A Natural Father

by Sarah Mayberry

  “You want to help me with that?” he asked.

  There was something about the way he said it, a catch in his voice that made her wonder if her undressing him was something he’d thought about before.

  The idea made her smile and suddenly she felt infinitely saucy, incredibly sexy. She stepped closer and hooked her finger into the neckline of his shirt. She’d admired his body so many times. The thought that she was about to lay hand and mouth on him made her a little dizzy.

  One button slid free, then another, then another. She pushed the sides of his shirt open and pressed her mouth against the wide triangle of chest she’d uncovered. His skin was very warm, his muscles firm. He smelled delicious—spicy and masculine.

  She fumbled the rest of his buttons and pushed the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms. He had a beautiful chest, his pectoral muscles well defined with a silky sprinkling of hair that narrowed down into a sexy trail as it headed below his belt.

  “Wow,” she said as she smoothed her hands over him. “Lifting boxes of fruit really agrees with you.”

  He laughed and reached out to draw her close. She shook her head.

  “I’m not finished yet.”

  She undid his belt buckle, then tackled the button and fly on his trousers. Her hands were shaking as she pushed his trousers down over his hips. He was wearing black boxer-briefs, the fabric snug over his impressive erection. He shoved his pants down his legs and toed off his shoes. Then he stepped free of his clothing, naked bar his underwear.

  She stared at his thighs. Hard and muscled, they made her want to purr with anticipation.

  “You have the best legs ever,” she said reverently.

  He grinned.

  “You’re good for my ego,” he said. “Come here.”

  This time she didn’t stop him when he pulled her close. The first press of his bare skin against hers was breathtaking. She made an impatient sound and reached behind herself for her bra clasp, wanting to feel all of him against all of her. Her bra loosened around her rib cage and she shrugged it off. Dom inhaled sharply as her breasts were bared and his eyes got very dark and very intent.

  “If you had any idea…” he said, then things got a little crazy.

  Soon they were on the bed with nothing between them but heat. All the weeks of watching and secretly wanting him, all the doubt and uncertainty, and now there was nothing but the slide of his body inside hers, the warmth of his skin on hers, the sound of his breath near her ear.

  This was right. This was meant to be. This was perfect.

  Her climax came quickly, sweeping her away. She cried out, held him to her. And then he was saying her name and his body was shuddering into hers one last time.

  He kept his weight on his forearms afterward, always careful. He lowered his head to kiss her, long and deep. Then he withdrew and disappeared for a few seconds into the bathroom.

  She kept her eyes closed, savoring the satisfied warmth spreading through her body. The bed dipped as he returned. His legs tangled with her own as he moved close and slid an arm around her.

  “Okay?” he asked quietly.

  She opened her eyes and stared into his face.

  “More than okay.”

  They stared at each other, suddenly very serious. Words crowded her mouth, but she hesitated to give voice to them. Not so long ago, Dom had been someone she only saw across the trestle tables at the market. In a few short months, he’d become inextricably entwined in her life, her business and her heart.

  “Lucy Basso,” he said, smiling. “At last.”

  He kissed her forehead, her cheek, the end of her nose. Then he gathered her close and rested her head on his chest. She listened to his heart beating, slow and steady. And she swallowed the words. There would be other nights, other moments like this. She had all the time in the world to tell Dom that she’d fallen in love with him.

  Closing her eyes, she snuggled closer. For now, she had this. It felt like more than enough to be going on with.

  * * *

  DOM WOKE WITH LUCY’S hair tangled across his chest, her face resting on his shoulder. She was deeply asleep, her chest rising and falling evenly. He smiled as he saw that one of her hands was curved over her belly—even in sleep, she thought of her baby.

  Last night had been…well, suffice to say he was a lucky man. A very lucky man. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined Lucy in his bed. Okay, that was an exaggeration. Many of his wildest dreams featured Lucy in a starring role in just that location. But he hadn’t expected her to let him close, not for a long time, anyway. He’d known he’d been paying the price for her ex’s faults, that she was cautious and scared and that she had good reason to be.

  But last night she’d let him in in a spectacular way. He remembered the way she’d undressed for him, the uncertainty in her eyes, the way her chin had lifted as she stood before him wearing only her underwear.

  She had no idea how fine she was, how perfect. She was beautiful, with her big, full breasts, her swollen belly, her long slim legs. She was beautiful and last night had been a gift. Touching her, holding her, being a part of her…

  When things had fallen apart with Dani, he’d wondered if maybe he’d had his one shot at happiness and messed it up. Lying here with Lucy in his arms made him believe in an infinite number of tomorrows.

  He loved her. Had been half in love with her for years and was now totally besotted with her.

  A small frown creased Lucy’s brow and she stirred against him. He watched as her eyelids flickered, then opened. He knew the exact moment she remembered what had happened last night, saw the slow smile dawn on her mouth and the warmth in her eyes.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Morning,” she said. Her smile widened and she put her hand on her belly. “Someone else is up, too.”

  She looked at him uncertainly.

  “Do you want to…?”

  Hell, yes. It had been weeks since he’d felt the baby’s first movements, and he’d been aching for a chance to share the experience with Lucy again. He slid his hand onto her stomach and she guided his hand to where the action was at.

  “Of course, she’ll decide to go to sleep now,” she said dryly.

  It took a few minutes of patience, but at last he felt the strange and wonderful surge of movement beneath her skin.

  “Wow. That’s pretty full on. Much stronger than last time,” he said.

  He realized Lucy was watching him carefully, just as she had last night when she’d taken off her clothes and stood nearly naked before him.

  “This really doesn’t make a difference to you, does it?” she asked.

  “Not in the way you mean.”

  “You know that in about another thirteen weeks, I’m going to be cranky from lack of sleep and I’m going to smell like milk and barely have time to wash my hair, right?”

  He pulled a comic face.

  “That bad, huh? How soon can you be out of my bed?”

  She shoved a hand into his shoulder and he captured it in both of his.

  “Lucy, you’re going to have a baby. I want to be with you, I want to help you. Caring for you means I already care for your baby. It’s not a big deal,” he said.

  “It would be for some men. It’s Marcus’s baby, and he practically ran in the opposite direction when he found out.”

  “Maybe he never wanted children. Maybe he’s never wanted to be a father.”

  He said the words without thinking. Lucy’s face softened and she pulled his hand to her face and pressed a kiss into his palm.

  “That’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me,” she said.

  He stared at her, feeling like a fraud. Not because what he’d said wasn’t true—being a father had once been one of his most important dreams—but because it was never going to happen for him. And she needed to know that before their relationship went much further.

  Tell her. Tell her now. The longer you put it off, the more it’s going to mean. A
nd the harder you’ll fall if she decides she can’t live with it, the way Dani did.

  Lucy slid an arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. He loved the feel of her hair on his chest and the warm rush of her breath across his skin. He loved the feel of her slim, strong arm across his body.

  He loved her.

  I’ll tell her tonight. Not now, tonight.

  The moment the decision was made, his body grew tense. He tried to imagine her face when he told her, how she might react. With pity? Disappointment? Anger?

  “What time is it?” Lucy asked, lifting her head to look into his face.

  “Nearly ten.” He was surprised he could speak, his chest felt so tight.

  She grimaced ruefully. “I’d better get going. Rosie will be ready to send out a search party. Or she’ll be waiting to interrogate me. I’m not sure which is worse, to be honest.”

  She smiled at him and he pushed thoughts of the future away. Lucy Basso was in his bed, in his arms. That was the important thing. Everything else would follow from that. He had to believe that, or he might as well give up on life and go live in a cave in a hillside somewhere.

  Lucy moaned with despair when they walked into the kitchen in search of breakfast.

  “Oh my God. I told you we should have put some of this way last night,” she said as she stared at the debris from the launch party.

  He pulled her into his arms.

  “You telling me you’d rather have cleaned?”

  She smiled. “No. No way.”

  “Good.”

  He made them eggs on toast then washed her in the shower. Saying goodbye took some time, between Lucy’s insistence that she help him tidy up and his that she go home to rest and the mandatory bout of kissing that occurred on the doorstep.

  Finally he was alone. He put something loud and pumpy on the stereo and started cleaning, but it wasn’t enough to distract him from his thoughts.

  Lucy had feelings for him. She was attracted to him. She enjoyed his company. He wanted to believe she’d fallen in love with him, the way he’d fallen in love with her.

  More than anything, he wanted to believe that loving him would be enough for her. It hadn’t been enough for Dani.

  She’s not Dani. She’s a completely different person.

  But he couldn’t help remembering the fights, the blame, the rejection. He couldn’t help remembering the pain of losing the woman he’d vowed to love and honor for the rest of his life.

  This is Lucy. This is different.

  He looked around at his living room, still scattered with dishes and glasses. He would clean later. Right now, he needed to run.

  He pulled on shorts and trainers and was out the door within five minutes. The pavement was wet, and a fine rain misted his cheeks. He didn’t care. He ran past the cemetery, through the university and into Royal Park. By the time he returned home he was soaked with sweat and rain and his legs were trembling. He leaned against the tiles in the shower and let hot water wash it all away.

  He would tell her. He would sit her down and explain about getting sick in his early twenties, then he’d tell her about his marriage and how he and Dani had tried everything to have the child they so desperately wanted. And then he would tell her to think about what he’d said for a few days, even a week, then come back to him and give him her answer. Was she willing to live with a man who could not give her more children?

  It would kill him to have to wait for her answer, but she deserved the time. He wanted her to go into this with her eyes open. He wanted to love her unrestrainedly, unreservedly, without fear of a later rejection.

  The man staring back at him from the mirror was grim as he toweled himself dry. There was every chance Lucy would be angry with him, that she’d think his infertility was something she should have known about before she took the huge step of staying with him last night. His only defense was that he hadn’t expected her to proposition him. He’d resigned himself to waiting until after the baby was born and she’d found her feet as a mother before he approached her again. Then she’d looked at him last night and asked if he was still interested, if he still wanted her…

  He threw the damp towel to the floor. It was useless to speculate. He’d already made his decision. He was telling her. How she responded was not something he had any control over.

  He was shrugging on a clean T-shirt when he saw the blinking light on his answering machine. Lucy had called while he was out. He frowned when he heard the emotional quaver in her voice as she asked him to call.

  He grabbed the phone and called her back.

  “Lucy. What’s wrong?” he asked the moment he heard her voice.

  “Can you come over?” she asked. She sounded as though she’d been crying.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes, but first tell me what’s wrong.”

  “It’s Rosie and Andrew. They had a big fight last night. Andrew stayed at a motel. Rosie’s a mess—”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in ten,” he said.

  He made it in eight thanks to a little bending of the road laws and some luck with green lights. Lucy didn’t say a word when she answered the door, she simply walked into his embrace and pressed her cheek to his chest. He soothed circles on her back and rested his cheek against the crown of her head.

  “It will be all right,” he said, even though he had no idea what he was dealing with. Rosie and Andrew had seemed like a solid, loving couple to him. Definitely not the type to have the kind of fights where one of them had to find somewhere else to sleep the night. But no one ever knew what really went on in other people’s marriages.

  “I’m sorry,” Lucy said as she finally pushed away from his chest. “I just got myself so upset when I started thinking all this through. I wanted to see you.”

  He smoothed the hair back from her troubled face. She would never understand how honored he felt to be the person she sought comfort from. She trusted him. Better—she felt safe with him.

  She led him to the couch and spilled out what she knew of the story.

  She’d come home to find Rosie and Andrew’s house in darkness, all the curtains drawn, Andrew’s car gone, but Rosie’s still in the driveway. She’d waited for Rosie to come knocking with an inquisition’s worth of questions about why her younger sister hadn’t slept in her own bed last night, but it had never happened. After an hour, she’d gone through the connecting door to the house and found her sister curled on the couch in her study, huddled under a blanket, still wearing last night’s cocktail dress.

  “I’m really worried about her. I’ve never seen her like this,” Lucy said. “She’s always been the fiery one, the bolshy one. But she doesn’t want to talk, I can’t make her eat. And Andrew isn’t answering his phone.”

  She paused then, and he guessed she was trying to work out in her mind what she was free to tell him and what was too private.

  “They’ve been trying get to pregnant,” she said. “For maybe a couple of months now. But I found this on the study floor.”

  She pulled a strip of foil from her pocket. It took him a moment to understand what it was.

  “The pill,” he said.

  She bit her lip and tears filled her eyes.

  “Rosie told me a few weeks ago that she was scared of being a mom, scared she wouldn’t be up to it and that she wouldn’t be able to bond with her baby because she’s never been very maternal. When I found the pills, she admitted she’s been taking these in secret. Last night, Andrew found them.”

  Dom sank back against the couch, imagining his own reaction in similar circumstances. He could understand the other man leaving the house. Being very angry with someone you loved was never an easy thing.

  Lucy shook her head.

  “They have always been so happy, you know? Perfect for each other. They fell in love at first sight at university. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. I knew the first moment I saw them together that they would get married. And now…”

  “Hey, th
ey’re not divorced yet. They’ve hit a pothole. Shit happens in relationships. There’s every chance they can get past this.”

  She looked at him, her eyes clouded with doubt.

  “And sometimes shit happening destroys relationships. Look at us. I was with Marcus for eight years, you’ve just gotten divorced. There are some things that people can’t get past. And I’m scared this is one of them.”

  Something inside him went very still at her words.

  “You don’t think Rosie and Andrew can work this out?”

  Lucy bit her lip. “I think wanting to have a family is one of the most powerful urges in the world. Andrew has always been gung ho, always. I can’t see the compromise in this situation. He either gives up on the dream of having children, or my sister has children just to please him. Not exactly a recipe for success, whichever option they go with.”

  “You don’t think that Andrew might decide that Rosie is more important to him than having children?”

  She tucked her head into his neck, and he couldn’t see her face when she next spoke.

  “Maybe. It’s possible. I guess I’m just speaking from my own experience. I’ve always wanted to be a mother. Believe it or not, my first reaction to learning I was pregnant was happiness, even though Marcus had gone and I was all alone. To me, family is what makes the world go round. I’m going to have a little girl, and I want her to have brothers and sisters to lean on and share stories and memories with when she grows up. I want her to have what I have with Rosie, you know? A sense of belonging. Continuity. Love. I don’t think I could deny that part of myself and pretend it wasn’t there.”

  She had to have felt him tense, because she lifted her head and pulled back so she could look him in the eye.

  “I’ve totally freaked you out, haven’t I?” she said, and he could see she was only half-joking. “I know exactly what you’re thinking. One night with a pregnant woman and she’s already lining up the cribs in the nursery.”

  “You haven’t freaked me out,” he lied. “Family is important to me, too. I understand.”

  He did, too. He understood exactly what she was saying. He’d heard it all before, after all, in fights across the kitchen table, arguments in the car, tearful discussions in specialists’ waiting rooms. He’d been over and over the same ground with his ex-wife, and he knew exactly how undeniable the urge to be a parent was.