And, when she rested her palm on top of Jared’s hand on the couch, she felt even cheerier as he turned his hand over, clasping hers.
* * *
The ride back to Annette’s house seemed to take forever for Jared.
He could sense all the questions she had for him about his birth mom because, after Gran’s friends had shown up, the mood had shifted and the uncomfortable discussion had gone by the wayside. To boot, a couple of her church pals had unexpectedly stayed for dinner after she’d impetuously invited them, and that had given Jared a further reprieve.
It was his fault that the whole discussion had started anyway because he hadn’t stopped Gran from introducing it. Deep down, had he wanted Annette to know?
And, now that she did, was he in way too deep with her, in spite of all his efforts to stay distant?
He parked the pickup in a guest space. Gran had sent home an army of Tupperware containers brimming with food, and Annette couldn’t possibly carry all of it in on her own.
As they came to her front door, arms loaded, she said, “You should really keep all of this, Jared.”
“I never told Gran that I’m not one to eat leftovers. Besides, I’ve got my schedule down—lunch at the diner whenever I’m in town and dinner at the Queen of Hearts.”
He’d grabbed her keys before she’d gotten out of the truck, and now he unlocked the door, then pushed it open, waiting for her to go in first.
As she passed, he smelled the flowery shampoo she used, and even a trace of the cocoa-and-shea butter. It brought back with a slam the feel of her bare stomach beneath his hand.
The aftermath of the memory tingled in his belly as he followed her to the kitchen and set down the containers.
“At the very least,” she said, “you’ve got to help me eat all this when you’re over here digging. Even if I’m working, I’ll just give you a key so you can come in when you need to.”
He was about to refuse her, but then she turned those beautiful blue eyes on him, and he was dust.
“Sounds good,” he said.
“Great.” She opened the fridge, putting the food inside.
He could almost feel the moment her thoughts turned, getting serious as she closed the door then slid off her coat and draped it on the counter.
“About earlier...”
“You don’t have to say a word about it.”
“But I want to.” She motioned with her hands, almost helplessly. “You can’t care about someone and not care about what happened to them in the past. This thing with your mom—”
“My birth mom.” He’d corrected her before checking himself.
“Right.” A heartbeat of time passed. “I just... What did your grandma mean when she said that your birth mom turned you away a second time?”
He realized this conversation would require some time, so he took off his hat, shrugged off his coat and put them on the counter, too.
Then, he started.
“I found out I was adopted when I stumbled on a letter from the man I’d been calling ‘Dad’ all the years I was growing up,” he said. “My parents had passed on by then, and I was living with a bachelor uncle who’d taken me in. Long story short, after I left that home, I eventually got curious enough to hire a private investigator, and he found my birth mom living with some guy in Birmingham. It was probably a temporary arrangement because that seems to be her M.O.”
“And then you went to meet her?”
“It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.” But that wasn’t true. There was an even stupider decision in his life that he couldn’t bear the thought of revealing to Annette—the abandonment of his own daughter.
Annette took a step toward him, and he didn’t go anywhere.
“Every child wants to know about their parents,” she said. “With my dad dying when I was young, all I wanted was to somehow meet him again, even though I knew it wasn’t possible. If I’d had the chance, I would’ve jumped at it.”
“Well, when I found her, she wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with joy, like your dad would’ve been.”
“What did she do?”
God, he’d never told every single detail to anyone, not even Gran.
“At first, after I told her who I was, she just stood there in her doorway,” he said, the words scratching out of his throat. “In that space of time, I remember thinking that I didn’t resemble her that much. That I must’ve inherited my eyes and hair from my dad. Then she got this look on her face, and she said, ‘You shouldn’t have come here.’”
Annette seemed stricken. “All those years apart, and that’s what she told you?”
“She had a few more good ones. When I asked about my dad, she told me she didn’t even know who he was. There were a few candidates, she said, and she gave me up for adoption so she wouldn’t have to be reminded of any of us again.”
“She said that?”
Jared nodded, unsure that he could utter another word. As Annette lay a tender hand on his arm, he broke down.
“She never even invited me inside,” he whispered, so roughly that it came out sounding as though he was being ripped apart.
But it was as if that rip had opened up something new, and he thought it might be relief.
And when he saw that Annette wasn’t judging him, that she was only looking at him with an affection he’d never thought to find in any person, he knew it went even beyond relief.
“All these years,” she said, resting her fingertips against his cheek, “you’ve been carrying this around inside of you. Most people wouldn’t be able to stand that, Jared.”
He wanted to answer that most people might not have had any sparkle of hope to keep them going—the thought that, maybe, there were good people in his past. That his birth mom was the only hideous stain on this new existence he’d found.
That maybe, a possible blood relation like Tony Amati might show him where he was headed by revealing where he’d been.
It was as if, right now, Annette was the only person who’d ever understand all of that.
She whispered, “Just know that the day you came into my life, you changed it for the better. You’re the best man I know.”
He wasn’t so sure about that, but the doubt dissipated as she stroked his cheek.
And the world went fuzzy as he gathered her in his arms and kissed her, needing her more than he’d ever needed anything or anyone.
Chapter Eight
She was his.
As Jared wrapped his arms around her, encompassing her as if she belonged only to him and he wasn’t ever going to let her go, she gave herself fully over, knowing that it was always meant to be this way.
Back when he’d first walked into the diner all those months ago, through the summer and fall and beginning of winter, as they’d bantered and kept a friendly yet polite space between them, this moment had been coming.
It had been inevitable.
And she reveled in every bit of it, kissing him right back, sinking against his wide chest, hooking her arms under his and gripping his shoulders, feeling her baby bump nestling against him.
During their first kiss, there’d been a sense of innocence, but not now—not after such an emotionally charged night when he’d been laid bare to her.
Now there was raw urgency as his mouth devoured hers, as he claimed her and she opened herself to him.
She moaned as he slowed the kiss, as his tongue entered her mouth, seeking, needing, stroking her tongue with a knee-weakening rhythm.
She felt hotter with every roiling bang of her pulse as it pounded in her chest, sliding down and down until it got to the middle of her legs.
She ached for him—ached until she had to break off their kiss and bury her face in his neck.
Skin and musk and cowbo
y, she thought again, her breath heavy and ragged against him. Her mouth pressed against a vein, and she could feel it throbbing beneath her lips, could feel his heart beating crazily in his chest.
He buried his fingers in her hair, loosening the pins that were holding it up. “Annie?”
It was a question, maybe not just to her.
Even just by saying her name, she could hear all his confusion. Should he go any further?
Should they?
She’d already come up with an answer on the night she’d returned home to find her backyard decorated with lights that were just as bright as what she felt in her heart right now. That night, she had seen in Jared a man who could love, and he had been nothing like the guy she had feared he might be—too full of secrets, too removed to ever have significant feelings for anyone else.
So should they?
“Yes,” she whispered.
His breath hitched as he held her away from him, searching her gaze. She smiled up at him while he pulled the pins from her hair, one by one. They dropped to the floor with what sounded like tiny chimes.
When he was done, her hair fell down her back and her shoulders, and he pushed it away from her face, exploring her temples, her cheekbones, her jawline.
It was as if he’d never seen her before, and maybe he hadn’t—not like this, at least. Not so vulnerable, with her refusing to hide how she felt about him now.
Two people who could’ve been alone tonight, she thought, leaning against one of his palms as he cupped her face. Two people who belong together.
Even though she’d said yes to him, he still seemed hesitant to go on.
So she helped him along.
She reached up, undoing the first button on his shirt. The second. Then pulling the material out of his jeans so she could undo the rest.
He sucked in a breath as she spread open his shirt.
There was a sprinkling of hair over his chest, which was just as muscled and firm as she’d imagined it would be. She pressed her hands to him, and it felt so good—better than it could have with any other man.
Just look at him, she thought. He was worth a million men, and she wanted to show him that.
She slipped off his shirt, and it seemed as if he was letting her take the lead.
That felt good, too, because she’d never really been the type to do that before. Maybe it was because she’d never wanted something—or someone—this badly.
She’d heard that women who were as pregnant as she was might be too tired for sex or might feel too unattractive, but damn were they wrong.
His arms were bunched with muscles, and just out of pure desire, she walked around him, trailing her hand over his chest, his arm, until she came to his back.
And...damn.
She’d never imagined anyone could look like this, his shoulders wide, his deltoids rippling as he reached for the counter, as if her mere touch were enough to send him falling.
She had studied art, lived through art during school, but she’d lost all sense of that lately...until now.
He was a masterpiece.
Tracing her fingers over the lines of him, she explored his back, his sides, then lower, coaxing her fingers into the waistband of his dark jeans.
“Annie...” he said again, a jagged warning.
As if he was going to stop her now. “For a man of few words, there’s sure a lot of chatter coming from you.”
She leaned her face against his back—all warm, smooth skin, muscle, male—and slipped her fingers farther into the side of his jeans.
He made a pleased yet tortured sound, but she barely heard it as she felt his hip—hard yet soft, sculpted by all the manual labor he did every day.
“You’re all a woman could ever want,” she said, drawing her hand to his front, where his abs clenched under her butterfly touch.
She skimmed her fingertips upward, over the fine line of hair that disappeared into his belly button, then went back down, pausing over the snap of his jeans.
The point of no return.
Her life flashed before her eyes: the bad decisions she had made, the bridal gown that had been stuffed in the trunk of her car, the blank walls of this condo when she had first entered it with nothing more than a positive attitude to her name.
Then this—a good decision. The best she would ever make.
She unbuttoned his fly with deliberate care, feeling his belly jump, feeling his breathing quicken. Her own breath was warm and damp against his back while she rested her forehead against him.
Then, as he made a guttural sound, she eased her hand over his hardness, her heartbeat taking her over with a palpitating fever.
He cursed as he put his hand over hers, holding her to him. But then he turned around and, with one fluid move, clutched the bottom of her frilly white blouse and started unbuttoning it from there on up.
Her first instinct was to stop him. She’d gained so much weight. It’d been one thing to see him without a stich of clothing, but it was another to have her bared to his gaze.
But he didn’t seem to care as he peeled open her blouse to expose her major-league bullet bra.
Her breasts spilled over the cups, and a hungry heat took over his gaze.
“Annie, you’re so beautiful.”
Moved by that, she let him take off her blouse, then unhook the back of her bra.
It fell to the kitchen floor, and she almost covered herself with her arms before he tenderly put his hands on her shoulders.
“Don’t,” he said quietly. Then stronger. “Don’t.”
Her head spun as he mapped her as thoroughly as she’d done to him, his hands lightly smoothing over her arms, then cupping her breasts. He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples, bringing them to beaded peaks.
Then he did something she’d never thought any man would do to her—he took her in his arms and romantically dipped her back just enough so that he latched his mouth to a nipple, sucking.
She threaded her fingers through his dark hair, holding back a cry. Every pull of his mouth hurt, but in such a good way that she could hardly stand it. Her body agreed with her, too, as a twist spiraled between her legs, traveling higher, higher, until she was tugging at his hair with every one of his pulls and nips.
He loved her with his mouth, sending her up, pushing her higher and higher.
She made a helpless sound as a tiny explosion threatened, sharp and straining but not quite there yet.
When he looked at her face, he no doubt saw how flushed she was, how on the edge she was of something even bigger. In one fluid motion he scooped her into his arms and carried her out of the kitchen, down the hall, toward her bedroom.
Out of oxygen, she could barely talk. “My bed... It’s...”
They came through the door, and he set her down on her feet, where she swayed against him, both of them staring at her twin bed.
But he wasted no time in stripping off the covers, the sheets, grabbing pillows and tossing them to the floor on top of it all.
“What’re you doing?” she asked.
He slipped his thumb into the expandable waistband of her velvet skirt, working it downward. “I’m not taking a chance on that bed.”
It was too small—made only for a single girl—but that didn’t seem to matter when they had a makeshift place on the floor that was just as good.
When he had her skirt and boots off, he lay her down, propping pillows behind her.
Then, as she panted, almost dying because she wanted him so badly, he stripped.
When he reached into his jeans pocket, she thought he might be searching for a condom.
“No need for that,” she said. “Unless...”
He assured her that there was no other reason for protection, and when he came to her, she was ready f
or him.
She was propped up by the pillows, and he made sure that his weight wasn’t on her belly as he braced himself over her.
“My Annie,” he said.
She was about to answer, but he entered her before she could speak, and her words were sucked in on a breath.
He filled her, and as he moved in, out, gently, slowly at first, she held on to him, looking into his dark gaze.
There was an unfathomable fire there, so deep that she felt as if she was going into a place that swallowed her whole and burned her at the edges, singeing, searing as she took him all the way in.
The climax she’d been so close to earlier flickered in her, building, licking until she had to close her eyes and grab harder on to him.
The faster he went, the more he fanned the fire hotter, higher, till the flames were so fierce and blazing, they lit up that dark place until she saw everything about him, about them, about—
As the orgasm consumed her, her last thought floated by, spinning away from her until she could barely grasp it.
But she did catch it. And it was only then that she knew just what it was.
Love.
She had definitely fallen in love with the man in black.
* * *
After they’d made love, Jared watched Annette in the moonlight that arced through the window. She’d fallen asleep, cuddled against him, but he couldn’t catch a wink.
Wasn’t it the guy who was supposed to slumber off after sex?
But Annette had seemed satisfied—no, ecstatic—with what had gone on between them, so her exhaustion didn’t bother him. Nothing much did at the moment, as a matter of fact, because he was the happiest he’d ever been.
When they’d started to make love, he’d had an instant of doubt, but it had soon been erased when she’d urged him to a point where he couldn’t stop himself from being with her. She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman, and he still couldn’t believe that she’d given herself to him.
She sighed in her sleep, and he brushed a piece of moonbeam hair away from her face. Every breath she took was like his own, and he couldn’t get enough of her.
The Cowboy's Pregnant Bride (St. Valentine, Texas) Page 11