Love Undercover_A Romance Compilation

by Amy Brent

  Then came the ultrasound. To say I was unprepared to see the tiny embryo that was my child was an understatement. We could see it moving! It looked like some sort of humanoid lima bean, and yet, impossibly, it was mine. My child.

  I cast an adoring look at Kathryn. Her face softened as she met my gaze. Our child.

  “Want to rest your hand on the belly?” the doctor offered with a grin.

  My questioning glance at Kathryn drew a reluctant nod. So, I crept forward and carefully placed my hand on her bulging belly. Maybe I was imaging things, but it felt like I could actually feel the life in her.

  Kathryn’s teary gaze met mine, although I was the one who said what we were both thinking: “Wow.”

  Her gaze enraptured in the flickering black and white image on the screen, Kathryn repeated the word softly. “Wow.”

  Once we were all set to go, the doctor gave me a final supportive clap on the shoulder.

  “You and your girlfriend are going to be just fine. You have a healthy baby on the way.”

  The smile on my face cracked and fell to the floor. Nodding furiously, I glanced nervously at Kathryn, whose face had gone slack and expressionless already.

  Slinging my arm around her, I said, “Thanks.”

  Outside, Kathryn looked a bit more appeased.

  “You don’t have to pretend things are okay for other people,” she said stiffly.

  “I’m not,” I replied, “I’m pretending things are okay because I want them to be. I’m serious about this, Kathryn, about us.”

  She nodded, although it was clear she didn’t believe me. She clearly wanted me to drop the subject, which was understandable since we were walking through a busy hospital.

  At the main doors, Kathryn took a wrong step, tripped, and slumped against the doorframe.

  “You okay?” I asked, supporting her.

  She fluttered her eyes my way and gave a weak cough that ended in a sort of gasp.

  “Not really.”

  Her face looked white, and her lips were paler than I’d ever seen them. Still supporting her, I asked, “Have you eaten?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay, that’s what we’re doing first,” I announced, slinging my arm around her and supporting her as I walked her to my car. She didn’t put up much of protest, maybe because she was too weak to do so.

  In the car, however, she did make one request.

  “Let’s not go to a restaurant, okay? I don’t want to pass out in public.”

  “Got it,” I said, pressing my foot a little harder on the gas pedal.

  She looked like she was ready to pass out, which meant we had to get to my house right away.

  Soon, while she slouched at the kitchen table, I spoonfed her some leftover bourbon chicken my cook had made last night.

  After she had eaten a little, she asked with a weary half-smile, “Where is this mysterious cook of yours anyway?”

  I chuckled.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I should totally invite Sandy over to come make soup and watch as we fuck each other on the kitchen counter next time.”

  Kathryn’s dismayed gaze shot to me.

  “You jerk,” she muttered.

  I gave her a kiss on the cheek with a saucy wink.

  “You like it.”

  She winced as if I’d caused her physical pain.

  “Sorry,” I said quickly. “You’re supposed to be here to get better, not hassled. Though if you want to talk—”

  “Don’t you have work?” she asked hurriedly, still not looking at me.

  I didn’t respond, my gaze eying the sink, where I still had dishes to wash. What was I supposed to say now? I didn’t want to leave, but clearly, Kathryn didn’t want to talk either, so I didn’t want to push it.

  The timer on my phone went off, and Kathryn took the interruption as a cue to stand up.

  “I should be going anyway. I’m feeling a lot better. Thanks for the food.”

  It was clear she wasn’t bluffing. The color had returned to her cheeks, and she no longer looked like she was two seconds from hitting the ground. Still, I lingered.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded, heading to the door already.

  “Kathryn, wait,” I said before she was quite through the doorway.

  “What?” she asked in a pained tone.

  I looked at her full lips, outstretched although they didn’t seem to be, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

  Throwing my lips over hers, I let out all my frustration, my feelings, and the pent-up passion I’d felt upon just seeing her.

  Her lips responded to mine just as passionately.

  Her body sagged into mine as if her weariness were egging her on, not counselling her against this. I didn’t care. All I knew was that in this moment, I needed to feel her. I needed to remember the way our bodies fit together so perfectly.

  God, did this feel good!

  Underneath her troublesome clothes, her flesh seemed softer, less firm in a way. I loved it. I pulled her back into the room with me. Throwing her onto the couch, I climbed on top, pinning her down.

  I let my lips run over her like it was the last time, because who knew? Maybe it was. Maybe Kathryn was getting fed up with all this, with me. But none of that mattered now. All that mattered was that my body was trying to say what my lips hadn’t yet found a way to.

  She tasted like peach, or some new body lotion, maybe. While I feasted on her neck, she groaned.

  Then, suddenly, she said, “Eric?”

  Chapter 35

  Kathryn

  “Yes?” Eric said, a slight note of panic audible in his voice.

  I lifted myself up to his ear and kissed my words into it.

  “Do it. Take me here.”

  What happened next was highly charged. It was as if I’d finally cut through the elastic band that had been subtly separating us. Dismantling my pants and flinging them over his head, Eric grabbed me like I was a doll. He slipped around me and clambered on top of me.

  As his dick burrowed between my ass cheeks, he let out a long sigh.

  “Ohhh fuck, yes.”

  I was groaning too, although I couldn’t help but remember how determinedly upset I’d been with Eric these past few days. A trickle of shame went through me. Dammit, should I really have been doing this?

  The answer was wiped out of my mind when Eric started nosing his dick into my pussy from behind. Oh no. Oh yes. Right now, this was all there was.

  How was it that even this first tentative half-entrance had my legs trembling in anticipation? And they were actually trembling!

  He gave my ass a big slap, and then it was my whole body that tremored. He pierced into me with a smoothness that was electrifying. In a bit further now—

  A moan escaped me. I hadn’t realized until this instant just how much I’d needed this. My body felt groggy, yet invigorated, tired, yet wide awake. And still, with all that, all this mishmash of feelings, the one thing I needed the most was for the desire burning between my legs to be sated.

  As he angled himself into me even deeper, my whole body smarted with joy.

  Oh fuck, was this good. Fucking as good as fuck.

  Out of the blue, Eric’s hand jumped up and slapped me on the cheek as he shoved himself in all the way. The shock throttled a cry out of me.

  As pleasure took over and all thought was choked out of existence, moans and groans became the new soundtrack of silence. Eric ploughed into and out of me, swiftly and easily, as if he’d always been a part of me. In and out, round and round.

  A slap here. A spank there. A whack of his dick against my ass. A hand around my throat. Kisses along the line he was fucking, only further up. Yes, yes, yes.

  He was filling me relentlessly, saving me and throwing me back into despair at the same time. I didn’t just need his dick; I craved it. And so, as he fucked me, my pussy fucked him back, clasping in time to every one of his merciless insertions. In and in, and in and deeper st
ill.

  I craned my neck around to kiss his hands on my neck. Instead, he pressed my face into the couch as he drilled me without pity. By now, the whole couch was trembling with our exuberant mashing. The leather was easier sliding for us. Yes.

  When he spanked me, my body crumpled. No more tension. Oh yes. Instead, complete and utter pleasure took over.

  It blinded me, flailed me, left me, and came back. It threw me up and down and around, and someone was now screaming, but it couldn’t have been me.

  Eric was slumped on me, and I realized I hadn’t even noticed him come.

  He nuzzled his head against mine, and tenderness enveloped my heart.

  “You are so beautiful,” he murmured, as if I couldn’t hear.

  I giggled just as his phone rang.

  “Shit,” he muttered, hastily turning it off.

  But the moment was lost. Even if Eric didn’t want to face the outside world, I had to. This was real life, not some fantasy, all-day sex-a-thon.

  Standing up, I told him, “I should go anyway.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said.

  “I know,” I said, “but I want to. I should probably talk to my parents about this. I feel really bad that it’s been so long and I still haven’t told them. I guess I kept hoping I’d come up with a way to do it.”

  Eric’s face betrayed some surprise. He opened his mouth, thought better of whatever he was about to say, and then closed it.

  “Have you come up with a way?” he asked.

  I shook my head sadly.

  “I’m not sure I ever will.”

  For some reason, my answer seemed to sadden him further.

  “So. I do have to go,” I said, making my way to the door more determinedly now.

  “Of course. I understand,” he said in a voice that sounded like it just might.

  I gave him a kiss on the cheek. I momentarily considered making plans with him, but I thought better of it. If Eric really wanted to see me as much as he claimed, he’d make time for it.

  However, he couldn’t be put off from driving me back home. The whole way, whenever we got to a traffic light, I could feel his gaze on me, probing me, willing me to start the conversation it was his job to begin, pleading with me to do what it was his place to do.

  It made me so mad, I could have almost told him off right there. If I hadn’t felt so weary that was, and if, even amid the growing hurricane of rage thrashing in me, there wasn’t the slightest breeze of pity, too.

  We parted with a quick kiss on the cheek, like friends or old lovers or something in between.

  Back in the apartment, Sadie was thankfully out, probably on one of her feel-better shopping sprees.

  And so, sitting cross-legged on my bed, the same way I used to do at camp when we’d sing songs around the fire, I called my mom.

  “Kathryn,” she said, her voice clearly delighted. “I’m surprised. I wasn’t expecting your call.”

  I nodded. My gaze went to the photo of the four of us on my desk. It was the one before everything had fallen apart between me and my sister, the one where we were all still living at home and a happy-go-lucky family. And now? I’d been pregnant for almost seven weeks and still hadn’t told my mom about it. Not to mention the whole Eric’s mistress thing. How was I ever going to tell her?

  “So, this new case of yours,” she said.

  I sighed. Maybe she knew already. Maybe a part of her knew anyway. I mean, my parents must have suspected there was a reason I hadn’t been returning their calls other than to leave them a quick apologetic message that I was horribly busy but would get back to them soon.

  As I sat there, my gaze tumbled to the stuffed hippo in the corner of my room. Mr. Wuggles. I’d avoided looking at his faded purple patchwork body for weeks now, knowing what would happen if I did.

  Memories came flooding back. Mom, Mr. Wuggles, and I on a picnic at Stratford, feeding the evil swans carefully, just the three of us. Mom, sewing up Mr. Wuggles when I’d accidentally ripped his arm. Mom, Dad, Sarah, and I in this little cabin we stayed in for a week in Arizona, tossing Mr. Wuggles back and forth while he grinned benignly the whole while.

  Yes, now that I’d seen his cute button-eyed face, there would be no more lying or keeping things from my mom.

  “I’m really sorry,” I burst out, “for not calling sooner or even responding to your messages. I have been busy. That much is true. But really, I didn’t want to tell you how far I’d gone for this latest fraud case. It was a big one.”

  I drew in a deep breath, my eyes fixed determinedly on the smiling, kind-faced woman in the picture. She would believe me, accept me, and still love me. She’d have to.

  But when my sad gaze dipped to Mr. Wuggles, I really wondered if my mom would even be able to recognize the deceitful woman I’d become as her daughter anymore.

  “So, Mom,” I said, my voice wavering, “the thing is, for this last case, I had to be in a relationship with a billionaire to investigate him. The department had received anonymous tips that he was embezzling money from his company, and our preliminary searches kept turning up zilch. We got an opportunity when we discovered he had posted an ad online looking for a mistress, so I responded and was sent in undercover to work for him and investigate him at the same time. Over the course of this relationship, we fell for each other. Now, I don’t know if things are going to work out—oh, and it turned out he was innocent anyway. I’ve told him the truth.”

  Silence. I almost expected to hear my mom scribbling things down intensely. It was a mouthful just to say it all, and I wondered what it was like to be on the other end of the line, hearing the tangled story unwind.

  I was about to launch into a tearful explanation of why it had been necessary and how foolish I knew I’d been when her tentative “yes?” came over the line.

  Tears were splattering down my face, hopping off my chin and onto my lap. My eyes closed. My mom’s voice had sounded almost hopeful, aware there was more to tell.

  “Mom,” I said, the tears finally dribbling onto the phone now, “I’m pregnant.”

  “Oh.”

  It was the sound of being punched, a forced-out sound, an unwilling sound. It was a desolate sound. Yet had it been completely desolate?

  That was the thing about phones. As preferable as they were to texting, you often still couldn’t quite tell just what the person on the other line was thinking or how they were reacting. Was my mom now thinking of disowning me? Or leaping up for joy?

  “And what have you decided to do with the baby?” she asked even more tentatively this time.

  “Keep it,” I said simply.

  I swiveled around to smile at my reflection in my dresser. Had I said that? And yet, as soon as the words had come out of my mouth, I’d known. Really, I’d known all this time. I was keeping it, whether Eric wanted to be involved or not. I was keeping it for it, for me.

  “Oh.”

  That sounded definitely relieved, maybe even a bit happy.

  “And the father, this billionaire?”

  “I’m not certain what’s going on with him,” I admitted. “He says he wants to be in the baby’s life. Things have been complicated between us, as you can probably imagine. I know I care for him deeply, and I think he does for me too, but—”

  But what?” she asked.

  I tore my gaze away from my now accusatory reflection. How was I supposed to explain to my mom that the man who claimed he had so many feelings for me had proven himself incapable of saying I love you back to me? More than that, how could I explain that every time we were supposed to be talking about our deep, passionate feelings, we ended up acting them out with our bodies instead?

  Finally, I settled on just smoothing it over. “We haven’t really talked things through yet, but we are going to sit down soon. And, of course, if things work out, I want you to meet him.”

  “Of course,” she said with a little laugh. “And I want to be there for you and the baby. Your father and I are way overdue
a visit. Even your sister.”

  I gulped. Luckily, my mom wasn’t in the room so she couldn’t see how uncomfortable her mere suggestion had made me.

  “Don’t go pressuring Sarah,” I said quickly. “Although you’re all more than welcome to come, of course.”

  “Ah, I’m so excited!” she cried with a little laugh again. “I’m going to be a grandmother!”

  “And I’m going to be a mother,” I said softly, as if reminding myself.

  The rest of my conversation with her was markedly easier. We talked about more mundane stuff, like the new spaghetti recipe she’d found amid my grandma’s old papers in some box in the basement and the old wooden shed in the backyard that Dad was fixing up. We finally ended the call with warm goodbyes.

  Although my mind was calmer when I hung up, it immediately started up on the issue that talking to my mom had raised.

  At the hospital, Eric had claimed intensely that he wanted to talk things over. And yet, the first chance we got, we basically threw our bodies all over each other instead. Had he even been serious when he’d said we needed to talk things over, or had he just been wanting to get into my pants?

  Yet, the tender way he’d acted in my presence and even at the doctor’s office today—that couldn’t be faked, could it?

  With one last glare tossed at Mr. Wuggles, I jumped up and stormed to the kitchen to grab myself a tub ice cream to eat in the bathtub. Right now, I was sick and tired of feelings.

  Chapter 36

  Eric

  “Don’t be mad, but I told my parents we could go to lunch with them in an hour.”

  There was a dangerous pause as Kathryn processed my words.

  “You did what?!” she exclaimed.

  I sighed.

  “I did say not to be mad.”

  “Screw you,” she snapped back. “It’s your fault for setting up plans involving me without even informing me first. What if I had lunch plans already?”