Harlequin Superromance February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: His Forever GirlMoonlight in ParisWife by Design

by Liz Talley

“I have a couple in my wallet.” He didn’t move. As though he knew she didn’t want to end the sweet torment. Like he agreed with her.

  Still focused on his chest, she was shocked when the tip of his penis pressed against her pelvis. And again. Knocking. Seeking entrance.

  “I...” She licked her lips. They hadn’t even kissed. And all she wanted was his penis inside her. For now. Forever.

  She wanted the world to end. Right then and there.

  While the moment was still perfect.

  * * *

  GRANT THOUGHT ABOUT WAITING. The first time shouldn’t be rushed. Not when they would remember it for the rest of their lives.

  Not when they had the rest of their lives...

  He pushed harder against her. Sliding himself between her legs. In and out, rubbing his penis against her inner thighs. Lynn’s knees gave out and he caught her, lying her down on the floor and settling himself on top of her.

  “The condom,” she choked, opening her legs to let him between them.

  “I was thinking, let’s not use one,” he told her. “I’m thirty-eight years old. I don’t want to wait much longer to be a father.”

  Had he just said that? Really?

  His penis urged him on. Eyes wide, Lynn stared at him, but she didn’t push him off her. Or tell him to protect himself. He didn’t take back his words, either.

  He pushed the head of his penis just inside her opening. “Will you marry me?” he asked.

  Arching up, Lynn took him inside her.

  “Yes,” she said, and within seconds she was pulsing around him.

  Awash in sensation, he lost himself inside her. Moving on instinct and emotion and crying out in a voice he didn’t recognize as he finally emptied himself inside of her.

  He’d had a lot of sex.

  But he’d never made love before.

  * * *

  LYNN WAS UP so fast she was still breathing hard after she’d gotten fully dressed. She picked up the wineglass and the bottle, disposed of one and washed the other. She wiped the counter and looked out the window into the backyard, thinking that she should pick the weed she could see growing out there. She rushed around so fast she made herself dizzy and still kept moving.

  Grant reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face brown eyes that were filled with so many emotions she started to cry.

  “Are you sorry?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

  Would he understand if she told him she was? But told him why she was?

  “You aren’t obligated to marry me, Lynn.” His deadpan voice was a giveaway. She’d hurt him.

  It was the last thing she’d wanted to do.

  “Well, you’re obligated to marry me,” she said, trying to maintain control, to mask her fear. Just like always.

  But this wasn’t always. And she wasn’t the old Lynn anymore.

  “I’m... It was incredible, Grant,” she whispered, tears in her eyes again.

  With a tender finger, he brushed back a few stray hairs that had come loose from her ponytail, and used his thumbs to wipe the corners of her eyes. “Then why these?”

  “Because...”

  She was going to tell him. And choked.

  Her strength was in him. And in herself, too. Her strength was in trusting herself to handle whatever came her way.

  “Brandon... I...”

  He looked confused. “What? You think he won’t want Kara to have a stepfather? You don’t want to disappoint him? What?”

  “No! Brandon will be thrilled. He feels so guilty and...it doesn’t matter. No matter how Brandon felt, it wouldn’t affect my choices where you’re concerned. It’s just...I’m so afraid....” The words tumbled over themselves.

  “You aren’t the only one, lady.” With a hand on either side of her head, he held her steady as his mouth plundered hers. And in his kiss, she forgot about being afraid.

  “I... The way I feel about you... It’s so much more than I ever felt for Brandon. Even the lovemaking... Especially the lovemaking...” She was making a mess of this whole conversation. “I fell apart so completely when Brandon left. I’m scared to death of what would happen to me if you ever did. How would I cope?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not going to walk out on you. Ever. But I can’t guarantee that fate won’t take me away. What I do know is that if it happens, you’ll be given the strength to cope.”

  The conviction in his words reached her right where she loved him most.

  “I suspect that the love we feel for each other will be there even when we aren’t physically together,” he said. “So no matter where I am, or you are, in this life or beyond, we’ll have it to draw on.”

  “And it’s a well that never runs dry,” she said slowly, thinking about her love for Kara, too. How someday Kara would grow up and be off living her own life and Lynn would still have the strength of her daughter’s love to carry her, too. How she’d probably be gone from this earth before Kara was and how her love would continue to nurture her daughter even then.

  And then there was Grant. As she allowed the floodgates of emotion he’d brought into her life to open, she lost her balance and held on to him.

  Just as she always would. No matter where he was.

  He was right. “With you in my life, my well will never run dry,” she said.

  “I love you, Lynn Duncan, soon to be Lynn Bishop.”

  She was getting married.

  He gazed deeply into her eyes, and her trust started to grow.

  They were going to be okay. Really okay.

  And suddenly, she couldn’t wait until bedtime. Every bedtime. Or mornings, either. For the rest of her life.

  * * *

  GRANT SET THE table for lunch. He told Maddie where she was going to sit. Next to Darin. And Kara, because Kara had asked to sit next to Maddie. He was sitting next to Lynn.

  She put the plate of sandwiches on the table. Ladled everyone a bowl of soup.

  “Why are you grinning like that, Grant?” Darin eyed him like a man who knew. And Grant knew that he would never get used to seeing the glimpses of the Darin who’d once been in the eyes of the Darin who now was.

  “You’ll find out,” Grant told him, still grinning. If Darin saw a new man in him, a less serious, less rigid man, then he was just going to have to get used to it.

  “Did you get the test results, Lynn?” Maddie asked before Lynn even sat down to eat.

  “Yes, I did,” Lynn said just as calmly. But Grant wasn’t fooled. He knew how nervous Lynn was about the changes descending on them.

  And how excited she was, too.

  They’d had sex so quickly they’d had time left over to talk.

  “And I’m pregnant, right?” she asked.

  Darin dropped his spoon into his tomato soup, splashing the liquid over the sides. He slid back from the table and stood up, his hands on his hips, looking down at Maddie.

  “You’re pregnant?” His voice squeaked like an adolescent going through a voice change.

  “Yes,” Lynn said.

  “Woo-hoo!” Darin whooped so loudly that Kara jumped and missed her mouth with her peanut butter–smeared bread. He danced and jigged and wiggled his hips and threw his arms about, going around and around the table and into the kitchen. Maddie laughed so hard she had drool at the corners of her mouth.

  Watching them, Kara started to laugh, too.

  * * *

  GRANT WASN’T SURE he’d get his older brother to calm down enough to have the conversation they’d planned on having before his next therapy session. But he knew he had one shot and he needed to use it.

  “Sit down, Darin, we need to talk about your responsibilities here.” He made his voice purposely stern. “You’re going to
have to marry Maddie.”

  Hurrying back to his seat, Darin sat with so much force his chair rocked back. Grant’s stomach sprang to his throat as he lunged for the back of the chair, righting it before Darin fell backward.

  “I’d have caught it, Grant,” he said, his tone perfectly serious. “And I agree, it is my responsibility to marry Maddie. That’s why we’ve been trying to make a baby first. I’m glad you understand.”

  If Grant hadn’t been so boneheaded, he’d have realized long ago that Darin’s fate had been taken out of his hands the second Darin had met Maddie.

  And known that because he loved his brother, he had to relinquish what he could of Darin’s life back to him.

  “Here is what we propose,” Grant said, and the room grew completely still. Even Kara was watching him, her mouth filled with peanut butter.

  “Lynn and I are going to get married. And you two will get married. We will add on to the bungalow here for now....”

  “Lila might not like that,” Maddie said. “She likes the bungalows to be the same because—”

  “It’s okay, Maddie,” Lynn told her. “We’ve already talked to Lila.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Maddie took a bite of her sandwich.

  Grant looked from Maddie to Lynn and continued. “And we will all live together here.” Because Lynn and Grant would have to help raise the baby Maddie was carrying, while they watched over Darin and Maddie, too.

  “With Kara, too,” Darin said.

  “Of course,” Lynn said as her daughter shoved more bread into her mouth, seemingly unaware of the changes taking place around her.

  Because Kara was the one person who really got it. She knew she was loved. That she’d be taken care of.

  And she didn’t worry about the details.

  “So, is everyone okay with the plan?” Grant asked.

  “I’m okay with it, Grant,” Darin said, and took a bite of sandwich.

  “I’m okay with it, Grant,” Maddie said right after him, carefully spooning soup into her mouth. “But I want to sleep in the same room with Darin because when we’re married we’ll sleep in the same bed. I don’t like having intercourse on the beach.”

  “That’s right,” Darin said. “We want to have sex in bed.”

  Grant looked to Lynn, not quite sure they were up for this. She was busy helping Kara to another sandwich quarter, but looked over at him and smiled.

  The whole world was changing. They were all going to be different. And everyone just sat there and ate.

  “Darin?”

  “Yes?”

  “You still want to get married, don’t you?”

  “Of course. I have to get married. Maddie and I did it on purpose.”

  “So you’re happy?”

  “I’m happy, Grant. And I have to eat because I have to go to therapy.”

  Life for Darin was what it was. And if it wasn’t what he wanted it to be, he got his girlfriend pregnant and made his world rosy.

  “I made a picture today,” Kara announced.

  Grant thought about asking to see it. And realized he still didn’t know what happened to pictures.

  “What was the picture?” Lynn asked.

  “Sand castle!” she yelled out, clasping her hands together.

  It was about the cutest thing Grant had ever seen.

  “What happens to all these pictures?” he asked.

  “They’re put in a folder and the mom gets them at open house,” Maddie said, in between bites. “But now I think you’ll get them, too, because you’re going to be Lynn’s husband, which makes you the dad at the open house.”

  He was going to be a dad. Or at the very least a stepdad and an uncle, too. He’d never even changed a diaper. Or watched someone change one.

  He had a lot to learn. But he’d get it all. Eventually.

  Lynn’s hand found his thigh under the table and moved upward. He was feeling her. She was hungry again. And not for soup and sandwiches.

  “Are you happy?” She whispered the words into his ear, sending a bolt of desire straight through him.

  “It’s not nice to tell secrets, Lynn,” Maddie said.

  Darin burped.

  And Kara giggled. “Say ’scuse me!”

  He didn’t get a chance to give Lynn his answer.

  But he had it ready for the next time she asked.

  Yes.

  He, Grant Bishop, the boy who’d lost both of his parents before he graduated from high school, and the man who was one hundred percent responsible for his handicapped brother, was happy.

  Because of her.

  He could have told her something else, too.

  He, Grant Bishop, was going to spend the rest of his life, every minute of every day, doing what he could to make her happy, too.

  Because together, they could handle anything life handed them.

  Together, they were one.

  Lynn was wiping Kara’s hands and mouth. “Ready for your nap, little one?” she asked.

  “It’s not time for her nap.” Maddie was frowning.

  Lynn glanced at Grant. And her look told him exactly what was on her mind.

  “You and Darin have to get to the day care and therapy, don’t you?” he asked, innocently enough to pass by the two of them.

  Darin glanced at his watch. “Yes,” he said. “And now that we’re having a baby and getting married, you’re going to let us walk there alone, aren’t you?”

  Darin’s look was pointed, serious.

  “Yes.” Grant’s answer was just as serious.

  He wished they’d hurry up and get out of there. He knew what Lynn had in mind for the two of them during Kara’s naptime—and while it might involve a bed, it wasn’t napping.

  “Tell everyone goodbye,” Lynn said, Kara on her hip.

  “Bye,” Kara said to the room, rubbing a hand across her eyes. And then she looked at Grant.

  “See you soon, Mister, I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Kara.” The words came out of his mouth.

  And it was then that he fully recognized the truths that endured even when a guy tried to control what couldn’t be controlled. Couldn’t be contained.

  He’d worked hard his whole life. Feeling in control. Providing everything he’d believed he needed.

  But love had been waiting there for him, and he finally had it all.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A FAMILY FOR TYLER by Angel Smits.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  WYATT HAWKINS PULLED his black 4x4 pickup into the familiar drive and killed the engine. The huge truck was well suited for the wide Texas plains of his ranch, but here in Austin, at Mom’s house with all these close-knit homes, it seemed out of place. He stayed in the cab and stared through the dirt-streaked windshield at the place he still considered home.

  But without Mom, it would never be the same.

  The faint sound of footsteps made him glance in the rearview mirror. His sister Addie headed up the walk. Her shoulder-length blond hair and flowing black skirt rippled in the breeze. She stopped at the truck door and
rapped, unnecessarily, on the window. He rolled the glass down and peered into her tired, sad face.

  “You ready for this?” he whispered, hoping she’d say no and let them all off the hook. Being Addie, she didn’t, of course.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said on a deep sigh.

  She hesitated a moment, then kept walking to the front door as if she knew by stopping she might never get started again. Wyatt climbed out of the truck and silently followed.

  She unlocked the front door and pushed the heavy wood open.

  The door didn’t smack against the wall like it had when they’d barreled through as children. Nor did the hinges squeal to remind Dad it was time to oil them.

  It simply opened to a dark, musty room. A house full of stuff but empty of people.

  Just then, a red convertible parked across the street. Both Wyatt and Addie turned to watch their younger sister Mandy climb out, her long blond hair shining in the sun. Her sky-high heels tapped across the paved street as she headed toward them.

  Right behind her, the bumper of Tara’s Jeep almost kissed the chrome of the convertible. The engine rattled a moment after she turned it off. There was no door on the side of the vehicle to slam. She simply swung her legs out and landed on sneaker-clad feet and trotted up the walk.

  The shiny gray Lexus that pulled into the drive next would normally turn heads, but they were all used to Jason’s flash. Even his black suit looked polished to a glow.

  Last, as always, DJ arrived on his monstrous motorcycle, gliding up to the curb and just barely stopping from parking on Mom’s pristine lawn. After removing his dark helmet, he cut the rough engine and silence returned to the quiet neighborhood.

  They were all here.

  No one spoke a word. Wyatt watched his brothers and sisters traipse in one by one. His family. Three of the six wore sunglasses, even as they entered the dim interior of the house.

  Oddly enough, they passed the living room, the front hall and, in a long-honed habit, settled around the kitchen table. Six chairs. Six kids. No need to pull out the spare ones in the hall closet. They hadn’t used them that often anyway, since they’d seldom all been home at the same time.