EXPECTING HIS CHILD (5 page)

"She," he corrected, then cradled her belly with both hands. "Does she do this all the time?"

The fascination in his voice did strange things to her heart. "Not all the time. He sleeps some, but sometimes it feels like he's gearing up for a rodeo."

Noah stroked his fingers over the blouse covering her. The gesture was oddly tender and sensual. "I know this has been happening for centuries, but it still feels like a miracle. You and I made this magic happen."

With dark eyes, he held her gaze for a long moment, a moment where something inside her seemed to creak and shift.

Martina wasn't sure there were words for what his eyes were saying to her. Noah leaned closer and she held her breath. He dipped his head and slowly, softly rubbed his warm lips over hers.

Martina felt the caress electrify her nerve endings from her head to her toes. He kissed her and a hundred emotions tumbled through her. All the passion they'd shared and something more powerful jerked at her like a game of crack the whip.

Alarm shot through her. She pulled back, staring at him, waiting to breathe. Martina lost herself in his changeable eyes. Sometimes green, occasionally blue and in rare moments gray like a storm-tossed sea, his eyes truly seemed to mirror the inner man. He was one man, yet had such diversity, a diversity that had fascinated her from the moment she'd met him. Strong, rugged, intelligent, intuitive.

Perhaps too intuitive, she thought. Sometimes she feared he could see everything going on inside her. "I need to go," she whispered, and turned away from him.

She didn't make it out of the car before he appeared by her side. He cupped her elbow, and though she felt the urge to wrest her arm from him, Martina knew it would have been childish. Still, just his touch set off a riot inside her. She'd run from the intimacy they'd shared, but his closeness stirred up images of his hands exploring and pleasuring her.

"You haven't
forgotten,
have you?" he asked in a low voice as they reached her porch.

"Forgotten what?" she returned, digging for keys in her purse.

"What it was like when you were mine."

Her heart slammed into overdrive. "I was never yours."

Noah boldly lifted his hands beneath her cotton blouse and touched the bare flesh of her belly. "Yes, you were. There's plenty of proof. Here," he said, then skimmed his hand up between her breasts. "And here. You were mine."

Chapter 5

«
^
»

Y
ou were mine.

Noah's words echoed through Martina's head as she fell into a fitful sleep. The images seeped inside her, at first hazy around the edges.

He set her on the desk in his hotel room with a playful, yet intent gleam in his eye. Martina's heart fluttered and she wondered what was next. He was always surprising her.

He skimmed his finger up the inside of her stocking-clad leg all the way to her knee. "I've always thought the man who invented panty hose should have been horsewhipped."

She grinned. "And why is that? Do you think it would be better for women to freeze?"

"No," he muttered. "But there are better ways to keep warm." He continued to slide his finger up the inside of her thigh. When he encountered bare skin, surprise flickered across his face and he met her gaze. "The person who invented thigh-highs is due a thousand thank-
yous
." He lowered his mouth to hers and said against her lips, "You keep surprising me."

Martina swallowed all her doubts and lost herself in his kiss. She was totally out of her depth with this man and could only hope she was concealing that fact. He slid his tongue over hers, teasing her to give him what he wanted. Her entire body clamored in response. Her breath grew short, her nipples tightened, and she grew moist and swollen.

Back and forth Noah rubbed the exposed sensitive skin of her inner thigh. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, mirroring the way he had taken her more intimately at other times. Hot and restless, Martina suckled his tongue deeper.

Noah shuddered and pulled back slightly. "Everything about you is one big tease for me." He pushed her skirt farther up her legs and dipped his fingers beneath the edge of her panties. "You're the apple I'm not supposed to eat, but tasting you isn't enough. I want all of you."

The mixture of overwhelming frustration and desire in his voice echoed inside her. Although neither she nor Noah ever spoke of their families, the long-standing grudge stood between them, a silent, strong barrier that prevented them from getting as close to each other as they wanted. Martina wanted him. She wanted to drink his words and endlessly explore his mind. She wanted to make him ache the same terrible delicious way he made her ache.

Whenever he kissed her, the air around them seemed to grow thick, just as it did before a storm. She felt that same impending sense that something powerful was going to happen. When they made love, it always did inside her. Martina struggled with the strange feeling that her premonition represented something larger than this moment, but her mind grew cloudy with passion.

Impatient with the obstacles between them and the restraint that kept her from being with him fully, she pushed all thoughts of her family and his aside. She ruthlessly banished everything but him from her mind.

Tugging at the buttons on his shirt, she pulled it open and ran her hands over his warm, solid chest. Instinct driving her, she slid her fingers down to the top of his jeans and pulled his belt loose. She brushed her open mouth against his,
then
slid her lips down his throat to his chest. She dipped her hands beneath his jeans to where he was hard and aroused.

He sucked in a sharp breath, and his eyes narrowed. "What do you want?" he asked, his fingers exploring her soft, damp secrets. "Do you know what you want, Tina?"

The tension in her core and mind tightened, and she felt hot inside and out. Had she ever wanted this much? Staggering desire and fear mingled. She swallowed, shoving the fear away. "I want you," she said, hearing the telltale huskiness in her own voice. "I want everything."

Her words seemed to make him combust. He pulled her panties away so that she was bare beneath him. Gazing at her naked femininity with a carnal, claiming expression, he lowered his mouth to the inside of her thigh and kissed.

Martina gasped. The near intimacy made her feel incredibly vulnerable. "I … I…"

"Hang on," he said, and took her with his lips.

Flexing her fingers in his hair, she felt consumed and utterly possessed. His tongue laved the pearl of her femininity, creating a tender, delicious friction, sending her over the top once, then again.

Martina cried
out,
and Noah pulled back. He lowered his jeans, fully exposing his huge arousal and drawing her hand to touch him. She stroked his hard shaft and he closed his eyes as if torn between pleasure and pain.

Trembling, she pulled herself up and tentatively pressed her lips to him. She opened her mouth over him and tasted the heady flavor of his passion.

Noah swore under his breath. "Not this time. I want to be inside you," he muttered, and eased her back on the desk.

In one swift thrust, he took her, and Martina knew she would never be the same.

She awakened with a gasp and bolted upright. Her heart pounding, her body hot, she took deep breaths and tried to gather her composure. Her cotton gown rubbed against her sensitive nipples. She was aroused, Martina realized in surprise. She closed her eyes against the sensations. She had been dreaming about Noah, and the dream had felt an awful lot like the one time she and Noah had made love and forgotten about contraception. The time, she
realized,
that their baby had been conceived. She'd heard there was a thin line between dreams and memories.

She rubbed her cheeks in dismay. Martina had tried so hard to run from Noah. First in
Chicago
, then in her mind and heart. She had only succeeded in delaying the inevitable. Now he was walking in her dreams.

* * *

Martina stared at the Web page she was constructing on her computer screen and heard a knock at her door. Actually, banging was a better description.

"Surprise!" called the familiar voices of her brothers and their families.

Smiling, she clicked "save" and hurried to the front door. Her two brothers, their wives, and her niece and nephews stood on her front porch.

"Aunt Martina, we've got presents for the baby in your tummy!" yelled Sam, Tyler and Jill's newly adopted son.

Martina swung open the door and gave the little boy a hug. He had been one of
Tyler
's patients, and the way the three of them had become a family still moved her. "Hurry up and bring them to me, so I can open them all."

Sam looked at her with huge brown eyes. "Why? Is the baby gonna pop out right now?"

Martina laughed and shook her head at Tyler and Jill. "Not yet. I just love presents."

She stood and hugged the rest of the crowd, amazed at the number of gifts. "Y'all did too much. My goodness, what possessed you?"

Brock, her oldest brother, hauled in a bassinet. "We kept hoping you would see reason and move back to the ranch with Felicity,
Bree
, Jacob and me."

"Or in with Jill and me,"
Tyler
said pointedly.

Martina sighed and her heart swelled with love for her brothers. "I guess you two are never going to stop looking after me."

Brock and
Tyler
glanced knowingly at each other,
then
back at her. "No," they both said at once.

"You need a keeper," Brock said.

"And it takes both of us to do the job,"
Tyler
added.

Unbidden tears filled her eyes, catching her off guard. She gave a muffled sound of dismay and swiped them away.

Tyler
immediately looked concerned. "You're crying? You'd rather eat glass than cry. What's wrong? Is something wrong with you or the baby?"

"No, I'm fine. Darn pregnancy hormones," she said quickly. Martina felt a twinge of the old frustration she'd felt as long as she could remember. Her brothers still didn't believe she could take care of herself. Even though she was twenty-four, gainfully employed, single, pregnant… She sighed. The single and pregnant part probably hadn't helped her case.

She smiled and kissed each brother on the cheek. "I'm not going to argue with you today. I'm too delighted with your visit." She glanced at her nephew Jacob. "Is that a swing?"

"My idea,"
Bree
, her niece, said. "I baby-sit for the Walters, and the only time their baby stops screaming is when I put her in the swing. I have to keep cranking theirs, but the one we got you has a setting for infinity. That means it never stops."

Martina had a fleeting frightening image of her baby spending the first year of his life in a swing. Her dismay must have shown.

Brock's wife, Felicity, laughed. She put her arm around Martina. "She's exaggerating. Mrs. Walters usually asks
Bree
to keep the baby during colic time."

"If you moved in with us, Aunt Martina, I could take care of your baby during colic time,"
Bree
said, slyly glancing at her father.

Brock gave a wink of approval.

Although she smelled a conspiracy, Martina's heart swelled at the obvious love between Brock and his daughter. The closeness they shared was the exact opposite of what Martina and her father had shared, and she thanked the Lord her precious niece wouldn't spend her childhood trying to make her father love her.

"That's tempting," Martina said, giving
Bree
a quick squeeze. "Maybe you can
come
stay with me awhile after the baby is born."

"I will," Felicity offered.

"So will
I
," Jill said.

Brock and
Tyler
exchanged a look of dissatisfaction. "It's bad enough that you won't move in with us,"
Tyler
said.

"Where you belong," Brock added meaningfully. "Now you're going to make us live without our wives."

"Temporarily," Jill said, still a newlywed. She shot a flirty smile at
Tyler
. "The reunion could be enjoyable."

Tyler
plastered a stern expression on his face. "There she goes doing that PR thing
again,
trying to tell me a sow's ear is a silk purse."

"It's like what she did with you," Martina said with mock innocence, referring to the advertising campaign Jill had used to help Tyler raise money for the new pediatric wing at his hospital. "Got a great photographer, featured you in fund-raising ads and turned you into the state's most wanted doctor."

He slid his arm around Jill. "That ad campaign turned out to be costly, since she paid for it by becoming my wife."

"Best thing I ever did," Jill said.

Martina could see the love flowing between Tyler and Jill and felt a twinge of envy. They were practically glowing with devotion. It was disgusting. "Stop. This is so sweet I could throw up. Neither of you look as if you're suffering. Let's all go into the den while I get a good look at all the goodies you brought me."

Martina served lemonade while her brothers assembled the swing, a bassinet and a changing table.

Her nephew Jacob presented her with a dozen pacifiers.

He had flourished under Felicity's care. Who would have thought a boy could become more of a man by getting a
Manhattan
heiress for a stepmother? Martina glanced at her well-dressed, warm-hearted sister-in-law. Felicity had worked magic for everyone at the
Logan
ranch. Sighing, Martina supposed the
Logans
had been due a change of luck in the romance department, and she was glad love had found her brothers, even if it hadn't found her.

"Thank you," she said to Jacob, bewildered by the variety of pacifiers. "But why so many?"

He shrugged and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. "
Bree
said babies don't always like the first pacifier, so I thought I'd give the baby a choice just in case he hollers like Dad says I did when I was little."

Martina's lips twitched. "Babies don't cry all the time."

"I know," he said. "They sleep and poop, too. That's why we filled up the back seat with diapers. I'll bring 'em in."

Martina opened her mouth to respond, but the doorbell rang, interrupting her. She walked to the front door and opened it to a man dressed in a mechanic's uniform. "I'm Jimmy Steen with
Lone
Star
Auto
Service
Center
, and I'm here to check a car that belongs to Martina Logan."

Hearing her
brothers
approach behind her, she shook her head. "Why? I haven't had any problems."

"We got a call from—" he pulled a folded paper from his pocket "—Coltrane," he said. "Noah Coltrane called and asked us to make sure your vehicle is in perfect running condition."

"Coltrane," Brock ominously echoed behind her. "I thought he was staying away from you."