24. Miles
24
MILES
I woke up spooned around Lydia. I could get used to this. She was warm. She was comfortable. She was everything. And my body reacted to her, tucked up against me the way she was.
I pressed my hips with my growing erection against her backside to see if I could slowly wake her up.
She let out a soft moan and wiggled her ass against me.
The feeling of her body willing and pliant only made me want her more. I began leaving ticklish kisses against the side of her neck, under her ear.
“Miles,” she said softly.
“Yes, Lydia?” I asked.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“What does it feel like?”
With another soft moan, she rolled onto her back and looked up into my eyes. “It feels like you’re trying to seduce me.”
I placed a soft kiss against her perfect lips. She parted for me and our tongues danced together. I deepened the kiss and ran my hands over her ribs and cupped her breast.
“That is exactly what I’m doing,” I growled. Damn, she felt good.
She made soft, encouraging noises as she ran her hands up my arms and across my shoulders.
I curled against her side and ran my hands over her smooth skin. As I caressed her belly, she stiffened.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
She wrapped her fingers around my wrist to keep my hand from moving anymore.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Are you feeling all right? I asked. “Are you okay? Not feeling sick?”
“I feel fine, and you are making me feel really good. But…” She paused.
“But what?” I asked.
She let out a sigh. “Nothing, I’m being silly. Kiss me,” she demanded.
Not one to turn away one of Lydia’s kisses, I complied. She ran her leg up mine, and we continued to kiss and touch. When my hand slipped down between her legs, she tightened her thighs, preventing me from reaching my goal or moving my hand at all.
“I’m sorry, Miles,” she said. “This feels weird.”
I eased my hand away from her legs and pushed up on my elbow to look at her.
“Feels weird as in you are uncomfortable? Something’s wrong? You don’t want me?”
“I do want you, but it feels weird as in, I’m pregnant. Should we be doing this?”
I wanted to laugh. “Why shouldn’t we?” I asked.
“I’m so round. Doesn’t the baby bother you?”
I placed my hand on her baby bump.
“I adore all of your curves. The baby does not bother me at all, but if the baby bothers you, then we’ll stop.”
She swallowed hard. Her throat worked as if her mouth was dry, or there was a giant lump stuck. I knew the feeling. She slowly nodded.
I started to roll away from her, but she grabbed my arm.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want you kissing me, though. I mean, if you want to kiss me,” she said.
I rolled back to her and began placing gentle kisses against the side of her neck and along her jaw.
“You know, if we had limited ourselves to only making out before, you wouldn’t be in this condition.”
“Stop pointing out the obvious,” she said. “Just kiss me for now and give me some time to get used to the idea.”
“I can do that,” I admitted.
“Are you sure you want to touch me while I look like this?”
“While you look like what? Gorgeous, beautiful, mine?”
“Pregnant,” she pointed out.
I shifted and kissed her belly. “This makes you even more tempting.”
With a smile, I lay back down and pulled her into my arms and began kissing her lips again. I kissed her with all the passion and all the enthusiasm as I would have put into making love to her body. She tasted sweet and perfect, and until she was ready to let me touch the rest of her, I would be content with this level of attention and affection.
We ended up cuddling until she fell back asleep.
My attention was dragged out of the dozing half-asleep state I was in by the incessant ringing of my phone. I tried to ignore it, but I didn’t want it to disrupt Lydia’s sleep. She was so tired and needed the rest.
I rolled out of bed and pulled the phone out of my pocket.
“It’s early. What do you want?” I said as I walked into her small living room.
“Miles, are you planning on ever coming back into the office?” It was Harris.
“Not if I can help it, why?”
“You have meetings this week and your admin is in a panic. You aren’t responding to your emails like you normally do. It’s one thing to take a vacation. It’s quite another to tell us you’ll be working remotely and then not work, especially when we are relying on you.”
“Fine, I’ll come back in for the rest of the week. But then I want to make proper arrangements to set up a remote office up here. It looks like I’m going to be on site in Brookdale for a while.”
I was packed and ready to leave, but I waited until Lydia woke and was dressed. I knew my leaving would only distress her further. That was something I wanted to minimize as much as possible for her.
“You aren’t leaving because of me?” Lydia asked. “Because I wouldn’t, you know… I’m pregnant. I don’t know if I can.”
I chuckled. “No, it’s nothing you did or didn’t do. I’m leaving because of work. I’ll be back. I have to go down to the city to clear up a few things. I need to set some people straight, and then I’ll be back.”
“You promise?”
She looked so scared. I couldn’t help but fold her back into my embrace. I kissed her brow.
“I’m not leaving because of anything you did, but I am coming back because of this.” I ran my hand over her belly and our baby. “I am coming back. I promise.”
“Okay, I won’t be so sad then.” She stiffened in my embrace, and I let her go.
She clenched her jaw and gave me a weak smile, but there were tears in her eyes.
I cupped her face and ran my hand to the back of her head before I pulled her to me and placed a kiss against her lips. They were so soft, so perfect, and I never wanted to leave her. I had to leave and take care of business so that I could stay. It sounded stupid and thick with irony.
In the car on the drive to the airport, at every exit I passed, I thought about pulling over and turning around and driving straight back to Brookdale. Straight back to Lydia and our baby. I was doing this for us. I was doing this so that I could transfer my office and work more efficiently from the inn.
She had to know that the sacrifices I was making right now were only to strengthen our relationship and so that I could be with her, so we could be together and be a family.
Those intrusive thoughts about turning around and going right back to her did not leave me even after I was on the airplane.
Once I was back in the city, my mood turned foul, and nothing seemed to go right, especially once I got to my office.
“Why is there a note on my desk from Donald White?” I yelled to Sarah.
She appeared at my office door. “He’s called several times. I emailed you,” she said.
The note indicated the investment percentages he was interested in allocating toward my different projects, and that he was ready to receive corresponding numbers from me at any time.
I crumpled the note.
“Are you sure you emailed? Why didn’t you email Harris and have him complete this? You knew I was out of town.”
Sarah crossed her arms. “Because you told me that you wanted to handle anything from Donald White yourself.”
I groaned inwardly. Damn it, she was right. I had wanted to handle his investments myself, but I had been distracted once I’d gotten up to Brookdale. Lydia was a beautiful distraction. I was going to be a father. I was definitely distracted.
“You’re right, damn it.” I waved off Sarah and sat in my chair. Fortunately, cranking out the spreadsheet for Donald White was fairly straightforward, and with a few clicks on the keyboard, I had his desired percentages poured into an existing template. The numbers rolled out into columns with projections and balances. I typed up a quick email message and attached the spreadsheet, and then hit Send .
We were definitely going to have to develop a better workflow process if I was going to be working remotely from Brookdale for the foreseeable future. Notes couldn’t sit on my desk that I would never see. And Sarah was going to need a clear chain of command if she couldn’t get ahold of me to meet certain deadlines.
This was all more complex than I had originally anticipated. After all, with a laptop and an internet connection, I should have been able to work from anywhere.