Chapter Thirteen #3
“I can’t wait.” He breathed the words against the firm ball of her belly.
“I like to watch you getting bigger, knowing what’s coming.
I can’t wait for the day she’s born, the first day I’ll get to hold her in my arms. I can’t wait to raise her, to watch her grow up, one day my little girl and then, too soon, a hard-hearted teenager who wants nothing to do with her dear old dad.
” He dropped a kiss to the left of her navel and then looked up into her waiting eyes.
“It’s going to be so good, Riley. You wait and see… ”
She reached down and cradled his face in her hands. “Come up here…”
He kissed his way up between her breasts and claimed her lips again. That kiss was never ending. As it went on and on, he rearranged them on the bed, scooting her up so her head was on a pillow, then stretching out beside her.
He touched her everywhere, needing to explore every soft, sweet-smelling inch of her. And when he lifted her thighs and guided them over his shoulders, she said, “Oh, yes…” on a soft, excited cry.
“Shh…” He reached up over the baby and covered her lips with his hand. “Don’t wake the children…”
She laughed.
“Shh,” he said again.
And she sighed. And then he kissed here there, where she was wet and soft and eager. He kissed her until she cried out again—and he covered that cry, too. Just in time. A moment later, she was whimpering under his hand as her body pulsed in completion beneath his tongue.
When she went limp, he rested his head against her thigh, his body aching with arousal, but his soul content.
“Come up here,” she whispered, her hands at his shoulders, urging him up. He went where she guided him, eager to claim her now.
But she had other plans. Slipping out of his hold, she pushed him down and bent over him to take his mouth in a slow, searing kiss. Her hand slid down the front of him, finding him, stroking him.
He groaned. She kissed that sound right off his lips.
But then she was on the move again, dropping light, teasing kisses down the length of his torso, only stopping to remind him, “Shh, now. Don’t wake the boys…”
When she encircled him with those clever fingers and then slowly took him into her mouth, he had to slap a hand over his own mouth to keep from letting out a shout.
It was kind of embarrassing how quickly he came. Not that he cared. At that point he had no shame. He kept his hand over his mouth, and he groaned out her name as the world spun away, a whirling ball of heat and wonder.
A few minutes later when his brain came back online, he pulled her up beside him and took her hand.
For a while, lying there without a stitch on, holding hands, they were quiet together.
He was happy in a way he’d never been before.
This was how they should be—together, the two of them. From now on.
He rolled to face her. She smiled at him sleepily.
“Don’t go to sleep yet,” he whispered as he brushed a kiss across her parted lips.
She made a soft, willing little sound.
He took that sound as encouragement and began dropping kisses randomly across her collarbones, at the curve of her shoulder, over the round contours of one breast and then the other.
“Josh,” she whispered, pulling him up even more so they were face to face. “I’m so glad you’re here…”
Carefully, one and then the other, he eased his knees between her thighs. She pulled him down to her, but he braced up on his hands in order not to put his weight on the baby.
She wrapped those smooth legs around him and pulled him in anyway, crying out softly as he entered her. He looked down into her sweet face and thought how he never, ever wanted to be like this with anyone else.
Only Riley.
For the rest of their lives…
They moved together slowly at first. She stared up at him, her eyes dazed and shining.
“Josh…” She whispered his name once. And then again, “Josh…”
“Riley Jane,” he replied. They shared a silly, happy smile.
The rhythm accelerated. He rolled to his back. She followed his lead. Now she was on top, her legs folded to either side of him.
Everything turned urgent, needful, frantic. She cried out softly as he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her down for another endless, searing kiss.
And then the finish rushed at them. He felt her contracting around him. A moment later she hit the crest with a low cry.
That did it. He went over, too. Drowned beneath a sweet wave of pleasure, he groaned her name.
Time passed more slowly then. They held each other for the longest time.
Eventually she got up.
He remembered her injured ankle. “Need help?”
She sent him a smile over her silky bare shoulder, that red hair a tangled halo around her beautiful, flushed face. “I can make it to the bathroom just fine.” And off she went.
When she climbed back in beside him, he kissed her. And then he got up and took a turn in the bathroom, too.
A few minutes later when he reentered the shadowed bedroom, she seemed to be dozing. But she stirred at the sight of him, and her soft lips curved in a welcoming smile, one he’d come to think of as his smile, the smile meant only for him.
It was right then, when she gave him that special smile, that he knew what he would do.
* * *
Riley had almost dropped off to sleep when Josh came back to her.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Hey.”
His answering smile just lit her up inside. And then he came toward her, all lean, easy grace with those broad shoulders she loved to rest her head on, those strong arms that felt so right around her, that hard belly a girl could bounce a quarter off.
He really was one fine-looking man, head to toe.
It made her smile all the wider to think of the two of them all those months ago, agreeing on a short-term love affair that should have been long over by now.
So far, she’d yet to get enough of him—and not only of that handsome face and that fine body he knew exactly what to do with, but also of his big heart and kind, thoughtful ways.
Oh, she really did need to keep a rein on herself or she’d start thinking of him in ways she’d vowed never to let herself think of any man again.
He came to join her in the bed, lifting the covers, sliding in beside her and settling the blankets over them both. “Hey.”
She snuggled closer. “Hey…”
His touch was light as a breath on her cheek as he eased a loose curl of hair away from her mouth and guided it back behind her ear. “It’s good—so good. To be here in this bed with you.”
“Beyond good,” she agreed as she caught his hand, smoothed his fingers open and brushed a kiss in the center of his palm.
He was watching her so closely.
She frowned. “What? Is something wrong?”
“I hope not.”
Smiling, she moved in close for a quick, sweet kiss. “Tell me.”
“Riley…”
She got a strange, dizzy sort of feeling right then, like the world was about to tip sideways and knock her right off, send her flying off alone into cold, dark space. “What…?”
“I want more.”
She drew a slow, careful breath.
This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t mean what he seemed to be saying. He knew exactly where she stood on the subject of “more,” and they’d come to terms long ago about that. “Tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”
He stroked her cheek again. His eyes were purest amber right then. “I can’t tell you that, Riley Jane.”
Her chest felt tight, and her pulse had started racing. “I thought we had an…understanding.”
“We did.” His eyes were kind—and so very determined. “But our understanding…?”
“What about it?”
“It just isn’t working for me anymore.”
“Oh, Josh…” She had no idea where to go from there.
And then he did it. He said what he’d promised he wouldn’t say. “I love you, Riley Thompson. I’m in love with you. And this…co-parents thing with occasional benefits? It’s not enough. Not anymore.”
She gulped. “Josh, listen—”
“Riley, I want more with you.”
She sat up, forced herself to take a slow, careful breath and then reminded him calmly, “Josh, I just can’t.”
He sat up, too. “You can. You know you can. The question is, will you?”
She pushed back the covers and swung her feet to the floor.
“I told you I can’t go there. I can’t do that again, take that kind of chance again.
I thought you understood. I can’t give up my heart that way knowing the terrible things that can happen, knowing how very fragile everything—and everyone—is… ”
“Riley.” He caught her hand again. “What you’re saying isn’t logical. It makes no sense.”
“I never claimed that it was logical. But it does make sense, at least to me.”
“Just think about it. You’ve given your heart to Dillon, to our baby, to Annette and to Macy. To me, too—as your friend. You’ve taken a chance on them and on me, too. Why can’t you see that?”
“It’s not the same, Josh. Children are one thing.
We all know that one day they’ll grow up, make their own lives.
One way or another we lose them. We raise them to let them go.
Friends and family are the same. They have their own lives.
They’re not the first person you see in the morning, not the one you fall asleep with at night.
It’s a whole other thing to choose your special person, to make a life together that’s supposed to last—and then to lose them when you’ve only had a few measly years with them.
It’s too painful to go through that. I mean it, Josh.
I can’t take that kind of chance again.”
“Riley, loving and losing, that’s life. You’re an intelligent woman, you have to know that.”
She sat up and held the covers close to her chest. “I am well aware that life can be brutally short and cruel. I just need to…have a little bit of a say as to how much hurt I’m willing to live with. Why can’t you just accept that? You said before that you understood…”
“I do understand,” he said slowly and carefully.
“I understand that you lost both your parents and then your husband, and it wrecked you. It broke you. I understand that you’re only trying to protect yourself.
But you really can’t protect yourself, not from life.
And not from what’s waiting for all of us eventually. ”
She glared at him, willing him to back off. “What do you know about what’s waiting for us?”
Unwavering, he held her gaze. “You’re right. I don’t know. I’ve been lucky so far.”
“Then please don’t tell me I should see things the way that you do.”
He was silent. He looked exhausted suddenly.
“All right, Riley. I get it. You don’t want what I want, and I need to learn to accept it.
” With that, he pushed back the covers and swung his feet to the floor.
Grabbing his boxer briefs from the pile of discarded clothing on the bedside rug, he pulled them on.
Then he picked up his jeans, shoved one leg and then the other into them and zipped them up.
She sat there clutching the covers, knowing she was losing him. Knowing that losing him was exactly what she’d asked for—and yet still longing to beg him to stay. “Listen…”
He paused. “What?”
“I’m sorry, Josh. I am. So sorry…”
His gaze never wavered. “For what?”
“For all the ways I can’t be what you need. And for tonight. I’m sorry for tonight. I just couldn’t leave it alone, you know?” She clutched the covers close to her chest. “I just had to pull you in here and drag you to bed and—”
“Enough,” he said almost tenderly as he shook out his shirt. “You didn’t drag me anywhere.” He put on the shirt. Swiftly, he buttoned the buttons. And then he let his arms drop to his sides. Suddenly, he looked ten years older. “Listen. Can we hash this out in the morning?”
“Yeah. Of course…”
“We’ll feed the kids, and I’ll take them to daycare. Then I’ll come back. We’ll talk. We’ll decide where to go from here.”
What could she say but, “All right. We’ll talk tomorrow when the boys are at daycare.”
“Okay, then. Good night.”
“Good night,” she made herself answer as he turned for the door. A moment later, the latch clicked shut behind him.