The Playboy Prince's Baby

by Sparks, Ana

  His arms tightened around me. “I’m not,” he said. “But David Escobedo is, and that’s the name on the passport I used. I figured what the US government doesn’t know won’t hurt them.”

  I laughed and sobbed harder at that completely ridiculous statement, thinking that it sounded exactly like something Francisco would say, and before I knew it I was tipping my head up and he was leaning down toward me, his lips skimming over mine in what was both an incredibly tear-filled and incredibly hot kiss.

  His tongue darted out and brushed over my lips and I opened my mouth to let him in, my body immediately remembering what it felt like to be up against his, my muscles and bones and skin all melting together into what felt like it might be some sort of Erika goo.

  I gasped at the sudden wanting in my core, the sudden need for him, and took a deep breath of him, inhaling the smell of Francisco and… the ocean?

  “What did you do, swim here?” I asked, tipping my head to break the kiss and looking up at him.

  He stared back at me, his face more serious than I’d ever seen it before. “I took a boat,” he said solemnly. “I heard you on the phone, and I knew something was wrong. I came to make sure you were okay.”

  It was the simplest and the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me, and though I wasn’t ready to tell him what was wrong—not yet—I couldn’t help falling for him a little bit more right then and there. Because he wasn’t allowed in this country, but he’d hopped on a boat and come to find me just because I hadn’t sounded good when I spoke to him on the phone.

  I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t think, and I sure as hell didn’t bother with the fact that he was sweaty and had evidently come right from the ocean—via a train or plane, I supposed, since we didn’t actually have access to the ocean in Chicago. None of that mattered. All that mattered was that he’d come to me when I needed him.

  I hadn’t even had to ask, and he’d come to me.

  I dragged him into my apartment, slid my hands under the hem of his shirt, and yanked it up over his head, desperate to be closer to him. And when he was half naked, I pushed him against the wall and stood up on my tiptoes to kiss him again.

  “I’ve been thinking about doing this ever since you left,” I whispered between kisses.

  And at that, he took me by the waist and spun me around to land with my back against the wall, his body pinning me there effortlessly. I gasped at the feel of him, both his broad chest pressed against me and the hard bulge of his cock in his pants, and looked up, meeting his eyes.

  “I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” he told me softly. “And I don’t think I’ve ever said that to anyone before. When I realized something was wrong, all I could think about was getting back to you. Now that I’m here, I don’t think I’m going to ever let you go again.”

  He ducked down to kiss me, and I met him halfway, wholeheartedly agreeing about the never-letting-me-go thing. I’d thought I could get over him, thought I could forget him and do this thing on my own, but now that he was here, I realized that it never would have worked. I never wanted to be by myself again.

  He’d taken a part of me with him when he’d left. And now that he was back, I wasn’t going to let it go again.

  Chapter 20

  Erika

  Francisco actually picked me up and carried me to the bed, and it took almost no time for him to reach the bedroom and lay me softly down on the comforter. He stood back up and looked down on me, his face showing both pleasure and something deeper, and I stared back at him for several moments.

  Then I reached up, grabbed his belt, and pulled him down on top of me.

  “Enough staring,” I said. “I want you. And I’m tired of waiting.”

  He gave me a quick grin. “Well, if the lady commands…”

  “The lady does,” I told him with an answering grin.

  His eyes turned lustful at that, all dark, boiling heat, and his hands went to work, stripping me out of my pajamas with a few quick flicks of his fingers.

  Once I was naked, my skin tingling in the air and under his gaze, he brought this fingers up to my jaw and brushed it, making me stretch like a cat being scratched.

  Then his fingers started moving down my body.

  Slowly, the tips barely touching my skin, he trailed them down my neck and over my collarbone, making me gasp and writhe underneath him. I arched my back and pressed my breasts up into the air, gasping again when his fingers got to one nipple and gently squeezed it.

  “Oh God, Francisco,” I groaned. “Please.”

  He leaned down and sealed his lips over the nipple he’d brought to a peak, his tongue flicking out to tease it, and when he came back up, he was smiling.

  “I had you too quickly the first time,” he murmured. “This time, I’m going to take my time. And I’m going to keep taking my time with you all weekend.”

  I moaned, the space between my legs aching with a deep, burning need at his words, but he just shook his head and leaned down to kiss my breast again.

  “You have no idea how lonely I was on that ship,” he said, his lips brushing across my sensitive skin. “I had dreams about you, you know. And I mean to explore what we did in those dreams. Again, and again, and again.”

  He started kissing my body then, rather than using his fingers, moving down over my ribcage and belly, and spreading my legs underneath him when he passed over my hips. He looked up at me, all mischief, but now I drew the line, deciding that I’d waited quite long enough.

  I reached down, cupped his jaw, and dragged him back up to me. Once we were face-to-face again, I let my tongue dart out and touch his lips.

  “Do you think you’re the only one who’s had to wait?” I whispered. “I’ve been dreaming of you, too. And I’m done being patient.”

  I wrapped my legs around him and pulled his body flush to mine, inviting him in. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist.

  He tried. I could see the fight in his face. But it took only moments for him to groan and give up, finding my opening with his cock and sliding into me.

  I screamed at the contact, the sudden fullness, the sensitive spot where the end of his length pressed into me. And then he started moving in and out, so slowly that I thought I was going to scream again, his hands drawing mine up above my head as he made slow, passionate love to me.

  * * *

  Hours later, as we cuddled in bed, discussing whether we were actually going to get up to go out and eat, or if we just wanted to have food delivered to us, he reached out and took my hand.

  “Are you ready to tell me what’s wrong yet?” he asked softly. “Not that I’m not interested in the question of food. But before we decide on that…”

  He was right, of course. He’d flown—or, well, sailed—all this way, and faked a passport and lied to his brother to do it. All because he’d been concerned over how I sounded.

  I knew I had to tell him. And he was giving me the perfect opening.

  I turned on my side, my hand still in his, and gazed at him for a long moment. This man, this prince, was someone I had never expected, and I knew very little about him. I knew that he had a troubled past, and that he felt displaced from his own family. I knew that he didn’t take life too seriously.

  Would he take a baby any more seriously than he took his life?

  I didn’t know. But I did know that he had come all the way here when he thought I was in trouble. And surely that counted for something.

  “I’m pregnant,” I told him bluntly, deciding to just get it over with. “And it’s yours. That was what I was calling to tell you. Only when it came down to it, it felt wrong to do it over the phone. Not that I thought doing it in person was going to be an option, but—”

  I was cut off by his lips coming down on mine with such force and passion that it shocked me for a second. I’d been expecting him to argue with me, to ask how I knew it was his. I’d been expecting him to be displeased at the idea of being a father.

  I’d thought i
t might ruin our happy little moment of having found each other again.

  Instead, he seemed…

  Excited.

  “Thank God you’re okay,” he finally said, moving back so we could actually look at each other again. He glanced down, hesitant, and gently placed one shaky hand on my belly. Then he looked up at me, his own eyes shining with tears. “We’re going to have a baby?” he asked in a whisper.

  I nodded, almost too surprised at this reaction to speak. When I found my voice, though, I said, “It’s still very early, so I don’t know the sex or anything but… yes.”

  He pulled me into his arms and crushed me to him, his body shaking still, and though I was surprised, at first, before long, it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t have been.

  This was a man who had traveled halfway across the world because he’d thought I sounded strange over the phone. I wasn’t positive, but I was starting to think it meant even more than I’d realized.

  I was starting to think that he was a man who took family—and those you pulled into your inner circle—very, very seriously. And it just might be that he included me—and our baby—in that circle.

  And if that was true, then I was going to fall even more deeply in love with him.

  Chapter 21

  Erika

  “You’re telling me you don’t know what a zoo is,” I said, almost too surprised to even get the words out—and so close to laughing that I almost couldn’t speak at all.

  Francisco held both hands up, shaking his head, his own lips twitching with the start of laughter as well. “That is not what I said. I said I’ve never seen zoos like what the US has,” he clarified.

  That wasn’t at all what he’d said. But I was willing to let that slide in favor of my next point.

  “So what, exactly, are the zoos in Tarana like?”

  He gave me a noncommittal shrug, like he was about to tell me something he didn’t truly believe. “We have just one, in Orlo. Our nation, you know, is not as rich or large as yours.”

  Okay, well I had absolutely zero doubt that that was true. But that didn’t mean he’d never seen a zoo before. Surely.

  “And you’re the prince of the country,” I said. “Doesn’t that mean that you’ve actually been to that zoo? Like… isn’t that in the job description? As a royal, you have to go see the things your country has to offer, or something?”

  Francisco actually laughed at that. “Believe it or not, being part of the royal family doesn’t mean you have to go see all the tourist attractions in the country. Though…” He grew serious and leaned toward me a bit. “If I do decide to see them, I do get in for free. Which, I guess, is a perk.”

  I just shook my head at him. “So you’ve never seen a zoo, because in all the time you’ve been traveling the world, you’ve just never taken the time to do it? Well, that changes today. Get dressed. We’re going to Lincoln Park.”

  I got out of bed myself and headed for my closet. Because I’d been in my pajamas since Francisco had returned—well, mostly naked, honestly, with him doing dirty and wonderful things to my body—and if we were going to the zoo, which we obviously had to, I probably needed to put on real clothes.

  * * *

  Two hours later, and two days after he suddenly appeared at my door, we were standing in Lincoln Park and staring at the enormous concrete monument that marked the entry to one of the oldest zoos in the US.

  Francisco turned his eyes from the sign to the walkway beyond it, his face both amazed and somewhat… shocked.

  “This entire place is for animals?” he asked.

  I nodded, grinning. “That’s what ‘zoo’ means, you know.”

  He reached out and poked me in the ribs, making me squirm, and then took my hand.

  “Then I suppose we’d best get on with the tour,” he said. “As it seems we have quite a bit of walking to do.”

  We strolled forward, hand in hand and laughing like we were just any other couple in Chicago on a Monday morning. Hell, for anyone who saw us, I guessed we probably would look just like anyone else.

  A tall, gorgeous man with what was obviously a very new buzz cut (something he’d done, he told me, to make himself less recognizable during his undercover journey) and a girl with wavy brown hair that she’d tried—and mostly failed—to force into a neat ponytail. A guy who was much taller than his girl, but slowed his strides to make it easy for her to keep up with him. A girl dressed like everyone else in Chicago, complete with the flip-flops that everyone wore during the summer, while the guy was dressed slightly more formally, wearing his jeans and T-shirt like they didn’t quite feel natural to him, yet. Both of them laughing at something one or the other had said and pointing at this and that as they walked.

  Sure, we would have looked like any other couple in love. Nothing about us would have indicated what we actually were: A foreign prince on the run from his brother, the king, and the girl he’d gotten pregnant on the first weekend they’d met. A guy who was currently hiding from the brother who wanted him to settle down and start taking his responsibilities seriously… and the girl who was on the verge of introducing a whole big new responsibility into his life.

  No one would have realized that what we were actually talking about as we walked through the butterfly enclosure and toward the carousel—Francisco laughing and ducking as butterflies tried to land on him, and me giggling at his antics—was how we were going to tell my parents that we were having a baby.

  Or even whether we wanted to.

  I’d told him already that I hadn’t spoken to them in a year and that I wasn’t positive whether they would want to hear from me at all—regardless of whether I was sharing news about a new addition to the family. For all I knew, that was one more thing they’d be disappointed in me about. One more area where they’d think I’d failed them.

  They’d had plans for a daughter who went out there and made a big splash in the world. They’d thought they were helping me go to college so I could travel the world and make music. Not so I could become a bartender and then get pregnant out of wedlock.

  They’d certainly been clear enough on the bartending point when we fell out a year ago. No, they hadn’t gone so far as to assume I was going to get pregnant, but they’d definitely expected that I would walk down the wrong path once I started working in a bar.

  I’d told them again and again that I had no intention of letting the job define me or dictate the way I was going to live my life. I hadn’t planned to sleep with every other guy who came through the door. I hadn’t even planned to sleep with any of the guys who came through the door of the bar.

  Of course, then I’d met Francisco. A guy who had actually come through the door of my bar. And everything had changed.

  I watched him as he ducked and wove along the pathway ahead of me, laughing because he knew how ridiculous he looked, and I laughed myself. If I’d known he had such an aversion to bugs, I wouldn’t have suggested we hit this particular encounter first.

  Though if I was being honest, watching him, a freaking prince, looking so silly almost made the whole thing worth it.

  In fact…

  Without even thinking about it, I pulled my phone from my back pocket and started videoing the dance that Francisco was doing in front of me. I made sure to get the faces of the people around him, too, as they laughed and got out of his way, all of them trying to figure out what exactly he was doing, and why.

  And before I knew it, most of the people in the exhibit were laughing and stopping to watch him, all of them enthralled at the laughter and antics coming from the man who evidently considered butterflies to be the most dangerous creatures in the entire world.

  I followed along after him, videoing and laughing, trying to keep the phone still so I didn’t miss anything, and by the time we got to the enormous screened doors—followed by what I thought of as a clean room, where a zoo employee checked us for any hitch-hiking insects—and then out the doors into the outside world again, my belly actuall
y ached from how hard I’d been laughing.

  Francisco turned to me, grinning and breathless, and I fell into his arms, too much in love with him to do anything else.

  I mean, how could I do anything but be desperately in love with the man? He’d spent our first weekend together charming me, and had then snuck onto a cruise ship to come back to me, taken a twenty-two-hour train, and walked the streets of Chicago—well, kind of—to figure out where my bar was.

  He’d spent the last two nights romancing me in my apartment and telling him how much I meant to him. He was thrilled that we were having a baby.

  And I felt as if I was floating up there with the clouds, buoyed by laughter and emotion. I was terrified at the thought of being pregnant—and telling my parents that I was—but I also didn’t think I’d ever been happier in my entire life.

  So I guessed if this was what came from taking a man from my bar home, on a spur-of-the-moment decision…

  Then living that life wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. It certainly wasn’t as bad as my parents had assumed.

  Then, over his shoulder, I saw police running toward us. They were sprinting past the fountain and dashing through the crowd that surrounded the carousel, shouting and gesturing for people to get out of their way as they ran for us.

  They already had their handcuffs out. And though they were all wearing those cop sunglasses that made me unable to read the expressions on their faces, I could tell from the way they carried themselves that they were here on specific business. And they weren’t going to let a little thing like my love for the man I was currently holding stop them.

  They were going to arrest him and take him away from me again. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  Chapter 22

  Erika