Not Another Bad Date (14 page)

A heavy, suffocating weight settled in his chest.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?”

“Why are you here?”

She flipped her blond hair and leveled her green gaze on him. “I’m pregnant.” She smiled and placed a hand on her flat stomach. “You’re going to be a daddy.”

The heavy, suffocating weight squeezed his lungs and closed his throat. He woke up gasping for air; his heartbeat pounding in his head. The quilt felt like lead, holding him down, and he pushed it off. He sat on the edge of the bed, never so glad to be awake in his life.

“What a fucking nightmare.” He stood and walked through the dark room toward the bathroom. The carpet beneath his feet changed to heated tiles, and he moved past the dais with the big spa tub. Moonlight shone down on him from the domed skylight windows as he pulled himself out of his boxer briefs and used the toilet. The last time he’d dreamed of Devon, she’d come back from the dead to yell at him for trying to divorce her. He preferred those dreams to this latest.

He tucked himself back into his underwear and flushed the toilet. He didn’t know why Devon had popped up in his dream to tell him she was pregnant, he was just damn glad he’d woken up, and it hadn’t been real.

The overhead moonlight ran down his spine and behind as he moved beneath the skylights to the bedroom. He thought back fourteen years when Devon had tracked him down at the house he’d lived in with a couple of football buddies. She’d told him she was pregnant. She’d conceived the last time they’d been together. Just a few days before he’d broken up with her.

“I’m not one of those girls who has children out of wedlock, Zach. I won’t do it.” She crossed her arms over her chest, the implication clear.

As he’d looked at her standing there, a girl he’d once loved, he’d felt as if his life was slipping through his fingers like sand. There was only one thing he could do.

He’d done the right thing.

Goose bumps broke out across his chest as he moved through the house to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He reached inside and pulled out a gallon of milk. Within the glow of bright light, he drank straight from the container.

He’d been raised to do the right thing. There’d never really been a choice, but it hadn’t been easy. Marrying Devon because she was having his baby caused problems from the beginning.

He lowered the carton and sucked milk from his top lip. One of the biggest problems had been that he’d always wondered if the pregnancy had been an accident or if Devon had stopped taking her pills on purpose. Then a few years before her death, she’d admitted that she’d stopped taking them. They’d been arguing about their lack of a sex life, and she’d wanted to make him mad.

“Yes, I quit taking them. I admit it. They made me fat,” she’d said. “You always wondered and now you know.”

“You should have told me.”

“What does it matter now?” she’d asked, and she was right. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter fourteen years ago, ten years ago, or even now. Accident or no, he’d married her. She’d given him a beautiful daughter, and he’d never been sorry about that.

He shoved the carton in the refrigerator and shut the door. He loved Tiffany, but there’d never been another accident. He’d made sure of it.

The last thing he wanted was another marriage with a woman he didn’t love and couldn’t trust. He’d been there and done that, and it had sucked.

Adele sank lower into the tub and cherry-blossom-scented bubbles slid across her shoulders. She’d pulled her hair up onto the top of her head with a dreaded scrunchie. Sometimes there was nothing better than a good hot soak and a wonderful book. She stayed in the tub until the water cooled and the bubbles disappeared, then she got out and wrapped a towel around herself.

The condo was so quiet, which was more odd than relaxing. This surprised her, since she’d lived alone for a lot of years and had never found it weird before. She dried off and dressed in one of her white T-shirts and white panties. As she pulled on a pair of fluffy pink monkey socks, the doorbell rang, and she grabbed her black waffle robe.

She didn’t know who it could be, but hoped it wasn’t Joe with another offer of a skin sandwich.

It wasn’t. Adele looked through the peephole at Zach standing on her porch, light shining in his hair and lighting up the left side of his breathtakingly handsome face. A flush of prickling heat traveled up her spine and settled between her shoulders. She knew without a doubt, opening the door would be a very bad idea.

He reached forward and rang the bell again. He hit it three times in a row and she reached for the dead bolt. She swung the door open, and Zach stood before her, wearing a blue fleece REI jacket and a pair of worn jeans. His gaze lowered from her face, down her black robe, to her feet.

“Nice socks.”

“Thanks.”

His gaze climbed back up her body. “Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then what took you so long to answer the door? Were you deciding whether or not to let me in?”

“I’m still deciding.”

He smiled with one corner of his lips. “Invite me in.”

That was not a good idea.

“I have something for you, and I don’t want to pull it out right here.”

Her mouth dropped open. “If you reach for your fly, I swear to God I’m calling the cops.”

He rolled his eyes. “Jesus.” He reached into the pocket of his fleece and pulled out her white bra. “I believe this is yours.”

She reached for it, but he held it up just out of her grasp. “Where did you get that?”

“Floor in the girls’ bathroom. I thought you might want it back.”

She held out one hand. “I do.”

“You have something that’s mine. We’ll swap.”

“What?”

“My coach’s hat.”

She pulled her robe tight around herself and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “You don’t have another hat?”

“Sure, but that one’s lucky. We’re thirteen and oh, and I’m not going to screw that up tomorrow afternoon against Amarillo by wearing a different hat.”

“If I let you in, are you going to behave?”

He held up his hands like he was as harmless as a Boy Scout. Her bra hanging from his fingers by one strap ruined the picture of innocence.

She swung the door open, and he stepped inside. “You couldn’t have called first?”

“Don’t have your number.”

That was true. “Your hat’s in the baby’s room.” She turned, and the heavier thud of his boots on the wood floor followed close behind her. They walked into the room filled with the small desk, her laptop, and boxes of baby furniture.

“How’s your sister?”

“Today she’s good.” She plucked the hat off her desk and turned to him. “Each day she carries the baby is a good day.” She handed him the hat, and he handed her the bra.

He glanced about the room. “Looks like you have a lot to do in here.”

“Yeah.” She tossed her bra on the desk and looked around. Anywhere but at him and his big shoulders and wide chest. She’d always known the room was small, but with Zach in it, it felt like a cubicle. “I have to put all this furniture together, and I was thinking about painting the room blue. Maybe painting clouds on the ceiling.” She shrugged, and with the room being so small, she could smell the scent of his soap on his skin, and it was giving her a dangerous urge to take a few steps forward and bury her nose in his neck. “I have to go to the hardware store. I don’t even have a screwdriver.”

“Every girl should have a few tools around.”

She smiled.

“Don’t say it,” he warned. “When I packed for my visit, I left my tool belt at home.”

Now it was his turn to smile. “You have a tool belt?”

“Well, it’s more like a toolbox that has a cheap belt that came with it.”

He raised his gaze to the top of her head. “Were you going for some sort of crazy afro?”

“No.” She reached up and pulled out the scrunchie. She shook her head, and hair fell down her back. She wondered if and when he was going to try one of his slick moves on her. “I was in the tub.”

“The first thing I ever noticed about you was your hair.” He tapped his hat against his leg. “I saw you, and I thought you looked like a wild jungle girl. The ones you see in movies and cartoons running around the Amazon in leopard-skin bikinis. Growing up, I had fantasies about those wild girls.” He looked from her hair to her eyes. “I don’t think I ever told you that.”

“No. You never did.”

“Then I looked into your eyes, and I had a hard time looking away. I remember waiting around the little pizza place you worked in so I could walk you to your dorm.”

“Yes.” Her stomach fluttered, and her urge to bury her face in his neck got stronger. “And you bought me a book about flower fairies.”

“Did I?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Honey, I’ve had more concussions than I can recall.”

“Well, it was really thoughtful and sweet.”

“While I hate to blow your illusions of me,” he said, as a self-deprecating smile curved his lips, “I’m sure I did it to get into your pants.”

“What?” She laughed. “It wasn’t because you liked me?”

“Oh, I liked you.” He ran his fingers through his hair and slid his hat on his head. “I liked you a whole lot, and I wanted to have sex with you.”

She waited for him to say something about still wanting to have sex with her. About the two of them getting naked and getting it on.

Instead, he moved toward the door. “I got a big game tomorrow. Good night, Adele.”

That was it? He really
had
come for his hat? “You’re leaving?”

He paused in the doorway and looked back at her. “Are you going to ask me to stay?”

He wasn’t going to kiss her and touch her and overload her senses and take away her ability to say no to him? She opened her mouth, but the words got stuck in her throat.

“That’s what I thought.” He continued toward the door and reached for the handle.

“Don’t go!” she blurted. She hadn’t expected him. Hadn’t expected to want him to stay, but she wasn’t sorry.

“If I stay, you know what that means.”

“Yes.” The minute she’d opened the door to let him in, she’d known what would happen.

“You say yes, but you give off more mixed signals than any woman I’ve ever known. And frankly, sweetheart, I don’t want to leave here with a hard-on.”

Her gaze lowered to the big bulge behind his button fly. “Too late.” She wanted it to happen. “Do you have a condom?”

Instead of opening the door, he leaned back against it. “Always.”

“Then stay.”

He held out his arms, still giving her the choice. She raced across the floor before she could over-think her decision. Her hands slid up the front of the soft fleece to his shoulders, and she buried her nose in his neck. She breathed deep, and the scent of his skin reignited all the places he’d heated up last week. “Make it good so I don’t regret this tomorrow.”

He cupped the sides of her head and looked into her eyes. “That’s a lot of pressure.”

“Can you handle it?”

He lowered his face to hers. “Darlin’, I do my best work under pressure.” Her lips parted, and he gave her a slick, wet kiss that lifted her stomach and raised her to the balls of her feet.

Beneath the soft glow of the entryway light, she opened her mouth and touched her tongue to his. One of his hands moved from her thick hair and down her back to her behind, drawing her close until the hard bulge of his erection pressed into her. Her robe parted, and he was rock-hard against her belly, covered in a thin T-shirt. She wanted Zach. If just for one night. She wanted his touch. His kiss. She wanted him deep inside her.

His hands moved to her shoulders, and he pushed her robe down her arms. It fell and pooled at her feet, and he slid her T-shirt up and grasped her nearly bare behind in both hands. A drugged moan came from her throat as she kissed him back and surrendered to the desire bigger than her ability to hold it back. Not that she even wanted to try any longer.

The kiss caught fire, turning into a hot and greedy free-for-all of slick mouths and deep, consuming pleasure. He plunged his tongue into her mouth as if he were inside her body, and her body responded with a hot, liquid ache between her legs that left her clinging to him and wanting more. Her greedy hands moved over him, his fleece, the T-shirt beneath, and the back of his head. She pushed Zach’s hat from his head and his jacket from his shoulders, and he shook it from his arms. Their lips parted long enough for her to pull his T-shirt over his head, then her hands were all over his bare chest. She ran her finger over his defined muscles and hot skin, then pulled back to look at him. She recognized the double-z tattoo circling his big biceps and studied the newer tattoo on his forearm. She slid her gaze over his hard chest muscles covered in blond hair, down his six-pack abs and the darker blond happy trail that circled his navel and disappeared into the waistband of his jeans.

“Do you like what you see?”

Only a man confident of the answer would ask that question. “I do. Yes.” She took a step back and reached for the bottom of her T-shirt. She lifted it over her head, and her thick curly hair settled down her back. She tossed the shirt to one side and stood before him in pink monkey socks and white panties. He leaned his head back against the door and looked at her through hot, hungry eyes.

She raised a brow, and he smiled, a predatory lift of the corners of his lips. “I love what I see.” He reached for her and pulled her to him, settling the heavy weight of her bare breasts against his chest. Her nipples pressed into his hot flesh and turned up the heat in her liquid, achy places.

He lowered his mouth to hers once more. The kiss was wild and chaotic, like nothing she could remember experiencing before. It was harsh and sweet and drugging, two people giving in to a purely physical and consuming need until he groaned deep in his throat and pulled back. His breathing was heavy when he said, “Adele.” The desire burning in his brown eyes made her feel beautiful. “Where’s your bed, honey?”

She leaned forward and kissed his throat as she slid her hand into his. “Come with me.” She led him into Sherilyn’s bedroom.

“Turn on the light,” he said, and pulled her back against his chest. She felt the vibration of his voice against the back of her neck. “We’re not going to do this in the dark.”

He let her go, and she turned on a lamp on the bedside table. She watched him unbutton his pants and peel them down his big legs. He wore gray boxer briefs with a white elastic waist and stitching around the pouch. As he kicked his pants aside, she moved to him and slid her hand down his belly and beneath the waistband. She reached inside and took his thick shaft into her hand. He’d been her first love. Her first lover. Time had diluted her memory, but it came back to her now. The solid weight of him as she slid her palm up his hot, velvet penis. He groaned deep in his throat and covered her hand with his, stroking it up and down until he couldn’t take it any longer, and he moved her hand to his shoulder. He pushed her down onto the bed and followed.

He murmured something against her throat, sweet words telling her how much he wanted her, how hard she made him, and how good her hands on him felt. He dragged his mouth across her shoulder, tasting her skin as he moved lower and kissed her breasts. The tip of his tongue licked her nipple before he sucked it into his hot mouth.

She moaned his name and arched her back with mindless need. She ran her fingers through his hair, watching through heavy eyes as he kissed her breasts and sucked her puckered nipple. He worked her over until her breath was choppy, then he worked his way down her body. He kissed her belly and just below her navel, his warm, moist tongue leaving a trail of fire.

“What are you doing?” she asked, as he left the bed to kneel between her thighs.

“Getting reacquainted with your fairy.” He pulled her panties down her legs and past her monkey sock before he placed his hands beneath her thighs and lifted until her knees rested on his big shoulders. Then he leaned over her and kissed the fairy tattoo on her belly. His hot breath brushed across her skin as he asked, “You don’t mind if I give her a sugar bite, do ya?”