by Laura Kaye
His head whipped toward her. “Hell, no.”
“Then what do you want? How can I help?”
His gaze bored into hers, and she knew the exact moment it went hot, because she felt his need down to her curling toes.
He closed the distance between their bodies and kissed her. His hand dug into her hair and fisted thick strands of it. Tugging her in harder against him, his tongue penetrated her, thrusting and twisting.
Joss moaned, surprised and overwhelmed by the taste and heat of his erotic assault. Gasping for breath, all the reasons this was a bad idea paraded through her brain.
“God,” he whispered. “You always take it all away.”
The desperation in his voice set off an ache in her chest that made her need to comfort, to soothe. How often had she had someone who truly needed her? It was a heady feeling, knowing you could ease another. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close, surrendering to the hot chemistry that burned so brightly between them.
His kisses grew more intense, more aggressive, stealing her breath and turning her liquid. She sucked hard on his tongue, once, twice, wanting him as frenzied as she felt. He groaned and held her harder, his fingers urging her not to stop.
Pulling away nearly killed her, but the desire to take care of him, to make this about him, flooded through her veins. She pushed against his chest.
“What—”
“Shh,” she said, sliding to her knees on the floor.
Brady’s dark eyes blazed as she settled between his thighs and unfastened his jeans.
“I want to take care of you,” she said, tugging his jeans.
Expression awed and intense, he lifted his hips and she pulled the material away. His cock stood hard and thick. Joss took his length into her hands and stroked him. Leaning in, she slid his swollen head against her tongue—and her piercing.
He groaned, his eyes zeroing in on her mouth.
Satisfaction roared through her. She dragged the little metal ball from tip to root and back, wetting and teasing him.
“Take me in,” he rasped. “Please.”
Something about his words sent her heart thundering so hard she felt its echo against her eardrums. She sucked him in deep.
“Fucking hell,” he bit out. His hand stroked her hair.
She crowded into the vee of his legs, her breasts crushing against his thighs, and worked to take as much of his cock into her mouth, her throat, as she could. The heavy weight of him against her tongue, the warm scent of his masculinity, the restrained urgency of his touch—her body was so hot and wet she never wanted it to end. She flicked her piercing against his hard length as she withdrew and plunged down again.
“Shit, that feels so good.”
The gravel in his voice shot straight to the center of her. She reached between her own legs and pressed her fingers against her clit, aching for even the slightest friction. The contact made her moan around his cock, buried deep in her throat.
Brady released a harsh breath and slid his other hand into her hair. Her mouth still full of him, she kept her eyes on his as she sucked him in again and again. He looked at her with so much need, so much desire, her heart clenched.
He wanted her.
But did he want more than just her body? The freely given words of encouragement and praise, the soft petting of his hand, the fact that he’d come to her in a moment of such vulnerability—her heart insisted these were the actions of a man who cared.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
She shoved the thoughts away and focused on him, on the wet slide of her lips and tongue over his pink skin, the teasing drag of her teeth over his hardness, the flick of her piercing around his head.
“Please. I need you,” he bit out. His hips lifted, his fingers pressed. Joss sucked him in deep and hard and fast, hope flying. His muscles went rigid and a groan tore out of his throat. And then he was coming, hands tangling in her hair, thighs crushing her sides. She swallowed what he gave her and licked him clean. Resting her chin on his lower belly, she settled a hand over his heart, reveling in the sprinting beat she felt there.
He grasped her hand and pressed it harder against his chest. With his other hand, he stroked the hair off the side of her face, tucked it behind her ear. For a long moment, he seemed absorbed in these small touches.
Then he dropped his hand to the couch. Shaking his head, he closed his eyes. His shoulders sagged. “Dammit, I’m sorry,” he said in a flat voice. His dark eyes opened and held an emotion she couldn’t read as he reached to right his pants.
Joss sat back, bewildered by the sudden shift in his mood. “What for? I didn’t mind—”
“This can’t happen again.” He roughly pulled up his jeans and fastened them.
His words were like a bucket of ice water. “What?” Like she was the one who started it.
“I just… This is wrong,” he said, refusing to make eye contact and pushing to his feet.
Her stomach tossed as she rose. “Since when?”
“Since always.”
Since always? Right, because he never wanted her. No one ever had. Why should this be any freaking different?
“Look, it’s me, not—”
“Get out of my house, Brady.” Stupid. She was so stupid. Here she was thinking this meant something, that he was here because he needed her. “Get out and don’t come knocking again.”
Without saying another word, he crossed the room and did just that.
Joss slammed and locked the door behind him.
Then she fell back against the door and slid to the floor. She pressed her hands to her mouth and fought back the tears. They fell anyway.
When will you learn, Joss? Nobody wants you.
She shook her head and tried to push the self-destructive thoughts away. But right now, she was nearly lost in those old emotions.
Joss heaved a deep breath and all she could smell was Brady. She couldn’t stand it.
She rose and climbed upstairs. In the bathroom, she brushed her teeth ruthlessly, but she could still taste him, still smell him. She lifted the bodice of her nightgown to her nose. Pure Brady. She ripped it off and threw it the trash. God knew she could never wear it again without thinking of this morning. Then she set the shower as hot as she could stand it and stepped in.
Refusing to think of the morning Brady had washed her, Joss stood under the streaming water and forced herself to stop crying. It never changed anything. It never did any good. It just left her feeling weak and exhausted. And what use was that?
When she was done, she marched downstairs and parked herself at the computer. Nothing like a mountain of work to lose yourself in. The center depended on this fund-raiser every year, so the work was way more important than her hurt feelings anyway.
The only good that had come from the morning’s fiasco was that she didn’t have to wonder anymore where she stood with Brady. So it would be easy to stay away. Before her emotions got anymore involved than they already were.
…
By the following Thursday afternoon, Joss was debating calling Will and canceling on babysitting.
She’d been dragging all week. On Sunday she’d felt so drained she didn’t leave the house once, not even to spy on Brady’s furniture delivery when it arrived just after lunchtime. On Monday, she went to work. But each day felt harder than the last, especially because the week was jam-packed with planning meetings and outreach calls about the holiday fund-raiser. The budget allocation they received from the county only covered half of their programmatic expenses, so the center depended on the swanky fund-raiser being successful—and it was Joss’s baby this year. After such an exhausting week, she just wasn’t sure she had anything left to give to Will and Claire.
But she hated to complicate Will’s life when she knew he didn’t have an alternative. Plus, she really enjoyed spending time with his little girl. Unless she got sick or started to run a fever, she was determined to meet her commitment, and then crash all
weekend long.
When the center closed at six on Friday night, Joss wasn’t feeling substantially better. In fact, she’d been struggling with nausea all day. But she loaded Claire into her truck and made her way home through the traffic anyway. The gridlock seemed worse than usual, but maybe that was just because of how run-down she felt.
Relief rushed through her when she veered onto 36th Street. She’d feel much better after she changed into some comfortable clothes and had a bite to eat with Claire. She turned into her parking lot and her relief fluttered away.
Brady was getting out of his truck.
Thank you, universe. Seriously. Totally awesome of you.
This week, when the last thing she wanted was to see him, it seemed she couldn’t stop running into him. Twice arriving home from work, once leaving for work, and once when she’d been lugging groceries in as he was heading out for a run.
Joss parked, came around the back of her truck, and got Claire and her diaper bag, all the while pretending she didn’t notice him hanging around the front of his Land Rover looking like he might be thinking of talking to her.
Screw that.
Maybe it was childish. Okay, it was childish. But she avoided the whole awkward situation by walking back around the rear of her truck and up the far sidewalk to her front door.
“Joss,” he called, pushing off the car.
She fiddled with her key ring and adjusted Claire on her hip.
“Joss, please?”
Turning, she took a mental deep breath and reminded herself to keep her voice pleasant, and not to ogle his uniform. Damn him. “We’re not doing this.”
Brady frowned as his eyes scanned her face. “Are you okay?”
She glanced back to the door, hand fumbling at the lock. Finally, the key found the hole. She pushed the door open and took a deep breath before turning to him again. “I’m sorry. Weren’t you the one who said we were wrong together? Well, I agree. So, please—”
“You don’t look well, Joss. Are you—”
She sighed. “I’ve been taking care of myself my entire life, Brady, so I sure as heck don’t need your help. Not now.” She stepped inside and closed the door.
A half hour later, Joss’s words came back to haunt her. She’d just prepared dinner for Claire—hot dogs and applesauce—when the smell of the cooked meat as she’d sliced it into bite-sized pieces made her stomach turn over. Violently. She dashed out of the kitchen, where Claire sat playing on the floor with some little plastic cars, through the first floor, and up the steps.
The vomit was on its way up before she got to her knees, and some hit the toilet seat and caught in her hair before she could center herself over the commode. Her stomach revolted again and again, because she could still smell the hot dogs.
“Ja? Ja?” came Claire’s little voice, not yet able to pronounce Joss’s name.
“I’m coming, ClaireBear. I’ll be right there,” Joss called out.
“Ja?”
Tears sprang to Joss’s eyes as the gags continued. It was her fingers. From holding the hot dogs, her hands smelled of them. Still fighting back the retches, Joss crawled to the sink and scrubbed her hands until the skin threatened to come off. Then she held the soiled length of her hair under the running water and rinsed it out.
“Ja?”
“Coming, baby,” Joss croaked. She wiped the toilet seat and flushed, then forced some deep breaths. Better. It was better. Okay.
But how the hell was she going to feed Claire?
Feeling ridiculous, she reached under the sink and grabbed a hand towel. She pressed the folded square of terry cloth against her mouth and nose and went back downstairs. Claire was sitting at the bottom of the steps, stretching her little body up to look for her.
“Ja. Eat.”
“Yeah. Time for you to eat. Come on.”
Claire pushed herself up and toddled next to her.
When Joss grabbed the plate of food, her stomach rolled again. Though the nausea was uncomfortable, the barrier of the towel seemed to work, and she didn’t feel the need to get sick again. She sat at the table and pulled the baby onto her lap. Claire fed herself the hot dogs, and Joss helped with the applesauce.
When Claire was done, Joss decided to leave cleaning the kitchen until later, scooped the little girl up, and carried her upstairs for bath time. While the water warmed and filled the tub, she removed Claire’s clothes and diaper, and then settled her into the shallow water.
“Cup?” Joss asked.
“Cup!” Claire said, flinging water with her fingers.
Joss grabbed her stomach, which just wouldn’t settle down. So much for never getting sick.
After having her hair and body washed, the baby was content to play in the water for a while. Joss rested her chin on her forearms and breathed through the nausea. With the way she’d felt all week, she supposed it wasn’t surprising that she was getting sick.
Relaxing there as Claire filled and emptied the cup over and over, Joss’s mind wandered.
She gasped and pushed upright.
Calendar. I need a calendar.
She fished her phone out of her back pocket and hit a series of buttons.
Oh no. Nonono.
Twenty-eight days from August 18th was…
“Oh, no. Oh, my God.”
She was almost a week late.
Why hadn’t she realized? Between work and feeling so crappy, her head had been in such a daze. But still…
Another series of buttons brought her to a pregnancy calculator website. Shaking fingers punched in the first day of her last period and then she read the information that brought up.
Conception: September 1
Pregnancy Test: September 15
First Heartbeat: September 29
“Oh, my God.”
She scanned down the list of week-by-week dates.
Week 5: September 22
Tomorrow. That was tomorrow.
Due Date: May 25
She dropped the phone on the floor and grabbed a towel. Without even draining the tub, she lifted Claire, terrified that between the baby’s slippery body and her own shaking hands, she would drop her. But Claire was fine. Joss wrapped a towel around her and carried her into the bedroom.
September 1st. That was the night of the fireworks. The night of…
Get the baby to sleep. Just start there.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”
Diaper and pajamas in place, she combed Claire’s fine hair. They read a book together, then another. The girl’s presence allowed her to hold it together.
When Claire’s eyes started to droop, Joss laid her in the center of her queen bed. Earlier, she’d rolled blankets into makeshift bolsters and laid them along three sides to ensure the baby didn’t fall off the bed. Thank God Claire was such a good sleeper.
On autopilot, she pulled the bedroom door mostly shut behind her and retrieved her phone from the bathroom floor. She did, in fact, need help, so she made a call.
“Hello?” her neighbor from down the courtyard answered.
“Hi, Lisa. It’s Joss.”
“Well, hi, Joss. How are you? How’s the new school year treating you?”
She tried to keep the panic out of her voice. “Oh, good, good. Listen, I’m very sorry to call out of the blue like this, but I need a quick favor if you’re available.”
“Glad to help if I can,” she answered.
“I’m babysitting tonight and, uh, the baby needs something I don’t have. She’s asleep for now. Is there any chance you could just come sit at my place for ten or fifteen minutes while I run up to the shopping center?”
“You want me to come now?”
Joss nodded. “If you can?”
“I’ll be over in two.”
“Oh, my God, Lisa. You’re a lifesaver.”
“No worries. I was just Facebooking.”
Joss chuckled and worried it sounded a tinge hysterical. “Okay. Okay, thanks.”
They hung up and Joss went downstairs to slip on some shoes and grab her purse. Her neighbor from three doors down arrived instantly, dressed nearly identically to Joss in a pair of capri yoga pants and a T-shirt. She was a few years older than Joss, but they’d been friendly ever since Joss moved in.
“I won’t be long,” Joss said. “The girl’s name is Claire. She’s not quite two. But she’s sound asleep, so I doubt you’ll even hear from her.”
“Don’t worry. I babysit my sister’s kids all the time. We’ll be fine.”
Joss wasn’t sure how she got to the drugstore. The next thing she knew, she was standing in the aisle clutching her stomach and staring at about four hundred varieties of pregnancy tests. She bought three, one each of a different brand, just to be extra super triple sure that she’d totally gone and ruined her life.
By having a one-night stand. In her freaking truck.
Brady’s more than a one-night stand, part of her whispered.
“Oh, yeah? Tell that to him,” she mumbled.
“What’s that?” the man at the register asked.
“Nothing. Sorry.” He rang up the tests without any commentary, and she about choked when she saw the total. Thirty-five bucks. Oh, God, babies were expensive. They came with so much…stuff. How was she going to afford it all?
My savings.
The money she’d started to set aside for a house. Well, this certainly killed that idea, didn’t it? But at least she had a little extra money tucked away. The rest she’d have to figure out later.
Back home, she and Lisa said quick good-byes that felt like five years were passing as the tests burned a hole in her bag, and then Joss went upstairs to confirm once and for all that she was as screwed as she believed she was.
She opened all three tests, read the directions, and lined them up on the counter next to the toilet. Annnnnnd of course she couldn’t pee now.
She sat staring at the design in the tile floor for several long minutes. Finally, her body cooperated.
Test one. Test two. Test three.
She flushed, washed her hands, and glared holes in the plastic sticks.
I’m on the pill. Maybe this is just a mistake. Maybe my body is just out of whack from a virus.
