A Merry Little Christmas Contingency (Moonshine Romance)

11. A Filthy Wee Thing

11

A Filthy Wee Thing

Billy

H e hadn’t intended to avoid everyone, but it had been a blessing to spend time away from the buzz and noise of his family. Preparing the set for the family photos had him driving between the big barn that warehoused a North-Pole-sized collection of festive items – all of which needed to be set up for the upcoming Christmas Eve party – and Bre’s pre-designated ‘Snapshot with Santa’ area.

With his body hard at work, his mind wandered to yesterday. Billy’s old friend Reece Hargraves was an excellent physician. Bruce was in extremely capable hands. However, the overprotective caveman urge to throw his best friend over his shoulder and carry her to safety had been strong this morning. She was safe, he had to remind himself. He’d seen Holly and Sharee drive off with a grumpy-looking Breanna in the back seat of the car. Being chauffeured around wasn’t her idea of fun, but there was little about her current situation that was ideal.

Thank God he’d found her yesterday. He’d bundled her into his lap, willed the breath into her bit by bit. Instinct had driven him, with little thought to his actions. Without knowing why or how or what exactly was happening, he trusted the urge to hold her, staying with her until he knew for sure she – and the baby – were okay.

Two hands to touch Breanna Henderson with was a constant dream Billy endured, but when he found her in the midst of her panic attack, he’d wished even more for those hands to hold her, stroke her hair, and tell her that everything would be fine.

The god he’d cursed often for taking his hand was the same god he thanked for sending his brothers in that moment. The Carmichaels descended at once through the trees, a wild pack of tartan-wearing wolves whose instincts – and worried call from Billy’s radio – sent them searching for their missing pack member.

No one asked ridiculous questions like, “Is she okay?” Clearly not. Or, “What happened?” Doesn’t matter, does it? They knew better.

Hands came from every which direction, helping to lift a too-tired Breanna, carrying her to the truck, shifting gears and spinning the wheel, driving too fast across the gravel, skidding to a stop at the house. Hands offered reassuring squeezes of his shoulder and pats on his knees. Small hands held his much larger one, paint-splattered fingers curling around his square, dirt and dust crusted ones. Trembling hands dialled the doctor.

Once he’d stopped shaking, he made it up to his room, only to collapse into a corner, staring as she lay white-faced on his too-cheery childhood Rudolph quilt, her breathing shallow but steady. Her freckles blazed across her skin – constellations he longed to trace – but he didn’t want to disturb her. She slept, ate a meagre lunch, then slept some more. He’d sat for a long time, keeping watch, monitoring the steady rise and fall of her chest, and the intriguing way her stomach rolled, the movements of the little being inside mesmerising him. He wanted to know how she could sleep with a child practising karate in there, adding it to the growing list of conversational topics he’d eventually address.

This morning, she appeared much improved, and his own breath came easier at the sight of it.

“Lunch time!” Seth said, wiping sweat from his brow, before, “Hey, Doc! You’re back! Bre just went into town–”

“I passed them on the way.” Reece smiled, his eyes flicking to Billy. “Came for this one. Thought it was time I caught up with my mate. Brought some home brew, too.”

“Best doctor ever!” The twins beamed, heading for Reece’s BMW and extricating several milk crates filled with brown bottles.

Large hands quickly passed around mugs of the beer. “Reece’s best batch yet.” The twins raised their glasses gratefully.

More men gathered around, Reece pouring healthy slugs into whatever mug, bottle, cup, or recycled jam jar they were drinking from.

“Take your medicine, son,” Nick suggested, tipping his own pint down his throat.

Then there was his grandfather, whose arthritis-curled fingers dug into his sporran and produced a rabbit’s foot.

“Ye dinnae need luck, grandson, but here. Just in case. Took me all night te find the damn thing in my suitcase. Eyesight ain’t what it used te be.”

It wasn’t Billy who needed a disgusting amputated rabbit’s paw, it was Bre, but mumbled thanks anyway.

“It’s a good day to be here on the farm,” Reece said, slapping a hand on Billy’s shoulder as he took a seat beside him in the shade. “Breanna Henderson. Shopping! In town!”

Billy’s voice was gritty and deep. “May God help Moonshine.”

“Amen.” Reece chuckled, raising his glass to the sky, drinking deeply. “So, what’s your plan?”

Billy had to admire the irony. Plans, plans, plans. Where would he be without them?

Alone , a voice told him. Without a best friend. Without a lover. Without a … baby?

Is the child mine? The recurring question beat through him with Bre’s promise of later echoing in every pulse of his heart.

“What can I do? Reece, everything is … different now.”

“That happens, my friend,” the doctor said, scratching at a sideburn. “We grow up, grow older, grow families …”

“What can I do?” Billy repeated, voice thick. “For her.”

“What you’ve always done, mate. Be there. Listen to what she says and hear the things she doesn’t.”

“There is nothing she doesn’t say,” Billy scoffed into his beer. “Blunt as a butter knife, that one.” And he loved it, which made this new, suppressed version of his best friend even more confounding.

“That’s not entirely true.” Reece sat back in his chair, crossing his ankle over one knee. “She’ll never say she’s scared. She’d never admit that she’s terrified this baby will change everything forever, especially between you two. And most of all, Breanna Henderson will never let you know just how much she cares about you, Billy. Don’t look at me like that, I can see it – we all do!”

Billy scoffed again. Bre cared about their status as Best Friends with Festive Benefits remaining intact. She had already indicated her fears that the baby would come between them and their very casual, very naked plans. As for how much she cared for him ?

“Bruce is a locked door at the moment. And I love her, Reece. I always have.”

The doctor was nodding, absently. “I know. I think even Bre knows, deep down, though I’m sure she denies it.” Reece’s hand gripped Billy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, mate. I keep hoping she’ll open her eyes and see this thing between you two that’s always been there. Billy and Bre … you two have always been great together. Solid, you know? Complementary. Hell, I wish I knew how that felt …” Reece trailed off, finishing his beer and nodding thanks to the men as they finished their own drinks, fanning faces as they returned to work.

“She’s due in February,” Reece told him. “Just a few more weeks of trying to get her to see reason, and take it easy on herself. And you may need to get creative with strategies to keep her as physically and mentally at ease as possible. I’m worried, Billy. She keeps pushing herself, she’s so worried about being seen as weak or needing help from anyone.”

It was nothing Billy didn’t know.

“We are planning a coordinated attack.” Billy shared a few ideas from his family discussion last night, when she’d been in bed. “Everything in that planner has been re-allocated. Piers –” Billy ground out the name, “has been … warned.” Billy smiled at his three older brothers as they went back to work. “What will happen if he expects too much from her.”

“Good plan. That guy is an insistent slimeball if ever I saw one. And, speaking of difficult customers, I want to speak with Bre’s mum …”

Billy grumbled, the reverberations loud in his chest.

“I’m no stranger to difficult people, Billy.” Reece chuckled. “Still, Elanor’s immaturity and lack of remorse is astounding. Your parents must’ve done something to really upset her, back in the day. The twins told me she stole all the fairy lights from the veranda last night. Also something about ladder theft and painting hairy warts and scars on dwarf statues?”

“Elves.”

Reece shrugged. “So, Christmassy dwarves.” The doctor’s laugh lightened Billy’s mood, just a smidgeon. “Those Henderson women.” Reece reached for the rabbit’s foot, nose crinkling as he ran one finger over its grey-white fur. “You’ll need luck, my friend.”

Absently, Billy scratched the stump of his right arm. Having been scarred by Lady Luck once before, he wasn’t taking any chances.

Reece nodded, standing to leave. “I’ll have a word with Piers Ryder. Surely between the Carmichael brothers’ threats and a doctor’s orders, he’ll change his schedule for Breanna.”

Billy had no doubt that Trudy and Jaxon, would be accommodating, but Revv himself?

He’d just been considering the extent to which they might need to stroke the celebrity’s considerable ego, and how to play the macho-man game in just the right way, so the Crank Shaft host would consider the medical needs of his pregnant, honoured Christmas guest.

“Let me join you.” Billy clasped wrists with Reece, who hauled him to standing.

In the end, when Piers started to sulk about Breanna’s need for schedule changes, one swift look from Billy’s petite Grandma Carmichael was all it took for the celebrity to do a 360-degree attitude spin, becoming full of accommodations and subdued smiles.

Despite the schedule saying he was editing, Revv spent the majority of the day by the pool, downing Reece’s beers – a peace offering he’d eagerly accepted.

For once, Billy was glad to be separated from Bre. A day spent shopping was sure to stoke her fires of frustration, but it was a necessary evil. Billy knew she would have been wearing rags in mere weeks if an intervention hadn’t occurred. Removing Breanna from the farm, from everything she considered an obligation or linked in some way to her lists and plans, had been as necessary as purchasing clothing that fit properly. He passed the day spraying weeds and cutting the grass between the trees on the ride-on mower, his thoughts returning often to her body’s new curves, and how new clothing – while necessary – was far removed from the bare skin he’d rather see.

Weary, covered in perspiration and grass clippings, he eventually made his way up the stairs, stopping to tidy Bre’s iconic Docs on the landing, scooping up a sock. How typical of Bre, leaving a mess like a tornado. Typical me, he thought wryly, cleaning it up. Perhaps she was right – he did have White Knight Syndrome, needing to fix and save everyone and everything, from a discarded shoe to a lost sock. Could he ‘save’ his best friend, too?

Stroking the rabbit’s foot absently, he stood outside his bedroom door, wondering if she’d already be asleep. A day spent engaging in her absolute least favourite activity was sure to tire her quickly. Moonshine’s Main Street was a long, wide, old-fashioned promenade of individual stores, different to the expansive multi-storey shopping centres found in the major cities. Bre would have been on her feet a lot today, though he had no doubt his mother and Sharee would have taken good care of her.

Pausing at the closed door, he listened.

She’d been snoring quietly these last few nights, hair strewn across his pillows like a blown flame, and dead to the world. He’d enjoyed gently sliding into bed beside her, watching the moonlight play in the lighter places between the freckles that cascaded across her shoulders.

Pushing the door open, he turned to the bed. Empty. Closing the door, he turned fully into the room, eyes roaming briefly before he froze, utterly stopped in his tracks, every thought in his head extinguished.

“Hi.”

Unable to respond, he simply gulped at the fact she was entirely, completely, fantastically, nude.

“Wanna know the weirdest thing about being pregnant? Aside from causing a family of insanely huge males to go into full-on Papa Bear panic mode?”

Bre looked down over herself, hands cupping engorged breasts that sparkled with … glitter?

“And aside from the massive case of raging hormones … I don’t think I can …” she exhaled shakily, “I can’t wash all the important bits – like my toes. I can’t reach them anymore. Honestly, if something is on the floor, it’s dead to me.”

The laugh that burst from him filled the night, a too-loud explosion that seemed to fade slowly into every memory-laden item in the room. She was ridiculous. Hilarious. Alluring, and with no idea just how deeply her very existence affected him.

“Seriously. Pregnancy is THE WORST. Wait, what … is that Richard’s lucky rabbit’s foot?” She sniffled up at him, eyebrows drawing down, her head tilted when he tossed the rabbit’s foot to the bed.

“Bowfin wee thing,” Billy acknowledged, brushing a stray tendril of red hair behind her ear as he checked her over.

Goosebumps raced across her skin, each tiny prickle sending a wave of pure need over him. The need to touch her. To hold her. To wipe the remarkable, odd sight of free-flowing tears from her face. To roll the curve of a candy cane around her belly button then lower, lower, licking away the sticky trail it would leave behind. To lick and suck her labia while her fingertips buried themselves in his hair.

Peering straight down between their bodies, he allowed himself to look, to really see her. The supple mounds of her breasts, bigger than they’d been before, and the skin, tight and smooth, around the large curve of her belly. A darker line ran down from her belly button along the exact path he’d been imagining only moments before.

She was beautiful, radiant, and driving him completely insane.

His cock throbbed, probing towards her. “I believe that you feel bigger than you are, Breanna ...” His voice was thick and heavy. “What I see is beyond lovely.”

“Not bowfin then? This ball with arms and legs? I feel like a skin-coloured Violet Beauregarde.”

“Not an inflated Wonka blueberry. Not at all,” he confirmed. “Not bowfin.”

“That’s a Scottish word for gross, right? The kids say it all the time when they’re told to eat vegetables, so I’m kind of assuming from context. And would it kill you to use a contraction? Australia is the land of truncated speech, you know!”

Billy chuckled, the deep noise echoing from his broad chest. “I use contractions; however I endeavour not to. They make me sound like my Grandpa, all clipped words and braw Scots .” He let the tail end of the sentence slip into the accent she openly adored and had, on more than one occasion, described as ‘seduction in sounds’.

“I like your Scottish accent … and your kilt.” Head down, she peered between their bodies, eventually resting her forehead against his chest and inhaling deeply. Aside from it being the traditional uniform of the Carmichael Christmas Tree Farm, Sharee had insisted they all take photos this morning, before travelling into Moonshine.

“I’m sorry, Billy. For yesterday. For everything.”

The apology lingered between them, sudden, strange, and rare.

“Bruce.” He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “I need to ask something.”

An eternity passed before she looked up and met his eyes, but once she did, he saw it – the determination. She was ready for the question he needed to ask, and the conversation they needed to have. This was his chance.

If he inquired, Am I the father? she’d answer with honesty. He knew it. But …

Her tone was soft, slightly resigned when she said, “What do you want to ask, Billy?”

Swallowing the ball in his throat, his voice too gravelly and harsh, told her, “Let me wash them. Your very neglected ‘important bits’.”

Clearly, this wasn’t what she’d anticipated. Blinking rapidly, her eyes flicked across his face, trying to understand.

“May I?” Billy softened his gaze, plucking tendrils of hair from Breanna’s misted forehead.

“Let you … what? Shower me?”

Let me take care of you. Show you how much I need you here. How scared I was when I found you hyperventilating in the grass. Responses thought but never said. She didn’t want him to say those things, didn’t want his truth. His Bruce didn’t need him to admit the depth of his feelings and change their friendship after all this time. Not right now, at least. What she needed was comfort, and to rest. Doctor’s orders. She needed quiescence, and to realise she didn’t need to work so damn hard for other people all the time. He saw her eyes flashing, reading the lines of his face and the set of his jaw, searching for words unsaid and trying to read his mind, as only she could.

Running his hand down his face, he nodded, fingers weaving through hers, tugging gently towards the ensuite he’d restocked with mouth wash and chewing gum, so she could freshen up after her bouts of morning sickness.

“I can wash the important bits for you.”

At the door to the bathroom, she tugged her hand back, just slightly, eyes dropping.

“Do not get coy on me now, Bruce,” he teased as a light steam filled the room and he worked to remove his plaid. Her hands were already at his hip, making fast work of one buckle, sliding from one hip to the other.

“It’s amazing how you manage this on your own.” She allowed the fabric to fall to the floor and brazenly looked down. Mr Grumpy stared up from his boxers, the evidence of Billy’s arousal elongating the cartoon character’s face in strange ways.

“Any man worth his salt only needs one hand, Bre,” he murmured into her ear before rising to his full height.

Checking the water temperature, he nodded once more, taking Bre’s hand and tugging her into the glass stall.

“Billy! You’re still in your Mr Grumpys! Which, by the way, you shouldn’t even be wearing under the kilt. Isn’t it customary to free-ball?”

“This is not about me, Breanna.” He removed the shower rose from the holder, waving it over her shoulders and arms in a smooth arc. “You’re filthy.”

“You are, too!”

“The only filthy part of me is my mouth.” He sprayed water onto his tongue before spitting it playfully at her. She squealed, threatening retaliation, grabbing at the hose. Tsking, Billy dropped quickly into a squat, directing the spray of the water directly at her feet. Jumping to her toes with a squeak, she pitched forward, hands coming to rest on his shoulders. It felt … right; on his knees before her, Bre’s hazel eyes and wide smile beaming down like pure summer sunshine.

From this angle – hell, from every angle – she stole his words, leaving only primal noises that made him feel like an evolutionary regression.

Dropping the hose, he held her eyes as he closed the distance between his lips and her stomach. With a slow, gentle hand on her stomach, he pressed slow kisses to her skin, noting the way her eyelids fluttered closed and she rocked closer to his mouth, her hands gripping his shoulders tighter.

“Billy–”

“Don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying!” she snapped, clearly losing the hormonal tennis game within her. “It’s just … You don’t have to. You don’t need to be okay with all of this.” At his raised eyebrow, the brush of his nose down that darker strip at her belly button, she added, “We should talk. Create this Contingency. And I should …” she breathed deeply. “Do you want me to say it? To tell you?”

The paternity of the baby, she meant. Did he wish to know? Yes. No. Did it matter?

“Not here for that,” he mumbled against her skin, handing her the shower head, ordering her to run it across her body as he stood once more. “Turn around.”

For once, she complied, no arguments. Perhaps that was easier for her, turning her back to him, ignoring the way his eyes bored into her, full of longing. Reaching for the body wash, he cupped his fingers, thumb pressing down to pump the perfect amount.

Shoulders first, Billy smoothed the foaming gel across slight and freckled shoulders, down the curve of her spine, then around the globes of her arse.

“Filthy,” he chuckled low, delivering a light slap that reverberated around the shower stall.

“Tease,” she said, stiffening and loosening all at once. This was so familiar. The teasing, the talking, the state of expectation. Comfortable, welcome, and so overdue.

“Turn.”

Bre caught his eyes as she spun; he refused to loosen the hold as he pressed his flat palm across her collar bones, down the centre of her chest, resting between her breasts, where her heart raced.

They’d showered together before, of course, over the years, but he’d never washed another person, never rolled soapy fingers over skin that wasn’t his. His hand shook, barely within his control. Grab her. Hold her. Make her come undone. Billy swallowed the rising tide of need that coursed through him.

Clearing his throat, he asked, “Alright?” He didn’t need her anxiety to spike and her blood pressure to plummet while she was slippery in his arm. If she collapsed, he’d have no hope of getting her up with one hand. And there was no way he wanted to share the lusciousness that was a naked Breanna Henderson with any of his blood relatives … or anyone else for that matter. As far as they were concerned, she was Bruce . A mate. A non-sexual entity. Breanna was his. Bre was …

“I’m perfect,” she finally responded.

“I know.” He cupped one breast, eyes closing so he could narrow his world to the exquisite softness of her skin and its weight in his palm. “May I admit something?”

“I always want you to be honest with me, Billy.” The cringe that screwed up her face indicated how much hypocrisy there was in that statement, considering her lack of admissions. “And in return, I promise to answer all your questions honestly and without reservation, like I normally would. Fair?”

He could only nod, the closing of his throat complete as his heart swelled into the space where words should have been. Swallowing hard, he took a long moment to move her arm, angle it higher, so the showerhead she still held sprayed onto her chest. For a long moment, he scrubbed every soapy bubble down her curves, watching.

“I love how lush you are.”

“Lush?” She snorted. “You mean fat. I’m a beached whale in the middle of an Australian summer, and I’m a mess in all sorts of ways, and–”

Gripping her palm he flicked her wrist, spraying water into her open mouth.

“Hey!” Coughing and spluttering, she dropped the shower head, wiping at her face.

“ They are filthy words. Do not speak about yourself that way.”

“So bossy.” Her teeth flashed as she grinned widely.

“You.” He gripped her chin, dragging her damp face closer. Her hands fell to his hips, holding herself there, captured. “You are not fat. Not a whale. Not a mess. Not a disappointment or anything else you claimed that first night. You are a fantasy, Breanna.”

She laughed, wryly. “The old Breanna is back, Billy. And she wants to remind you that she never shuts the hell up, and never holds back. So, I have to say, there’s a difference between a fantasy and a fling.”

“You are no fling, Bre. You are …” Everything.

If he expressed the depth of his adoration, how every moment with her was heaven, and how there was absolutely no way he would ever let her out of his grasp, how would she react? There was no denying that the distance between them was down to his reaction to the surprise pregnancy. Their festive plans had forced Bre to reveal the truth, in all her naked glory.

She read his concern, smoothing the brows that had crashed together in the centre of his face. Closing his eyes, he relished her touch.

“It’s fine. I’m under no illusions of what I am, Billy. What we are. I’m Bruce. Your best mate. I just also happen to have a vagina and adore screwing your brains out occasionally … okay, Mr Eyebrows … maybe more than occasionally. But still, that isn’t fantasy worthy. We’re a fling, Billy. Opportunity. Need. I thought we were on the same page about that, but …”

He captured her hands in his. “No.”

“No?”

“Bruce …” Every child knows that being good means you receive well-deserved presents at Christmas, and Billy couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done to deserve the gift that was Breanna Henderson. Why she wanted him, allowed him near her, he’d never know.

“Bre,” he started again. “You have a knack for making me feel like I’m whole and complete, despite my disability.” He didn’t need two hands to touch her, two arms to hold her. They made it work, compensating for each other, exploring, experimenting, unafraid, together. The night she’d broken down that final barrier between them, proposed they become Friends With Benefits and followed him to bed … it had been heaven on earth.

“You are my best friend, and when you moan my name,” he groaned, voice so rough he wondered at her ability to hear any warmth in it, “I turn manic. Covetous.” He was a man possessed. He silently vowed every time to worship her forever more, whenever she wanted. However she wanted him, he was hers. Completely.

“You are no fling.” Billy cupped his hand beneath the shampoo bottle, pressing down with his thumb before nodding for her to turn once more, forcing his vocal cords to work as he massaged the foam through her hair. “A fling isn’t when you can’t stop thinking about someone, Bre.” His body ached to be closer. To press against the curves of her arse, slide against her, force her silence as he plunged into her. His blood roared with the need.

“A fling is forgetting. It isn’t constantly imagining ... constantly remembering ... someone’s touch when they’re not there.” Tracing her ribs to her breasts with his wide, greedy hand, Billy pulled her back against the hard wall of his naked chest, and she huffed with the pressure. “A fling doesn’t make your heart race so fast, so frequently, you are honestly concerned it will explode from your chest.”

His hands roamed her breasts, pinching at slippery nipples, and she melted against him. Unable to stop himself, his hips rolled forward, Mr Grumpy’s elongated nose grazing the curve of her lower back. Amazed by her, and himself, he continued to test the words he’d wanted to speak aloud for years.

“Flings aren’t the desire to spend all your days and nights just being in the same vicinity, breathing the same air.” He noted the way her breath became shallow, and how she pressed back against him, her own hands roaming her swells and curves right alongside his. “What we have between us, honey, it’s …” He had to clear his throat, to loosen the words around the grunts that her presence often reduced him to. Their damp skin slid together and against each other; the stall was too confining, too humid, all at once.

“This is not a fling, Breanna.” This is lust. Longing. Love. Resting his chin atop her head, he was glad she wasn’t facing him, seeing his thoughts with that magical power she had to read him like a book. She didn’t want to hear those words, his true feelings. She’d made herself clear on that point.

“By definition, it is,” she argued, her breaths quick as she writhed against him, wanting more friction and unable to source it. “You deserve not to be used.” She was referencing the garage. Use me, honey, he’d said. Take what you need.

“It’s unfair of me to hold you to any plans, or contingencies, Billy. I am not that bitch. I won’t make demands on your time or your body. You don’t deserve that.”

“Whatever you give me, Bre, I deserve exactly that. Nothing more.”

Whatever she offered, he’d take, like always. He was nothing if not smitten. Some ‘Best Friend’. All he ever wanted to do was waste their days, lip-locked, curled on the couch, casually touching, feeling out each other, finding where the lines were, and where they blurred. Now was no exception.

He wanted to push her to the brink. Break her remaining barriers down. Prove he could last and go the distance, that he was never going anywhere, no matter how much she tried to deny that what lay between them wasn’t just fling or fantasy – it could be forever.

It might have started as fun. Just fucking. The casual liaison and release they both needed. But over the years, their explorations of each other, blunt conversations, and obliterated inhibitions had paved the way for something so tender and raw he could only label it as love. He’d given up denying it.

“You’re phenomenal.”

She chuckled softly. “Phenomenal? Who even says that?”

“People who read.” His touch was leisurely, every stroke unhurried and luxurious, building the depthless well of need within him. “Whatever the way forward, Bre, we still have time to figure it out.” I’ll always have time for you . “Rinse.”

Dutifully, she brought the shower head higher, the hose sliding between them. Pushing it out of the way, Billy pressed Mr Grumpy back against her, dragging his hand down her rich ruby hair.

“This is so nice.” She told him, receiving a grunt of assent. “And I love this shampoo.”

“That’s why I buy it.” He thought the words remained safely locked in his head, but when she turned to look at him over her shoulder, wide eyed, he knew they’d escaped.

“You buy it because it’s my favourite?”

“When we were seventeen,” he said eventually, quietly, eyes fixed on her skin, “you told me you liked coconut. It reminded you of that holiday we took the previous year …” he paused briefly. “It reminds me of something, too – the first time you let me touch you, rubbing in that coconut-scented sunscreen, remember? You wore a green polka-dot swimsuit. The twins teased your lack of bikini, but that one-piece …” He adjusted himself, clearing his throat once more. “So, I started buying the shampoo. For you.”

Taking her other hand, and the shower head she still held, he slowly dragged the water spray across her shoulders and down the centre of her chest. Together, they swirled it slowly twice around her stomach, then dipped further. Wet red hair fell back onto his shoulder as he left her there, helping herself. She bit her bottom lip and he cupped her breast, grinding against her glorious arse.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Bre. Nothing.”

She squirmed against him, her free hand arching up to twist deeper into his hair. Gripping her hip, he held her still, rocking forward. Gasping, she begged him to do it again.

“No, Bre.”

“No?” The spray fell to their feet. Sliding his hand down her arm, he repositioned the jet between her legs.

“Not until you say it.”

“Say what?” she breathed. “You want to know–”

The father. Hope swelled in his chest, his throat tense and tight. He hoped, prayed, that he’d been the one to create that baby growing deep within her. He’d never wanted anything with such instant clarity in his life. But …

“I want you to tell me what is between us, Breanna.”

Her voice wavered at the edges as mist rose and her legs started to shake. “Billy …”

“Say it, honey. You promised to be honest, remember.” Billy released his grip on her wrist to slide his palm across her wet breasts.

“This …” Her words puffed out as her arse ground against him. “This isn’t a fling.” Her fingers dug deeper into his hair as he gripped and pressed, while her other hand directed the jetting spray, squirming. “It’s … something else. Something more.”

She turned, dropping the showerhead. Gripping her chin, he dragged her mouth to his. “Precisely.”

The kiss was savage and immediately deep. No more dragging this out, he stole the words from her tongue with practised sweeps of his. Grinding against her, his soaked underwear and a few explanations were the only thing between them, and it felt … normal. The resumption of normal, at least.

“Billy, I need – oh!” Before she finished the thought, his fingers resumed the shower’s work. Bre fell instantly silent, her mouth fused to his once more. She thrust against his palm, and he could have sworn his missing fingers gripped her hips, dragging her body closer. She pressed against him until his back hit the tiled wall, or had he pulled her back? His middle finger moved inside her, while his thumb circled her clit slowly, pushing with the exact pressure he knew she loved. Years of fooling around and somewhat awkward honesty – ‘a little to the left’ or ‘I don’t like that’ then, ‘oh, god, fuck, yes! That’s it!’ – had been excellent practice.

She writhed and breathed, fingernails biting into his scalp, his hand, her own breasts as she moved and sought the release she needed.

Billy watched her, entranced, hard as stone against her soft curves.

“Clean yet?”

“N-never!” she panted, her inner muscles clenching around his fingers.

“Good. Because now you’ve been medically retired, I have plans, Bre.”

Billy kept his gaze down, sliding his fingers free of her slick warmth, reining in a moan. The things he wanted to do to this woman. The way he wanted to worship her body, the changes in her, the way she was so strong, so resilient, so .... Mine .

Locking eyes, Billy brought his hand to his mouth, sucking those fingers like a starving man.

“Plans.” And she knew exactly what he meant. “I may not have a ring, Bre, but you’re right about one thing, I will take care of you. And right now, if you’ll let me, I need to bury my head between your legs because you taste so fucking good.”

He punctuated the last few words with deep kisses that made him forget why they’d taken so long to get here. She was warm and wet, naked and willing. It was a minor miracle he hadn’t blown his load yet.

He ached to push his cock inside her, thrust deep, go slow, touch her everywhere, lick every inch of her skin, trace the thin stretch marks that had grown among freckles that had always been there. If ever there was a list he wanted Breanna to create, this was it – their Sexy Bucket List, a long line of dirty deeds and filthy words organised in whatever order she desired. A long, meticulous, dot-pointed catalogue sure to land them both firmly on Santa’s Naughty List for years to come.

He’d do all that, and more, hoping and praying that maybe one day she’d want him with the same terrifying ferocity.

“This isn’t a fling, Billy.” Her words echoed, aftershocks to the tremor that had steadily built in her body. Trembling hands circled her bump.

“Woman,” he growled, nipping at her neck, “you’re my undoing, and I’m here to tell you that I will undo you, too.”

“Promise?”

His wide smile caught him by surprise. “I swear it.”

The gushing water trailed off to a trickle as he directed her from the shower. Throwing towels to the floor, he created a path out of the ensuite, mumbling, “Don’t slip, honey.”

Something changed in her expression, and her body.

“What is it, Bre? Are you okay?” When she didn’t respond, he gripped her cheek. “Bruce. Talk to me. Never stop talking to me. Please.”