One

Chapter Twenty-Seven

OH BABY!

CAGE

My dad kept me grounded. I never asked for more than I needed. Wants were a luxury for the greedy. Every action was preceded by intellectual contemplation. There was no room for impulsiveness if the mind stayed focused.

I never did drugs, not so much as a joint.

I never drank beyond the legal limit unless I was in my own apartment, and by my senior year of college I abstained from all alcohol.

Something shifted when my dad died. All the anger I had was channeled into this razor-sharp focus on being the best. My body became a temple. The game became everything.

But then … Lake.

She became my drug, a heady cocktail of everything.

The high I got from her was beyond anything imaginable.

I was addicted and I acted like a fucking junkie around her.

I wanted and I took over and over again.

The greed was a drug of its own, so was the impulsiveness.

With her I’d jump off any cliff without looking down … without looking back.

I felt it. I could have stopped. I could have pulled out, but—addiction, greed, impulsiveness, her.

With Lake’s back pinned against the oversized door to my pantry, I rocked up into her one last time.

Filling her with all of me. Her breathy cry and her tight pussy clenching my dick made me harder even as I came inside of her.

I came inside of her.

I should have pulled out, but I didn’t. Instead, I grazed my teeth along her shoulder, nipping at her skin.

The salty taste enticing me to take more.

Ducking my head, I sucked her nipple into my mouth.

When I bit down, her pussy clenched again around my cock, and just like that I was so fucking hard again.

“Cage,” she moaned my name, her head falling back against the door as she ground against me. “More …”

A drug … Lake Jones was the drug for me. I’d happily die high on her. No regrets.

LAKE

My fingers relinquished their grip on his dress shirt that was no longer white and crisp.

The wet, sweat-stained fabric clung to his chest as he eased me onto the bed, slowly pulling out of me as he stood.

He could have dropped me to my feet in the kitchen, but he didn’t.

It was just another one of a million things Cage did that showed me how much he loved me.

With slightly-narrowed eyes on me, he tucked himself back into his briefs.

I felt his look. I felt it warm and starting to trickle out of me.

What. Did. We. Do?

I sat up and hurried to the bathroom.

“Lake?” he called after me.

“I’m … I’m just going to take a quick bath.” Reality shot through my veins, bringing on a whole new round of sweat, jolting my heart into overdrive, and robbing my lungs of all oxygen.

What. Did. We. Do?

After sitting on the toilet praying for gravity to be stronger than sperm, I turned on the faucet.

I propped my prosthetic up against the wall and sat on the edge of the tub to remove the socket and peel off the liner.

Easing into the steamy water, it felt so good I moaned.

Would it be my last hot bath? Were pregnant women restricted to warm baths?

Was I pregnant? Could I even be pregnant that fast?

A chaotic zoo of thoughts crowed my mind. There was always the morning after pill. Would that defeat the purpose of offering to be Cage’s baby mama? Thaddeus … he would kill me. I wasn’t sure if he was serious about me needing new legs for pregnancy. Would an expanding belly really change my leg?

“Hey.” Cage smiled as he cracked open the door, like he needed an invite to come into his own bathroom.

“Hi.” I shoved as much enthusiasm, as much yay-we’re-having-a-baby into my voice as possible. The lines along his brow reflected I failed to hit the mark. Maybe I wasn’t such a good liar after all. “You look tired.”

He peeled off his shirt. “Just a side effect of game day. When the adrenaline, especially after a win, wears off, all that’s left are an aching body and exhaustion.”

In that moment I felt guilty about the sex, beyond the minor detail that we may have in fact created a life.

I was the one who requested he nail me to the wall.

Okay, I didn’t use those exact words, but when he started to carry me out of the kitchen I said, “No. Right here.” The only way he could make here work was to use the pantry door.

“Shit. I didn’t even think about that. I’m sorry. We should not have—”

He shook his head. “It’s fine.” He removed his pants and briefs.

Fine. What was fine? Nailing me to the wall or unprotected sex? There was nothing awkward about that moment. The pathetic part was he had me so turned on again, standing there naked.

I closed my eyes and tried to do the impossible: clear my mind.

I heard the shower and a few seconds later Cage groaned.

He was in pain. I was a greedy little hussy.

On a deep breath I slid under the water.

I loved dull white noise that could only be experienced under water, like holding my breath stopped time, even if just for a few seconds.

“Ah!” I gasped as Cage pulled me from my abyss.

“Jesus, Lake!” He stood over me dripping cold water, eyes wide.

“What?” I coughed. Startled by unexpected hands gripping my arms, I inhaled a little water on the way up.

“You weren’t moving.”

I coughed a little more, clearing the last of the water from my windpipe. “That’s because I was holding still.”

He released my arms and stepped in the tub, wedging his cold body behind mine as he exhaled a heavy sigh.

“Why are you so cold?”

“Cold shower. Muscle recovery.”

I leaned my back against his chest as he wrapped his arms around me. He was like a gigantic ice cube stealing the heat from my water.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“What were you doing?” His voice still held an edge of anger or maybe just concern.

“I was wetting my hair.”

“For like … five minutes?”

I laughed. “No, for like ten seconds.”

“Lake … we need to talk.” His large hands covered mine, interlacing our fingers.

Even in the water I could feel the hard calloused patches on his fingers and palms. “About?”

“Everything.”

I braced for the same lecture I’d already given myself a hundred times over since the incident in the kitchen. The fact that I thought of it as an “incident” just proved that we needed to discuss it.

“I have this love/hate relationship with my feelings about you.”

“Oh God … you’re breaking up with me.” I tried to sit up as my heart braced for impact.

Cage tightened his hold on me. “What? No. No. Why would you think that?”

“Because people have a ‘love/hate relationship’ with things they feel guilty about, and guilt is the equivalent of a flesh-eating bacteria for emotions.”

“I regret nothing. Not even calling your bluff in the most dog-pissing-on-a-fire-hydrant way.”

“Calling my bluff?” I knew. I just wanted him to say it. I was such a coward.

He kissed the top of my head. “I want to know more than your neighbors, Lake. If you’re going to marry me, then I want to know before Banks.”

“It was a jok—” I jumped as he bit the back of my ear.

“It wasn’t a joke. Not wanting to marry me … that was a joke.”

“Now you’re just being arrogant.” I nudged my knee into his leg.

“I’m not. I’m just being honest. I don’t ever want another man to touch you. I want every baby that ever grows in your belly to be mine.”

Fuck the tears … here they come.

“I want you to call me first when someone steals your leg … even if I completely lose it and have to call Flint.”

I laughed, biting my lips together to keep my emotions in check.

“And when I tell you to get your ass to my training camp because I’m fucking dying to see you, then I expect you to be there without worrying about how it will affect me.

Football is my job. Let me worry about it.

You are my life … worry about that. Worry about keeping yourself safe so I don’t lose another person I love.

Focus on our future because, Lake … you are my future and I will marry you, even if I have to drag you to the altar and fuck a yes out of you. ”

I practically choked on that statement. Promise? Threat? Then I waited. He addressed everything except the most looming issue of our future.

“Ask me,” he whispered in my ear.

The lump in my throat had its own pulse like the timer to a bomb counting down. I had nothing to fear and I knew it, but I just couldn’t will away my nerves.

“What if I’m pregnant?”

He chuckled. “You mean with the baby we agreed upon like … an hour ago?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that one.”

“I asked you.”

“I know.”

“I gave you a chance to change your mind.”

All true statements.

“I know.”

He pinched my waist, eliciting a jump. “Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“To call my bluff.”

My head inched side to side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on … this is the part where you tell me you’re on the pill then scold me for being so irresponsible.”

My eyes leapt from their sockets. “You’ve had this conversation before?”

“No, but friends of mine have.”

I pried free from his arms and lifted myself to the edge of the tub.

“Where are you going?”

I grabbed a towel and dried off. “Home.”

“What? It’s late. Just stay.”

My hands shook as I fought with my liner. It was a bitch to get on if my leg wasn’t dried well.

“Are you mad?”

Once my leg was secured, I stood, wrapping the towel around myself. “Let’s not be that couple that asks if the other is mad when clearly the other is mad. I said it to you earlier and I should not have. So … I’m sorry—”

“I really wasn’t mad, just confused by your reaction to what Banks said, that’s all. But you … you’re really mad at me.”

“Yes! Yes, I am.” I marched out to retrieve my clothes from the kitchen, but I didn’t have to because he had them neatly draped over the back of the chair next to his closet door. His considerateness irritated the hell out of me.

“What the hell? I don’t understand.”

I refused to look at him hovering over me with a black towel tied low on his waist, water rivulets racing down his skin.

“I don’t play that game, you big idiot!” I fastened my jeans and tugged on my shirt, leaving my bra on the chair.

“Lake!”

I made a dash for the back door. “Dammit!” I pressed the heels of my hands to my forehead. “I didn’t drive,” I whispered to myself. So much for my dramatic exit.

When his hands gripped my arms to turn me toward him, I didn’t even fight it. My eyes wandered over his bare chest and running shorts.

Cage sighed then lifted my chin with his finger. Defeat stole my tears, leaving me with a blank stare and the occasional blink.

“You’re not on the pill,” he said in a monotone voice like the answer to two plus two just came to him when he should have known it all along.

“I’m not on the pill,” I whispered.

CAGE

My dad laughed at me from Heaven or Hell, or maybe it was his ghost shadowing me every day. I could hear him calling me young and stupid. The truth? I was still young and stupid.

Lake looked at me and I knew she was waiting for me to lie, but I wasn’t going to lie to her. Yet I knew the hardest part would be convincing her that my words were, in fact, the truth.

“I’m sorry for making a terribly irresponsible assumption.

I’m sorry if you’re pregnant and you don’t want to be.

But if I’m completely honest with you, I wanted everything that happened in the kitchen.

And even if I felt pretty certain you were on birth control, there was …

there is a very visceral part of me that wants to make a life with you.

And for that, I cannot feel one ounce of regret. ”

She didn’t speak. I needed her to say something. Anything.

“You agreed to be my baby mama, Lake. You let me come in you … twice.”

Her face turned crimson. “I don’t have a car here.”

“Just as well. You’re not going anywhere.” I grabbed her hand. “Come on. I’m starving. My baby probably is too.”

“Not funny,” she grumbled, following me into the kitchen.

“Have a seat. Put your feet up before your ankles start to swell.”

“Still not funny. Actually … it’s a little funny. I only have one foot and ankle.”

“Lake.” Giving her a narrow-eyed look, I grabbed her waist and lifted her onto the counter, where everything had started earlier. She teased her fingers along my cheeks and into my hair. God, I loved her touch.

“What if we’re having a baby?” she whispered.

I turned my head and kissed the inside of her wrist. I craved the feel of her soft skin in that very spot, maybe because it always smelled like flowers, like that was where she dotted her perfume.

“What if we’re having a baby?” My lips, pressed against her skin, curled into the biggest shit-eating grin.