell.” He scowled even more, which I hadn’t thought was possible. “He must’ve gotten sidetracked and forgot.”
“Okay, fine. It happens. I get it. Where’s Joe now? I’ll just find him, get the keys and be out of your way.” I took a step backwards, ready to dart away.
“Shit.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Joe just ran over to check us all in at the motel. He won’t be back for at least twenty minutes. Maybe half an hour.”
I felt the familiar and maddening prickle of tears at the back of my eyes. Crying when I was angry or frustrated wasn’t anything I could control, and it pissed the hell out of me when it happened.
I turned my head, but not fast enough that he didn’t see my face. “Hey, hey. Don’t start that. It’s okay. I’ll, ah . . .” He shoved one hand into the pocket of his jeans. “Here. Take my truck. It’s parked right over there.” Pointing to the far edge of the parking lot, he picked up my hand and closed my fingers around a small set of keys.
“Are you sure?” I wanted to be polite, to do the typical oh-no-I-couldn’t-possibly-impose deal, but in the back of my head, all I could hear was a loudly ticking clock.
“Yeah. Just don’t lock the driver’s side door, because it doesn’t work. Oh, and you drive stick, right?”
My heart sank. “No. I mean, in theory I know how—I had a boyfriend once who—but no. I don’t think I can.”
The guy muttered something dark under his breath. “Fine. Come on.” He snatched the keys out of my hand and strode away, leaving me to scurry after him.
“Hey, hold up!” I paused just long enough to kick off my heels, scoop them up and run over the asphalt, hissing as the small pebbles bit into my tender feet. “Are you sure you don’t mind—”
“Do you have another solution? I don’t know where your courthouse is, but unless you can run there, I’d say you need me.” He stopped at the passenger side of the old blue truck and wrenched open the door. When he caught sight of me wincing my way toward him, his eyebrows shot up, and he shook his head. “Yeah, looks like the running idea isn’t going to work. Get in.”
I climbed into the cab as my driver—whose name I still didn’t know, I realized—jogged to the other side, got in and slammed the door. I barely had my seat belt buckled when he threw the truck into reverse and then gunned it toward the exit.