By now Frankie would have given up, but in the hour that Shannon watched T.J. curse and nearly throw the pieces over the fence, she’d seen him quell his anger, tell himself he could do it, and then sigh back into it. Until another problem arose.
Unable to bear the sight of his frustration any longer, she called her father-in-law. Joe was a regular guy and was never shy about helping out, especially if it required any carpentry or woodworking. And he was the most patient man she had ever met. She used to wonder how Frankie could have been fathered by such a good-hearted, quiet man, but standing side by side, though Frankie was nearly a foot taller, she could see they were father and son, no question.
“Be glad to help,” he said, and then appeared at her front door within twenty minutes. Just in time, too, because Shannon could smell defeat brewing in the yard.
“He’s getting awfully frustrated, Dad. He thinks there are screws missing, and maybe some wooden pegs.” She scrunched up her nose.
“Always is, sweetheart. I got plenty,” he said as he jiggled his tool kit. “Or they don’t put the holes so they align, or give you the wrong sizes. I’m sure we can work it out.”
Within two hours the little playhouse was constructed, complete with an extra trim around the roof eaves for extra sturdiness, which Joe had recommended. The two men worked well together, and on several occasions T.J. burst out laughing at whatever Joe had said. She heard Frankie’s name several times.
It occurred to her that it did Joe good to have another man Frankie’s age to share the work on that playhouse, and, even if Frankie were here, Joe would have been doing this alone. But with T.J. he’d found a kindred spirit.
Or maybe it was the grief that brought them together. Whatever it was, it was working.
Shannon admired their handiwork. The two men were practically slapping each other on the back. Extra holes had to be made, and one piece hand cut to fit in where a piece had broken. “You guys want sandwiches?”
“I’m actually starved,” T.J. said.
“I am too,” said Joe.
“You want to come in or eat outside?” Shannon asked.
The men looked at each other and shrugged. “Whatever’s easiest,” T.J. answered. “Makes no difference to us.”
She threw a wet towel at T.J., which caught him right across the kisser, eliciting a delicious pearly-white grin. She worked to restore her icy demeanor as she commanded, “Clean off the table and I’ll bring the food.”
Seated around the round glass-top table while they ate, the men continued to discuss their work. “You know, we worked well together. No arguing or fighting. Kinda like working with the Team guys, like Frankie.” T.J. sighed and fell back into his chair. “I’m sorry, Joe. Couldn’t seem to help myself.”
Shannon had thought the same thing. She’d seen Frankie doing things with his buds on Team 3, but even that held a healthy dose of swearing, jousting and horsing around. The mission was always accomplished, no matter how much irreverence there was. She also knew that Frankie could be sensitive and very stubborn. T.J., for all his bad boy qualities, had remained more focused on the task, once Joe overcame the two key obstacles.
Stop comparing. Not fair.
Why was she doing it, anyway? The baby began to kick as she brought the dishes into the kitchen. Joe was right behind her, carrying the rest of them. “You know, it’s good to see you laughing again, Shannon,” he said as he set things on the counter. He slung an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her to him.
“Thanks, Dad.” She hugged him back. Then she placed one of his palms on her belly so he could feel the baby. “She wants to come out and play with you, Grandpa.”
Joe was overcome. “Ahhh,” he growled and wiped a tear from his eye. “She feels strong, Shannon. She does this a lot?”
“I have no comparison, but yes, I think she’s very active now.”
“That’s the way Frankie was. His mama wasn’t getting any sleep in the end.” He pinched her nose, “Make sure you rest up, kid. You’re going to need it.”
T.J. had come from the restroom and was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, bracing himself with one muscled arm pressed against the top of the archway, hips slung at an angle. Though he was a good ten feet away from them, Shannon could see a tinge of envy there, and she picked up that perhaps he was holding himself back.
“You want to feel the baby?” she asked him.
He shook his head with a small shrug.
“Oh, come on, T.J. Get yourself over here.” Joe stepped aside and Shannon walked slowly to meet T.J. halfway. Carefully he extended his palm and she placed it against the lower right side of her belly. The warmth of his hand caused the baby to jump again, and they were rewarded with a kick and what felt like hiccups.
He stared at his hand and she could see him soften and transform. When he looked up at her, she could see his need and his pain, which mirrored her own.
“Well, I’d best be going,” Joe barked, collecting his things.
T.J. took a step back and jammed his hands into his front pockets. “Yes, I’ve got things I need to do, too. I’d say we did well, Joe. And Shannon, thanks for the lunch and all the ice water.” His smile was gentle.
Joe and Shannon hugged, followed by the brief hug T.J. gave her. Her belly rubbed against his lower abdomen, which felt intimate. She felt him hesitate to pull away. “You got anything else you need, give me a call, okay? I’m not as good as old Joe here with the hammer, but I can figure out most things.”
She found herself saying, “Thanks,” but feeling the interchange was unfinished.
Joe was out the door with T.J. behind him when she decided to call T.J. back. “T.J., there are a couple of things I want to give you,” she said to his back. She saw him stiffen, saw him share a glance with her father-in-law, and then hesitate, holding the door open.
“Bye, you two,” Joe nodded and took off down the walkway with his toolkit.
T.J. closed the door behind him. Shannon suddenly felt awkward and shy about being alone with him. Something had shifted.
“We need to talk,” she said, taking his hand and leading him to the living room and the brightly flowered overstuffed couch Frankie always said looked like it belonged in a hippie museum.
She sat an arm’s length away from T.J., curling one leg underneath her. It was getting harder and harder to find comfortable positions as her belly grew. Placing her arm along the back, she rested her head there at an angle and looked up at T.J., who was focused on her eyes and nothing else.
“I’ve been missing Frankie a lot today,” she said, looking away, unable to look at his face as she said it. Her shyness was coupled with a tiny shiver of danger, making her heart beat harder and sending the baby into another acrobatic routine.
“Yeah, me too,” he whispered. He placed his hand over hers on the back of the padded couch, and began to rub her fingers. She saw no smile on his honest face. He knew what she was feeling. “Come here, Shannon,” he barely whispered, waiting for her to make the next move.
She found herself leaning up against his chest, while his arms had wrapped around her back, her shoulders, and his long fingers massaged the top of her spine and lazily dove into her hair, sending warm ripples from her scalp to over the rest of her body. Her arm had wrapped around his body, her other hand rubbing over his shoulder muscle. She was aware of his body heat, the smell of him, which was all male, the sound of his breath as his chest rose and fell, the way her cheek felt pressed against the granite of his pecs. She allowed herself to wallow in the muskiness under his chin.
Then he tipped her face up to his and he kissed her. Need sparked like a match lit in a dark room. How she’d missed the tender kiss and touch of a man! She’d told herself she needed to learn to live without it for now. But it flared up anyway.
She knew it was loneliness that accepted his lips on hers, accepted his tongue that waited for an invitation before plunging into her mouth, allowed her to set the pace of their kiss and moaned to
her need to deepen it. She was starving for him in every sense of the word. A tiny alarm bell off in the distance was ringing, but she put it out of her mind.
He kept one large, callused palm under her chin, rubbing her lips with his enormous thumb. His eyes were sharp with what she could easily recognize as arousal, though he was masking it. He was also showing her a hint of something deeper.
He was waiting for her to speak, to give him an answer, put a label on what had happened between them. She’d done a lot of telling herself this and that, thinking about how she should be feeling, that she should be holding things in check. Maintaining, especially with the responsibility of carrying Frankie’s child.
But her body had ached for that mysterious essence which having T.J. hold made inescapable. Her own needs, till now relegated to the place of someday, became paramount. She missed her intimacy with Frankie and how it was so obvious he loved being with her. She missed the way he enjoyed her body, the way their lives had entangled and grown like two distinctly different vines covering the same trellis.
She lay her cheek against T.J.’s chest again and allowed the rhythm of his breathing say to her what she wasn’t ready to hear in words. Her own body responded and their tandem breathing became background music for their hands, which rubbed and explored. His soothing touch on her back, her neck, down her arms, and his fingers lacing between hers, then kissing their joining heightened her arousal.
She leaned back and studied his face again, tracing her fingers over his lips, begging him to speak what he probably wouldn’t feel free to say. She knew it was loneliness that drew them together, the shared understanding that they both cherished the precious memory of Frankie as no other two people could.
His lips found hers again, found the spots under her ear and beneath her jaw as she lifted her face to the ceiling, closing her eyes and reveling in the way he explored her neck and the hollow between her shoulder and her upper chest. His thumb breached the crevice between her upper arm and her chest and then warmly squeezed her breast as he moaned into her ear.
Is this the talk she’d wanted to have? Was talking even appropriate? She decided she would have to slow things down and check her internal roadmap, even though she wanted to simply let go and plunge over the edge.
Other than his hand on her breast, he hadn’t touched her in any sexual manner, the kiss being all the signal she needed to know he was willing to go further. But he seemed relieved to find she wanted to separate them. Maybe he wanted the talk too. Maybe he regretted advancing on her. In any event, it needed to be addressed.
Her hands remained in his as he leaned against the couch, examining his thumbs brushing over the tops of her knuckles and down her fingers in a slow massage.
“T.J., it feels so strange to be sitting here doing this. We never got along before, when Frankie—”
“Was alive,” he finished for her.
“Yes.” Her eyes followed as he brought her knuckles to his lips and kissed them again, then spread out her palm and kissed it softly in a deeply personal and intimate kiss.
“I think what I’m saying is that I’m ready to stop grieving.”
She watched his eyes dart quickly to her face. Perhaps he hadn’t gone there yet inside. He gave confirmation.
“I think I’ll always miss him. But life does go on. He’d want that, Shannon. He said that to me at the end. He wanted—”
T.J. stood abruptly.
“I can’t do this,” he said as he tunneled his fingers through his hair and released a big sigh of exasperation. “I’m sorry, Shannon.”
Shannon got up carefully and stood close to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her face to his strong upper torso. “It’s okay. I understand,” she whispered to his shirt. She lifted the cotton fabric, exposing enough of his abdomen that she could place her bare palm there, and pressed. “Help me, T.J. Help me to heal.”
He paused and took a deep breath. Could it be so hard for him to show her a little softness, a little kindness and affection for the memory of their shared past? Was it asking too much?
“The baby—” he began.
“Will be fine,” she finished for him.
Chapter Nine
‡
T.J. couldn’t believe he was walking down the hall of Frankie’s little love nest, the floorboards creaking under their weight, the birds chirping outside in accompaniment to the sounds of an ordinary day. Except this wasn’t ordinary. Her body was plumped with the evidence of Frankie’s love for her, for them both, but mostly for her. And she was leading him to her bedroom—to do what? Make love to her? A pregnant wife of his best friend? A woman who was seven months along? Was this even possible? How would he feel if something happened to the baby?
He was going to need reassurance before he’d get naked with her, but, no matter what, he knew it was going to happen. He really hoped he wouldn’t feel like a dog afterwards, though.
They walked past Courtney’s pink bedroom, all set up with white furniture, waiting for the arrival of the little one to imprint her personality upon it. What a miracle, he thought, how this happened. In two months another person would live here with Shannon. A little part of Frankie would grow out here in the real world.
The bedroom was rosier now, the afternoon glow deeper and more intense. She closed the door, and then walked around him to the bed. He watched her take off her top, revealing a heavy bra with her breasts huge and bulging behind the restraints of the white lace fabric. She undid the straps and let her breasts fall, deliciously exposed to him, moving with her breathing. The sight of a woman’s engorged breasts had never turned him on more. His cock was fully erect, holding his pants out front in that famous tent.
He was mesmerized by her as she slid her elastic-topped pants over her belly and down around her ankles and stepped out of them. Her smooth skin stretched over the growing child made him want to drop to his knees. She was the most beautiful creature on earth, pregnant and ripe with new life, standing before him, unashamed of her nakedness. She was showing herself to him in a most intimate act, one no woman had done for him before.
“Are you sure this is okay?” he asked.
“For now, yes. Not for a whole lot longer, though. But yes, having sex during pregnancy is normal, and natural.” She seemed to welcome the fact he had walked towards her.
She pulled off his T-shirt. He loved that she was undressing him, gave him time to get used to seeing her so big and so full. Her nipples were hard and enormous. Her belly button was protruding, almost like a little act of defiance of the process. Her shiny hair smelled wonderful, and he felt her warm need as she rubbed her full breasts against his bare chest. She undid the button fly on his jeans and sat on the bed while she lowered his pants to the floor. His erection bounced to attention and hardened further when she wrapped her fingers around his shaft, squeezing and working up and down gently, then squeezing his balls.
He’d have been content if her lips could remain on him forever, if he could keep watching while she sucked and rolled her tongue over his head. Her hands gently squeezed his butt cheeks and he allowed himself to be drawn deep into her mouth and down her throat.
He’d never seen anything so as her lips working on him, had never experienced anything that drove his own need so fiercely. Her shimmering hair in the afternoon sun and the smooth texture of her shoulders and thighs illuminated in the golden glow of the day moved him to tears. He began to think perhaps this was what she had in mind all along. Part of him was relieved.
But that wasn’t everything Shannon had in mind. She scooted back on the bed, knees slightly bent, her taut belly rising and falling as she inhaled and looked up to him with smoldering need.
“How do I—” he started.
She smiled and interrupted him. “T.J. Don’t tell me you’ve never had sex before.”
Now he felt stupid. “Not with a pregnant woman.”
“Thank God I’m the first for you. I wouldn’t want to be second or third
.”
She was toying with him. His cock was getting stiffer and almost pained him. The little challenge to his ego spurred him on.
Holy cow. She wants me to fuck her.
It finally hit him that’s what she wanted him to do. “You sure this is okay?”
“T.J., if you want to stop, I’d understand. I mean,” she said as she rolled over on all fours and presented her sweet ass to him, “I wouldn’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Fuck it. He could see her wet pussy peeking like ripe fruit from between her legs. She allowed her shoulders to fall to the mattress as she looked up at him with those eyes full of smoldering need.
He decided he could do this. “Help me,” he said.
“First of all you have to assume the position behind me. Can you do that, T.J.?”
Well, hell yes, he could.
He knelt on the bed and allowed his thighs to touch the backs of hers, his cock rooting up the cleft in her smooth behind. His hands were on her ass, rubbing, squeezing and separating the cheeks.
“Touch me,” she whispered.
His fingers found her soft lips. He rimmed her opening and played with her folds, but still felt hesitant to penetrate. She moved herself against him, asking for it, but he found himself almost afraid of her need.
He dropped a shoulder and angled himself under her, kissing her sweet folds and massaging her nub with his tongue. Her sweet and sour flavor, musky with need, was an elixir. Her body jumped as he ran his teeth over her clitoris and then sucked her to a peak.
“Oh, God, I had no idea I needed this so much,” she moaned.
He gently tipped her to her back, putting one knee between her legs and feeling her ride his thigh, hers gripping onto him. Her face was a beautiful painting of softness and lust as she lost herself for him. His thumbs and fingers pinched her nipples and she arched to him, moaning. Her sensitivity to his touch anywhere on her body was spurring him on like never before.
“Baby,” he whispered as he nestled a kiss under her ear. His erection pressed under and around her belly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Hot Alpha SEALs: Military Romance Megaset Page 97