by Rachel Lee
“Along with being a deputy, it’s crossed my mind. I have the training for it.”
“You certainly do. In fact you could probably give the training.”
He seemed to grow pensive as they headed back to his place, and she wondered what he was thinking. He’d already looked into the possibility of two jobs here, but he was prepared to throw that all up to follow her around the world. Damn, didn’t that make her feel awful.
Yet, there was still their baby. Hadn’t she already pondered a bit about how a child had to come first in everything?
Almost without realizing it, she muttered a cuss word under her breath, wondering why there seemed to be some new wrinkle at every turn. As soon as the word slipped past her lips, she hoped he’d missed it in the car noises. He hadn’t.
“I thought you just had a great time. Why are you cussing?”
She could have offered almost any excuse under the sun, but it was growing increasingly clear to her that denial was dangerous, that concealing things was pointless. They had a lot to deal with, and ignoring any part of it could have bad consequences. Honesty, not evasion, had to be the policy from here on out.
“I was just thinking that you’d already looked into two good possibilities of jobs you’d like. Traveling with me would take that away from you.”
“So?”
“So?” She repeated the word loudly. “It matters!”
“What matters first and foremost from now until forever is our son. This isn’t going to happen without some sacrifices from both of us. You know that, Edie. Don’t feel bad that I might make a few. You’re making most of them.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
He snorted. “Yeah, right. You’re the one unwillingly grounded. You’re the one with career plans that are really blowing up. I’m the lucky one. I haven’t committed to any particular future yet except being the best father I can manage. That makes the rest of my choices easy.”
Really? His words stuck with her the rest of the way home, and she began to wonder if he wasn’t right. What if she threw everything else out the window and just thought about being the best mother possible. Would that make it easier to reach decisions?
She suspected it would. The balancing act she’d been trying to pull for months wasn’t going to end with the baby’s birth. As long as she felt she had to balance, instead of making one clear choice, she’d always be balancing.
As they neared the house, she said, “You don’t have a computer, do you?”
“Not yet. Not while I’m remodeling.”
“Then what about a bookstore?”
“We have Bea’s place. What do you want?”
“It’s time,” she said, “to start choosing names.”
Chapter Nine
Poring over a book full of baby names actually turned into a riotous afternoon. Seth was in some kind of mood and refused to get serious about it. They went through names, picking the ones that sounded absolutely awful to them, imagining some poor little boy saddled with some of them, and worse, coming up with all the possible terrible nicknames.
Edie’s sides ached from laughing. It had been a while since she’d enjoyed being so silly, and Seth had a wicked wit. But just as she was beginning to think he was avoiding the entire issue with humor, and that they were getting nowhere at all, she glanced over at the pad beside him and realized he’d written down a few names.
She leaned over to read it, even as she begged him to stop making her laugh because it was beginning to hurt, and saw that he’d copied names neither of them had either willingly or unwillingly made fun of.
“Wow,” she said. “We have names!”
“And we’re not even halfway through the book yet,” he reminded her. A smile resided in his green-brown eyes.
“Are we going to get to Seth?”
“You want to call him that?”
“Why not? Don’t most people do that?”
“I don’t know what most people do, but if you have two Seths around, the poor kid is probably going to be called Junior for the rest of his days.”
She frowned. He had a point. “We could call him Seth Too.”
“The number?”
“No.” She spelled it out for him.
He snorted. “I can already hear him being called Too, and everyone thinking it is a number. Let’s skip that idea. Names are really important. Look at my dad. I don’t think his parents ever considered what calling him Nathan Tate would cause. Nate Tate? I’m sure he got a lot of double takes before everyone around here got used to it.”
“I admit I wondered when I heard it. But it fits somehow.”
“Sooner or later.” He tapped the pad. “We’ve already got a few we didn’t trash one way or the other. We’ll have more by the time we’re done. Then we can really wrangle.”
He rose and went to pull a casserole out of the freezer. He pulled off the note taped to it and popped it in the oven. “From Doris Whelan, two doors down. Her prize-winning mac and cheese. From scratch, and she uses a good white cheddar. You’ll like it.”
“It doesn’t come out of a ration box.”
He laughed again, set the temperature on the oven. “An hour, she said, from frozen. Add fifteen because I didn’t preheat.” He taped the note to one of the few cupboard doors so he would remember where to return the dish. He’d been doing that as they ate the neighbors’ bounty.
“I’m surprised so many people brought food,” she said. “It must be because of you. They don’t even know me.”
“They don’t know me all that well yet, either, but it seems to be a tradition around here. I like it.”
She realized she was getting to like a lot of things about the quiet little town. Even her constant urge for action seemed to be quieting as she settled into an easier pace.
“So you had a great time flying today,” he said.
She looked up, a smile coming to her lips, but the instant their eyes connected, it was as if all the air left the room. A deep certainty settled over her, not unlike that morning in Afghanistan, and she knew what was coming.
He stood there, his eyes alight with promises and hungers she still could barely imagine from their one brief coupling. Waiting. Saying nothing. Doing nothing. As if he didn’t want to send her into flight. Giving her a chance to act as if she didn’t feel the same thing.
But she felt it. Oh, man, she felt it. She’d been feeling it like a nagging itch since she’d set eyes on him again. Up or down, angry or laughing, the itch never went away.
It remained at the edges of her consciousness, or it burst into the foreground at surprising moments. She kept pushing it away, telling herself it was just another complication she didn’t need.
Maybe she didn’t need it, but she wanted it. Maybe it wasn’t smart, but she didn’t care anymore. All the things she had so steadfastly tried to avoid by avoiding sex had happened anyway: her career was in a shambles, her future was up in the air and she had a baby on the way.
What was there left to avoid?
Her limbs seemed to grow heavy, and heat pooled between her thighs. She rose, facing him, but unsure what to do. It had been so easy that night so long ago. So what had changed? Was it easier with a stranger than with someone you knew? That didn’t make sense.
“You’re so beautiful,” Seth said, his voice husky. “Tell me now if I should turn off that oven.”
She knew exactly what he meant, but he’d given her a graceful way to pretend she didn’t understand. Her own response sounded hoarse even to her. “Turn it off.”
He smiled then, an almost lazy, sleepy smile. Somehow that look ratcheted up the growing heat within her. It seemed to promise so much. Memories of their brief time together tumbled around in her head, exquisite, exciting. She knew she wanted even more this time
, although she didn’t know exactly what. Slow? Fast? Right now she thought she’d die if it wasn’t fast and furious. Later...she hoped there would be a later, but at that moment she didn’t care.
Now and Seth. All she wanted.
There was a click, oddly loud, as he switched the oven off. Then he slipped an arm around her waist and laid his hand on her belly. “I’ll be careful.”
“I don’t think I’m that fragile.”
“Still.” The smile reached his eyes, but seemed to hold a burning intensity. She wouldn’t have imagined it could feel this good, this heady, to realize a man wanted her that much. And the more so because it was Seth.
She wanted him, not just a man. Of that she hadn’t the least doubt.
He guided her toward the stairs, then rested his hands on her hips as she climbed them ahead of him. His touch, so ordinary, nonetheless felt almost like fire through her clothes. Those flames were growing, heating her inside then turning into the most amazing ache. It far exceeded anything she had felt the last time until they were approaching culmination. Now her body was as ready to go as her mind.
At the top of the stairs, still standing behind her, he murmured, “Slowly this time. I want to appreciate you.”
The whisper of his warm breath in her ear sent a thrill racing through her—his words were almost a promise.
One last sane thought tried to poke through the hot haze of desire: What was she getting into?
It vanished the instant his lips touched the side of her neck, caressing her. All of a sudden her legs felt rubbery. As if he sensed it, he swept her right off her feet, turned sideways and carried her into the bedroom. He stood her beside the bed, facing him, cupping her face and looking deep into her eyes.
“Me, too,” he said, as he had on that memorable night months ago. “Me, too.”
A shudder of longing ripped through her, and she tipped her head back. Never in her life had she felt more like surrendering. Never.
As he reached to lift her shirt, she muttered, “I have no waist.”
“Believe me, that only makes you more beautiful. Did I tell you that you have a glow about you that you didn’t before? I can’t explain it.”
“I was tired before.”
A quiet chuckle escaped him. “Not that I noticed. This is for us, Edie. Just for us.”
She liked the sound of that. More heat and heaviness drizzled to her core and all of a sudden she felt energized. She reached for the buttons on his shirt.
“Easy,” he said.
“Like hell. There’ll be time for that later.”
He laughed, then granted her wish. Just as had happened months ago, clothes went flying, tossed away as fast as they could manage.
He cussed at her boots as she sat on the edge of the bed, feeling cool air whisper over her now-naked breasts. “We’ve really got to get you something easier,” he said.
She reached out and stroked his longer hair, liking it better than the buzz cut he used to have, although that had had its charms, too. “Maybe I should never dress again.”
He looked up from the boots, eyes hooded yet hot. “I could get to like that.”
He finally cast the boots aside, pulled her pants off her, then reached up to cup her breasts. “They’ve grown,” he said.
“You remember?”
“I haven’t forgotten one single instant.”
Talk about an inflammatory statement. She was already hot, but those words set her on fire. Every cell in her body seemed to be licked by tongues of flame.
“Hurry,” she said raggedly. “Oh, damn, Seth, just hurry.”
He brushed his thumbs over her nipples, more sensitive now than ever in her life, and she shivered. “Seth...”
“Oh, damn,” he muttered.
The next thing she knew, she was lying back on the bed, her feet still hanging over the side, and she could feel his staff seeking entry. This, just this, would be enough. A cry escaped her as he filled her, and it felt so good she thought she would shatter.
But his hands never stopped roaming over her breasts and belly, building the excitement in her in every way possible. She bucked a little and he responded with a deeper plunge into her.
His head bowed. First he kissed the mound of her growing baby, then his lips trailed upward, wet and hot toward her breasts. Moans started to escape her as primal needs took command.
Wanting. Needing. Hunger. Heat. The pulsing at her center spread throughout her entire body, as if she were one gigantic heartbeat. Reaching out, feeling as if she were wound tighter than a spring, she grabbed his shoulders, silently begging.
He gave her what she wanted. Leaning forward, he sucked her breasts, creating a rhythm with each movement of his mouth that kept time with her throbbing center, heightening her need until there was no thought left in her mind. With each plunge of his staff into her, she felt at once a satisfaction so deep it defied description and a rising hunger that demanded more.
The crest was close, so close. There was an agonizing moment when everything inside her seemed to still, then she peaked with a loud cry. An instant later she felt him groan and shudder, felt a new wave of heat as he jetted into her.
It could get better. Dazed, sated, she felt as light as drifting eiderdown.
* * *
A little while later, she curled against his side with her head on his shoulder and his arm around her back. He’d pulled the covers up over them and tucked a pillow under his head.
“Damn,” he said, his voice full of lazy amusement, “are you helo pilots always in such a rush?”
“I thought you SEALs were the fast-in, fast-out guys.”
“Only on some things.” He gave her a little squeeze. “We can do that again. As often as you like. Slower, too.”
“I’m not sure slower is better.”
“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?” He turned a little to wrap his other arm around her. “I like the baby bump. I like the changes in your body. In case you were wondering. I was crazy about you the first time, obviously, but I’m still crazy. Everything okay?”
“Never felt better.”
“Me neither. Never.”
There seemed to be an emphasis to the way he said it, as if he didn’t want her wondering how she compared to his wives or other lovers. And it sounded like he meant it.
Warmed, she nuzzled his shoulder. “So many things I never imagined.”
“Like what? Feelings?”
“Well, that, but also...I shouldn’t admit this, but I actually liked being out of control.”
“Oh, sweetie, this is the best time to be out of control. You’re safe with me, so let it all hang out.”
“I think we just did that.”
She heard the laugh rumble in his chest, temporarily muting the steady thud of his heartbeat. “That we did.” Then he asked, “Are you hungry? Thirsty? I can run downstairs and grab something.”
“That casserole will spoil.”
“That casserole is a long way from being thawed. So, do you want anything?”
“A shower,” she admitted. “Sex is sticky.”
Another laugh rolled out of him. “Well, I know of this shower only a few feet away that’s plenty big enough for two. Care to join me?”
She tipped her head up until she could meet his gaze. “Why do you look so impish?”
“I have an evil side, and it’s having evil thoughts about being in that shower.”
Instantly she was sharing those evil thoughts. “You’re on.”
He tossed back the covers and led her naked to the bathroom. “Sit while I get the water warm.”
So she sat on the closed commode while he turned on the two nozzles. “Extra large water heater. We can take all the time we want.”
She smiled. �
��Why do I get the feeling you often missed showers?”
“Maybe because I did? You get so you don’t pay attention. There are more important things. But I swear, the showers were the first thing I hit as soon as they were in range.”
“I know.”
“I’m sure you do. There we go.”
He took her hand and helped her up. “You can sit on the bench if you want.”
She didn’t want, not yet. Instead she went into his arms, naked body pressed to naked body beneath a pounding spray of deliciously warm water. Could it get any better?
Oh, yes. As soon as they were wet, he grabbed a bottle of shampoo and began to wash her hair and massage her scalp. Relaxation poured through her, making her feel good all over.
Then he turned her under the spray to rinse her hair and began to rub a bar of soap all over her, starting at her neck. The slick caresses were heaven, and once again heat began to pool between her thighs.
Her eyes opened. “Oh, my heavens, Seth...”
“Enjoy,” he said. “Enjoy, because I sure as hell am.”
She felt as if she were being worshipped. His soap-slickened hands moved everywhere, slowly and lazily, which began to build the most wonderful kind of impatient anticipation in her. She had to force herself to remain still under his ministrations, but they felt so good she was contradictorily afraid to move and put a stop to them.
Over her breasts until they tingled and her nipples hardened. Gently lifting them to wash beneath, then running his hands around to her back. More soap, more caresses, pounding warm water. Heaven on earth.
But as his hands moved lower, she found herself holding her breath. Over her hips, again and again. Closer.
She almost protested when all of a sudden he dropped down and began washing her legs from the ankles up. Instead, the hot feelings pouring through her made her grab the safety bar for support.
“Do you need to sit?” he asked instantly.
“Not yet. Please.”
She thought she heard a laugh from him, but his hands never stopped moving, caressing every inch of her legs, steadily climbing, getting closer...closer...
Ah, sweet heaven. How much more could she stand?