He flipped the light switch by the door and I blinked in the glare. He looked tired. And pissed off. Not much had changed. ‘What are you doing here?’
Any hope I had of a warm reception evaporated. I could freeze water in his glare. I dropped my eyes and shrugged, spinning my cell phone around on the table. ‘You disappeared. I asked around and found out you were living here.’
He took two long steps and slammed his hand down on my phone to stop it spinning. ‘First of all, you are the one who disappeared. Second of all, you could’ve just come by the bar instead of breaking into my house.’
‘I came back in two weeks. You were gone,’ I said, daring to meet his stony face again. ‘No note, no forwarding address, not even money to cover the rent. Just gone. I waited, but you didn’t come back.’
‘You left first,’ he said.
‘You left for ever!’
He sighed heavily. ‘I moved one town over to be closer to work and put some miles between us.’
‘I came back,’ I said again, sounding as miserable and lost as I felt. ‘I was afraid to show my face at Kayla’s, I didn’t know what you’d told her and the rest of the guys. You changed your phone number so I couldn’t even call you. What else was I supposed to do?’
‘Get on with your life like you obviously wanted to do when you decided to leave me.’
Dammit, I was crying already. I scrubbed at my eyes, determined I wasn’t going to let him get to me, but I knew it was already too late. He’d gotten to me the minute I’d fallen for that crooked smile of his almost seven years ago.
He sat down in the chair opposite me, crossed his arms and dropped his head down to the table. When I finally dared to look at him, the anger was gone. He looked as weary as I felt.
‘Why’d you leave? Where’d you go?’ he asked quietly.
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yeah, Becca, it matters. You might’ve left a note, but it wasn’t much comfort to read, “I need to think about things.” You didn’t answer your phone, you didn’t respond to texts. After a week I was freaking out, thinking you were dead by the side of the road, so I called the coffee shop. They said you were taking a leave of absence, but no one could tell me how long that might be. After two weeks, I figured you weren’t coming back.’ His voice had started as a whisper and finished on a growl. ‘You broke my fucking heart.’
‘I came back,’ I said. ‘I was gone sixteen fucking days, Quentin. I left most of my clothes, all of my furniture and everything else. You had to know I was coming back.’
‘Maybe I did. Was I supposed to wait around and see how long it took? Or see if you only came back to pack your stuff and go for good? Or hear about how you found someone else who was better for you?’
And there it was. His masculine pride. I might have broken his heart, but first I had hurt his pride.
‘So you packed up your stuff and left for good before I could do it to you,’ I said. I resumed spinning my cell phone on the table and he didn’t stop me this time. ‘How do you think that felt, coming home to a half-empty closet and your phone number disconnected?’
I could hear the bitterness in my voice, but seeing his face close up drove it home that two months had passed and we were still two very broken people. What the hell was I doing here?
‘Probably the same way I felt. Shitty, I’m guessing.’
I deserved it. I knew I did. But it still stung. ‘I’m sorry, Quentin.’
He spread his hands out in an expansive gesture. ‘For what? For leaving? For not coming back until I’d given up? For not talking to me?’
‘For all of it. I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘Where did you go?’ he asked again.
‘I went to Florida to see my sister.’
‘Why?’
I hesitated. I knew I had to tell him. I had come here for that very reason. He had a right to know, after all.
‘I’m pregnant.’
Whatever he’d expected, it hadn’t been that. I could practically see the wheels turning in his brain and then grinding to a halt. He blinked at me. I stared back, giving him time to process it. He ran a hand over his jaw, scratching at the stubble there. He was impossible to read. I didn’t realise I had been holding my breath until he finally spoke.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Quiet, no anger. No happiness, either. I felt something inside me collapse in on itself, my hope snuffed out. ‘You’ve been saying since the day we met that you didn’t want kids. I didn’t want any either. I was careful – we were careful – but accidents happen.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, they do. And then the two people involved talk about it and decide together how to handle it.’
I shook my head. ‘Why? What was the point?’
Something fluttered behind his eyes. ‘The point is I love you,’ he said softly. ‘The point is you shouldn’t have had to deal with this alone.’
‘I needed to figure out what I wanted to do. I never planned on having kids, much less being a single mother.’
The tears started again. You’d think I wouldn’t have any left at this point, given how many I had shed in the past two months. I brushed them away, the cuffs of my shirt already damp. Quentin got up and left the room. He came back with a wad of tissues and handed them to me without a word. He returned to his chair, watching me with that steady look of his.
I did my best to clean myself up, but I knew I looked like a mess. ‘I’m sorry. I really am. I should’ve found some other way to tell you. Or not tell you at all, maybe. But I thought you had a right to know and I couldn’t show up at Kayla’s and have everyone watching while I broke down –’
‘What did you decide?’ He interrupted my near-hysterical ramble. ‘What do you want to do?’
My laugh sounded maniacal even to my own ears. ‘I’m going to have a baby, Quentin. I’m going to be someone’s mother.’
‘Then I’m going to be someone’s father. We are going to be parents.’
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact. Quentin had a way of saying things that gave them weight and meaning. I knew I was pregnant, had seen the positive signs and smiley faces and the word ‘Pregnant’ on three different brands of home pregnancy tests. I had even seen the flutter of a heartbeat on an ultrasound monitor at the gynaecologist’s office. But until Quentin said it, it hadn’t seemed real. Now the truth of it hit me square in the chest and I gasped as if the wind had been knocked out of me. The tears started fresh, accompanied by great wailing sobs.
I held my face in my hands, as if I could contain the waterworks with the press of my palms, and heard rather than saw Quentin slide out of his chair. I felt his hands on my shoulders, squeezing, kneading, working out the tension that was knotted so tight even as I kept crying. He didn’t say anything. That was Quentin’s way. A bartender to the core, letting people work through their problems without interfering. It was a good thing – except when it wasn’t. Like now. I needed to know what was going on in his mind, and in his heart.
I covered his hands with mine. I hadn’t seen him in two months, hadn’t touched him. It felt good. But I needed to talk. No, I needed to listen.
‘How do you feel about this?’
He threaded his fingers through mine, still standing behind me so that I couldn’t see his expression. ‘How do you feel about it?’
I squeezed his hands. ‘Don’t twist it around, Quentin. I need to know what you’re thinking.’
‘I’m thinking I’ve missed you,’ he said in that low growl I knew so well. I felt the knot of tension in my belly tighten, but in a different way. A familiar way. A way I longed for.
‘I’ve missed you too.’
His kneading fingers turned softer, as if his longing could reach through skin and bone and touch the part of me that longed for him too. I sat there, waiting. Waiting. Two months. Waiting. Not knowing what he’d say or do or how he’d feel, but showing up here anyway, waiting.
I was tired of waiting.
>
He pulled me out of the chair, his big arms around me even as my legs gave out from sitting in the same place for so long. He scooped me up like I was no heavier than a tray of glasses at the bar. I was still catching my breath at the suddenness of it when he strode down the narrow hall and into his bedroom. I must have made a sound because he paused at the bed and looked down at me.
‘We’re still together, right? You didn’t leave me, you just went away to get your head straight?’
I nodded. ‘But you left me.’
‘Like hell I did,’ he snarled, and it would’ve sounded mean if not for the smile that transformed his expression into one of joy. Weary joy.
He deposited me on the bed carefully, as if I were the most fragile piece of bar glass he’d ever handled. Then he set to undressing me. Slowly.
He unbuttoned my long-sleeved shirt, his big hands making easy work of the small buttons. He kissed the beauty mark on my neck as he leaned in to strip the shirt down my shoulders. Then he went to my waist, hesitating at the stretchy waistband of my newly purchased maternity pants. I was afraid he was taken aback by the swell of my belly – still small at fourteen weeks, but a lot bigger than it had been when we’d last been together. He put my concerns to rest with his words.
‘Talk about easy access. I think I like your new wardrobe.’
I laughed as he stripped my pants down in one smooth move only to tumble me back on the bed when they wouldn’t come free of the boots I still wore. He unlaced my boots and took them off along with my socks and then finished the job with my pants. I lay there watching him in just my plain beige bra and panties that curved under the swell of my belly.
He sat down next to me, his hip touching mine. He stared at me long enough to make me blush. He brushed his hand along my shoulder, pushing my hair up and back so that I was exposed to his steady gaze.
‘I guess I should ask if you want this. Are ready for it,’ he said. ‘I mean, I don’t know how you’re feeling or what you need. I don’t know about this stuff. You’ll have to teach me.’
‘I need you,’ I said. And it was true.
‘Good.’
He took his time removing my bra, reaching under me to release the clasp, then sliding the cotton cups over my breasts. He stared at me, a smile tipping the corners of his mouth as he ran his hands over my breasts, fuller now and with darker nipples than when he last saw them. He circled each nipple slowly with just the pads of his thumbs. They pebbled under his gentle touch, aching for more. Aching for him. I squirmed on the bed, pressing my thighs together.
He tucked his fingers in the sides of my panties and slipped them down over my hips. I knew they were already damp, I could feel the moisture growing at the juncture of my thighs. He’d hardly done more than undress me and I was already wet for him. Not much had changed in two months, pregnant or not.
I was completely naked under his scrutinising gaze, feeling alternately shy and wanton, while he was still fully clothed. I let him look his fill. My body was rounder and lusher now and I waited to see what he would say.
His words, when he finally spoke, sounded faint and rough. ‘You are so beautiful.’
The tears came again and rolled down my cheeks.
‘What’s wrong, baby?’ he asked, gathering me up in his arms. ‘What?
I couldn’t explain it all to him. The weeks of wondering how I was going to do this, alone or with him. The fear of his rejection, of me and the baby I was having. The rollercoaster ride of pregnancy hormones combined with self-doubts and insecurities over everything from my new body to how I was going to support a baby on a barista’s salary.
I shook my head, tucked my face into the curve of his shoulder and inhaled his unique scent. His T-shirt smelled like beer, but under that was the scent I’d missed. I had taken his Virginia Tech sweatshirt with me to Florida, as a promise to myself that I’d be back. Every night I’d curled up with that shirt and cried, wishing I could just call him and have him make everything be OK. After two months, his scent had faded – a faint memory of the real thing. Here, now, in Quentin’s bed, I was reminded of everything I loved about him.
‘I was an idiot for leaving,’ I said between sniffles. ‘I should’ve just told you. But we’d never even talked about having kids and neither of us really wanted them anyway and our schedules are so crazy and we already hardly see each other and –’
He laughed, a deep rumbling laugh I could feel as well as hear. ‘Is this some kind of pregnancy thing, all this crying and babbling?’
I hiccupped and swallowed and nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘It’s cute. I like it. I love you.’
‘Are you going to get naked?’ I blurted, grabbing his T-shirt in my fist and tugging. ‘This is kind of embarrassing.’
‘Why? You’re gorgeous and pregnant. I’m a grubby bartender who just pulled a twelve-hour shift and smells like it.’
‘You smell like home,’ I whispered into the curve of his shoulder, feeling suddenly exhausted. It was as much emotional as physical, I knew.
‘Aw, baby, you’re about to fall asleep on me,’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘No, I’m not. I want you.’ I attempted to wriggle seductively against him, feeling the press of his erection against my naked ass. ‘And you want me.’
‘Very much,’ he said. ‘But maybe we should just sleep and talk more in the morning. Or later, since it’s after four already.’
‘Quentin, if you don’t fuck me right now I’m going back to Florida.’ He wasn’t the only one who could growl, I decided.
He laughed again. ‘Oh, so it’s going to be like that, huh?’ He jerked his hips, pressing his cock against me. ‘You want me?’
‘I do,’ I said, scooting out of his lap and reaching for his belt. ‘Now.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
He let me unfasten his belt and the button on his jeans before he stood up and stripped off his clothes. T-shirt, sneakers, socks, jeans, boxer briefs, all in a pile on the floor before I could even catch my breath. He had lied, though. He wasn’t a grubby bartender, he was beautiful. His body was well-muscled, from years of hauling cases of bottles back and forth from the basement of the bar, and lean, because he liked to go for a run when he got off work, to wind down so he could sleep.
I reached for him, wanting to feel the warm press of his body against mine. He eased down on the bed, keeping his weight off me. I grunted a protest, pulling him closer.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he whispered, arching up over me.
‘You’re not going to hurt me. I promise.’
He searched my face, his brown eyes serious and maybe a little scared. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes! Please, Quentin,’ I said, my need raw and immediate. The surge of pregnancy hormones intensified everything, I was discovering.
He didn’t argue with me again. He lowered himself on top of me, his cock pressed firmly against my rounded stomach. I reached between us, stroking him, feeling the weight of them there, too. He dropped his head to my shoulder, trailing kisses along the curve of my neck, down my throat and to my breasts. I trembled as his mouth encircled first one nipple, then the other, leaving them wet and tingly.
‘Do they … hurt?’ he asked. ‘They’re bigger, darker.’
‘More sensitive,’ I gasped, as he flicked his tongue along one swollen ridge. ‘I don’t know how much of that I can take.’
‘I guess we’ll have to figure it out,’ he murmured, rubbing his stubbled face between my breasts. ‘I want you to tell me if it’s too much.’
I nodded, unable to speak. My skin felt sunburned, my sensitivity heightened. I fisted my hands in his hair, thinking I would pull him away in a moment because I couldn’t take any more, only to hug him to me when he moved to slide lower.
‘Let me go,’ he whispered. ‘I need to see how sensitive you are … everywhere.’
I whimpered as he slid down the bed to the V of my legs, where his mouth hovered above my pussy. I resisted the urge
to pull his face into me, knowing he would make me feel good when he was ready.
He inhaled deeply and I squirmed in embarrassment at his appreciative moan. I couldn’t keep my fingers out of his hair – the only part of him I could reach now – tousling the brown locks as he gently parted me with his fingers. My body trembled with anticipation, waiting for that first touch of his tongue.
When I didn’t think I could stand it any longer and would be reduced to begging, he put me out of my misery with one long stroke of his tongue between my lips and over my clit. It was so startling, I felt like I’d gotten a dose of static shock. I shrieked, nearly coming up off the bed.
He chuckled and raised his head from between my thighs to look at me. ‘My neighbours get up early, so you might want to keep it down if you don’t want them knocking on the door wondering if I’m killing you.’
I gasped as he tongued me again. ‘I’ll try, but you’re not making it easy.’
‘I don’t want it to be easy,’ he mumbled, his mouth full of my wetness. ‘I want it to be hard. Very, very hard.’
‘Oh, God,’ I groaned, probably loud enough for his early neighbours to hear.
After that, I was reduced to incoherent whimpers and moans as he devoured me with his mouth. Pregnancy had brought on a new sensitivity there, too, and I revelled in every exquisite sensation of his mouth and tongue and teeth and beard stubble. It was all too much – and still not enough.
My body quivered on the edge of release, Quentin’s mouth working my swollen pussy to a sopping wet frenzy as he lapped at me and suckled my engorged clit. I dug my nails into my thighs, spreading myself for him, urging him onward with every lift of my hips. I was right there, so close I could taste it on my tongue. But I needed more.
‘I need you inside me,’ I gasped, clutching at his hair as desperately as I had clutched my own flesh. ‘I need to feel you.’
A few years of sharing a bed with me meant that he didn’t question my need. One minute his mouth was on my pussy and the next he was surging up over me, pressing the head of his cock between my swollen, sensitive lips.
Seduce Me Tonight (Mischief Books) Page 9
