Baby's Daddy: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Aubrey Wright

  I glanced at the clock. It was eleven p.m. Jax would be in bed, bored out of his mind in that shitty place his dad called home. I wished morning would come quickly.

  By one a.m., I was staring at the celling, and something inside me snapped.

  I had a painfully small window of opportunity to spend time with Jax and see his face, live.

  Clara had suggested I break out of this constant body armor I wore to protect my feelings. Just live dangerously. What if I got hurt? So what.

  Now that’s irrational.

  Throwing off the covers, I slid my feet into my pink slippers and caught my reflection in the mirror. My hair was still damp from a shower, my face squeaky clean after my nightly skincare routine. I was wearing a pink tank top and floral printed shorts. My cheeks were as pink as my tank.

  I rubbed my hands on my heated face and forced myself to think it over one last time.

  Stop overthinking.

  You’ve never been able to protect yourself from things going awry by being overprepared all the time. You’ve just trapped yourself in an endlessly monotonous routine and never allow yourself to have fun anymore.

  This inflexibility ruins every surprise. You see it as a threat to your carefully fenced, monotonous existence.

  You’re bordering on being rigid, Liv.

  Break out of it. Only you can help yourself.

  Scanning the sticky notes lining the frame of my dresser mirror, my resolve to break free of it grew stronger. I had to-do lists for every day for the next two weeks.

  I dreaded the days even before they came.

  Nothing fun could happen on those days because it wasn’t on the list!

  Is that why I couldn’t let Jax in? Because he wasn’t scheduled in?

  Because I was so set in my ways and my life and what I wanted, that I had turned into Jax?

  He was clearly wiser now. He was kind, and he cared about Anna, and he made sure I always knew how special I was. But I didn’t want to give him a chance. Because I didn’t want to give us a chance. I was avoiding all forms of unplanned disaster and calamities by overplanning every day to within an inch of its existence.

  That made me mad. I made myself mad.

  Where was I even headed in this life with blinders on?

  I spun on my heel and walked out the front door.

  The crickets were noisy in the dark. The light was still on in Jax’s bedroom.

  Turn back.

  I’d poked my finger into the little doorbell before I could overthink myself back to my lonely bed surrounded by sticky notes.

  I needed Jax. Even if for a little while.

  The door opened. Jax stood in the doorway wearing a pair of white boxers that clung to his manhood.

  I didn’t even look up at him. The boxers and its contents were way too hot.

  “You okay?”

  My mouth was suddenly incredibly parched. “That doesn’t leave much to the imagination.”

  He chuckled as his eyes dropped to the direction of my gaze. “You’re here in the middle of the night to ogle my assets?”

  My skin tingled, and my breasts ached at the sight of him. The contoured, bulging muscles on his chest, the flexed biceps, and his messy hair.

  I pushed my way past him and walked to the center of the house. “We need to talk.”

  “Jesus. Why do you always want to talk when I’m half naked?”

  “You can put something on. Or not. It’s up to you. I don’t have a preference. I don’t want to tell you what to do with your body.”

  “Thank you very much for that. But you’re talking too fast and too much and I feel like you’re drunk, or you’re nervous about whatever your agenda is for tonight.”

  I lifted my chin in defiance. “We have to lay out some ground rules if we’re going to do this.”

  “Okay. Fill me in. We’re going to do what?”

  “Just answer me, dammit. Say yes to whatever I’m saying.”

  He chuckled. “Sit down.”

  “I’m fine.” I forced myself to not look at the display of male perfection before me. “I have something to put on record. No matter what happens, you’re not going to interfere in Anna’s life or demand your misguided parental rights somewhere down the road.”

  His brows snapped together. “You’re a great mother, and I wouldn’t even know what to do if I were suddenly expected to be an actual dad to Anna.”

  “Great. Good. In that case, I have nothing to worry about.” I reached forward, sliding my hands up his chest, the sparse hair at the center of his massive body prickling my palms.

  He grabbed my wrists and held them several inches off his flesh.

  “What’s this new sadistic torture you’ve planned to put me through?” he bit out.

  “I want you,” I said simply, unflinchingly holding his gaze.

  “You’re toying with me because I promised you that I wouldn’t do this.”

  “Take it back.”

  He laughed. “Take it back?”

  “I don’t want your stupid promise. I want you.”

  “Right. The first time we were together, you disappeared in the middle of the night. The second time around, you ran off from the trail right after we fucked. It’s clear that you’re consumed with some newfound impulsiveness. I’m not playing. I promised to save you from yourself.”

  “So, what? You don’t want me now?”

  “I’m not going to pretend I don’t want you. I mean, look. I haven’t even touched you, and look at me.”

  My eyes dropped. It was true that his boxers left little to the imagination, although there was nothing little about what was going on down there.

  He sighed. “But I said I wouldn’t do it. You already think I can’t keep promises.”

  “You can’t keep this promise.”

  He chuckled, but I wasn’t having it. “Let me make you a promise. I’ll wake up next to you in the morning. Naked.”

  I held his gaze and stepped forward to press my lower body to his. The telltale erection prodding me in the navel was evidence of his inherent battle to keep his hands off me. “You want me.” I ground myself against his cock for emphasis.

  “Liv,” he groaned, but he didn’t move away.

  “If a friend with benefits arrangement works for now, let’s do that. No emotions. No feelings.”

  But even as I said that with feigned conviction, something inside me screamed at the stupidity of this idea.

  I love you, I love you. I love you, and I’ll take whatever I can get.

  “That arrangement doesn’t work for me. And I refuse to believe it works for you.”

  I lifted my hands in frustration and let them fall to my sides. “Listen, you smartass. You need to trust me when I say I want this.”

  He shook his head, ready to argue.

  I held up my hand. “I know I change my mind sometimes. Big deal. But I want you now, and that’s that.”

  He seemed to be fighting a laugh. I realized I sounded overbearing and demanding—demanding sex.

  But as Jax’s mouth swooped down to take mine, I forgot everything.

  He broke the kiss abruptly and cupped my face between both hands.

  “Just so you know,” he said, his eyes blazing, “if you run this time, I’ll haul your ass back here and deposit it where it belongs. In my bed.”

  “Knock yourself out.” I bit his lower lip. He groaned and lifted me up by a simple jerk of both hands. My legs wound around his waist, and I felt myself being lowered to the couch.

  When his hands pulled my shorts down my legs, there was little urgency. As if he had all the time in the world to do what he wanted to do.

  The calm unhurriedness of his touch relaxed me. My guard went down in a flash beneath the unrushed exploration of Jax’s hands.

  His palms were rough as he dragged my tank top off. “Fuck.” His curse was hot breath in my neck. He crushed my left breast in his palm. The hard muscles in his back flexed underneath my hands. I slid my hands into hi
s boxers, digging my fingernails into his taut ass.

  He pulled away so abruptly, I gaped up at him in confusion.

  His chest rising and falling in sharp breaths, he snapped his boxers off his body and they fell at his ankles. His cock sprang out. Veined and thick, the head was purple with leashed lust that wanted nothing but to spill lava inside me.

  Instinctively, I sat up, dragging my hips to the edge of the couch. I reached for his ass.

  He stepped between my parted legs, and my mouth hovered hotly an inch from his cock. All the while, his hands cupped the back of my head, waiting. I slipped my flattened tongue across the head of his cock, wetting it generously, and his answering groan was enough to make my clit burn.

  “You’re killing me.” His head fell back.

  I ached for the lost eye contact, but I wrapped my lips around the bulbous head of his dick and moved my head forward. I took as much of his cock in my mouth as I could fit. He was big man, and his cock matched his size in girth and strength. I could barely fit three inches of him. So I wrapped my fingers around the base, spreading my saliva all over his cock, fisting it from root to head, while my lips followed the movement.

  A hot gush of tangy precum spilled on my tongue. I swallowed it quickly and rolled his balls in my free hand.

  He lurched out of my mouth and my hands in one swift step backward.

  Shaking his head, he came over me, pushing me onto my back. “You’ll make me burst in your mouth and embarrass me.”

  I chuckled, but he caught the sound in his greedy mouth.

  I reveled in the strength of his body, the weight of him crushing me. His chiseled lips trailed over my cheek to my ear, down my neck. When his mouth closed wetly on my nipple, I arched my back. My thighs churned together in a slow rhythm as I tried to squeeze the need for a pulsating tempo by myself.

  His hand pushed between my thighs. “Open up for me, beautiful.”

  I did. My knees fell apart. I was wide open for him. To bury his cock.

  Instead, his lips closed hotly over me.

  My hips lifted off the seat of the couch. I rode his mouth as he found my clit and flicked his hard tongue against it, over and over.

  My skin broke into a sweat, but this wasn’t what I wanted. Not tonight.

  Grabbing his neck and shoulder, I pulled him up. “I don’t want to come alone. Come with me. Inside me.” His mouth sealed mine shut, so I moaned into it. “Fill me with your cum.”

  He sprang into action. Trapping my lips in his mouth, he pulled my calves onto his shoulders. His cock slid in me achingly slowly. Just an inch.

  Helplessly wanting to feel the thick stretch his cock could give me in my core, I tried to shift my hips higher. He didn’t indulge me. Instead, he watched my face like a man possessed by the sight he saw. His golden eyes flaming, he plunged an inch, another, slowly making room for his dick in my body.

  The delectable sweetness of the penetration was frustrating, but also satiated some deep-seated need I had for his attention.

  I felt complete when the root of his cock barred further entry. Every inch of him was encased in my body. A low, deep growl escaped his chest. I let my legs fall sideways, yanking him down. Pushing my tongue into his mouth in silent offering as he rocked with me.

  Slow. Deep. Grinding.

  My body moved to dance at his pace. My palms slid over his sweaty back, his neck, his ass. Clenching him into me with my pussy and my fingers. He circled his hips, his cock grinding all the sides of my insides, burnishing my clit. I clutched a fistful of his thick, dark hair, tugging at it. I bit his lower lip as I panted on his open mouth.

  “Jax, Jax, Jax, Jax, oh god!” I juddered so hard my upper body slipped off the couch. I yelped, but Jax caught me halfway, hauling me back up. His eyes bore holes into mine as I laughed, and he quickly sucked it off my lips. I could see the pleasure on his handsome face, and his powerful frame shook above me as he came.

  A vulnerability shadowed his golden eyes as my pussy kneaded the orgasm out of him.

  I was still gasping when he pulled out, leaving behind a hollow space between my legs. It ached in emptiness. I wanted him again. And again.

  He stood beside me, his cock still hard. In one swift motion, he slid his arms beneath me and yanked me up onto his chest.

  “Where are we going?” I clung to his neck, inhaling the sweet scent of his sweat and semen mixing in the air to make a delightful concoction.

  “Where do you think? I’m going to tie you to the bed before you run.”

  I was laughing when he flung me on the bed. I bounced on the mattress, and his grinning mouth was on mine again. His hands devoured my body before his mouth followed suit.

  Jax wasn’t going to let me sleep tonight. Good thing I didn’t want to.

  22

  Jax

  Fucking hell.

  I couldn’t believe what a lucky bastard I was.

  I got to watch her again, asleep in my bed. I tried not to be besotted, but it was impossible.

  Liv’s lips were slightly parted as she lay on her side. Her auburn hair over my pillows. Her long eyelashes casting shadows on her high cheekbones.

  For the first time in my existence, I felt like I could recite some poetry. I didn’t remember any. But I felt inspired to write.

  I stifled a chuckle and slowly slid out of bed. I knew Liv was naked under the duvet, and that made me wanted to climb back inside and wake her up. I cringed at the thought, though. I was acting like a sex-hungry beast. I didn’t get where that was coming from. I’d always had a crazy-high libido, but I didn’t remember the last time I’d wanted to fuck the same women half a dozen times in one night.

  That wasn’t me.

  That is you, when it’s Liv.

  I pulled on my boxers and grabbed a T-shirt from the chair in the corner of the room. A pair of my trousers were tangled in the sheets, and I slowly pried them out. I didn’t want to wake the tempting goddess in my bed. Not yet.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  I wanted this morning to be special. I wanted her to feel the same gush of warmth I felt in that moment.

  I couldn’t name the feeling, but it slowly overtook every bit of me. It was debilitating. I couldn’t focus on anything other than this woman.

  I stole her keys off my front table and slowly drove her car out of the driveway so she wouldn’t wake up. On a mission to treat Liv like the princess she was, I drove to the deli in town. I grabbed some croissants that looked as good as any I’d had in Nice. I also got a breakfast sandwich, three slices of assorted cakes, and two cups of coffee.

  I was loading the spoils of my breakfast run into the car when I returned a wave to a guy I didn’t even recognize.

  People here were either very weird or way too nice. They stopped to say hello but didn’t disrupt my day.

  I like Ashland.

  The thought made me chuckle to myself.

  No, I don’t. This place is sucking the life of me. I want out.

  But as I got in the car, a blue Honda slid into the parking space beside mine. Mrs. Clarence, the lady whose flowerbed I’d raided to get flowers for Liv, smiled at me and waved, then went on her way.

  I drove back to my dad’s house, my head spinning with conflicting thoughts. For the last decade, I’d assumed the people in Ashland were losers and would get nowhere in life. But these people weren’t just kind and hospitable, they were hard workers and well-traveled. They had ambitions. They took holidays and traveled all over the world. I didn’t know why I’d considered them a lower species of people.

  What was wrong with me?

  They were just like me.

  I reluctantly faced the painful possibility that I had been living in a bubble of my own self-spun sense of superiority.

  That meant only one thing. These people weren’t the losers. It was the loser.

  I was a fucking loser who looked down on these wonderful people.

  When Diane had noticed a change in me during her vi
sit, she’d liked what she’d seen. Did I like the change? I sure did feel different.

  I felt calmer, but I was tempted to attribute that to my lack of partying and drinking and the constant barrage of schedules and appointments and endorsement meetings.

  In Ashland, I felt like my old self. The self I was before my eighteenth birthday rolled around and turned me into a selfish prick. I’d self-destructed. Sure, I had ended up with a great career and more money than I could spend in three lifetimes. But what had I gained in my personal life?

  Seattle was all work. Even play didn’t seem like play.

  In Seattle, I always felt angry. Like I was bottling up years’ worth of fury. That’s why Diane had talked me into seeing a therapist.

  Childhood emotional baggage, she’d called it. “You have to learn to dump it.”

  Had she seen that I was losing that caustic baggage during my time-out in Ashland?

  Maybe it isn’t Ashland that’s changing you. Maybe it’s the time off.

  A break from the hustle of constantly being interviewed and fawned upon and followed. Seattle was home. No matter what. I had a life there that I liked.

  If my therapist’s words were anything to go by, my dissatisfaction did not stem from anything wrong with my present. I simply hadn’t healed from my past.

  Seattle was not to be blamed.

  I carried the breakfast goodies inside and tried to be as silent as possible as I looked for a half-decent tray in my dad’s kitchen.

  An old plastic one that looked like fake wood was my only option. I walked into the bedroom, and my breath escaped in a rush. I could never tire of seeing this.

  Liv lay on her stomach. The covers pulled down to the base of her spine, revealing the smooth curve of the top of her butt.

  My heart thudded. I didn’t want to move.

  “An angel in my bed,” I said in a whisper. Liv stirred and turned to her side, her squinting green eyes focusing on my face.

  A warm, liquid smile spread across her pink lips. My fingers tightened on the tray as my balls urged my cock to tighten instantly for Liv.