by Sarina Bowen
He braced himself on either side of her body and sank down for a kiss. “And this?” He kissed her again before letting her answer, deeply this time. Her body went slack beneath him, and she made a happy noise. Soft hands reached for his hips.
They came together again, like a finely tooled lock sliding into place. She gasped into his kisses as he worked her over slowly. Every thrust moved him closer to the edge of bliss. He was shaking with anticipation by the time she cried out for him.
It was a sweet relief to let go then, chasing her over the edge, panting into her mouth, gasping as he burst with pleasure.
“Jeez,” she breathed as they both came down.
“That only took the edge off,” he said, kissing her. They rested together, saying nothing that couldn’t be said with hands and kisses and sighs.
“Let’s not talk,” she whispered at one point. “I’m all talked out.”
That was fine with him—for now, anyway. But sooner or later she was going to have to discuss their future. They had a future coming—he’d make sure of it.
FIFTEEN
Lauren slept very little that night. She and Mike would drift off together for a while, until one of them shifted and woke. In the privacy of darkness, hands would inevitably begin to caress and explore. Searching gave over to craving, until they found themselves locked in another sweaty embrace.
She lost count of the orgasms before they finally fell asleep for good. A couple of short hours later, she awoke one final time to light creeping under the draperies, and the sensation of Mike kissing her neck.
“Hey,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I have to go. But I wasn’t going to leave without saying good-bye.”
She wished he would have, actually. Even though last night had been amazing, now things would only get awkward. “Good-bye,” she said softly.
He smoothed the hair away from her face, smiling down at her. “Thank you for making me happy.”
“You’re welcome,” she said quickly. “I was pretty, uh, happy, too.” It was as good a euphemism as any.
“I really don’t want to walk away from you right now.” He traced the shape of her cheek with his thumb. “I want to take you out for breakfast and cuddle more.”
“Not happening,” she pointed out. “The bus boards in”—she checked the clock—“an hour. And I don’t want to be everyone’s gossip nugget this morning.”
He pulled a face. “There are women who’d sleep with me for the bragging rights. And the only one I want in my bed doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“Well we tried that,” she pointed out. “And when it ended, the gossip followed me, but not you.”
He chewed his lip. “This won’t be solved today, I guess.”
Or ever. She patted his hand. “Go start your day. The play-offs wait for no man.”
He leaned down and kissed her very thoroughly, his stubble abrading her lips in the best possible way. “Bye, Lo. Bye for now.”
It was tempting to remind him that there weren’t going to be any repeats of last night’s festivities. But since he wanted to keep things happy, now wasn’t the right time to say that.
He left, and she got slowly out of bed, feeling deliciously sore in all the right places. It had been a long time since she’d felt this way—satisfied. Her sex life had been scant these past two years. She’d been out on a few dates, every one of them inspired by either loneliness or the desire to prove to herself that she could be wanted.
Ugh. It had been a crappy couple of years trying not to think about Mike Beacon. There was a small chance that last night’s shenanigans could help stop the tide of pathetic thoughts. And anyway, she had a pregnancy to plan and a new chapter in her life to welcome.
She went into the bathroom and stepped into the walk-in shower to wash her hair. She’d really expected to feel more regret right now. Maybe it would hit later. It was true what they said about releasing sexual tension—she felt too loose right now to worry about much of anything.
When she was nearly packed up and ready to roll, there came a tap on the door. Lauren opened it to reveal Georgia. “Morning!” the publicist said. “I come in search of my garment bag and Becca’s manicure tackle box. She asked me to fetch it for her.” Georgia raised an eyebrow. “Why do you think she’d ask me to do that?”
Lauren had no clue. “I had to tuck her in last night. She drank a little and got woozy. It wasn’t that embarrassing, though.” She opened the door wider to admit Georgia.
“Oh, no! Is she okay? I would have helped.”
“She’s fine. I sent Nate to check on her later.”
“Do you think . . . ?” Georgia’s eyebrows rose. “Maybe something happened between her and Nate last night?”
“In my dreams,” Lauren scoffed. She grabbed Becca’s case and set it near the door. Then she popped open her own pocketbook to leave a tip for the housekeeper.
Georgia grabbed her garment bag off the desk chair and then seemed to freeze. “Wow, Lauren! Did you do it?”
“Um, what?”
Georgia looked up with sparkling eyes, then pointed at something on the cabinet shelf. “Did you seduce a basketball player? You’re my hero.”
Lauren crossed to the desk to discover . . . a hastily discarded condom package on its surface. She picked it up and crumpled it in her hand.
It had been a three pack. There were none left.
She dropped the evidence in an otherwise empty wastepaper basket. Then she raised her eyes to find Georgia’s amused ones watching her. “Don’t laugh.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. As long as I get at least one juicy detail.”
Slowly she shook her head. “No can do.”
“Not even his position? Point guard? Center?”
“Goalie,” Lauren said quietly.
“Oh,” Georgia whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Wow. You were right. That dress has some powerful mojo.”
Lauren clapped a hand over her mouth. “I guess it does. Don’t tell anyone, okay? It isn’t going to become a thing.”
“Huh. Does he know that?”
“I hope so.”
“Maybe Florida makes people a little crazy,” Georgia speculated as the two of them headed out the door. “Leo and I did it in a hammock on the beach last night. I’ve never done that before.”
Lauren gave a snort of laughter. “It is Florida’s fault. Let’s blame Florida.”
The two of them went downstairs, where the team milled around, looking hungover. At least Lauren wasn’t the only one who’d had a wild night. She kept close to Georgia and steered a wide berth around Mike Beacon. Though it was tempting to stare at him and relive the finer points of last night’s sexcapades.
Go ahead, she dared herself. The virtual replay was the only kind she was going to get.
She boarded the bus when it arrived, taking the seat beside Georgia. Lauren pulled out her phone and began to deal with the day’s e-mails. But the bus just sat there longer than it should have. Lauren looked up and waved over Jimbo, the youngest member of the operations team. “Is there a problem with the schedule?”
He was handing out paper sacks containing muffins, and small cups of coffee, which she and Georgia accepted gratefully. “We’re waiting on Nate,” Jimbo said.
“Ah.” The bus couldn’t really leave without the owner. And the jet would wait for him as long as it took.
She went back to her e-mail. From the back of the bus she heard Mike’s laugh. Who knew what he was laughing at—probably one of Doulie’s jokes. But the sound resonated inside her chest and made her feel fizzy inside.
Georgia nudged her. “Omigod. Look. Out the window.”
Lauren craned her neck to see what Georgia meant. Outside, Nate was leaning into the back seat of a hired sedan with tinted windows. Way in. “So?”
“B
ecca got into that car first—she’s flying back to New York out of the Lauderdale airport. Do you think he’s . . . kissing her good-bye?”
Lauren stared as Nate’s back emerged from the car. He snapped the door shut with typical Nate efficiency, his face unreadable. Then he walked out of her line of sight to board the bus.
“Did you see that?” Georgia asked in an awed tone.
“I don’t know what I saw.”
A moment later the doors to the bus closed and the breaks squeaked. The bus began to roll forward. As Nate slowly approached their seat, both Georgia and Lauren stared at him.
“Problem?” he said, giving them a frown.
“Not in this row,” Lauren said, watching for a crack in his stern facade. “You?”
He gave her a Nate frown and moved past, heading toward the back.
“Maybe I imagined it,” Georgia whispered.
“Maybe,” Lauren agreed.
She went back to work and tried not to listen for Mike’s laugh among the others.
• • •
Forty-eight hours later, her phone pressed to her ear, Lauren listened to an endless stream of voice mails for Nate. Multitasking, she hustled into a hotel conference room where the team’s lunch was set out. While one of Nate’s tech officers droned on about their upcoming trip to China, she handed Jimbo a new itinerary for the next twenty-four hours.
He scanned the page and gave her a salute, so Lauren walked over to hand the same information to Georgia and her partner in the publicity office—Tommy.
Lauren put her phone away and greeted Georgia with an apology. “I know I gave you different information this morning, but the host team keeps switching our ice time, so the schedule changed again.”
“No problem. But . . . do you think it’s intentional? Are they messing with us on purpose?”
Lauren had wondered that same thing. “That would be pretty low. I won’t do that when they come to Brooklyn in two days.”
“Do it!” Leo Trevi teased, coming over to stand behind his fiancée. “And let’s short-sheet all their beds, and put itching powder in their underwear.”
“Someone spent too many years at summer camp,” Lauren guessed.
“You know it! We were worse, though.” He pulled out a chair next to Georgia. “I found a dead frog in my shoe one time, so I put it . . .”
Lauren held up a hand. “I get it. But it’s lunchtime.”
He grinned.
She gave him a friendly wave and wandered off to check out the buffet. She wasn’t hungry at all, but there was a decent-looking Caesar salad, so she grabbed a to-go container and forked some salad leaves into it.
“Hi there,” a smoky voice said from just beside her. Mike had snuck up and ambushed her. “Are you ready for round two yet?”
Oh, boy. Lauren stifled a laugh, even as her senses began to hum in unison. “Sure,” she said lightly. “As long as you’re talking about hockey.”
“Ah, well. It was worth a shot.”
Lauren just shook her head, smiling down at the croutons on the salad bar.
“Join me for lunch?” he asked.
“I wish I could,” she said quickly. “But I have a ton to do before the game, and Nate is expecting me upstairs.”
“Maybe another time,” he said, giving her a quick smile.
And, damn, she’d seen that smile in bed just two days ago. Suddenly the room was warmer than it had been a few minutes ago.
“How are you doing, anyway?” he pressed. “Haven’t seen you at all in Tampa. I’d think you were avoiding me, except Coach has had us in strategy sessions for hours and hours.”
She returned his smile, but then looked down at the buffet again, to try to shake off his sexual tractor beam. None of that. “Fine, thank you. And yourself? Has Coach been working you hard?”
“You know it.” He added a couple of olives to his plate, which already overflowed with two sandwiches and pasta salad.
She’d always enjoyed watching him eat. The man burned so many calories during the season that he literally could not eat enough to maintain his weight. Cooking for him had always been gratifying. He’d try anything, and he loved exotic flavors. “You love food so much,” she’d remarked once as he was tucking into a spicy paella she’d made. “I’m surprised you never learned to cook something more than pancakes or steak.”
“I love food, but I’m a specialist,” he’d quipped once. “I only eat.”
Yikes. And here she was, falling into a memory. She snapped the takeout container closed. “I’d better get back to it,” she said, grabbing a roll to go with her salad.
“Enjoy your working lunch,” he said under his breath. “But feel free to wear your blue dress to dinner tonight.”
“That was a one-time thing,” she reminded him. “A special occasion.”
He shrugged. “Okay. Then don’t wear it. You look sexy in your cute little suits, girlfriend. I can still see those legs.” He grabbed a roll and shoved half of it into his mouth, smiling as he chewed.
She rolled her eyes, and realized they were having an almost normal conversation. See? This is possible, she noted. We can be friends and it’s only sort of weird.
“Good luck out there tonight,” she said. “I’ll be pulling for you.” She would, too.
His face became more serious. “Thanks, Lo. That means a lot.”
“You’re welcome.” Maybe most ex-couples didn’t even out their differences with a long night of sex. Then again, they weren’t like most ex-couples. And she was ready to put their differences behind her, and to breathe more easily when he was in the room.
This was nice. It was almost healthy.
He gave her a full-powered smile, and it only made her knees feel a little squishy. “See you on the other side.” Whistling he carried his loaded plate off to a table full of players.
Lauren carried her lunch out of the room and headed for the elevators. She probably could have spared twenty minutes. Nate wasn’t expecting her yet. But if she and Mike were going to be friends, she had to get used to the idea, first.
Their night together was still too raw. She kept flashing back to their hours in bed, and the feel of his lips against her own. Those sensations were bound to fade, though. And the second round of play-offs left very little time for mooning about. The players had been sequestered with the coaching staff since the moment they’d touched down. Lauren was holed up in yet another hotel suite and went to work.
She let herself back into the suite and dropped her lunch on the desk beside her laptop. She’d fibbed to Mike about how soon Nate was expecting her. But she was busy.
In fact, she’d promised herself that while she ate lunch she would make a very important decision.
Lauren flipped open the file folder of sperm donors and spread four sheets of paper out so that she could see them all. These were the last candidates—she’d narrowed it down to four. It was time to pick one and order the vials of—gulp—sperm to be delivered to her doctor’s office.
She’d gotten her period this morning. That meant it was almost time to start taking the pills in her carry-on bag. And five days after that she’d ovulate, and it would be time for the intrauterine insemination.
She could be pregnant by one of the dudes described in front of her two weeks from now. It was time to choose between them.
An engineer. Two law students. And a conservator of antiquities. Choosing the father of your baby as if you were perusing the J. Crew catalog was the strangest kind of shopping in the world. All their baby pictures were adorable, of course. And their long lists of achievements and positive qualities were breathtaking.
There was no way to know whose genes would make the healthiest, happiest baby. She ought to just flip a couple of coins and allow fate to narrow down the final four to a single winner.
She scanned the pi
ctures one more time. Three of the little boys had glossy dark hair. Now that she thought about it, three of them looked a hell of a lot like Mike Beacon.
Damn it all.
Thanks a ton, subconscious.
Lauren picked up the fourth page—the one with the fairer-haired child pictured on it. Donor 5683RE had grown up to be a promising law student who wanted to work on Internet privacy issues. He was a good cook and played soccer on the weekends.
He was nothing at all like Mike Beacon.
Well then. If all went according to plan, donor 5683RE was going to be the father of her child.
She opened her laptop and navigated to the cryobank’s website. She ordered two vials of Mr. 5683RE, filling in the FedEx information for her fertility clinic back in Manhattan. The transaction set her back $1,200 and took five minutes, tops. But this was big—a decision made. A plan put into action.
A secret.
Lauren cracked open her salad and unwrapped a plastic fork. A month from now, she might be pregnant. Two months from now she might have morning sickness. She placed a hand on her very flat belly and imagined a baby growing in there.
Sitting all alone in her suite, she began to smile. It didn’t matter that her parents would freak out about this decision when she eventually got around to telling them. This was her journey, and she was ready to embark. In fact . . .
She lifted her hand off her belly and propped her chin in it. She’d never expected to be single at thirty-one. And she sure hadn’t expected to be dumped by the love of her life. But now that the shock and anger were finally wearing off, she could acknowledge that the experience had made her into a more confident single person. Sometime during these past two years she’d stopped waiting around for her happily-ever-after and started crafting it herself.
Take that, Mike.
She ate her salad and then went to work on Nate’s rather overburdened calendar. Now that the play-offs were sure to drag on, there was planning to do. She cast an eye on Nate’s calendar all the way out to June and tried to figure out where all the landmines lay. There was a trip to China on his docket over Memorial Day.
