“The fact that you made a baby together suggests that he also knows his way around the bedroom.”
“Mom!” Erin said.
And then she laughed, because she was discovering that she liked this relaxed and open version of her mother.
Bonnie’s gaze darted around the room. “I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud, should I?”
“There isn’t anyone here who doesn’t know that Kyle is Joel’s father,” Erin assured her.
“But sex isn’t a usual topic of conversation at social events.”
“Maybe it should be.”
Her mom frowned at the pale liquid in her glass. “I don’t think I should have any more of this.”
“Why not? You’re not driving anywhere.”
“Because I might get lost finding my way back to my room.”
“I won’t let that happen—I promise.”
Bonnie touched a hand to Erin’s cheek. “You’re a much better daughter than I ever was a mother.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” she felt compelled to protest.
“It is,” her mom insisted. “I should have done more. I should have tried harder.”
Erin gave her a quick, impulsive hug. “We’re both trying now, and that’s what matters.”
“You’re right,” Bonnie decided. “Now, let’s go find that cute baby of yours so Grandma can give him lots more hugs and kisses.”
* * *
The following Saturday morning, Kyle was contemplating his breakfast options when Erin sent a text message:
Can you come downstairs ASAP?
He closed the door of his refrigerator, shoved his feet into his shoes and took the stairs two at a time.
“That was fast,” Erin said, when he burst into her apartment.
“You said ASAP.”
“Oh.” She offered up a sheepish smile. “I didn’t mean to give the impression that it was anything urgent.”
“Joel’s okay?”
“He’s fine.” She gestured to the high chair, so that he could see for himself.
Kyle blew out an unsteady breath.
It was then he noticed that the table had been set, complete with place mat and linen napkin in a brass ring and a trio of sunny yellow gerbera daisies floating in a clear glass bowl.
“What is this?” he asked curiously.
“An early Father’s Day celebration,” she explained. “Since you have to work brunch tomorrow, we wanted to celebrate with you today.”
“We?” He sat down near his son. “Was this your idea?” he asked Joel.
The baby responded by banging his rattle against the tray of his highchair.
“Ah, I see now. You’re the musical entertainment.”
“What he lacks in repertoire, he makes up for with enthusiasm,” Erin said.
“You won’t hear any complaints from me,” Kyle promised.
“The original plan was to treat you to breakfast in bed,” Erin confided. “But the logistics of getting the baby and the food upstairs were too daunting.”
“This is great,” he assured her. “I mean, now that my heart isn’t threatening to jump out of my chest, it’s great.” And he was both touched and pleased that she’d made such an effort.
“I’m sorry about the message,” she said again. “I just didn’t want your eggs to get cold.”
As she spoke, she scooped the eggs out of the frying pan onto a plate already arranged with several strips of crispy bacon and a couple of ripe tomato slices.
“This looks really good,” he said, as she set the plate in front of him.
And it tasted good, too. The eggs were light and fluffy and the bacon perhaps a little overcooked but still delicious. He even ate the tomato slices.
When his plate was clean, she brought out a bowl of fruit that included wedges of melon, bright red strawberries, dark purple grapes, chunks of juicy pineapple and slices of kiwi.
“A wise chef once told me to play to my strengths—and apparently I’m really good at cutting up fruit.”
She was referring, of course, to the time that she’d been helping out in the kitchen at The Home Station and totally destroyed a whole pound of shrimp in her attempt to devein them. Though he hadn’t been amused at the time, he chuckled softly now. “You’ve come a long way since then.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” she said ruefully. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”
“And I appreciate that I didn’t have to cook my own breakfast.”
“We’ve got something else for you, too,” Erin said, placing a wrapped package in front of him.
A book, he guessed, considering the size and shape.
He tore the paper off, surprised to see a picture of a newborn baby on the cover. The infant was swaddled in a blue blanket with a knitted blue cap on his head. Joel Brian Landry was printed across the bottom.
“I had no idea what to get for you, so when you mentioned wanting to see Joel’s first baby pictures, I got the idea to put them together in a book.”
He scrolled through the pages, marveling over every one. “This is fabulous.”
“While you’re looking at that, I’m going to change Joel and put him down for his nap,” she said, scooping the heavy-lidded baby out of his chair. “Say ‘Happy First Father’s Day, Daddy.’”
Joel’s only response was to rub his cheek against his mom’s shoulder, a telltale sign that he was ready for sleep.
“Well, by next year he should at least be able to manage the ‘Daddy’ part,” she said.
Kyle couldn’t wait. And at the same time, he wasn’t in any hurry for his baby to grow up. Sure, there would be new and exciting things to discover with his son at every age, but right now, every day was new and exciting for Joel, and that made every day new and exciting for Kyle, too.
* * *
When Erin returned to the kitchen, it was spotless. The leftover food put away, dishes tucked into the dishwasher, frying pans washed and even the counters wiped.
“You were supposed to be looking at baby photos, not tidying up the kitchen,” she protested.
“And yet I managed to do both.” He took her hands then and drew her toward him. “Thank you. Not just for breakfast, but for making me a dad.”
“As I recall, that was a joint effort.”
“I remember.” He smiled as he tipped his head toward her. “Every intimate detail.”
“Don’t.” The warning—or was it a plea?—was little more than a breathless whisper.
“Don’t what?” he asked, sounding amused.
“Don’t kiss me.”
Even as the words tumbled from her lips, she swayed closer to him, tilting her chin so that her mouth was mere inches from his, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to fault him if he breached those inches.
But he didn’t do so.
Not yet.
Instead he asked, “Why don’t you want me to kiss you?”
“Because I can’t think when you kiss me,” she admitted.
“You have to know that telling me something like that only makes me want to kiss you again and again, until you can’t remember any of the reasons that you think we’re a bad idea.”
“It’s not that I think we’re a bad idea. It’s just that our relationship is already complicated enough without adding more layers.”
“Maybe we should try and simplify things a bit by giving in to the feelings that we’ve been ignoring for the past few months?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course, you’d argue in favor of that, because it would mean we get to have sex.”
“You don’t want to have sex?” The teasing light in his eyes combined with the half smile on his face assured her that he knew the answer to that question.
“I don’t want to mess things up,” she said, because
it was true. “We’ve been doing a pretty good job, I think, co-parenting our son, and we need to focus on that. The best thing for him is for his mom and dad to get along.”
“As I recall, we got along very well when we were naked and horizontal. Although, now that I’m thinking about it, I’ll bet vertical would work, too.”
Dammit, now she was thinking about it, too.
And when his lips finally touched hers, she gave up any pretense of resistance and gave in to the heat that pulsed in her veins.
Chapter Nineteen
Kyle drew Erin closer, and the already tight peaks of her nipples brushed against the hard wall of his chest, sending tingles of awareness dancing through her veins, making her ache and yearn. His hands skimmed down her back, then up again, a featherlight touch that somehow managed to both soothe and seduce.
As he deepened the kiss, she knew there would be no going back this time. She knew it and she was glad of it. Because she wanted him even more than the first time, because now she knew what to expect, the way he could make her feel. The way only he’d ever made her feel.
When they were both naked and he eased her down onto the bed, the friction of bare skin against bare skin was almost more than she could take. She was like a volcano ready to erupt—not just because it had been so long, but because this was Kyle.
And because this was Kyle, it was more than lust that made her heart pound and her knees weak. There had always been affection between them, but now there was love. She’d been fighting her feelings for a long time, but she had no doubts anymore.
He kissed her again. Deeply. Hungrily. Then his mouth moved away from hers to trail kisses along her jaw, down her throat, raising goose bumps on her flesh. At the same time, his hands were on another journey, tracing her curves and contours.
He cupped her breasts, so much fuller and more sensitive now as a result of the child she’d borne. His thumbs brushed over the aching peaks, making her gasp. When he replaced his hands with his mouth and suckled her nipples, she nearly came apart right then and there.
Instead, she arched her back and lifted her hips off the mattress, rubbing her pelvis against the hard length of his erection. He didn’t take the hint but continued his leisurely exploration, kissing his way down her body. He nudged her thighs further apart, then lowered his head and put his mouth on her. He used his lips and his tongue, sucking and stroking and driving her wild.
She cried out then, she couldn’t help it, and she definitely couldn’t hold back the climax. She could only fist her hands in the sheets and hold on as endless waves of sensation washed over her.
Kyle had never seen anything more beautiful than Erin in the throes of passion. Her lips were swollen from his kisses, her cheeks flushed with excitement and her beautiful blue eyes unfocused.
But he wasn’t done yet. Not even close. He continued to touch her and kiss her, guiding her toward the pinnacle of pleasure again. Wanting to give her more. Wanting to give her everything.
This time when they made love, he wanted her to know that they were making love. This wasn’t just sex and it wasn’t just one-time. This was the start of something new, the beginning, he hoped, of the rest of their lives together. Because being with Erin didn’t just feel good, it felt right.
He was rock-hard and aching for her, but he knew that this was her first time since giving birth almost five months earlier, and he wanted to be sure she was ready. He had no doubt that she was eager. Her throaty moans and impatient hands were evident of that fact.
He sheathed himself in a condom and fought against the urge to bury himself deep. Instead, he eased into her, a fraction of an inch at a time, giving her body a chance to accommodate and accept the intrusion. When he was finally, completely, inside her, she lifted her hips off the mattress to pull him deeper, and the last remnants of control slipped out of his grasp. As he began to move, she met him stroke for stroke, and they joined together in synchronized rhythm, pushing ever closer to the edge of oblivion.
He held on as long as he could, waiting for her to find her release again. Just when he was certain he could hold on no longer, she cried out, her inner muscles tightening around him, signaling her climax as he surrendered to his own.
* * *
Kyle didn’t intend to drift off and only realized that he’d done so when the sound of rain penetrated his slumber. No, it wasn’t rain. It was the shower.
Erin was in the shower.
He was instantly, fully awake, because if Erin was in the shower, that meant she was naked. And wet. And he suddenly remembered that they hadn’t yet tried the vertical that he’d teased her about.
Though the sound of the water beckoned, he wanted to check on Joel first, to make sure the little guy was still sleeping. He was.
So Kyle tiptoed out of the nursery again and turned the knob on the bathroom door, grateful that it wasn’t locked. He slid back the curtain and stepped into the narrow enclosure.
Erin gasped. “Kyle—what are you doing?”
“Conserving water.”
“Since when did you become so environmentally conscious?” she challenged, but the way her eyes lit up as they skimmed over his body assured him that she didn’t object to his presence.
“Since it gave me an excuse to join you in the shower,” he told her. “Your very small shower.”
“Well, I’m almost finished,” she said. “So you can have it all to yourself.”
“Are you?” He squirted body wash onto the puffy sponge she’d hung on the tub spout and began to rub it over her back, creating a foamy lather.
“I was almost finished,” she clarified.
“And I’m just getting started,” he promised.
She sighed with pleasure as he washed her, slowly and very thoroughly.
“Isn’t there a saying—‘You wash my back, I’ll wash yours’?” he asked, as he soaped up her breasts.
“I believe it’s ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,’” she said.
“You already did the scratching,” he teased.
“I didn’t hear you complaining at the time.”
“I’m not complaining now,” he assured her.
And he definitely wasn’t complaining when she moved behind him to trail her lips over the red marks she’d put on his back.
Or when she examined his front, too, for good measure.
* * *
Erin had long been a fan of green initiatives, but after today, she was convinced that water conservation was of critical importance and that sharing her shower with Kyle was perhaps something that should be repeated in the future. Again and again.
She was still smiling when she walked into the kitchen to see what she had in the fridge for lunch—a task interrupted by frantic knocking on her door.
“I need your help.” Lucy had her baby tucked in a sling around her body, a box of painting supplies in her hands and a tone of desperation in her voice. “Please.”
“What can I do?” Erin asked.
“Help,” her friend said again, dropping her supplies on the kitchen island. “Apparently holding open the palm of a three-week-old baby is a two-person job, because I’ve ruined two T-shirts already and Father’s Day is tomorrow.
“Oh.” She spotted the book that Kyle had left there earlier. “Is this for my brother?” She opened the cover without waiting for a response from her friend, smiling as she turned the pages. “He’s going to love it.”
“I do love it,” Kyle confirmed, joining them in the kitchen. His hair was still damp from the shower and a satisfied expression—no doubt courtesy of their water play—was on his face.
Lucy’s gaze shifted from friend to her brother, her eyes growing wide as the pieces clicked together in her mind.
“Ohmygod. You guys had sex.”
“Considering that we have a child together, you have to know it’s not th
e first time,” Kyle remarked dryly.
“But that was more than a year ago. And you both said it was a one-time thing.”
“And now the situation has changed,” he said.
“Why?” Lucy demanded, looking to her friend now. “Why would you do this?”
Erin wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question—or why the discovery that she and Kyle had been intimate seemed to cause his sister distress. On the other hand, Lucy had a three-week-old baby, and Erin understood that her friend’s emotions didn’t need to make sense—what mattered was that she was obviously upset.
“Our personal relationship isn’t any of your business,” Kyle told her now.
“Not any of my business?” she echoed in disbelief. “You’re my brother and Erin’s my best friend. And you had sex.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I thought you wanted me and Erin together.”
“Wait a minute.” Erin held up a hand. “It’s a pretty big leap from a midday rendezvous to together.”
“Is it?” Kyle asked.
Lucy shook her head. “See? You guys are going to screw this up, and then my nephew is going to be the one to suffer.”
“We’re not going to screw anything up,” Erin promised, her fingers mentally crossed.
“I can’t process all of this right now,” Lucy said. As Seraphina began to cry, the baby’s mom did, too, tears spilling onto her cheeks and dripping down her face. “It’s Father’s Day tomorrow and...”
Erin took her friend by the shoulders and gently guided her down the hall to the nursery. “Sit,” she said, nudging her into the glider rocker and setting a box of tissues within reach. “I’ll get rid of your brother and then we can talk.”
Lucy nodded as she extricated her baby from the sling.
“Is she okay?” Kyle asked, obviously baffled and worried by his sister’s behavior.
“Aside from dealing with an overload of hormones, she’s fine,” Erin assured him.
“Are you sure that’s all it is?”
The Chef's Surprise Baby Page 19