His Baby!

by Maureen Child

  Frowning, Jeff moved soundlessly across the carpet, back through the living room to the small entryway. He turned the knob, yanked the door open and stared, openmouthed at Kelly.

  Her mouth went dry.

  Good God, she thought, her gaze sweeping over him quickly, thoroughly. She’d actually forgotten just what a hunk Jeff Hunter really was. His bare chest looked as though it had been sculpted by a master out of teakwood. Tanned and smooth, his skin rippled with row after row of well toned muscles. His abdomen was flat with a few stray curls of dark hair that disappeared beneath the unbuttoned waistband of his jeans. His bare feet were braced wide apart in a fighting stance. One hand rested on the door while the other was fisted at his side. High up on his shoulder, she saw the Marine Corps tattoo that she vividly remembered tracing with her tongue one memorable night.

  Mercy. She actually felt heat streaming through her body. Every nerve ending went to full attention, and she knew that if he so much as touched her, she’d splinter into a thousand pieces.

  Oh, she hoped he would.

  His pale blue eyes watched her, and Kelly licked dry lips before speaking, desperately praying her voice would work.

  “Maybe I should have called,” she said finally.

  “No,” he said, and his voice scraped along her spine, sending goose bumps racing up and down her arms. “It’s fine. I was about to go for a run—”

  “Oh, then I’ll—” Leave? She didn’t want to leave.

  “No,” he said quickly. “It’s okay. I’m just surprised to see you, that’s all.”

  Of course he was surprised, she told herself. He’d left her only an hour ago with the promise that they’d meet tomorrow to talk some more. But she hadn’t been able to sit still once he was gone. She’d waited eighteen months to see him again, and now that he was home, she didn’t want to wait another minute.

  “I know we said tomorrow,” she said with a shrug, “but I thought…why put off till tomorrow what we could—?” She stopped, smiled and shrugged again. “You know.”

  “Yeah.” He shoved his free hand into his pocket, and Kelly’s gaze was drawn to the action. Naturally, she also noted the distinct bulge in his jeans, and another shiver coursed through her. Her knees were shaky, so she locked them in place to keep from melting into a tidy puddle in front of him.

  “Where’s the baby?” he asked.

  “Uh, Kieran’s staying with her.” Thankfully, she had one brother at least who was a romantic at heart. He’d come as soon as she’d called and hadn’t said a word when she told him where she was going. He’d only said that she should take her time, and that he was prepared to spend the night if she needed him to.

  Of course, if Jeff didn’t make her feel a bit more welcome pretty soon, she could be home again in ten minutes.

  As if he knew just what she was thinking, he stood back, held the door wider and said, “Come in.”

  That’s a start, she thought and stepped past him into the shadowy interior of the hotel room. The curtains were open on the sliding glass doors leading to the balcony, and moonlight poured into the room. The sheer white drapes ruffled in the ocean breeze and almost looked like ghosts writhing in the darkness.

  The door closed behind her, and she felt Jeff step up close, pause, then move past her, farther into the room. He flipped a switch on the wall, and a small pool of lamplight banished the shadows.

  Kelly swung her shoulder purse off her arm and tossed it onto the closest chair. Now that she was here, she wasn’t at all sure where to start. She ran her damp hands down the legs of her jeans and told herself to say something. Heck, say anything.

  “I know Emily was a big shock…” Well, duh.

  “Yeah,” he said, taking a step toward her, then stopping again. “You could say that.”

  “Jeff, I would have told you earlier if I’d had any way of getting in touch with you.”

  “I know that.”

  “And I’m sorry my brothers were there.”

  “Can’t blame ’em,” he said stiffly. “I figure my name hasn’t exactly been popular around here for the last year and a half.”

  That was putting it mildly, she thought. Ever since she’d found out she was pregnant, her brothers had wanted nothing less than either a marriage—or Jeff’s head on a plate. And they really hadn’t cared which it came down to, either.

  But that decision wasn’t up to them, as she’d spent the past eighteen months telling them. This was between she and Jeff. No one else got a vote here.

  “Let’s leave them out of this for now, okay?” she asked, not really wanting to talk about her brothers at the moment.

  He nodded and pinned her with a look that nearly set fire to her jeans. “Trust me. I’m not thinking about your brothers right now.”

  Oh, man. Kelly swallowed hard and walked toward him, one slow step at a time. “What are you thinking about?” she asked, and was amazed that she’d managed to squeeze that many words past the knot of pure, soul-deep hunger lodged in her throat.

  He shook his head. “You know damn well what I’m thinking about, Kel. The same thing I’ve been thinking about and dreaming about for the last eighteen months.”

  “You, too?” she asked before she could stop herself. It probably wasn’t playing the game to admit to a man just how badly you wanted him. But then again, who was playing here?

  She took another step and came within reaching distance. His gaze moved over her face, her hair, her body like the tenderest of lover’s touches, and her heartbeat quickened into double time.

  “Every night,” he said, his voice a low scrape of sound in the stillness, “whenever I closed my eyes, you were there. Your scent. Your taste.”

  Her knees wobbled dangerously.

  “Your touch,” he whispered, and lifted one hand to smooth his fingertips along the line of her cheek and jaw.

  She trembled and fought for breath.

  “It’s been a long time,” she said softly, her gaze locking with his.

  “Too damn long,” he agreed, and cupped the back of her neck with one hand, drawing her closer still.

  She went willingly, laying her palms against his chest, feeling the hard, solid warmth of him. His heartbeat pounded quickly beneath one hand, and she knew her own heart was keeping time. Her blood felt hot and thick in her veins. Her head spun dizzily at his touch, and her breasts ached.

  Kelly stared up into those blue eyes of his and read the hunger written there. Seeing his desire, so naked, so pure, touched a match to her insides and ignited an inferno within. Slowly, so slowly, the expectation was darn near painful, he lowered his head toward hers and she rose up to meet him.

  This, she thought. This was why she’d come. This was why she hadn’t been able to wait until tomorrow. She’d needed to have his hands on her. Needed to kiss and be kissed. Needed to hold and be held. Needed to lie beneath him, feeling him fill the emptiness inside.

  And then his mouth came down on hers, and she stopped thinking. Her brain clicked off and her body clicked on. Sensation rippled through her, and she slid her palms up his chest and around his neck. Holding on to him tightly, she felt his arms slide around her and lock like twin steel bands, pinning her to his body with an easy strength she remembered all too clearly.

  He parted her lips with his tongue and claimed her anew. Breath mingling, sighs exchanged, their tongues met in a clashing dance of need and want. He shifted one hand to the back of her head, threading his fingers through her hair and holding her for his kiss. A kiss that gave, as well as took. She clung to him, tasting him, teasing him, aligning her body along his. And it wasn’t nearly enough. There were too many clothes separating them. She needed to feel his skin against hers.

  His hands swept around and up, cupping her breasts, thumbing her nipples through the soft angora sweater she wore. Kelly tore her mouth free of his and moaned gently at his touch. “Jeff…”

  “I know, baby,” he muttered thickly. “Me, too. I need to feel you. All of you. Now.”


  “Yes,” she murmured, opening her eyes briefly to look up at him. “Now. Please.”

  Jeff’s hands dropped to the hem of her sweater, and in one swift move, he had it up and over her head. Tossing it to one side, he ran his hands up and down her back while his gaze locked on her lace-covered breasts. Fuller, he thought. Rounder than before. And still so damn perfect.

  She trembled against him, and that gentle movement echoed inside him. Reverently, he lifted both hands to the front clasp between her breasts and deftly undid it. She sucked in a huge gulp of air as the bra came loose and stood perfectly still when he scooped it off her shoulders and down her arms.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered, and cupped her breasts in his palms.

  “Jeff…” she said on a sigh.

  His thumbs and forefingers tweaked her already rigid nipples, tugging and pulling gently until her breath came short and fast. She reached out and held on to his forearms, curling her fingers into his skin until her trim nails dug into his flesh. Then he dipped his head and gave into the urge riding him. Taking first one nipple and then the other into his mouth, he tasted her, rolling the sensitive tips with his tongue, swirling across her skin, luxuriating in the feel of her beneath his mouth.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered. “I missed you so much.” And she held on tighter even while she arched into him, offering herself to him, silently demanding he take more, give more.

  So he did. He suckled her, drawing on those pink tips until she quivered in his grasp and only his hands at her waist were holding her upright. And when she groaned, deep and low, he straightened up and looked down into her eyes. Keeping their gazes locked, he unbuttoned her jeans and pulled the zipper down. She smiled at him. A soft, small, knowing smile and then returned the favor. She slowly undid the buttons on his fly, and each time her knuckles brushed his skin, he sucked in another gulp of air and knew it would never be enough.

  She freed him from his jeans and curled her fingers around his hard flesh. Jeff clenched his jaw and pulled air in through gritted teeth as he slid one hand down the front of her jeans and beneath her silk panties to cup her heat.

  The smile on her face died instantly, but her fingers continued to work their magic on his flesh as he delved first one finger and then two into her hot center.

  She rocked her hips against his hand, lifting up, moving so that he could touch her more fully, more completely.

  “Jeff,” she whispered, “I can’t…I can’t breathe.”

  “Then don’t,” he told her, his own voice tight. “Just feel.” He smoothed the tip of a finger across her most sensitive spot, and she groaned, adjusting her stance to give him more access. Again and again, he touched her, rousing her, pushing her higher and higher, all the while trying to control his own response to her hands on him.

  Her breath came fast and furious. Her body trembled. And when she cried out his name and fell against him, shaking with the force of the climax pounding through her, he carefully eased her down onto the floor. There he whisked off her clothes, got rid of his own and paused to grab a condom from the pocket of his jeans. When he was protected, he pushed himself inside her warmth and relished the feel of her legs lifting and coming around his waist.

  This, he thought, feeling her body surround him, hold him, this was what he’d waited for. What he’d missed. This one woman. This one place where everything else in the world fell away.

  He’d lived through misery and combat and loneliness, but here with her, none of it mattered. She held on to him, her hands running up and down his back as she urged, “Again, Jeff. Take me there again. It’s been so long.”

  “Again,” he repeated, lifting his head to look down into her eyes as his own climax hovered just out of reach. “And again. I’ll never stop,” he promised, meaning every word.

  He’d thought about this for too long. Waited for it. Dreamed about it. And now that she was here, in his arms, her breath dusting against his face, he had to have her. He worked her body with his fingers, his hands. Touching, soothing, stroking, plunging. No rest. No stopping. He couldn’t get enough of her and felt in her response that she felt the same.

  Plunging in and out of her warmth, he stoked the fires within them both until they were engulfed in the flames. Thought fled, only hunger remained and still they touched and kissed and stroked.

  His body tightened, his control slipped and she held him close, lifting her hips, racing to meet the climax crashing down on her. And when he thought he would lose his mind with the want, she said on a sigh, “Oh now, Jeff. Hold me.”

  He held her tightly, took her mouth with his and as her body quickened around his, he surrendered and rode the wave of his own completion, nestled safely in her arms.

  Six

  “Wow,” Kelly murmured when she found her voice again.

  “That about says it,” Jeff agreed, and slowly, like a man afraid to move too quickly, rolled to one side of her. Keeping her close, he wrapped one arm around her and held her tightly to him.

  She ran the flat of her hand across his chest and paused to feel the rapid beat of his heart. Smiling to herself, she cuddled in, nestling her head on his shoulder. Okay, maybe that hadn’t solved anything. Maybe they still had problems to resolve and questions to answer. But by heaven, it had been wonderful. Just to be with him again.

  “Glad you dropped by,” Jeff said, and his voice rumbled through his chest like the echo of a passing train.

  “Yeah,” she said, tipping her head back to look up at him. “Me, too. By the way, nice floor.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted into a quirk of a smile. “Nothing but the best from me.”

  It figured that with a perfectly good bedroom just steps away, she and Jeff would end up on the plushly carpeted floor. It had always been like that between them. From the moment they’d met.

  Well, she corrected silently, from the moment she’d regained consciousness to discover this gorgeous Marine giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She hardly recalled getting hit in the head by a stray surfboard. She certainly didn’t remember sinking beneath the waves and swallowing half the ocean. But everything else about that day was etched in living, brilliant color in her memory.

  Stretched out on the sand, someone’s mouth on hers. She coughed, opened her eyes and looked up into a pair of blue eyes so pale, so clear it was as if she could see right through them into the hunk’s soul. Then, as coughing spasms wracked her, he held on to her, soothing, stroking, gently whispering words of encouragement that reached into her heart and eased away the fear.

  He’d saved her life, everyone said. She heard the smattering of applause from their bathing-suit-clad audience. But all she focused on was him. There was something between them, even then. And when he took her to lunch and then dinner, that something grew, blossoming out of nothingness to envelop them both in a wild, rare burst of passion and need that Kelly had never known before.

  And for two weeks, they’d reveled in it and each other. It was as if they’d known each other before. Some other time, some other place. Not that she believed in that sort of past-life thing. But what other explanation was there for the connection that only strengthened with each passing day?

  The sex had been incredible, but safe. They’d both been careful. And yet…as the saying went, “Life found a way.” He hadn’t been gone more than two weeks when Kelly discovered she was pregnant. In a weird sort of way, she hadn’t even been surprised. It was as if what they’d experienced, what they’d found together was just too big to be contained.

  “Kelly,” he said, bringing her wandering thoughts back to the present, “we still have to talk.”

  “I know,” she said, skimming her hand down across his chest and back up again.

  He sucked in a gulp of air and captured her hand, holding it tightly. “Keep doing that and we won’t get much talking done.”

  Truth be told, she’d just as soon put off the talking. There was bound to be another argument. Because no matter wh
at he said, she didn’t want to get married. Marriage had never been in her plans. Of course, growing up with four bossy older brothers probably had a lot to do with that. Still, it was probably best to get this settled between them.

  “Okay,” she said, surrendering to the inevitable. Pushing up into a sitting position, she looked down at him and said, “Let’s talk.”

  His gaze swept over her body, lingering on her breasts for a moment, before he sighed and raised up on both elbows. “You don’t make it easy on a man, do you?”

  “Dressed or undressed, there’s nothing about this that’s going to be easy, Jeff.”

  “It could be.”

  “If I do what you want.” Typical, she thought. Hadn’t she been dealing with four males all of her life? She’d learned early that if you wanted to have smooth sailing, all you had to do was agree with them. But smooth sailing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She’d just as soon have waves as surrender her own opinions.

  And heaven knows, she was plenty used to going up against a hardheaded male.

  “It’s not just what I want,” Jeff said, meeting her gaze squarely. “It’s what’s best for Emily.”

  “Really?” A brief, red-hot spurt of anger shot through her, chasing away any lingering warm fuzzies she might have been feeling. She pushed her hair back from her face and glared at him. “You’ve known your daughter for about five hours and you already know what’s best for her?”

  “I didn’t say that, exactly.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “And how do you come by this spectacular piece of insight?” she went on, warming to the attack. “By benefit of your far superior male brain?”

  “Come on, Kelly,” he said, eyes narrowing.

  “No, really,” she said, and stood up, preferring to be on her feet for the argument that was headed her way at a fast clip. “That’s what you meant.”

  “Damn it, I did not.”

  “Don’t curse at me,” she warned him. “And yeah, you did.”