Valentino's Pregnancy Bombshell (8 page)

Paige sucked in a breath, pushing her hands into his hair. ‘I don't have any.'

Valentino groaned into her neck. At home he had boxes of the things. Not that he'd used one of them since coming to Brisbane. They pulled apart and looked at each other, heaving in oxygen, their chests rising and falling, sexual frustration adding to their agitation.

They looked at each other for about ten seconds and
then they were kissing again, touching, rubbing, sighing, moaning.

And somehow, Paige wasn't quite sure how afterwards, he manoeuvred her trackpants off and then he was in her, thrusting up as she ground down, and they were panting and calling each other's name and it felt good and right and the consequences be damned.

V
ALENTINO
had no idea how long it took for them to bump back down to earth. It was a slow realisation. A creeping awareness of the jut of her hips in his palms, the weight of her head against his shoulder, the slight brush of her lips against his collarbone as her breathing returned to normal.

He shifted slightly and murmured, ‘I guess there is one advantage to having a deaf child.' He felt Paige smile against his skin and chuckled.

Paige, malaise heavy in her bones, couldn't move. It was warm and cushioned against his shoulder and she felt as if she'd been stroked all over with a thousand velvet fingers. The fact that they were still joined and he was still hard inside her was another incentive not to move.

Although if she did this…

‘Don't do that,' Valentino groaned, clamping his fingers on her hips harder, holding them still. How could he possibly still be so hard?

‘What? This?' Paige undulated her hips again and felt the full length of him glide erotically against sensitised tissues.

Valentino felt his breath strangulate in his throat. ‘Yes. That.'

Paige smiled again, suddenly getting a second wind. She pushed away from his shoulder, her nakedness on full display. She looked down at herself, at how wanton she was, how not herself.

She'd always hated her breasts. They'd always been small and with her weight loss even more so. But tonight they looked one hundred per cent female, the pale blush of her nipples darkening and puckering like raspberries beneath Valentino's rapt gaze.

She arched her back a little and Valentino pulsed inside her. He didn't seem to find them wanting.

Further down she could see his fingers spread wide against the angles of her hipbones, bronzed against her paler skin. She could feel them holding her firmly, holding her close, branding her. His thumbs circled lazily, stroking the sensitive skin where her hip sloped to her belly.

Lower still she could see where they were joined. Where they became one. The most intimate of connections. It was hot and slick, tingling with the remnants of their joining and the hard hot length of him still buried inside her, and Paige undulated her hips again.

This time Valentino thrust a little and she gasped. ‘Hmm, that feels good,' she murmured.

Valentino shut his eyes and nodded, slowly pulling out a little and pulsing back in one more time. ‘How about that?'

Paige bit her lip as the fuse sparked to life. ‘Really good.'

He opened his eyes and watched as her high breasts bounced a little. ‘And this?' He leaned forward and took a nipple in his mouth, his tongue mimicking the torture of the deep slow thrusting down lower.

Paige whimpered and stabbed her fingers into his hair, grasping a fistful and pinning him there. Her hips moved of their own volition and he thrust up again as she slid down.

Valentino moaned, releasing her breast, his eyes shutting as his forehead dropped to her chest. Their bodies seemed to find a rhythm together and he was powerless to resist the pull of it. They were barely moving at all but she was tight around him, holding him inside, massaging his length with subtle flexions and slow pulsations creating a wonderfully erotic friction that stoked a furnace deep in his belly.

He slid one hand to her naked bottom, pressing her closer, and the other up her back until his hand cupped her nape, his fingers furrowing into her hair. His lips brushed her chest, her collarbone, the hollow at the base of her neck.

She whimpered at the back of her throat and he could feel her trembling. Could feel a corresponding quivering of his own muscles as a climax that had been on a slow burn ignited to full throttle.

When she gasped and threw her head back his hand slid to her shoulder and he pulled her closer still, their joined bodies slick with heat and sweat as they rocked.

‘Valentino,' Paige cried, as her orgasm broke and she bucked against him.

‘Yes,' he groaned.
‘Quello è ritiene così buon.'

Paige had no idea what he'd just said and neither did she care. It was low and husky in her ear and then she was sucked back into the vacuum where only they existed and pleasure was the only purpose.

 

Valentino looked up from fixing his clothes. Paige was dressed again and watching him with strands of passion still decorating her gaze like dewy cobwebs. She smiled at him and he realised he could get used to that look.

Kiss it goodnight every evening.

Wake up to it every morning.

His smile faded a little as a frisson of unease crawled up his neck.

Because there was no denying in such a short time he had felt a connection with Paige. Even just today, they'd been through so much. Witnessing McKenzie's reaction to his clap had been incredibly satisfying. And talking about his mother this evening had been…nice. Normal. What couples who dated did.

What couples did, full stop.

Not what he did. He didn't do couple stuff.

Not since…

And then there was what had just happened between them on the lounge. Twice.

What the hell was he thinking?

Paige picked up their bowls off the coffee table, the movement of her thoroughly ravaged body shrouded beneath her baggy sexless clothes.

It was a timely reminder that she wasn't the usual
type of woman he did this with. Despite the sexual gratification shimmering in her gaze. She was a single mother with a high-needs child. She had commitment written all over her. She was a couples woman. Or at least she deserved to be.

And this was the second time they'd got naked together. It was starting to feel like something a little more serious than what he usually went in for.

He didn't have a script for that.

Not any more.

‘We can't do this again,' he said.

Except all he could think about was doing it again. Stripping those godawful clothes away and doing it in every room in the house.

And then maybe come back and do it all again tomorrow.
No. No. No.

Paige blinked, setting the dishes down. Okay.

She knew he was right, of course but, deep in her heart a little dent appeared. She shrugged with as much nonchalance as she could muster. ‘Of course.'

Valentino blinked. Well, that was easy…

In his experience women didn't usually take those five words all that well. ‘I don't really do anything serious,' he explained, not really understanding why he felt the need to clarify things. ‘And I think it's a bad idea for colleagues to get too involved.'

Paige suppressed a laugh. He hadn't been too worried about it thirty minutes ago. But he was certainly running now! Looked like the playboy had reached his end game.

Well, that was okay. Or it would be. This had only
ever really been one thing. A thank-you kiss that had got way out of control.

Just as well, though, she hadn't expected anything from him. That Arnie had hardened her heart to romantic nonsense and that she didn't have the time or the energy for someone else in her life. How many women had he devastated with that turn of phrase? She could well imagine how some dates would not take it so well.

‘I agree.'

Valentino nodded, his hands on his hips, waiting for the
Oh
that usually came in this part of a conversation he was especially good at.

It didn't come.

He decided to explain further. ‘I think we're adult enough to accept this for what it was.'

Paige suppressed a smile. ‘It's okay, Valentino. I understand. Neither of us do this.' She gestured back and forth between them. ‘I can't and you choose not to. It's fine.'

He opened his mouth to protest her assessment but he couldn't. He did choose not to. Since Daniella.

This was what he did. This was what he was used to.

‘So…colleagues? Friends?'

She quirked an eyebrow. ‘We're back to that again, huh?'

‘You think you can't do it?'

‘Oh, I can do it.' Did he seriously think she had time to sit around pining after him? She stuck her hand out. ‘Can you?'

Valentino regarded her outstretched fingers. Remembered how they'd felt digging into his back. ‘But
of course.' And he clasped her hand in his and gave it a firm shake. ‘I'll see you at the clinic tomorrow.'

Paige followed his broad back to her front door. He seemed to take up all her hallway and as some internal muscles protested her movement she was reminded of how big he was everywhere.

Valentino pulled the door open, paused and turned. ‘What if there are consequences?'

Paige regarded his serious face with a sinking feeling. Somehow, even without the dimples, it looked as sexy as hell. She didn't like the direction of his thoughts.

Paige sighed. ‘It'll be fine.' She hadn't had a proper period since the twins had been born. She doubted she'd even ovulated regularly the last two years due to her borderline weight.

She probably had the fertility of a panda.

‘It's…safe?'

She knew what he was asking and it was an assurance she felt one hundred per cent comfortable with giving, even though they both knew, as medical professionals, no time was one hundred per cent safe. ‘Yes. It's safe.' Still, she found it difficult to meet his gaze and she looked out at a point beyond his head, to the darkness of the street.

Valentino reached forward and lightly grabbed her chin, directing her gaze back to his. He fixed her with a stare. One that told her he meant business. ‘I want to know, Paige. If…'

The mere thought of it was so painful Paige couldn't even contemplate it. She certainly was clueless to the
slight edge of menace in his tone, to the fierce light in his eyes. Even mentioning it without actually saying the word was enough to fracture the surface of her heart and she shut her mind to it, blocked it like a force field.

‘It'll be fine,' she repeated, before stepping back, causing his arm to fall by his side.

There would be no pregnancy.

Valentino regarded her for a moment or two longer before delivering a slight bow and disappearing into the night.

 

The next few weeks flew by. Life was fuller, crazier than normal. Further mapping sessions of McKenzie's implant and twice-weekly speech therapy chewed up her remaining three weeks at home.

But the rewards were amazing. After a few days it was evident that McKenzie heard just about everything and it was like witnessing the world being created all over again, seeing her wonderment of it all.

Instruments in the toy box that had merely moved in the past now made noise. The drumstick did more than bounce off the taut surface of the bongos—it actually bonged. The tambourine did more than shimmy—it rattled. And the sleigh bells tinkled.

But not just that. The doorbell chimed. And the plughole sucked and gurgled greedily as the water swirled away. And the television talked to her. The Wiggles talked to her! Every sound was new and amazing.

In the beginning she'd caught McKenzie just looking at objects that created noise, as if expecting them to get
up and produce sound completely unaided. But she'd caught on quickly and no object was safe.

Her speech had also come on. In just a few weeks she already had a handful of words. Paige had never dared hope for the day that she would hear her daughter say ‘Mummy'. But she had. And it had simply been the best moment of her life.

McKenzie still signed as she spoke—they both did—and Paige wondered how long it would be before her verbal communication skills were such that they outstripped her signing vocabulary. They would always need to sign as McKenzie was still deaf without her external device so it was vital to keep up their signing vocabulary as well.

And, anyway, being bilingual was such a skill—Valentino being a classic example—it would be a shame to lose it.

Before Paige knew it, it was time to go back to work, which she did reluctantly. Every minute with her daughter as she discovered a whole new world was precious and Paige resented having to surrender any of them.

Sure, McKenzie was in good hands with her parents but that didn't stop the gut-wrenching emotion she felt as she kissed her daughter goodbye three mornings a week. The only consolation was she still got to see McKenzie when she came in for her speech therapy and she made sure she scheduled her daughter's appointments for the days and times she was on the clinic.

There had to be some advantages when you ran the show.

Three weeks in and everything was back running like
clockwork. The op had been successful, intensive therapy had been instituted and the care arrangements clicked smoothly back into place. And McKenzie hadn't been sick in months. There was even some roundness to her face for a change, although Paige didn't hold too high a hope for cracking the twentieth percentile any time soon.

She and Valentino had even managed to find a happy medium in their relationship. She'd expected it to be awkward at first, like the day they'd first met again after that fateful night, but they'd both been invested in making it work. And he was great with McKenzie, who had also learnt to say ‘Dr Valentino' very quickly.

Finally there'd even been encouraging news with little Ben, who'd been transferred out of Intensive Care and admitted to a specialist acquired brain injury rehab ward.

Things were great for once. All the planets were aligned. The gods were smiling. Life was good.

And then it all went to hell.

The last day of her third week back started as an ordinary day. Nothing remarkable. Until she was standing in neck-to-toe green, masked and hatted, waiting for Valentino to finish drying his hands and gown up, and a strong urge to go to the toilet gripped her bladder.

She frowned as she mentally suppressed the urge. For goodness' sake, she'd already been three times this morning already. Once when she woke up, once when she got to work and just prior to scrubbing up. How on earth could she possibly want to go again?