by Amy Andrews
He cleared his throat again. “Crotchless?”
She didn’t say anything for long moments, her gaze locking with his, the fiery whiskey hue sparking and flaring as if she was fighting the same kind of battle he was. Finally she moved, stepping closer. One pace. Two. Stopping in front of him, her knees putting pressure on his to open.
Bodie couldn’t have stopped them from admitting her had his life depended upon it. He eased his thighs apart and she stepped forward until she was right between his legs and he was forced to fall back on his elbows or do something completely ungentlemanly and bury his face in her pantaloons.
Another long pause as if she was trying to gather her courage, her chest rising and falling in a wonderfully agitated rhythm that shifted her cleavage in a breathtakingly sexy way. Bodie salivated as he thought about running his tongue along the soft swells pillowing from the snowy white corset.
Slowly, she slid her left knee over his thigh until it was anchored on the mattress, parting her legs. The smell of orange blossom and musk invaded his senses.
“Why don’t you find out?”
Her voice was husky and tremulous, and even though Bodie could see it had taken all her bravado to be so fucking bold, she didn’t break eye contact.
Whatever valid reasons there were for him getting the hell out of this room and running as far away from Eleanor Davis as possible—and there were many—they all meant squat in this moment. He slid his hand onto her left thigh as he slowly levered himself up into a sitting position.
She shivered and her skin puckered into goose flesh beneath his touch as their gazes locked. Slowly his hand moved higher, traversing the fabric hiding her from his view. His heart punched hard against his rib cage and her breathing roughened as his hand trekked closer and closer to her inner thigh, finding the seam before brushing higher and higher.
A groan slipped from Bodie’s throat as he found the opening of the fabric, gaping wide, begging to be taken advantage off. Christ, he could smell her, an intoxicating mix of old-fashioned citrus and aroused woman and his whole body tightened.
“Tell me to leave,” he whispered, his gaze clinging to hers.
He’d go, if she asked him.
But she shook her head slowly, her hand sliding to his shoulder, the slight dig of her nails reminding him of how good they were together. “Stay.”
He drew in a ragged breath, their gazes still locked as his hand breeched the opening of her pantaloons and found the seam of her sex. Her eyes widened and her breath hitched, and Bodie’s heart just about burst through his chest at the heat of her.
“Fuck.” He groaned as her slickness coated his fingers. “You’re wet.”
He pushed them inside her then and she gasped, grabbing his shoulder as her eyes closed and two sets of nails dug into his shoulders and he wanted her just like that always, her breathy moans driving him crazy, ecstasy etched on her face.
“Why can’t I get enough of you?” His voice was low and gravelly.
It should be enough that she was Ryder’s sister but it wasn’t.
Her eyes opened, pinning him with their intensity, the spill of her cleavage rising and falling in utter hypnotic glory. “I don’t know.”
Bodie didn’t have any time to analyse her comment before she was sliding her other leg over his thigh and leaning down, and he was stretching up, muttering, “You are a vixen,” against her mouth and then they were kissing deep and wet and long.
Then somehow she was straddling him, that damn gape in her crotch lining up perfectly and her moans were in his head and citrus was invading every breath he took and his heart was tripping and air was sawing in and out of his lungs as his hands roamed over the hard cage of the corset, hungry to feel every inch.
Her hands were between them, plucking at his belt and unzipping his fly and pulling his aching cock out of his underwear and guiding it between her legs and he thanked Jesus and all the sweet, sweet angels for crotchless nineteenth-century underwear as the head of his cock slid through the wet heat of her sex.
She moaned, and all he could think about was being inside her, deep inside, all the way to the hilt, making her pant and cry and scream his name.
Nothing but her and her pleasure and all her tight, slick heat driving him on as he slid inside her.
He groaned at the perfection of the moment and kissed her, swallowing her cry as he entered her. Swallowing her whimpers and her moans as his big hands spanned the waist of her corset, using the hourglass curve to his advantage, lifting her off and thrusting her back down on his cock—hard. Wrenching out of the kiss to watch the bounce of her beautiful cleavage, the light blue veins mesmerizing as her breasts threatened to spill out.
She whimpered with every withdrawal and cried out with each thrust and quickly, so quickly she was clutching convulsively at his shoulders and shaking and trembling and her wild noises swelled like a rock concert in his head until she gasped and jerked to a halt and finally bellowed his name.
Bodie muffled her ecstasy with his mouth as she shuddered in his arms, clamping tight around him, pushing him higher and higher until he was shuddering too, deep, deep inside her, his heart pounding, his head pounding, his fucking toes pounding as he wrung every last ounce of pleasure out of it for both of them before collapsing back against the bed gasping and sated, Eleanor sprawled on top of him.
Fuck!
He felt like he’d been sucked into a whirlwind, spun around a thousand times and twirled out the other side. His head was spinning. God knew he’d been mauled on the field plenty but never so thoroughly as this. Who knew a five-foot-nothing chick could be more effective than a hulking line backer?
And, yet again, he was still fully dressed.
“It seems like getting you off with all my clothes on is going to be our thing.”
Warm air tickled his neck as she belly laughed, and he almost groaned out loud as the shift of her abdominal muscles had a very intimate ripple effect.
Christ! He shut his eyes as he realized he was bareback inside her. He hadn’t even thought about a condom.
He always thought about a condom. He was either totally fucked or utterly, hopelessly bewitched. Maybe both.
“This is probably not the best time to raise this.” His hand slid to her back, the bones and furrows of the corset sexy as fuck beneath his palm. “But I didn’t even think about a condom.”
Chapter Seven
Eleanor was ripped out of her post-coital bliss by the roots of her hair. It had been nice drifting along there, his cock still full inside her, everything stretched deliciously, the low buzz of her orgasm still sizzling along nerve endings, the furtive knowledge that it could be roused again lying latent in every cell.
This was her in. To tell him the truth. About the baby. And hope like hell he wasn’t too mad about it or the fact that she’d chosen to seduce him—twice—in the last few hours without telling him first.
It was going to be a hell of a buzzkill.
Reluctantly, she rolled off him, her breath hitching as he slid free of her, a very gratifying groan of protest sliding from his lips. She sat, shuffling to the end of the mattress, her feet flat on the floor, conscious of his big frame stretched out behind her, the bulk of his thighs in her peripheral vision.
“Eleanor?”
His hand landed on the small of her back. She felt its warmth even through the thick fabric of the corset and she soaked in the comfort of it. “I like that you call me Eleanor.”
She was obfuscating but the truth was, after her bombshell, he might never call her anything ever again. There was some rustling behind her, the sound of a zip and then the mattress dipped and he was upright, his arm brushing hers.
“You’re freaking out about the condom?”
If only.
Surprisingly it wasn’t the pregnancy bit she was having problems with. It was the deception of not telling him about it straight up.
Getting all…jiggy with him twice before telling him.
�
��If you’re worried, don’t be.” The note of caring in his murmur almost undid her and, absurdly, Eleanor wanted to cry. “I can assure you, I’m clean. Until a year ago, I was in a long-term relationship and while I did go a little crazy for a while after the break up I always wore a condom. Of course, there is the matter of pregnancy—”
Eleanor snorted, cutting him off, staring at her hands, grabbing one with the other to still the tremble. It was a most inelegant noise—Queen Victoria would not have been amused.
“That’s not an issue.”
“You’re on the pill?”
“No. Just can’t get any more pregnant than I am.”
He went very, very still. “You’re…pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m the—”
“Yes.” She cut him off, quashing the quick spurt of outrage she’d felt at the question. It was fair enough. They’d had one night together, they’d used protection, and she hadn’t seen him for ten weeks.
Just because she’d been a virgin before didn’t mean she hadn’t been with every man in Bungindally since. Clearly he’d woken some kind of dormant nymphomania if the last few hours were any indication.
There was a long pause. “But I wore condoms.”
“I know.” But she doubted they were the first people it had ever happened to. Eleanor finally dared to look at him. The bronzed planes of his face had paled a shade or two and a deep frown crinkled his usually smooth forehead. She needed him to know that she wouldn’t lie about something like this.
That when it came to the paternity of the baby growing inside her, there was no doubt.
“I’ve only ever been with you.”
He nodded slowly, and she could see the dawning of belief in his twilight eyes. “Okay.” His calmness was soothing. She hoped his lack of yelling and calling her names was a good sign.
He rose from the bed and headed for the window, his back to her as he stared at the view. He shoved his hand through his hair, the action squeezing her heart. She didn’t know what he was thinking or feeling and it made her nervous but she took a deep steadying breath and waited.
He was trying to process something that she’d already processed. She was going to have to cool her heels for a bit.
“Why didn’t you…tell me sooner?” He turned to face her, his hair deliciously rumpled.
“I’m sorry.” She stared at her hands. “I planned to tell you this afternoon and then we…”
“No, I mean…why didn’t you tell me when you first found out?”
“Oh.” She glanced at him. He didn’t seem pissed off about the delay, just curious. “Well…I’m only eight weeks. If I hadn’t been coming to Sydney, I probably wouldn’t have said anything until I was twelve weeks, after the first trimester. Twenty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage and the highest risk window is the first twelve weeks, so…”
A look of alarm stiffened his features. “Shit. Did I…should we have been…” He shoved another hand through his hair. “Christ, I was banging around in there like I was drilling for fucking oil.”
Eleanor laughed at the analogy, and some of the tension left her shoulders. “It’s fine. Normal sexual activity—”
She stumbled over the words. She couldn’t believe she was saying them in front of a man that she’d just had normal sexual activity with—twice.
She’d had relations with Bodie Webb. Sydney Smoke elite. Sporting royalty. Rugby hottie.
Sex god.
“Is allowed,” she continued. She’d Googled it.
He nodded, the tension across his shoulder visibly easing. “Thank you. For telling me.”
“Of course.” She frowned. “I had to. It’s your baby, too.”
“Are you…okay? Have you been sick or…?”
A spot right in the centre of Eleanor’s chest warmed. She’d just told him he was going to be a father and he hadn’t sworn or yelled or accused her of lying or being some kind of…jezebel. He’d obviously been shocked, but he was calm and concerned about her well-being.
No wonder her brother liked him so much.
She stood because she wanted him to know she wasn’t some delicate creature that required TLC. She’d been brought up on a cattle station and, like all country people, she’d soldier on.
His gaze zeroed in on the soft pillows of her cleavage and even though it was highly inappropriate during this very serious conversation she couldn’t stop the low tug of desire.
“I’ve been fine.”
He raised his eyes and shoved his hands into the pockets at the front of his jeans. “No vomiting at all? That’s good.”
Eleanor shrugged. “Some mild nausea from time to time. I’m just usually regular as clockwork and when my period didn’t come and my boobs felt sore…”
His gaze dropped to her boobs and the tug became a yank. Yeah, she probably shouldn’t have mentioned them, but how could she want to go again?
Sure, she was new to this sex thing, and she’d read enough books and seen enough TV to know that some men and women couldn’t keep their hands off each other. She’d bet her last cent Lizzie had kept Mr Darcy in bed for a week after their nuptials.
But nothing had prepared her for the hot lick of lust turning her into some kind of wanton.
“Should you be wearing that thing?” He lifted his gaze from her corset to her face. “Aren’t they too restrictive or something?”
Eleanor, trying to drag her mind off a body that was apparently no longer under her control, looked at the garment, running her hands down the bodice as she so often did, leaving them flat against the boning low on her stomach. “It’s more the lace up ones that are restrictive.”
Although hell, if he wanted her to take the damn thing off she would. The suggestion hovered on the tip of her tongue but fortunately he chose that moment to step toward her and the words died before they got to her lips.
“Could I…?” He gestured toward her middle with a vague wave of his hand.
Eleanor’s hands flattened a little more on her stomach. Did he want to…feel the baby? A sudden surge of shyness hit her at the intimacy of the action. “I’m only eight weeks, there’s nothing to feel.”
“I know.”
But his eyes were glued to where her hands were splayed, and she could no more have denied him than played in the Smoke front row. “Okay, sure…” She dropped her hands. “If you want.”
He was with her in three strides, one arm sliding around her shoulder, tucking her in close to his side as the other hand slid onto the place where hers had been. There was no way he’d be able to feel even the shape of her belly through the fabric, but his touch, the sentiment, made her heart flutter.
The silence stretched as they stood in a shared moment, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to lay her head against his arm. She shut her eyes and imagined how nice it would be to have him by her side like this for the entire pregnancy, his hands reaching for her swelling belly at every opportunity.
“We should get married.”
Eleanor’s eyes flew open. She lifted her head from his arm and looked at him, gaping. The tempo of her heart picked up until she was sure he must be able to hear it. “What?”
Was he serious?
“You’re pregnant. With my baby. I’m the father. It’s the right thing to do.”
“If we were living in the nineteenth century, maybe.”
She gathered all her willpower and pulled away from him, pacing to the window as he had done twice tonight, uncaring who might be able to see her in her corset and pantaloons. She turned to face him, giving whatever random strangers might be down there a view of her ruffled ass.
“I thought you adored all things nineteenth century?”
“I adore the fashion. Not the lack of female agency.”
“You’re my best friend’s sister, and you’re pregnant with my baby.”
“So you want to get married because you think Ryder, who by the way has absolutely no say over my life, w
ill bring out his shotgun?”
He shook his head. “I want to marry you because it’s the right thing to do.”
It was hard to try and make rational arguments when Bodie was making all the ones that her hopelessly romantic soul craved. How many historical romance novels had she read just like this? An honourable man doing the right thing—the responsible thing—fulfilling his duty to the woman he’d deflowered then got with child.
And falling in love with her.
But this was the twenty-first century.
She’d done a lot of Googling since their night in Bungindally. Bodie Webb was a sporting celebrity from a wealthy family. He could have anyone. How long would it take before the restrictions of a wife and a child that he took on out of a sense of duty and responsibility and honour would start to chafe?
And what about love?
“Maybe in Jane Austen’s day, Bodie, but not now. Nobody gets married these days because of a pregnancy—”
“Yes they do,” he interrupted.
She conceded his point with a nod. “And we have a divorce rate over fifty percent.” He conceded hers with an answering nod. “All I’m saying is, we don’t need to rush into anything. Society’s not going to disown me. We have options.”
“Well, you’ve obviously given it some thought?” He shoved his hands on his hips, a stubborn set to his jaw.
Eleanor had been giving the situation a lot of thought these past weeks—there’d been little else going on inside her brain—but none of the scenarios had involved Bodie wanting to be overly involved, let alone her husband.
She hadn’t even dared let her mind—or her heart—go down that path.
“I thought I’d raise the baby on the farm. It’s a great place for a kid to grow up.”
The inky blue of his eyes turned bleak. “And what about me? What I want?”
“Of course you could have access.”
“Define access?”
“I don’t know… I guess we’d have to discuss that.” She took a step toward him but he stiffened and she stayed put. He was only a few meters away but he was so distant he might as well have been in the middle of the harbour. “I’m sorry, Bodie. I just didn’t think you’d want to be overly involved.”