For Maggie's Sake

by Lora Leigh

  "There's still time to escape."

  He swung around, meeting the brilliance of Maggie's uncertain gaze. Her gaze moved from his face to his cock, her expression flickering with surprise before her eyes returned to his.

  "Escape?" He winced at the sound of his own voice, hoarse, ragged. "Maggie . . ." He shook his head.

  Son of a bitch, there were words he should be saying right now. Something poetic or romantic, something that would alleviate the uncertainty in her gaze. But his throat was locked with emotion, his chest heaving from it as he fought to breathe.

  But he could still move, and he did so without conscious effort. He dropped the result stick, strode to her, and within seconds he had her in his arms. She wore nothing but his shirt and he could feel the heat of her body searing him through it. Emotion threatened to overwhelm him as he stared into her eyes, saw the hope, the fears and the love. Maggie had always stared at him with such love. Then slowly, desperate to feel her, to feel the life within her, Joe went to his knees as his arms wrapped around her hips, pulling her to him. He jerked her shirt over her abdomen, his face pressing against the soft flesh as he felt the moisture that refused to evaporate from his eyes.

  Fuck, he was a grown man. Grown men didn't cry.

  "Joe?" Her voice was low, a sweet little cry filled with hope and love, joy and innocence.

  He pressed his lips to her stomach, his hands moving around to grip her hips and hold her close as he imagined he felt the life growing beneath his lips, inside her precious body.

  "I love you." He couldn't say the words enough as he felt a tremor rushing through him, through her. "I love you, Maggie."

  Then he was pulling her to him, dragging her down to face him, staring into those beautiful green eyes and the tears that washed over her cheeks.

  "I love you, Joe." Her hands touched his cheeks as his smoothed back the fiery strands of hair that had fallen across her cheeks. "I guess this means you're happy about the baby?"

  Her tremulous smile had his lips quirking as he fought the shudders racing through his body.

  "I want you again," he whispered, dragging the material of her shirt to her neck as he fought to remove the hated clothing she had donned.

  She didn't need to wear clothes. He wanted to see her body, wanted to watch it change, to become heavy with their child. He wanted to see the pearly sheen of her skin and feel every inch of the warm satin flesh against him.

  "We're going to kill each other like this." Her laughter was thick with arousal, with the same hungers that drove him as he laid her back on the carpet and came slowly over her.

  Her thighs parted for him, knees bending as he settled between them, his cock lodging at the entrance to the fiery, sweetly aroused flesh awaiting him. Soft nether lips enfolded the head of his cock as he pressed against the entrance of her pussy, they caressed his sensitive flesh, the damp friction causing his teeth to grit at the subtle, torturous pleasure as he began to take her.

  Maggie stared up at Joe, seeing the track of the tears he had shed on his lean cheeks, the intensity of emotion that darkened his eyes. Dark blond hair fell over his forehead, softening the savage cast of his features, and his lips appeared softer, hungry, as he stared at her.

  He filled her slowly, tenderly, as though aware of the sensitivity her inner flesh held after the hunger that had raged through them the night before.

  As he pressed inside her, filling her, stretching her, his fingers brushed over her cheeks, her lips, feathering over her skin as though memorizing her by touch, even as his eyes traced each feature.

  "I died when I lost you." The sound of his voice shocked her. It was guttural, thick with remembered pain.

  "Joe." She tried to shake her head, to halt the flow of pain she could see in his eyes.

  "No. Hear me out. Now." He pressed deeper inside her and suddenly the joining of their bodies was more than just pleasure, or bonding. As though the embrace had become elemental, a fusion of body and soul. "I don't want to ever be that stupid again, Maggie. I

  don't want to ever forget the agony I felt every day that you lived under his roof, that I thought he lived in your heart. Because I don't want to ever be that stupid again, Maggie. Ever."

  "As though I would let you, ever again," she whispered, a smile trembling over her lips as tears fell from her eyes. "I love you, too, Joe. And walking away isn't something I'll do again. I'm here. For always."

  He moved then, as though he couldn't help himself, his hips shifting, moving against her as his erection began to thrust slow and deep inside her.

  Her back arched with pleasure as a whimpering cry escaped her chest. God, she loved this, feeling him inside her, touching her, loving her in a way she knew she would never know with another man. Only Joe.

  "Ah, Maggie," he groaned as his hands lowered from her face, his fingers sinking into her hair as he bent to her.

  Gentle lips nipped at hers as he gazed into her eyes. She could see her reflection in the dark gaze, as well as the emotion that poured from him.

  "Sweetheart, you fill my soul," he groaned as he began to thrust harder, his cock spearing into her, stroking tender nerve endings, sensitive flesh, and creating a blaze of lust as the friction increased.

  Her legs lifted, wrapping around his hips as she fought to deepen the kiss, to hold him tighter to her as she felt a part of her soul lifting, lightening, melding with his as he took her with a gentleness she wouldn't have believed possible.

  It seemed never-ending. He kissed her with devouring hunger, though his thrusts were tender, stretching her vagina with easy strokes as his fingers caressed her scalp. She could feel him from her lips to her ankles, his harder, stronger body moving, flexing against hers as the building pleasure began to tighten through her body.

  "Joe. Oh God, it feels so good . . ." Her head thrashed against the carpet as his lips moved to her neck, his tongue licking over her flesh as he moved lower.

  "Hmm. Damned good, baby. But only with you. Sweet heaven, Maggie, only with you."

  Maggie fought to breathe as his lips moved to her breast, his tongue painting her tight nipple with liquid fire a second before the heat of his mouth enveloped it. The firm suckling of his mouth heralded a harsh groan from his lips before he began thrusting inside her harder, faster, fucking into her with a depth and intensity that sent her spiraling into an orgasm that swept through her soul.

  Maggie was barely aware of her own cries as release raced through her, but she clearly heard Joe's. Harsh, a guttural male cry, almost animalistic, that preceded the harsh shudders that tore through his body and the feel of his release pulsing inside her.

  Exhausted. Ravished. Maggie lay bonelessly on the floor as Joe collapsed to her side, breathing harshly.

  "Well, that's the first time we did it on the bedroom floor." It was all she could do to form coherent words, but that thought struck her as funny.

  "It was 'bout time then," he panted beside her.

  His hand moved lazily to her stomach, his fingers splaying across her flesh as he turned to her then.

  "I love you, Joe." There was no containing that love, or the happiness blooming inside her.

  "I worship you, Maggie," he whispered. "For your sake, I hope you can live with it."

  "Always, Joe." She smiled back at him tearfully. "Always."