What Were You Expecting? (21 page)

“Your
baby?”

“My little girl. My Mamma had stressed that little girls needed their big brothers to look out for them and since I was the biggest, I was pretty sure she meant me and only me. I walloped Lars and Erik good whenever they got too close that first year.”

“I didn’t know you felt that way…a-about babies.”

He flinched, sitting upright, pulling away from her.

“Nils?” she asked softly in that musical fucking voice that he loved so much. She tilted her head to look at him with her wide green eyes, and he clenched his jaw. He couldn’t stand much more of this. He couldn’t.

“I won’t.”

Damn it, he was so distracted by her, the words had tumbled out before he could stop them, before he even realized his mouth had formed them.

“Won’t what?”

“Have children,” he murmured, running a hand over his jaw, which felt hot and tight. “Have a family.”

“W-what? Why not?”

“It’s just not possible.”

“Oh. Were you…sick? At one time? I’ve heard that the mumps can—”

“It doesn’t matter why. I just can’t,” he sighed, adjusting the pillow on his lap and wondering if she always kept her apartment so damned hot. And why the hell had he opened his mouth?

“I didn’t know,” she said softly.

“How would you?”

“But you love children? You loved baby Jenny.”

“I don’t have anything against them,” he said, but it was a lie. He loved children. He thought of Erin, and his chest tightened with longing and regret. Of course he wished he could have one of his own. He rubbed his eyes, wondering what had come over him that he should blurt out a very personal truth so baldly, as if he’d wanted her to know.

And then something occurred to him: maybe he did. Maybe he wished he could tell her his terrible secret. Maybe he wanted her to know the reason she shouldn’t be with him, why they never had a chance. Like most women, she’d want children of her own one day and he wouldn’t be able to give them to her, which is why, as much as it fucking wrecked him, she should be with someone like Beck, someone who could—

“Did you know I was adopted?”

“What?” He turned to her, shocked to learn something so seminal, so significant after a friendship of almost four years. It scattered all of the other thoughts from his brain and he stared at her face, only inches away from his.

“Uh-huh. I was adopted from a convent in Ireland when I was four months old. My parents had Ian, but couldn’t seem to get pregnant again and my mum always had her heart set on a little girl. So, they adopted me.” She reached out and touched the back of his hand gently, her little fingers curling until they caressed the skin of his palm. Every nerve ending in his body suddenly concentrated on the patch of skin owned by her touch. “There are so many ways to have a family, Nils. Dinna lose hope.”

For a moment, he forgot about his fierce physical longing for her, distracted by her generosity, her kindness, her warmth and hope and spirit and selflessness. She overwhelmed him and his eyes wouldn’t stop burning as he looked down at their hands, her wedding ring catching the dim light in the quiet apartment.

He squeezed her hand gently before letting it go. The truth is, he’d lost hope a long, long time ago, and she’d feel differently, he was sure, if she knew the whole story.

***

Damn. Damn. Damn.

She’d been intentionally touching him, teasing him, working up her courage to make her move, and then suddenly her whole plan had gone out the window because he was sitting beside her telling her something real, something crucial. And now—as he drew his hand away from hers—she felt him closing up emotionally again. What secrets, she wondered, were trapped there in his head? And how in the world could she gain access to them? Fix them?

She turned back to the computer, but the screen swam before her, unfocused as her thoughts distracted her. His choice of words was interesting. He’d started with “I won’t” before changing his words to “I can’t.” So which was it?

“Can’t” would mean he was he impotent or sterile and unable to have children. But Maggie had noticed a significant bulge under the zipper of his jeans more than once. It couldn’t be impotence. Sterility, then? Mumps? Or an injury that had done permanent damage? Either way, it sure would explain some of his behavior. The way he kept her at arm’s length, the way he wouldn’t indulge in any discussion of a future. But would still have an affair with someone like Tess. That he wouldn’t want to deprive her of motherhood fit perfectly into the picture she had of him. It made sense that Nils would be protecting her. It made sense that he would put her happiness before his.

And yet all she wanted out of life was to be the person who offered him happiness, who would brighten the darkness behind his wary eyes and soften the edges of his gruff, hard shell. Maggie just about lived for the moments she managed to make him grin, the times he suddenly chuckled at something she said. Watching his face soften as he talked to her did something to her head, to her heart, to her body, and she yearned for him to love her with the ferocity she knew he was capable of. It made her single-minded and determined to find out why he refused to love her. To have children.

An interesting point bubbled up to the surface of her frustrated thoughts. “Won’t” implied that although he was perfectly capable of fathering children, he wouldn’t. Why not? Not because he didn’t like them. He’d adored his baby sister, and Maggie had seen him several times with Erin, holding her carefully with his massive hands like she was breakable.

“Spit it out, Maggie May,” he said quietly beside her.

“No, I…” she sputtered. “I dinna have anythin’ to spit out.”

“Liar.”

“Won’t
or
can’t
?” she asked in a rush. “Children. You won’t? Or you can’t?”

He looked at her, his face in agony as he spoke with a soft, firm finality. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” she murmured, trying to figure out her next move.

His eyes were hypnotizing, hungry, and wary, drinking in her face, but shadowed with regret. She couldn’t look away. She didn’t want to look away.

“It shouldn’t,” he breathed.

“It does,” she whispered, inching closer to him. His breathing was fast and ragged, and his shoulder brushed the tip of her breast as she leaned forward, making heat flood to her belly in waves, pooling there, making her breathless with longing.

“Please, Maggie,” he begged, his voice so low, she almost could have tricked herself into believing it was in her head alone.

Her heart kicked into a gallop and she took a small gasping breath as she leaned forward, touching her lips to his. She felt the shocked jolt of his body as the laptop slid from her lap, clunking onto the floor as she twisted slightly to press her chest against his and reached up to cup his face in her hands.

As though he’d finally realized what had happened between them, he growled into her mouth, grabbing her hips and lifting her effortlessly over his thighs where she straddled him, pushing forward until her chest was flush with his and her knees ground into the couch behind him.

His rough hands slid up her back, bunching her shirt as he clasped her against him, his tongue invading her mouth with a primitive urgency, demanding hers. She surged forward on his lap, grinding against him, feeling his erection pushing against her, utterly massive and throbbing against her thigh, pleading for release. It made her moan to think of him thrusting that hugeness into her body, rising to meet him, stretching to accommodate him. The strangled sound from deep in her throat seemed to make him even wilder, his rough fingers slipping under her shirt to slide up the hot skin of her back, unfastening her bra like he did it twenty times a day.

“Oh,” she gasped, her fingers pushing into his short hair as his lips deserted hers, burning a path from her mouth to her jaw to the soft skin under her ear where he lingered, moving his lips in nibbles and licks that made her writhe helplessly on his lap, pushing her sex against his again and again.

Just as his teeth grazed her earlobe, his thumbs found her nipples, and the sharp pleasure of both sensations made her arch her back, rubbing against him while her back bowed. He reached up for her neck, cradling the back of her head and gently forcing her back to him. His lips found hers and he groaned into her mouth as his thumbs brushed her nipples relentlessly into hard, aching points, making her run hot and wet as she moved her hips rhythmically against his rigid length, sucking on his tongue and—

“Maggie? Are you home?” Jenny’s voice from the other side of Maggie’s unlocked front door made them jerk back from each other, eyes wide and dilated, mouths glistening, cheeks pink, panting like they’d just run a mile.

His fingers slipped from her breasts but his arms closed around her like bands of steel, as he rested his forehead on her chest. Her heart thundered in her ears as she tried to process what had just happened between them and—Oh, my God!—Jenny was right outside her unlocked door knocking lightly. If she twisted the knob, she’d find them wrapped around each other, breathless and—

“Jen, uh…” she said in a trembling voice. “Just give me a…second…”

Nils tilted his head up and the agony she perceived in his eyes made her breath catch, but before she could process his feelings, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Maggie’s lingeringly, brushing his lips back and forth gently like his sister wasn’t standing right outside the door. Like he had one last chance to kiss her and get it perfect for the rest of his life. Then, without warning, he leaned back, sliding his hands up under her arms and picking her up off his lap to set her down beside him. He moved his hands quickly out from under her top and she snapped into action, adjusting her bra and smoothing her shirt. She glanced down and her nipples were like headlights, high beams, beaded and proud against her shirt.

“Nils and I were just, um, finishing the uh, the slides for…”

When she looked up, Nils was staring at her chest from where he sat catching his breath a few inches away from her. He looked wild, feral, utterly destroyed, staring at her with such hunger it made her tremble.

She gaped at him, needing an extra moment to talk to him, to understand what he was thinking, to figure out what would happen next, but there was no time. He ran a hand through his hair, hefting himself up onto the loveseat and crossing a leg over his knee to conceal his arousal. She tried to catch his eye as she stood up, but he refused to look at her, totally focused on the front door.

She picked up her laptop and put it beside him, swiped the back of her hand over her glistening lips and stood up to answer the door. As she got there, she looked back at Nils one final time. His face was severe, furious and hard, as though in pain or bitterly disappointed.

Maggie turned the knob and opened the door. Jenny grinned at her from the hallway. “Still had my key for the downstairs door.”

“Ah,” said Maggie, trying for a smile but failing. She turned quickly back toward Nils, who sat as still as a statue.

“Sam’s downstairs, ready to get started.” Jenny slid past her into the apartment. “Slideshow all ready?”

“Just about,” said Nils, gesturing loosely to the laptop beside him.

“You look all sorts of grumpy,” Jenny said to her brother. “I hope you’re being nice to Maggie, Nils.”

Maggie’s face flushed hot and she didn’t trust herself to look at him or wait to hear his reply.

“I’ll meet you two downstairs in a minute, okay?” She headed for her bedroom. She needed to splash some cold water on her face—heck, maybe she needed a cold shower—before meeting them downstairs.

She looked back as Nils stood up and followed Jenny out of her apartment, catching his anguished eyes just for a moment before he ducked out the door and she lost sight of him.

***

He helped with the decorations for an hour or so, careful to stay away from Maggie, then made an excuse about needing to discuss business and headed directly for his father’s house.

He found his father on the living room recliner, Erin in the crook of his arm having a bottle in the dim light.

“Why
Største
! I was sure you’d be helping Jenny and Maggie set up for my surprise party tonight!”

Nils couldn’t help grinning as he sat down in front of his father on the edge of the trunk that doubled as a coffee table. Their broad knees almost touched as Nils leaned forward on them. “Doesn’t anything get past you?”

“Not much.”

“They’ll be crushed if they find out you know.”

“Then we won’t tell them, eh? When Lars said we needed to take a six-month-old into the park for the day tomorrow, I sort of started putting things together.”

“And here we thought that was such a good plan.”

“You don’t know babies, Nils. Poor little Erin saddled with
Morfar
and
Onkel
Lars for a day in the park?
Stackars lilla kex
.”
Poor little biscuit.

“Who caved and spilled the beans?”