by Amy Fetzer
"God, I love how you blush," he said on a laugh, then leaned closer. "What do you taste like, I wonder?"
"Sugar and spice?" she said.
"Have I mentioned I like spice? Lots of it," he said with a velvety look.
Her heart pounded with the idea of Chase tasting every inch of her. Slowly.
The umpire called for a batter.
"Go play, little boy," she said, giving him a shove, but Chase brushed a kiss to her knuckles before he turned away, his cleats digging into the dirt. Her gaze unwillingly dropped from his wide shoulders to his tight behind shifting in the dark uniform trousers. Nice, Madison, real nice, she thought and stayed there for a moment, suddenly feeling a hundred pairs of eyes drilling into the back of her head. She didn't want to turn around and see the faces of parents. While she was worried earlier about explaining him to her friends, she hadn't thought of how her very pregnant presence here could affect his position as peewee coach. Their dating, if that's what one could call the progression of their odd relationship, wasn't easily explained. But in the next instant, Tessa didn't care. She hadn't listened to anyone but herself since her divorce and she wasn't going to let a few curious stares get to her. She knew she'd been uptight about their situation and anyone discovering the means of her pregnancy, but things had changed. Their relationship had shifted, somehow felt more secure. She was proud of her child and her feelings for Chase and as she returned to her seat in the stands, she smiled to herself.
Well, for heaven's sake. She didn't know exactly when it had happened, but she'd fallen hard for that man. Or rather tripped, she thought with a dose of reality, her heart tumbling into the hands of a smiling engineer. He'd wormed his way into her life with all the finesse of a Brahman bull, bossy and determined, and she couldn't go a minute without thinking about him, about kissing him or feeling the warmth of his arms around her. For the past several days they'd spent only small amounts of time together, nothing like in the storeroom, yet it was time filled with more than getting to know him, but getting to love him. She leaned forward and braced her elbows on her knees, her eyes on him and not the game.
Oh, God.
Did she?
Something else stuck her just as quickly. Did he love her? Was their relationship progressing because of their child or in spite of it? If the baby wasn't between them, would she feel this good about him? She let the questions torment her for all of ten minutes, then decided there was nothing she could do about it. She wasn't honestly certain she loved him at all, or whether what she was feeling was simply because he was a great guy or her child's natural father. Yet when the whistle blew at the end of the game, Tessa pushed her uncertainties aside and met him at the dugout. He was shoving equipment into a heavy canvas sack.
"I'll catch you later," she said.
He straightened and frowned. "You're leaving?" She liked the almost childlike disappointment in his eyes.
"I thought you'd go celebrate." She waved to the dozen eight-year-old boys ribbing each other over their victory.
"Not till the championship. And that's only if they work hard," he said, loudly enough to get their attention. The boys looked up at him as if he were a god, waiting. "Now, that was giving one hundred percent, guys." A collective grin spread through the group. "I'm proud of you. Now go." He inclined his head and they took off.
Parents passed him, herding their children toward the cars as Chase slung the long sack over his shoulder and accepted congratulations, dumping all the praise back on their kids. When she tried to slip away, he caught her, slinging his arm over her shoulder. He introduced her to the parents as they walked to their cars, ignoring their curious stares, keeping the conversation light. Tessa realized that Chase Madison wasn't offering anyone a piece of his private life.
And she loved him for it.
He stowed his gear, searching the lot for her Jeep. "I walked."
He blinked. "That's got to be five miles."
"Four and six-tenths. Give me a lift back?" He grinned, and she cupped his jaw, giving it a shake. "You are so readable, Chase Madison."
He covered her hand with his, puckering his lips. "Read this?"
She kissed him, then opened his car door and climbed in. "I'm hungry."
"You're always hungry."
"Don't you think you should feed me?"
His piercing gaze caressed her hotly. "I want to do more than feed you, woman," he murmured in a husky voice.
"Chase!"
"Yes," he said innocently.
"That was … ah—?"
"True." He shut the door and within minutes they were heading down the street toward his house. He needed a shower, and though she liked a little sweat on a man, dripping with it was a bit much. She wanted to see his place anyway and was surprised by the modest Cape Cod.
"Before you ask, no, I didn't build it. Janis owned it."
Bitterness weighed his tone, and, once inside, she asked about it.
"I was trying to sell it when I found out about the baby. I decided to hold on to it, rent it maybe."
"That's not what I meant. You have a lot of hate inside you for her."
Chase removed his cleats and crossed the living room, not answering. Finally he dropped the shoes into a wooden box inside the hall closet and shut the door.
"Tessa, I have something to tell you, and, well—"
Her heart jumped to her throat and stayed there. "Just say it, Chase."
"Janis was the administrator of the fertility clinic."
"I know."
He looked at her, his brows high.
"Dia mentioned it. And yes, I thought that she had a hand in the mix-up, but what does it matter now? Blaming her or blaming anyone doesn't change this." She patted her tummy.
"I hate to think she did it to you just to get back at me. She knew how much I wanted to be a dad."
She spoke as she crossed to him. "If she did, it backfired." He met her gaze and she thought he looked a little lost right now. Brushing damp hair off his forehead, she whispered. "You are going to be a dad, Chase."
His gaze swept her face and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her gently against him. "I want to be more than that, Tessa." Before she could respond, he kissed her, so thick and heavy she felt her knees soften and her body spring to life. Then he released her and went down the hall, stripping off his shirt. She fell back against the wall and signed, and a moment later heard the shower running.
She closed her eyes, her mind conjuring the image of him stripping down to his skin, stepping beneath the spray, lathering that fantastic body, and before she went into his room to see the sight for real, she turned back down the hall.
A little imagination was a dangerous thing, she thought. She strolled through the house, noting paraphernalia from his time in the Marines, trophies, photos of his family.
Something struck her odd about a woman she thought was his mother, but she couldn't place it.
Stacks of baby books and parenting magazines littered the coffee table. A page was marked in one and she flipped it open, her body doing strange things at the illustration of a man making love to a pregnant woman. Even as she thought of doing that with him, it scared her, made her face burn with embarrassment. She knew he was only thinking of her. It was a shocking thought—how much one man could care—and she wondered about his faults, the temper he claimed was ferocious. She didn't want to see it.
She closed the book and glanced around the living room. The furniture was classic, modular, his collection of audio and video electronic equipment astounding. And he was right about his taste in movies, she thought, running her fingers along the videotape spines. He liked the blood-and-guts sort of stuff. Yuck. It was a rather impersonal place, serviceable, but a man's home, lacking in anything soft or frivolous. It was as if he'd stripped his ex-wife from the interior. Even in the kitchen.
"Foraging?"
She flinched, whirling around to face him. "No, snooping."
Her gaze shot instantly to the towel w
rapped around his hips and, more important, to the bulge between his thighs.
Her cheeks reddened. "Chase, put some clothes on, for heaven's sake."
"No." Belligerent, with a teasing smile. He stood just outside the kitchen door, toweling his hair dry.
She turned away. "Please." Before I rip off that towel, she thought.
"Scare you?" he said, suddenly close to her ear.
She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. "Hardly."
"Excite you?" he asked hopefully. She felt his fingers brush stray hairs off her neck, his breath replacing his touch. He was naked behind her. His mouth pressed to her throat, and all Tessa could think was how erotic he looked in that towel, droplets of water on his chest, the trail of hair marking a path down his stomach to the edge of green terry cloth. The goody line, her sister used to call it.
"Chase?"
"Humm?"
His arms slipped around her from behind, his hands gliding down over her tummy, caressing her thighs, fingertips dipping precariously between, then sliding up like a drape of warm velvet over her skin. She pressed back into him, his warmth. His arousal pushed and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, covering his hands with her own as they swept up to cup her breasts. His touch was gentle and tender, but her body begged for the strength of his passion.
"I remember what you feel like, angel." His thumbs brushed her nipples. "What you smell like."
She turned in his arms, cupping his jaw and covering his mouth with hers.
Chase moaned, twisting to brace himself against the counter. He needed the support. She was coming apart on him and he pushed his knee between her legs, urging her closer. Her breathing hastened, and she sank her fingers into his hair, stroked them over his shoulders. Her urgent whimpers were driving him over the edge and when she slid her hands down to caress his nipples, Chase wanted to devour her whole.
Tessa loved the dusting of hair roughening beneath her fingertips, rubbing against her legs, and when his muscles flinched to her touch as she grazed his ribs, she couldn't resist teasing him again.
"Tessa, oh God." His mouth covered hers again, rolling and lush, his hardness warm and insistent between them. His hands, callused and heavy, moved beneath her shirt, and when hers mapped a path to his hip, dangerously close to the heat of him, Tessa drew back to look in his eyes.
His expression was laced with anticipation and she was screwing up her nerve to pull the towel away when her stomach growled rudely.
He blinked, looking down at her tummy as it voiced its emptiness again.
She dropped her forehead to his chest, her shoulders shaking with a soft chuckle. Chase laughed on a deep breath, rubbing her back, and when she tilted her head he saw apprehension in her gaze, a flicker of relief. He gritted his teeth and set her from him.
He looked down at the tenting of his towel and laughed. "A regular state around you, you know."
Tessa's mouth quivered with a smile and she tried to keep her gaze elsewhere but it wouldn't obey. "Oh my, my, my," she marveled, and this time Chase blushed. "I'm so sorry."
"No, you're not," he said, not unkindly.
He was right. It did something wonderful to her ego to know he was that aroused after one kiss.
"I'll feed you two in a minute. First I need another shower."
She sank back against the counter, swallowing repeatedly, then searched the cabinets for a glass, filling it to the rim and draining it. She was sitting on the sofa, her feet propped up, when he returned, damp and dressed, a suggestive smile on his lips.
He offered his hand, pulling her from the sofa and into his arms. "Come on. I have to get you out of here and at least a mile from a bed, or I'll do my best to start that," he nodded to the kitchen, "again."
Tessa felt a hot wave of desire spirit through her and deep inside she knew that there was more than just her good sense holding her back. She didn't really want this man to get his first look at her naked, while she was six months pregnant.
Chase felt it. The sexual tension. It spread like a thick blanket around them, as if the moments shared in his kitchen were relived every time they looked at or touched each other. Nothing seemed to penetrate the heavy fog of memory. It was two days since that encounter and Chase felt like a wild animal near Tessa. Her scent, the way she looked at him as if she knew his thoughts, kept pressing the image of her responses into his brain like a tape on continuous replay. Her hair, twisted in a soft chignon, begged to be let down, spread across his pillow. Her taut body, scented with cinnamon and always clothed in something feminine and seductive, tormented him, her every gesture and nuance rich with sensuality.
She had no idea how crazy she made him.
Now, in the Lamaze class, of all places, Chase could hardly control his hands, accidentally brushing her breast and aching to feel her bare skin beneath his palm, his lips. He massaged a cramp from her thigh and imagined them wrapped around him, their softness sliding luxuriously against his legs. Her secret smiles were torture, and later, as they drove to her house from the community center, Chase could think of nothing but holding her in his arms. All night.
And when she opened her door and turned to him, any gallant notion he harbored vanished and he pulled her tightly to him, kissing her till her knees softened.
"Chase. Please." She pulled back, breathless.
"Please what? Please leave?" he whispered in her ear. "Please stay?"
"I don't know," she cried against his mouth, hooking the waistband of his jeans and tugging him into her house. He shut the door, falling back against it, and kissed her again and again, his hands skating roughly down her back, over her trim hips to cup her bottom. The hard press of his thighs meshed to hers like the scrape of rough wool, driving hunger to the surface, and she whimpered against his mouth, straining to get closer. She couldn't.
"I … I can't do this," she said, pushing herself out of his arms.
"Tessa?" He caught her back and held her. "We won't do anything you don't want. A few more cold showers aren't going to hurt me."
"I know and I'm sorry. I feel like a tease, if you can believe that."
He pushed his fingers into her hair, dislodging hairpins, his palms framing her face. "I want you, Tessa. You. I want to taste your breasts," he said into her mouth. "I want to feel your legs holding me, your mouth on me." His voice lowered to a husky pitch. "I want to feel you grow hot and wet before you take me inside you."
A strangled sound worked in her throat, her breathing labored. "You're not being fair."
"Do you want me, Tessa? If you say no, I'll leave, but I'll know it's a lie."
She gazed into his cobalt blue eyes. "So will I."
He kissed her lids closed and felt her sigh feather across his skin. "That's all that matters. No, don't talk. Just feel for once. I won't hurt you," he said advancing. "I swear, angel."
His mouth covered hers, the passion rising like oil to the surface. Her mouth pushed harder to his, her hands sweeping his jacket off his shoulders to the floor. The simple disrobing was an offer of trust, and Chase swore he'd move carefully. Prayed he could. He wanted her so badly. Needed her too much. He back-stepped, tugging her across the living room and down the hall, his mouth rolling over hers. He knew which room was hers without looking, the scent of her, of cinnamon and spice, drew him there.
Pulling her inside, he kissed her a moment longer before she switched on a small lamp. Chase looked at the room caught in the soft yellow glow and his jaw dropped. He should have known. A four-poster canopy bed, draped in deep mauve silks, curtained with netting and yards of fabric dramatically entwined around the posters and canopy. It was a bed made for loving Tessa.
He looked at her and she smiled shyly. And as he wondered what other secrets he'd discover this night, she started for the bathroom. He caught her hand.
"I need a minute," she said, and he let her go. Chase brushed back the curtain of the bed, securing it on the hook fashioned in the post and thought he'd bust down the door if she didn't come
out soon. Then she did.
She was wrapped in a dark maroon satin robe, the outline of her body enticingly clear. She was bare beneath. He met her gaze and saw the apprehension there and wondered if it mirrored his own. He suddenly felt inadequate.
"I haven't been with a woman since Janis," he said suddenly.
She blinked. That had to be nearly eighteen months because Janis had been dead almost a year.
"When we decided on surrogates, she felt, I guess, that the prospect of fatherhood would take care of my—needs." Bitterness tinted his tone, an embarrassed flush creeping up his neck.
A little smile curved her lips, swollen red from his kisses. "And did it?"
"Not then." He chuckled shortly, remembering the nights he'd spent just imagining being with her, so aroused he couldn't think or sleep. Then there were the cold showers, he thought with a velvety look down her body. "And definitely not now." When she wouldn't take his offered hand, he frowned softly.
After a few false starts she said, "I feel very unsexy right now."
He came to her, gathering her in his arms, his mouth brushing over her lids, her cheeks, then covering hers. He didn't offer words, for they wouldn't convince her she was the sexiest creature alive. So Chase showed her.
He kissed her throat, his hands stroking her body, fingertips dipping and brushing in every curve till she arched against him, till she responded with touches of her own. She caught his belt buckle, flipping it open, and his hands shimmered over her hair, her shoulders, as she pulled his T-shirt from his jeans with seductive care. She peeled it off over his head, her mouth immediately covering his nipple, her tongue circling the flat coin before she brought her mouth to his.
Then he realized she was shaking.
Turning her toward the cheval mirror in the corner, he stood behind her. She wouldn't look at herself, and he kissed the back of her neck and loosened the sash.
"I'd rather we did this in the dark," she said truthfully.
"I want to see you."