Prince and...Future Dad

by Christine Rimmer

  But there was no way she'd ever realize her ambitions if she married Finn and moved to Gullandria.

  She whispered, "One thing I do know…"

  He grabbed her hand and laid it flat against his hard chest. "How do you say it? Hit me with it. Right here."

  "Well, I just can't see … how it can work. No matter what happens, I'm not running off to live in your castle in Gullandria. I'm staying here. I'm finishing law school. I'm—"

  He put his finger to her lips again, signaling for silence. "I think 'I don't know' is enough for tonight."

  * * *

  The next night, he showed up at her door with a home pregnancy test kit tucked under one arm, the instruction sheet open in his hands. "Look, my love. It says here, 'Ninety-nine percent effective one day after—'"

  She took his arm, dragged him inside and firmly shut the door. "Where did you get that?"

  "Albertson's Food and Drug, it was called. The pharmacy section. The clerks there were marvelously helpful."

  "I'll bet." People—especially female people—fell all over themselves when Finn needed aid.

  "You didn't let me finish. It says, 'Ninety-nine percent effective one day after a missed menstrual period.'"

  "Oh, that's so lovely to know."

  He sent her a fond smile. "And when would that be—for you?"

  She wondered why she felt so resentful. It was a perfectly reasonable question, given the situation.

  "Liv?"

  "What?" It came out sounding much too hostile.

  He folded up the instruction sheet and set it and the kit on the entry hall table. Then he turned back to her and waited, arms crossed over that broad chest, feet planted wide apart, as if taking a stand in a strong wind.

  After a stubborn twenty seconds or so, she muttered, "I'd have to look at my calendar."

  "And where is your calendar?"

  She knew by the expression on his face that there was no way to get out of this gracefully. She also knew there was no real reason she should want to get out of it. Whether or not she was actually pregnant was the main question, after all.

  Still she resisted. "You know, Finn, I think my biological functions should be my own business."

  He regarded her from under slightly lowered brows. "Darling. Please get the calendar."

  She had her own feet planted apart now, her arms folded over her middle, in a mirror of his pose. "I do resent this."

  "You being you, I'm certain you do."

  "What is that supposed to mean?"

  "You're an intelligent woman. My guess is you already know."

  They shared one of their stare-downs. A very long one. Out on T Street

  , a car went by, stereo booming out, heavy on the bases. As the hollow beat faded away, an ice-cream truck rolled slowly past, playing "It's a Small World, After All" in the usual tinkling organ-grinder style of ice-cream trucks everywhere.

  In the end, Liv was the one who blinked. "I suppose you'll stand there forever, refusing to budge, until I get you what you want."

  For that, she got the tiniest lift of one side of his beautiful mouth. And other than that, absolute stillness.

  "Oh, all right," she muttered, then commanded, "wait here."

  She pounded up the stairs and stomped down the hall to the bedroom that was hers for the duration of her stay in the house. The calendar hung on a suction hook over the small cherry-wood desk in the corner, by the mirrored mahogany wardrobe. She had a palm planner, but she used it for appointments and school and business. She liked a nice big old-fashioned wall calendar for personal stuff—birthdays and dates with the hairdresser and keeping track of her periods.

  She snatched the calendar off the wall and turned to the previous month. She was pretty sure her last one had started a week before she left for Gullandria. It had been Friday, hadn't it? And she'd had to run to the ladies' room to take care of the problem.

  However, it appeared she'd forgotten to mark it down on her calendar.

  Well, well. Too bad.

  She started to hang the thing back on the wall, but then she remembered that look in Finn's eyes. He was truly the most persistent man she'd ever had the inconvenience—and yes, all right, the pleasure—to get to know. Better to simply take it down to him and show him that whenever it had been, she'd failed to make a note of it.

  Finn was waiting right there at the bottom when she descended with the calendar. He watched her come down to him, a gleam of pure suspicion in his eyes. "I'm not sure I like that smile. It's much too smug. Also, you've stopped pounding around like an elephant on the rampage. These are not good signs."

  "An elephant, huh? That's not very flattering."

  "Let me see it."

  She reached the bottom and handed him the calendar. "Sorry. It appears that, whenever it was, I forgot to mark it down."

  He studied the page for June, pointed to a small pen mark on Wednesday, the fifth. "What about this?"

  "A smudge. I draw a star in the upper left hand corner of the box for the first day."

  He looked at her probingly, then accused, "You do remember when it was, don't you?"

  She didn't lie—exactly. "It was a hectic month. The end of school, finals, all that, followed by the move here and starting a new job. And then off to Gullandria and my, er, whirlwind week with you."

  He flipped the page back to May. Pointed at the tiny star in the square for the eleventh. "All right. Four weeks from there."

  "My. An expert on a woman's cycle."

  He met her eyes. He wasn't smiling. "This is a stupid game."

  "I'm not the one who insisted on playing it."

  "Is there some reason you don't want me to know? Some reason for keeping me—for keeping both of us—in the dark?"

  The question got snagged in her mind and wouldn't shake loose. She felt a tiny stab—a pinprick, a needle's jab—at her conscience.

  The day after a missed period, the brochure had said. According to that, they could know on Saturday. In four days, her life could be irrevocably changed.

  Yes, she did realize that if it was changed, it had happened already. It had happened almost two weeks ago in a small green clearing in the strange half light of a Gullandrian summer night. No home pregnancy test would change what already was.

  Still…

  The simple truth was as Finn had just said. She didn't want to know. Not yet. As soon as she knew—as soon as Finn knew—decisions would have to be made.

  Oh, not yet, her heart cried. Don't make me decide yet.

  So strange, for her, Liv Thorson, to be thinking of her heart. She didn't go there, as a rule. She dated men like dear, sweet Simon. They told each other they cared for each other—and they did. They worked hard to excel. They spent their evenings studying or rallying for social change or discussing America's rights and responsibilities as the only true remaining world superpower, debating this or that issue currently before the Supreme Court.

  It was nothing like this magic, this enchantment, with Finn. Yes, she'd had sex before that one unforgettable night with Finn. But not often, and not for a while. Until Finn, she simply hadn't seen what all the shouting was about.

  She and the men she'd known before didn't kiss endlessly on porch swings and whisper of romantic movies and tell each other what it was like back when they were children. They didn't share picnics in Pioneer Park. They'd had more important things to do.

  And it wasn't that she didn't value all the same things that had mattered to her before. She did value them, and highly. It was only that she was seeing a whole new side of herself, one that, until Finn, she'd left utterly unexplored.

  Her mother had said it the night Liv found Finn staying at Ingrid's house. The stop-and-smell-the-flowers part of her needed room to grow. And Finn Danelaw knew better than anyone how to help her with that.

  He'd done, she decided, a wonderful job of helping her so far, in spite of how she'd fought him every inch of the way. She wouldn't mind at all if he kept helping her, indef
initely—for as long as the magic lasted between them.

  However, just because she wanted something didn't make it fair or right. Finn couldn't be expected to hang around in California forever making certain that Liv Thorson had a good time. She had no right to string him along for one minute beyond the day when they'd both know for certain if there'd be a baby or not.

  From the first time he'd proposed, that Sunday morning in Gullandria, she'd told him she'd take a test as soon as she could. It was only fair, only right, that she do as she'd promised. Only fair that he should know when that time would be.

  Liv snatched the calendar from him and threw it over her shoulder. It hit the heavy oak door behind her and slid to the shining hardwood floor.

  He looked puzzled but not especially surprised. "No need to start throwing things."

  She said, "My period is due Friday. If it doesn't come, I'll take the test Saturday morning."

  * * *

  Chapter Ten

  « ^ »

  Finn reached out and slipped his fingers around the back of her neck. He gave a tug—a tender one. It didn't take more than that. He was, after all, only pulling her where she wanted to go.

  She landed with a sigh against him.

  He lowered his mouth so that it just brushed hers. "Was that so difficult?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  She glanced away. "Look at me."

  She made herself do that. "I just realized I'm going to hate saying goodbye to you."

  He kissed her, quick and hard. "You won't have to. You'll be coming with me."

  She shook her head. "I can't do that, Finn. You know I can't. Not and continue with the plans I've made for myself. I can't be in politics in California—if I live in Gullandria."

  He asked tenderly, "You want that so very much, to run this state of yours someday?"

  "Oh, Finn. I do. I want … to make a difference. I want to leave the world a better place than it was when I got here."

  "There are other ways to do that than to be a governor or a senator."

  "You're right, there are."

  He chuckled. "Say that again—the part about how I'm right."

  She wrinkled up her nose at him. "Okay. You're right. There are other ways. But those other ways aren't my way."

  He looked at her deeply. "Maybe you'll reconsider. Maybe you'll … how do you say it? Rearrange your priorities."

  "Maybe you'll move to America."

  "I am Gullandrian." He wasn't smiling.

  She wasn't smiling, either. "And I am American."

  "We have a problem."

  She nodded. "We do—or we might. It could, after all, turn out that I'm not even pregnant."

  He was studying her again, giving her that feeling that he could see down into her soul. "You're saying that everything would be solved if you're not pregnant?"

  Would it?

  Uh-uh.

  With humor and heat and relentless tenderness, this man had left his mark on her. She would never forget him, whatever they found out when she took that test.

  "No," she confessed on a breath. "It wouldn't. Not everything. If I'm not pregnant, you'll leave. I might never see you again. And I'll miss you, so very much."

  He lifted a hand, traced the line of her hair where it fell along her cheek. "Four days, until Saturday…"

  She felt a pang of sadness, sharp and also infinitely sweet. "It's no time at all."

  "True." His eyes glittered down at her. She could feel every glorious, lean male inch of him pressing so close. And all she wanted was to have him closer still.

  She lifted up, brushed her mouth once, and then again, across his. "Let's not waste a moment."

  He whispered, almost as if it hurt him to say it, "Such willingness suddenly."

  She kissed his chin with its faint, masculine cleft. "Not so sudden. We both know you've been breaking me down for days now."

  "Breaking you down?" His eyes were hooded.

  "Oh, you know you have. With your endless stunning kisses, with your hand that won't stop reaching for my hand, with the way you listen, as if mine is the only voice you'll ever hear." She laughed, low in her throat. "But I know all the women must tell you that."

  He gave her a smile—a faint one, the smallest hitch at both sides of his mouth. "How would I know, as yours is the only voice I hear?"

  "Hmm. A question I don't think we need to even try to answer."

  "Wisely said."

  She put a finger to his mouth, felt the feathery warm caress of his breath against her palm. He caught her hand, kissed the fingertips and then guided it up to encircle his neck.

  "Such softness," he whispered, his mouth against hers again, "and pressed so close…"

  "And we shouldn't waste a minute, a second, a fraction of a second…"

  His hand swept down her back. He tucked her snugly into him. She felt the firm ridge of his erection against her lower belly. And then he was kissing her—little, brushing butterfly kisses—up over her cheek to her ear.

  He smoothed her hair out of his way and he whispered, "What would you like, my darling?" He captured her earlobe and worried it tenderly between his teeth.

  "Oh!" She lifted her hips, pressing in shamelessly, making a cradle for him. "Everything."

  "Everything?"

  "Oh, yes. Please."

  He took her face between his two hands and claimed her mouth—hard—his teeth punishing her lips. She moaned.

  He softened the kiss, teasing her mouth with his questing tongue, running it over the bow of her upper lip, tracing the slightly fuller bottom lip until she moaned again.

  He caught her lower lip between his teeth gently, dragging on it. "Open for me."

  With a small cry, she obeyed. His tongue slid in, slick and wet and wonderful. He swept all her inner surfaces, claiming them, branding them as his, leaving a hot trail of longing in his wake.

  Liv was melting, sighing, gone already. And all he'd done was kiss her.

  He turned her, one hand sliding down to catch her under the knees, one bracing across the widest part of her back. She shuddered as her feet left the floor.

  His tongue moved in her mouth, thrusting, retreating and thrusting again, in a blatant imitation of the motions of lovemaking. He started up the stairs carrying her high in his arms, never once breaking the hot rhythm of the shamelessly sexual kiss. At the top, he lifted his mouth just enough to ask "Which room?"

  She flung out a hand toward her open bedroom door and dragged his head back down to hers. Four steps and they were there.

  Somehow, he turned her—how did he do these things?—and guided her legs to wrap around his waist. She kicked off her sandals. One and then the other, they thudded against the wall. She hooked her bare feet at the small of his back, locking herself around him like a vine around a tree.

  She kissed him deep and hard and oh so wet.

  Images spun and pulsed through her mind: wet things, open things—orchids beaded with dewdrops, the secret, moist sweetness of a freshly cut peach. She saw slick curves … a large, thick glass vase, calla lilies standing in it, water cascading down the sides of it, dripping more gently on the flowers themselves.

  The flowers, so white, velvety trumpets dewed with water drops like jewels, naughty stamens like tongues…

  He already had her button-front sundress scrunched up around her waist. He cradled her thighs on his lean arms, those incredible hands of his cupping her bottom, fingers slipping skillfully under the elastic of her panties, finding her, spreading her, gliding along her cleft, which was already thoroughly drenched, swollen with yearning. Liv writhed and moaned and kept on kissing him.

  She had a sensation of opening, of turning, wet flower petals blooming so wide that the inside turned outside. His fingers teased her, readied her, while his manhood pressed up, hard, insistent, shielded from her by his clothing and her panties. She could have stayed there forever, in the doorway, wrapped all around him, kissing him endlessly, her body moving, pulsi
ng, yearning, in his strong arms.

  But he had other plans. Still kissing her, he lowered her. She slid down his body with a needful moan.

  He fisted his hand in her hair and he tugged, gently, inexorably, until the kiss broke.

  "Liv," he said. "Ah, Liv…" He scraped his teeth along her chin, his fist opening, his hand easing from her hair.

  Her head tipped back, her eyes still closed, she drew in one slow breath. And another.

  There. She was able to open her eyes and lift her head.

  The sight of him thrilled her, his eyes so hot they seemed to burn her, his mouth as swollen as hers—swollen and hot, as if every nerve had been drawn to the surface, the flesh itself seeming to cry out for the next consuming kiss.

  He laid a hand between her breasts, at the top button of her sundress. Light as a breath, his fingers went to work. The button fell open. Then the next, and the next…

  He was still fully dressed. She could help him with that. She got to work, starting at the top button of his shirt, staring in his eyes as she slipped each button from its hole.

  But then she happened to glance down. The front of her dress, with its built-in demibra, gaped open. Her nipples, drawn to tight buds, were exposed.

  "So pretty," he whispered, as he took a nipple between thumb and forefinger and rolled it.

  She moaned. And he edged the sides of the dress farther apart, both hands at work now, guiding the thin straps over her shoulders and down.

  The dress fell away. She stood before him in only her panties. He knelt, taking hold of that scrap of satin and lace and whisking it over her hips, along her thighs.

  She stared down at him, slightly stunned. She'd never seen his eyes so soft. So hot. Like fire. Amber fire.

  She thought of that other night, a continent and an ocean away. Of the sleek Viking ship, blazing, the flames reflected in his eyes…

  Her panties were all the way down, at her ankles. She stepped out of them. His hands moved back up, along the outsides of her calves, over her knees and then inward. Her thighs trembled. She had to clasp his strong shoulders to brace herself upright.

  The brushing caress turned searingly intimate, his palms against the front of her, thumbs burrowing in, dragging in the wetness, rubbing back and forth, back and forth…