Thanks to their short legs, they didn’t get far. Holly easily caught up with us while pulling the wagon behind her.
We led the boys to the grizzly bear exhibit. Tomas got excited when he saw one and yelled, “Bear!”
“No.”
Holly knelt in front of Mikko. “Do you want me to lift you up to see him?”
Mikko flung himself at her. “No.”
Smiling, she scooped him up and straightened to stand. “Do you see the bear over there?” She pointed at the bear who was lying by the pond, checking out his reflection.
“No,” Mikko yelled, pointing at the animal.
“What an adorable family,” a woman next to us, with chin length gray hair, said. Her gaze dropped to Holly’s belly. “Are you having twins again—or just one this time?”
A light blush hit Holly’s cheeks. “We’re not a family,” she blurted. “We’re just babysitting the boys.”
The woman chuckled. “Well, you’re certainly not babysitting the baby, are you?”
“No, he’s definitely ours,” Holly said.
“Then you’re a family. Even if you two aren’t married, you’re still a family.” To me she said, “I hope you realize how lucky you are, young man.”
“I do.” Okay, lucky wasn’t exactly how I would describe our situation. None of this had been planned.
But since Holly had given me a chance to prove I wasn’t a mess-up like my old man, I was lucky if that was what the woman meant.
I leaned down and lightly pressed my lips against Holly’s to show her just how lucky I felt. It was just the brushing of lips, but it was enough to ignite a fire low in my belly.
Not the kind of fire that usually led to sex. This was different—I just had no idea what it meant.
Tomas spotted the nearby bench and hoisted himself onto it. I picked him up and pretended he was a plane. But the moment I stopped making the airplane noises, he squirmed to be put down.
I lowered him to the ground and threw Holly a What-now? look.
“Please tell me this gets easier once it’s your own kid?” Holly said to no one in particular.
The woman chuckled again and patted Holly’s stomach. “Don’t worry, you get better at it with practice. I had four kids before I finally got it right.”
She laughed at Holly’s horrified expression—which no doubt matched my own. “I was kidding. I mean, not the part about four kids. I had five actually. But everyone starts off feeling like they have no idea what they’re doing. That’s probably why we give birth to helpless newborns instead of toddlers.”
Two hours later, we dropped off two very sleepy twins.
“Congratulations,” Jyri said, holding on to Mikko. The boy’s eyes were closed, his head resting on his father’s shoulder. “You’re now officially a member of HDF.”
Kari rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that,” she said to Holly. “You’re going to be at the team barbecue next Saturday, right? It’s a great chance for you to meet the wives and girlfriends.”
Holly slid me a look that had so much meaning.
Oops. All right. That was the PG version of what I was really thinking. Along with me calculating if I had earned enough brownie points yet to make up for my royal fuck up.
“We’ll be there,” I told Kari with a confident smile.
Holly didn’t look so confident.
19
Holly
“Instead of your apartment,” Josh said as we walked along the path to my car after dropping the twins off, “how about we go to mine?”
I almost stumbled at his question.
Guess how many times I’ve been to his apartment?
That’s right. Never. He’d always come to my place. Every. Single. Time.
I mean, if you didn’t count when I picked him up to go to the airport when we went to Australia, and then this morning when we went to the zoo. Both times he was waiting for me outside the building.
“So has the hazmat team deemed it livable? Is that why it took so long for you to invite me there?”
He rolled his eyes. “It just seemed more convenient to go to your apartment. It’s closer to your job.” He had a point. But it wasn’t closer to where he trained during the off-season.
“I for one am excited to finally see your place. And I’m sure Junior is as well. Or he will be once he’s born.” I pressed the key fob to unlock the car doors.
“Now that we know the gender, maybe it’s time we decide on a name for him. Because no way in hell are we calling him Josh Junior.”
I giggled. “How about Josh the Second?” I asked as I opened my door.
“And definitely not that!”
Had to agree with him there.
“I’m sorry I forgot to mention the barbecue,” he said at one point as we drove to his building.
Had it hurt when I first heard about it? Damn right it had. It was one more pain-in-the-arse reminder that I was just the dumb friend who had accidentally conceived his baby.
Yes, cue the violin music…and throw in a cello for added effect.
“That’s okay,” I said, sounding anything but okay. It was a good thing I hadn’t dreamed of one day making it big in Hollywood.
“I had meant to tell you, but then you reminded me about the ultrasound and the barbecue slipped my mind.”
“You know what you should do? Program reminders into your phone. That’s what I do.” My phone was always buzzing to tell me what was next on my to-do list.
Much to Trent’s amusement.
Now if only I had scheduled “Pick up new condoms.”
Guilt kicked me in the butt for even thinking that. Along with…
“Ohmigod,” I whispered, “I think the baby just kicked.” I placed my fingers where I had felt the faint movement. Like bubbles.
“Hopefully that doesn’t mean he’s going to play soccer instead of hockey,” Josh said with a laugh.
“Would that be a problem if he did?” I asked, hand back on the steering wheel. The kicking sensation had already vanished—much to my disappointment.
“Not at all. If he doesn’t want to play sports and would rather spend the day playing with a calculator, I’d be fine with that too.”
“Ha ha. I don’t spend my day playing with a calculator.” I usually spent two-thirds of the day playing with it, but he didn’t need to know that.
“I just want him to be happy with whatever he chooses to do. I don’t want him feeling like he has to follow through on my dreams. He gets to have his own.”
My ovaries melted at his words. Chalk it up as one more thing Josh and I had in common. We were both products of our own parents’ expectations.
“Do you enjoy playing hockey?” I asked as we pulled up to his apartment building. It was newly constructed, modern, and the rents were probably astronomical.
“I do,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. It’s my life. Turn right here.” He pointed to the entrance of visitor parking. “In the end, my father got that part right.”
I parked the car in a vacant spot, and Josh showed me around his building. And color me jealous. Hello, state-of-the-art fitness center. The building reminded me of Trent’s condo—designed for professionals, especially those without kids.
Remember how I wasn’t a spontaneous person—unless alcohol was added to the mix? I was a planner, and proud of it. But there was one thing I hadn’t given much thought to. Care to venture a guess?
That’s right. Josh and I had yet to discuss how things would work when it came to Josh, Junior, and me.
“So, this is it,” Josh said as we stepped into the living room of his spacious one-bedroom apartment. The black granite counter was the only thing separating the living room from the kitchen.
“It’s gorgeous.” Gorgeous? Was that the right adjective for the chocolate brown walls and furniture that was modern, simple, and masculine—completely masculine?
Several dozen model cars were lined up on the glass bookshelves against on
e wall. Many of them were of classic cars from decades ago—cars that my brothers would’ve got hard-ons just thinking about.
“Are these the ones you made?” I asked, studying them. He nodded. “They’re amazing, and the details are incredible.” I examined what I recognized to be a classic model Bentley.
Like the model cars, the rest of the apartment was organized and tidy.
Surprised? Don’t be—check out his bedroom first.
“Wow, were there any survivors?” I snickered while doing my best not to cringe at the mess in his room. In contrast to the rest of the apartment, it was like stepping into Opposite Land. Anything that dared to be messy—clothes, bedding, car magazines—came here to die in peace.
“A woman comes in weekly and cleans the apartment,” Josh said, scanning the messy room.
“But there’s a major force field preventing her from entering your room?” I asked.
“What can I say? A guy likes his privacy.”
What he really meant was that this was his man domain, and no woman had better disturb it. Although from what Trent had told me, none of Josh’s one-night stands had been inside the apartment. I was the rare exception.
“Out of curiosity,” I said, “how exactly do you see things working between us when it comes to the baby?”
“What do you mean?”
An image of a family flashed in my head. A family who all lived together. A family with a father who read a bedtime story to his son every night and who was there if the child woke from a nightmare.
What did I long for? A family in which both parents loved each other and lived in the same home. I wanted to return from work every day and spend the evening with the two most important people in my life—my husband and my son.
I wanted a family that was the opposite of the one I grew up with. A family where the kids were loved unconditionally and respected.
The part about my lack of a husband? A minor detail. One I’d worry about later on.
“It’s just you don’t exactly live next door to me,” I explained. “During the off-season, you came over in the evenings for yoga and sex, and then you’d go home. But during hockey season, that won’t be possible.”
The cry of protest? That was the perma-ache between my legs. It had been busy appreciating the orgasms that had reset the earth’s trajectory around the sun. It had been too preoccupied to consider the implications of hockey season—until now.
“And what about when the baby is here?” I asked. “You’ll be away on the road. But when you’re not, when will we see you?”
From the way he flinched, I got the impression he hadn’t given this much thought. Josh wasn’t a planner. His ideal world was where he winged things.
But that wasn’t the world I lived in.
My world involved having a five-year plan.
My world involved planning for when I returned to work after my maternity leave.
My world involved researching how to be a good mother—because that was the kind of mother I wished to be.
“We’ll figure it out,” Josh said. “Until we get to that point, we won’t know what works best for everyone. It’s all speculation.” He kissed my temple—and it was as if he had magical powers, capable of soothing me.
They were awesome powers.
Maybe I should include them in my birth plan.
Josh’s magical powers or a freakishly large epidural needle stuck in my back? No-brainer right there.
He pulled me close. My body tingled with need, with desire, with love. Then his lips brushed against mine, melting away even more tension.
Wow, he was good.
“How about I make us dinner and then we can talk.” His hand caressed my belly as he kissed me once more. “Maybe we can start thinking about baby names.”
“Can I help with dinner?”
“Sure. Why don’t I put on some music first? Don’t suppose you like jazz?”
My mouth almost dropped open in the most unattractive way. “I love jazz. My grandmother used to play it all the time.”
Josh turned on the music. “Do you like chicken fajitas?”
“I love them.”
That got a grin out of him.
While Josh removed the ingredients from the fridge, he hummed. The humming then transformed into the same lyrics playing through the speakers.
Fuck. Me. Dead! The man had an amazing singing voice—as in, if the devil on my shoulder was giving the angel a hard time, he would be stunned into silence.
“I didn’t know you can sing.”
He frowned slightly. “I was singing?”
Smiling, I nodded. “You didn’t know you can sing?”
My favorite sexy smirk slid onto his face—and the ache between my legs released a heartfelt, I-don’t-suppose-we-can-have-sex-now sigh.
“Yes, I’m aware I can sing,” he said. “But usually I just do it when I’m alone, cooking, and listening to music. I guess it’s become a habit, and I don’t notice anymore when I’m doing it.”
“You should sing to the baby. He’d like that.” I did—so why wouldn’t Junior?
Smiling softly, Josh got down on his knee—and my heart just about stopped beating. He’s not proposing, you idiot, I reminded myself.
He began singing to my belly—the song currently playing. That sound? Don’t worry about it. It was my ovaries exploding. Bam.
I wasn’t the only one appreciating the song. The bubbling sensation in my lower belly from earlier returned. “He’s kicking again. I told you he’d love it.”
“Where?”
I placed Josh’s fingers on the spot where I’d felt the movement.
He kept singing, his attention on my stomach.
“Do you feel it?” I asked, suspecting he didn’t. It was too early in the pregnancy for anyone but me to notice.
He shook his head but kept singing, and my heart melted a little more. Would his dad have done this? To me this was proof that Josh was nothing like his father.
Not even close.
Tears misted my vision. Seriously, hormones? Couldn’t a girl get a bloody break?
Once the song finished, Josh pushed himself up to stand. Before he could say anything, my arms were around his neck and I was kissing him.
It started out tender. For about ten seconds. Then my hormones see-sawed the other way and the kiss became heated. If I wasn’t so busy kissing him, I would have scowled at the little buggers for the sudden case of whiplash.
But since I was preoccupied, I whimpered instead.
Dinner was quickly forgotten while my body hinted wildly in which direction it hoped the make-out session was headed. I pulled back, leaving a hair’s width between us, my breath ragged. “I need you inside me. Now.”
You remember in the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel when they left a trail of crumbs to help them find their way home after they were abandoned in the forest?
Just replace the crumbs with clothes, and you get the gist of what the living room looked like between the kitchen and the bedroom.
By the time we got to his bed, not a single scrap of fabric remained on our bodies.
Not a single piece of clothing separated me from how I felt about him. Seeing him sing to his unborn son pushed me further along the continuum of falling-in-love to I’ve-fallen.
But falling in love while you were pregnant was dangerous.
Maybe that should be a warning somewhere.
Like those billboards warning about unprotected sex—or the ones warning about expired condoms.
Right. Well, maybe the last one should be a warning. Somewhere.
But the point was, I was falling in love with someone who hadn’t planned to have kids or settle down—and my heart didn’t have protection from that.
We fell onto the bed, Josh bracing himself above me, keeping his weight off me. His fingers found my aching part, and mine found his hard length. Neither of us was going to last long. We were rushing too hard, too fast toward our ultimate goal.
&n
bsp; But just as I thought Josh would take me and finish the race to the end, he shifted direction. He pushed himself off me and started propping up pillows in the middle of the bed.
He then sat and crooked a finger at me to join him. The heated look in his eyes was almost my undoing. “How hungry are you?”
I chuckled. “I’m always hungry for you. You know that.”
He grinned, the heat turning to amusement. “I do know that. But I meant how hungry are you for dinner? I want you to ride me, slowly. I want to feel everything.”
His words surprised and confused me—we had been going sans condoms for several weeks now.
I straddled his hips, and lowered myself onto his hard length, inch by slow inch. He filled me in every possible way, and I took a moment to take it all in. The emotion—not just his cock.
Josh groaned—making me feel more powerful, more in control.
“Like that, do you?” I asked, barely keeping the building moan from my voice.
“Christ, I like everything about you.” He cupped the back of my neck and brought my head to his. Then he kissed me long and hard.
The ache between my legs decided enough was enough—it wanted in on the action too. With my gaze locked on Josh’s, I rocked my hips, slow and easy. We’d fucked lots of times since deciding my hyped-up libido warranted the friends-with-benefit arrangement. But this didn’t feel like any of those times.
It felt different. New.
It felt like hope and love and happiness were holding on tight for the ride.
With each movement of my slick heat against his length, I spiraled higher and higher. And unlike when we usually had sex, this wasn’t a quick rocket blast taking us to the heavens. It was a slow, sensual journey.
They say when you’re in love, sex is better, hotter, more satisfying—and for the first time since losing my virginity, I could see how that was true. Every centimeter of my body yearned for Josh. Every millimeter couldn’t imagine being without him.
Eventually, as we neared the peak, Josh placed his hands on my hips and helped me set a new pace. A faster one. One that would take us over the top. Together.
“Oh, God, I’m coming,” I gasped, body damp with sweat.
“Don’t hold back,” he groaned. “I’m right with you.”
Decidedly With Baby (By the Bay Book 2) Page 12