Elise shivered, and Jared slid onto her chair, pulling her onto his lap and wrapping her in his arms. She closed her eyes and soaked in the comforting strength and reassurance of his embrace, trying to absorb the magnitude of what was happening to her, what she’d unwittingly become a part of.
The beep of the IM drew her attention back to the screen.
I have to go now. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have something to report. Stay safe and lie low. Okay?
Elise panicked. MysteryMom was her only link to Grace, and she was desperate for even the smallest piece of information about her.
Elise typed, Wait!
Yes?
Have you learned anything about Grace? Was she sold? Where she was sent? Who has her?
I don’t know anything definite yet. We’re getting close, but you must trust us.
Elise’s stomach rolled. She wanted to tell MysteryMom how difficult it was for her to trust anyone. She’d already been betrayed by the people she should have been able to trust the most—her father, her lover, her doctor.
The icon beside MysteryMom’s avatar disappeared, letting her know her secret advocate had logged off.
She continued to sit on Jared’s lap, still and silent, absorbing everything she’d learned, everything that had happened. Having Jared’s arms around her, his broad shoulder under her cheek, gave her a sense of security and stability when everything else in her life was shifting and shattering. He rubbed a warm hand up and down her back, comforting her the way she’d seen him calm Isabel. Tender. Loving.
“So what do you think?” she said finally.
He filled his lungs with a deep breath before answering. “I think you are lucky to be alive and… I’d like to keep you that way. I’ll fix up the guest room for you.”
“I mean, what do you think about there being a black market for selling babies? That’s just so…mercenary and depraved.” She gave an involuntary shudder, and he hugged her tighter, kissed her hair.
“Hence the term black market.”
She hummed her agreement distractedly.
“As horrible as it is, there will always be those who prey on vulnerable people to make a buck. These black marketeers know that couples who can’t have children of their own sometimes get impatient or desperate. Maybe they’ve been turned down for adoption, or get frustrated with the red tape. When we decided to adopt, we met couples that were to the point they’d have paid any price and broken any law if they thought it would get them the child they wanted.”
“Even if they knew the child they were buying had been stolen from her mother?”
He massaged her neck, working the tense muscles. “It’s been a long, stressful day for both of us, and a warm bed is sounding pretty good about now.”
She nodded stiffly, knowing that despite the weary ache in her limbs and her recent lack of sleep, she’d likely lie awake most of the night rehashing the day’s events.
When she made no move to get up, Jared handed her the nursery monitor. When she gave him a puzzled look, he slid an arm behind her knees and another across her back, then lifted her as he stood. Cradling her in his arms, he headed to the hallway where he stopped.
She curled her fingers in the fabric of his shirt. “Where are we going?”
“That’s up to you.” He met her gaze, awaiting a response, but she could see from his expression that he was asking more than just which room to carry her to. Her answer spoke for what she wanted from their relationship. Did she trust him enough to become his lover? Did she still need time and emotional distance to sort out her feelings for him? Was friendship all she could ever give him?
She stroked a hand along the evening’s growth of stubble on his chin and murmured, “Your room.”
Her answer obviously pleased him, but his grin wasn’t cocky or smug. Just…happy. And when she considered it, her decision brought her contentment and joy, as well. She’d already trusted Jared with her darkest fears, her deepest pain, her most private anguish. Sharing a physical intimacy with him felt ordained, predestined.
Jared laid her on his bed, pausing only long enough to remove his shoes and belt before he stretched out beside her and propped his cheek on a bent arm. “Unfortunately, I’m…not prepared for this.”
“Not prepared? I take it you were never a Boy Scout?”
“Actually I was for a few years, but…the thing is, I haven’t been with anyone since Kelly died, and we never needed contraception because she couldn’t conceive.”
“I see. So no condoms in the house?”
He pulled a face. “Sorry. If you’ll watch Izzy, I can run out and get—”
“Wait.” Elise looped an arm around his neck as he rose and chuckled. “You didn’t ask me if I was on the pill.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Are you on the pill?”
“No.”
He frowned.
“But I use something even better.” She pushed the waist of the borrowed sweatpants low on her hip to reveal her birth-control patch.
His gaze heated, and he traced the patch, then lower with his finger. “Nice.”
He bent his head to kiss the skin she’d exposed to him, and Elise threaded her fingers through his hair. The scratch of his beard so low on her hip sent shockwaves through her.
“I like a woman who plans ahead.” He moved his kiss to her navel and nuzzled her belly.
“Not that I’ve had any real use for it recently, but it helps ease my cramps each month.” She winced and bit her lip. “Uh-oh, TMI?”
He raised an amused grin. “Don’t worry about it. After all the diapers I’ve changed and baby spit I’ve cleaned up, nothing really shocks me anymore.” He stretched up to give her a quick kiss on the mouth before hooking his fingers in her sweatpants and dragging them down slowly. He blazed a path with his mouth, an inch at a time, as he exposed more of her flesh.
Elise grabbed handfuls of the bedspread as he coaxed the sweats down her thighs and nibbled his way toward her knees. When he finally worked the pants down her calves and off her feet, already bare from her shower, he massaged her toes and her instep with deep rubs of his thumbs.
A moan escaped her throat, and she closed her eyes to savor the exquisite pampering. She’d never known her feet could be an erogenous zone, but as his ministrations continued, her body grew relaxed, and her skin sensitized from head to toe. Every touch as he worked his way back up her legs, caressing and tasting, sent shimmering tingles of anticipation to her core.
Most of her life, she’d fought stubbornly for control, to protect her heart and maintain her independence. After her father had abandoned her and her brother to a foster home, she’d been determined not to give anyone the power to hurt her so deeply again. Yet surrendering her body to Jared felt as natural as breathing. She didn’t question why she instinctively trusted him, why his touch felt so…right.
But indulging the desire that had been growing between them didn’t mean she would lose her head—or her heart—to him. Mind-numbing sex at the end of a hellish day was her right. She refused to believe her comfort level with Jared meant anything more than mutual respect.
As his kiss grazed the juncture of her thighs, she sucked in a rough gasp, and all rationalizations fled her brain in a wave of heady lethargy.
He freed one button at a time on the flannel shirt he’d lent her, parting the soft fabric and feathering his tongue over the skin he revealed. A thrum of desire and need coiled inside her as his slow seduction continued. He undressed her at a leisurely pace and treated every part of her to a tender caress and warm kisses. When she was naked, his gaze traveled over her with every bit as much heat and possessiveness as his fingers.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, scooting across the mattress to align his body with hers.
“And you’re wearing too many clothes,” she replied, hooking her legs around his thighs and cupping his buttocks with her hands.
“Hmm,” he hummed capturing her lips for a deep, sexy kiss. “What should w
e do about that?” He used his thumb to trace her collarbone, then slid lower to circle her breast. Her nipples peaked, anticipating his touch.
Eager to feel his skin against hers, she fisted his shirt in her hands and dragged it over his head. He tossed the T-shirt aside, and Elise pressed her body closer. The pleasure of her breasts grazing the coarse sprinkling of hair on his chest electrified her already-crackling synapses. Her hands explored his back, savoring the contrast of supple skin over taut muscle.
Insinuating her hand between them, she began fumbling with the fly of his jeans. After a moment, Jared rolled beside her and finished the task, whisking his jeans and briefs off in one efficient motion.
When he moved back toward her, she planted a hand on his chest to stop him. Leaning up, propped on one arm, she drank in the sight of his lean torso and masculine physique. “You’re rather beautiful yourself.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Beautiful?”
She flashed him a saucy grin and trailed a fingernail up his thigh to his belly. “In the most he-manly way, of course.”
“I th—”
Whatever he’d intended to say was lost in a hiss of pleasure, as she wrapped her hand around his heat and stroked the length of him. With a playful growl, he rolled on top of her and seized her mouth with a scorching kiss. He tangled his tongue with hers and settled in the V of her legs.
Elise raised her hips, increasing the friction of his body against hers. The clambering need inside her flashed hotter. She hadn’t been with a man in years, but nothing in her experience equaled the powerful sensations that coursed through her, building, hovering just beyond reach.
Jared moved his attention to her breasts, drawing each taut peak into his mouth in turn. With one hand, he reached between them to caress her intimately, sliding a finger inside her. She gasped and thrust her hips off the mattress, ready to fly apart at any moment. “Jared!”
He needed no further coaxing. With a bold, sure stroke, he buried himself inside her, filling her and sending her into a dizzying maelstrom of sensation.
He gave a ragged groan and tightened his hold on her as she shuddered and pulsed around him. She clung to him, a knot of emotion clogging her throat, stealing her breath. Elise squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed hard, determined to shove down the ache that reached into her heart, refusing to attach any foolish romantic notions to their intimacies. Jared had made her no promises, and she had no right to expect any commitments from him. Tonight was about savoring the moment. About escaping reality for a few precious minutes. About sex.
When her body quieted, he began a sensual withdrawal, followed by a deep return glide. Just when she thought she’d pinnacled, he showed her a greater pleasure, a higher plane of ecstasy. His rhythmic lovemaking carried her higher, until they soared together to an earthshaking climax.
He held her close, his breath warm against her neck in the aftermath of their passion. Their bodies cooled, and he pulled a quilt around them, creating a cocoon that allowed her to pretend for a few minutes longer that nothing existed beyond this moment, this man, this peaceful contentment.
But a whimpering cry crackled over the baby monitor on the nightstand, and Jared jerked from sated lethargy to parental attention in a heartbeat. “Sorry. Duty calls.”
She gave him a hard deep kiss. “Don’t apologize. If you didn’t jump to tend to her, I’d have to rethink my association with you.”
He grinned and flipped back the quilt, letting a wave of cold air into her snuggly cave. She shivered and slid to the edge of the bed. “Want me to go? Will she let me rock her, you think?”
He pulled on his pants and glanced at her. “Feel free to give it a try.”
Elise threw on her borrowed clothes again and, with Jared on her heels, hurried to Isabel’s room. The baby girl stood at the side of her crib, clinging to the side rail, mewling sleepily. When she saw Elise, she held out her arms and whimpered, “Mee-mee.”
Elise’s heart stopped, her breath stuck in her lungs. “D-did she just call me Mommy?”
Jared nudged her aside to approach the crib. “Sounded a little like it, but Mimi is what she calls Michelle.”
Elise stepped forward, feeling foolish for her assumption. Why would Isabel think of her as a mother figure when she’d only seen Elise a handful of times? She drew a deep restorative breath, warning herself, Don’t start painting fanciful family portraits of yourself with this man and his child just because you slept with him.
She watched Jared stroke Isabel’s soft curls and murmur reassurances to her, and her heart melted. Painful longing, not only for the child she’d lost, but the family life she wanted, wrenched in her chest.
He lifted Isabel from the crib and turned to Elise. “Want to try rocking her?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice not to crack. She reached for the baby, and Isabel tucked her head under Elise’s chin, snuggling against her chest with the blind trust of the innocent. A melancholy mix of tenderness and regret speared Elise’s soul as she settled in the rocking chair and patted Isabel’s back.
Diva trotted in from the hallway and gave a meow that sounded surprisingly loud in the quiet of the dark nursery. By the glow of the nightlight, Elise spotted Bubba and Brooke lurking restlessly in the hallway. “Looks like everyone’s up for a midnight snack.”
Jared scooted Diva toward the hall door with his foot. “You seem to have things under control in here, so I’ll go slop the hogs and…meet you back in bed in a few?”
The question mark in his tone told her he was as uncertain where they were headed with their relationship as she was.
And he was leaving the direction they took up to her. What did she want from him? Was she going to return to his bed for the cuddling and intimacy of sleeping in his arms? Or was she going to distance herself emotionally by spending the remainder of the night in her guest bed?
Diva rubbed against Jared’s leg and yowled again impatiently. Elise felt as if the cat were rushing her, pressing her to examine her feelings for Jared, for Isabel, for her future. When had everything in her life become so topsy-turvy and confusing?
My sources tell me that your baby might be alive.
Yeah, that was the moment.
Elise pressed her cheek to the silky hair on Isabel’s head, inhaled the sweet fragrance of baby shampoo and angled a glance toward Jared.
Jared was here and now. Real. Certain.
She grinned. “Yeah, I’ll meet you in a few.”
Chapter 10
An hour later, after making love to Jared again, Elise curled her body against his and trailed a finger down his chest. Settling her hand over the steady thump of his heart, she tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. “Will you tell me about how you adopted Isabel?”
“Sure.” He brushed her hair back from her eyes. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Did you know her mother? Were you at her birth?”
He shook his head. “We don’t know much about Isabel’s mother, except that she was a teenager from Lake Charles who was eager to give her baby up for adoption so she could go back to being a teenager.”
“So you’ve never met the girl?”
“No. On purpose. We used a ‘boutique’ adoption agency—” He drew quotation marks in the air with his fingers “—That specialized in closed adoptions. A friend of ours had heard about the agency through another couple that had used them.”
“What made them a ‘boutique’ agency?” she asked, copying his finger quotations.
“You mean other than the exorbitant fees?” Jared remembered his shock when he’d first learned what the agency, Second Chance, charged for an adoption.
She tipped her head back to meet his eyes. “Their fees were higher than regular adoption agencies?”
“I’ll say. Well, maybe not higher than international adoptions. I hear they can get pricey, too.”
“So why pay it? What did you get for your higher fee?”
“Peace of mind, mostly. Most of the o
ther agencies we talked to had some degree of openness to the adoption. A lot of the mothers wanted to be able to visit their child or leave the door open for the child to find them later if they wanted.”
“You don’t want Isabel to search for her biological mother when she’s older?”
“Not necessarily. I guess I’ll leave that up to Izzy when she’s older.”
“Then why the closed adoption?”
“Kelly was terrified that a few months after our adopting, the birth mother would change her mind and demand we return the baby. When we told people we were adopting, suddenly everyone had horror stories about couples losing their children to biological parents who’d had a change of heart.”
Elise grunted. “Why do people do that? When I was pregnant with Grace, I was besieged with deliveries-gone-wrong stories and sick-or-preemie-baby stories.” She sighed. “Little did I know I’d end up with my own nightmare to tell future mothers-to-be.”
He squeezed her arm and pulled her closer for a kiss on her head. “The same dark side of our human nature that makes people rubberneck at accident scenes, I guess.”
“So how old was Isabel when you got her? Did you choose her or…did the mother choose you or…how did that work?”
“We drove down to Baton Rouge to pick her up when she was just two days old. We told the agency we didn’t care what sex our baby was, so when she was born and brought to the agency’s nursery, we were next on the list of approved couples waiting for a baby. We’d been on the list for about six months before we got the call.” Jared grinned, remembering the day the call had come.
A kick of excitement spun through him, just as it had that day over a year ago when Second Chance had called. “We had only been up for a few minutes, and I was still making coffee. Kelly was in the shower. All I heard the woman say was ‘we have a baby girl for you’ and ‘pick her up today.’ We left the house so fast, Kelly’s hair was still wet, my shirt was inside out, and we never drank the coffee I’d brewed. I’m lucky I didn’t get a speeding ticket.” He chuckled, and Elise angled a grin at him. “Although we joked about telling the cop we were having a baby if we were pulled over.”
Operation Baby Rescue Page 12
