This time Taariq’s head spun around so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. “What the hell you talking about, Willis?”
Cradling her hands on her hips, Anna leveled a hard glare on him. “What do you think I’m talking about?”
“Do you know how to deliver a baby?”
She shifted uncomfortably on her feet. “Well, no. But—”
“But nothing. We’re getting her to the hospital and that’s all there is to it.”
“The contractions—”
“All that means is that we just need to hurry.” He rushed back over to Gisella as if the matter had been settled. Without pausing, he swept Gisella up into his arm like a groom would do his bride before crossing the threshold to their wedding night. The only thing that made it awkward was the fact that Gisella was still clutching the floor lamp. The result was her smacking him hard against his left temple with the iron pole.
“Oww.” Taariq’s knees dipped a bit, but he managed to regain his balance before they both tumbled to the floor.
“What are you doing?” Anna snapped. “Put her down!”
“No. You grab her suitcase and come on.”
“I changed my mind,” Gisella yelled. “I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this.”
“Shh. Shh,” Taariq said, trying to sound calmer than he looked or felt. “It’s all right. We’re going to get through this. We’re going to get you to the hospital, if it’s the last thing I do.” He started toward the door and ignored it when she snatched the electrical cord out of the wall.
“Maybe she should put the lamp down,” Anna suggested.
“Sure. Let’s waste another five minutes trying to pry it out of her hands.” Taariq rolled his eyes. It probably would take a miracle for him to get through this madness. He reached the front door and glanced back over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”
Anna bristled at his authoritative tone, but marched over to Gisella’s suitcase. “We’re not going to make it,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Yes, we will,” he countered.
She frowned at his supersonic hearing and the moment he turned his back, she couldn’t resist making a face. Who in the hell did he think he was bossing her around? Her march transformed into a stomp as she followed behind them. When she pulled the front door closed behind her, she was surprised to see Taariq heading toward her car.
“I thought we were taking your car?”
“And possibly mess up my new car? Are you high?”
Anna jabbed a hand on her hip. “You can’t be serious!”
He continued to stare at her, incredulous. “As a heart attack. Now are you going to unlock the door so we can get going?”
“Unbelievable.” Anna hit the unlock button on her key chain and then continued her stomp toward the driver’s side. The faster they got to the hospital, the faster this whole nightmare would end. When she hopped in behind the wheel, Taariq was finally trying to negotiate for Gisella to let go of the floor lamp.
“Please let go, Gisella. I can’t get you and the lamp into the vehicle. Please.”
“Hoo. Hee. Hoo. Hee.”
“Yeah. That’s right. Keep breathing—but let go of the lamp,” he urged.
“Hoo. Hee. I want Charlie.”
“I’ll get him. I promise. We just have to get to the hospital first. Okay?”
Gisella looked as if she wanted to argue and cry at the same time. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Of course you can,” he said softly. “You’re one of the strongest women I know. Literally. I have the broken hand to prove it.” He winked.
Gisella actually chuckled but then started growling again when another contraction hit.
“Breathe,” he reminded her. “Hoo. Hee. Hoo. Hee.”
Gisella followed his lead and started her hoo-heeing again.
He smiled into her scared eyes and eased the tall lamp from her hands and set it aside on the front lawn. They continued their duet while Taariq eased her into the backseat of Anna’s sleek SUV.
Grudgingly, Anna admitted to herself that she was impressed. Other than the fact that he didn’t want to risk messing up his precious new Mercedes, he was actually coming across as a…decent guy—proof-positive that there were still miracles in the modern age.
Taariq had no idea how he was remaining cool. He just knew that it was important that he did. Once he placed Gisella on the backseat, he climbed in with her and shut the door. “All right. Let’s go,” he ordered, tapping the front seat. This whole thing was almost over. Thank God.
Anna turned the key, but nothing happened. “Oh, no. No. Not now!”
“What? What is it?”
Anna tried again. There was just a loud clicking sound and then—nothing. “I don’t believe this. C’mon, baby.” She leaned forward and kissed and caressed the steering wheel. “Start up for me, baby. Don’t do this to momma.”
Taariq hiked up a brow. “Do you two need a moment?”
“Shh,” Anna hissed before whispering a prayer and trying again.
Nothing.
“Damn it!”
“Hoo. Hee. What is it?” Gisella asked, panicked.
Taariq smiled. “Nothing. Just keep breathing. Hoo. Hee,” he repeated until she followed along. Slowly, he stood and leaned over the front seat to whisper to Anna. “What’s up?”
“What do you think is up? The car is dead,” she hissed. “We’re going to have to take your car.”
Taariq’s calm, cool and collected face twisted.
“Oh, get over it, you big baby.” She turned and hopped back out of the SUV.
He huffed and then rolled his eyes before turning his charming smile over to Gisella. “All right. Change of plans.”
“What?” The worry lines returned to Gisella’s face.
“Shh. Calm down. It’s okay,” he reassured. “We’re just going to take my car.”
“Oh, God. Charlie…” Tears rolled down her face.
Taariq’s heart lurched, but he kept his smile firmly in place. “Don’t you worry. I got you.” He reached over and opened the car door again. Clearly this was the longest day ever created. Together they continued their duet while he carefully extracted her from the vehicle. However, when he carried her toward his car, tears suddenly stung his eyes.
I’ll never forgive Charlie for this.
Since he’d left his keys in the car, Anna opened the backseat door for him. He paused for a moment while he wondered if he could place Gisella somewhere other than his leather seats. Unfortunately, that only left the roof or the trunk. For a few heart-pounding seconds, Taariq stared longingly at the trunk.
“Hello?” Anna snapped her fingers again. “Are you spacing out on me again?”
“What? No.” He quickly delivered Gisella to the backseat of his car. “Don’t you worry, G. I got you. I’ll have you at the hospital before you know it.”
Before Gisella could respond, she was immersed in the throes of another contraction. It was just bad luck that his ear got in the way. What the hell? It wasn’t like he needed his hearing.
Taariq wiggled a finger in his ear as he shut the back door. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop it from ringing. He started up the car and Anna jumped into the passenger seat and slammed the door.
“How soon do you think we can get there?”
“What?!”
Anna jumped. “Why in the hell are you yelling?” He frowned. “I’m not yelling!”
She blinked at him and shook her head. “Let’s just go.”
He leaned closer. “What? Why are you whispering?”
“Just drive!” she screamed, ready to pull her hair out.
“Well, what did you think I was about to do?” Taariq shifted the car into Drive and slammed on the accelerator.
“Lord, give me strength,” she mumbled as she reached for her seat belt.
Gisella continued to wail from the back. She called on Jesus and cursed Charlie’s name almost in the same sentence. Her painful wail had
Anna unbuckling her seat belt and climbing over the seat.
Taariq turned his head to see what she was doing and was pleasantly surprised at seeing Anna’s butt two inches from his face. And what a nice butt it was—a thick upside down question mark that made his mouth water and his dick hard. How on earth did this beautiful butt get past him?
You’re slipping, man.
A horn blared, forcing Taariq to turn his attention back to the road. He had less than a nanosecond to whip the car around a blue Corolla stopped at a traffic light. Anna and her nice butt rolled toward him while her long, dancerlike legs got tangled up with his hands and steering wheel.
“Ahh! What are you doing?” she screamed.
“Hold on!” The car veered to the right and she went rolling to the other side.
“Damn it. Are you trying to get us killed?” She went careening over the seats, but another sharp turn had her butt smacking Taariq’s head.
“Hey! Watch what you’re doing with that thing!” He shoved her butt out of his face and then gave her an extra shove so she could land face-first on the back floorboard.
At the loud thump he looked back in the rearview mirror. “Are you okay?”
“No!” Gisella and Anna shouted.
Taariq winced, and then felt ganged-up on. “All right. There’s no need to shout!”
More horns blasted when he jetted in front of oncoming traffic and just missed getting T-boned by a large Ford F-150 truck that was barreling toward him on his right by mere inches.
“Oh, God. We’re going to die,” Gisella cried. In the next second, she was hoo-heeing like a runaway train.
Anna pulled herself up off the floor. “We’re not going to die. We’re going to be just fine.” She didn’t know why she said the words. Lord knew with Taariq’s crazy driving, she hardly believed them herself. Smiling at her sister, she attempted to brush her sweat-drenched hair back from her face only for Gisella to seize hold of her hand and squeeze.
Anna yelped aloud while Gisella bent her knees and started pushing. “I—I don’t think you should start pushing right now.”
“Grrrrrrrr.”
“Gisella, sweetie. Try not to push.”
“Hoo. Hee. I—I can’t help it. Grrrrr.”
“Taariq, you better step on it,” Anna said with panic strangling her voice.
“And just what do you think I’m doing?” He laid into his horn. “Move it, buddy!” Honk. Honk.
There was another hard swerve and Anna banged her head on the back door. Would this nightmare ever end?
“It’s coming,” Gisella announced before hunkering down and pushing again. “Grrrr.”
Anna shouldn’t have done it, but she leaned down to see what was happening and could literally see the top of the baby’s head. “Oh, God!”
“What?” Taariq shouted from the front.
“Pull over!” “Say what?”
“I said pull over!”
“But—”
“Now! Right now!”
Taariq jerked the wheel and pulled off the road. When he slammed on the brakes, everyone pitched forward. “What is it? Is something wrong?” he asked, turning around in his seat.
Anna helped push Gisella back on the seat. “Get back here. We need your help.”
Taariq’s antennae sprang up. “Me?” He inched backward. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. Come play catcher. The baby’s head is coming through.”
The mere though of that made Taariq light-headed. “But I’m not a doctor,” he said, weakly. “I c-can’t.”
Gisella’s scream reached a new octave. “Man up and get your butt back here,” Anna snapped. Her eyes narrowed, giving Taariq the sneaky suspicion that if he didn’t do as he was told that his own baby-making capabilities might be in danger.
A string of curses flew from under his breath as he turned and got out. While he stomped to the back of the car, he once again pictured wrapping his big hands around Charlie’s neck and squeezing until he turned blue. It was a lovely fantasy. One that quickly ended when he jerked the back door open and saw what he felt no man should ever see.
Shortly after, he passed out cold.
Chapter 11
Charles Masters Junior was born at 12:01 p.m. in the back of Taariq’s brand-new Mercedes-Benz. However, the owner of said vehicle was passed out on the side of the road while Junior’s mother and aunt worked together to bring him into the world. A few minutes afterward, an ambulance pulled up and the paramedics took over.
Anna raced behind the paramedics as they wheeled two gurneys through the emergency room. This day couldn’t have been more bizarre. She halfway expected Ashton Kutcher to jump out somewhere at any minute. However, that was highly unlikely.
“Ma’am, why don’t you just stay with your husband for now? It’s going to be a few minutes before we can get your sister and new nephew cleaned up.”
“Husband?” Anna glanced down at Taariq lying on the gurney and then gave a short chuckle. “Oh, he’s not my husband.”
Taariq moaned and pressed a hand to his head. “Where am I?”
Anna rolled her eyes so hard it was amazing that they didn’t fall out of her head and hit the floor. “We’re at the hospital. No thanks to you.” She glanced back up to talk to the nurse, but she was gone.
“What?” Taariq popped open his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows to take a good look around. “What happened?”
“What do you think happened? You fainted.”
“Get out of here.” He swung his legs over the side of the gurney and attempted to get up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Anna lifted her brows and folded her arms. “So you think that you magically appeared at the hospital. Is that it?” The horror twisting Taariq’s face was comical and Anna probably would have laughed if she wasn’t so concerned about her baby sister that she hardly cracked a smile. How people believed that women were the weaker sex was beyond her. When he failed to come up with a response, she turned up her nose. “Well, thanks for nothing.”
“Whoa. Hold up.” Taariq hopped off the gurney. “I helped.”
She leveled a get real look at him.
His mouth fell open when he realized that she was not about to give him any credit for the nightmarish hell he’d been through today. “Okay,” he said calmly. “Maybe I did sort of choke when it was crunch time, but I wasn’t expecting to see—” Taariq felt bile rise in his throat “—what I saw.”
At the sight of him turning a puke-green, Anna shook her head. “Maybe you should lie back down. You don’t look so good.”
Taariq pressed a hand against his stomach. “I don’t feel so hot, either.”
Mildly concerned, Anna pressed a hand against his forehead, which didn’t turn out to be such a good idea because it was like putting her hand into a roaring fire. The moment their skin touched, she had to snatch it back and even then her hand suffered from an invisible third-degree burn.
What the hell?
Whatever it was she was fairly certain that Taariq felt it as well because he was staring at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted two extra heads. The warning that sounded off sounded eerily like an air-raid alert. Instinct told her to turn and run away, but instead she stood firm and gave him a cynical smile. “You’ll live.”
Taariq’s spine stiffened. What was it with this chick? Why was she always snapping his head off? “Look. I did the best I could under the circumstances. Would it hurt you to give me a little bit of credit?”
“What? Like bake you a cookie or something?”
He jerked back as if she’d slapped him. However, since he didn’t know where all this anger was coming from with her, he just held up his hands to signal his surrender. “Whatever. I’m going to let you have that.”
Anna sucked in a breath and realized that she was overreacting given the situation and she was likely coming off looking like a hysterical ninny. However, standing this close to Mr. Amnesia and prete
nding that she didn’t loathe the very ground he walked on was too tall an order. “Now that you’re back among the living, I’m going to go check on my sister and my new nephew.” She turned but Taariq stopped her by grabbing hold of her arm.
“Nephew? She had a boy?”
Another heat wave rushed up her arm and her knees damn near folded. What unnerved her was that it was a different type of heat—one that tingled in a manner reminiscent of the pleasure she’d rather forget. Why not? He had.
“Yes. Gisella had a boy.” Anna pulled her arm free and then pushed up her purse strap. “A beautiful baby boy.”
“Yeah?” Taariq’s lips curled into a smile. “That doesn’t surprise me given that her mother is a knockout.”
As if someone had snapped their fingers, Anna’s smile evaporated. “Well, I better go.”
Taariq frowned. Why couldn’t he figure this woman out? “Yeah. All right.” He sucked in a breath this time and looked around. There wasn’t really any reason for him to hang out, but at the same time he didn’t really want to leave. “Well, I guess I could check out the nursery and introduce myself to the newest member of the Masters family.”
Disappointment rippled across her face before she had a chance to plaster on a smile. “I guess if you want to.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t stop you.”
He cocked his head. “But you want to?”
Her brief pause was answer enough, but she lied and said, “I don’t really care what you do.”
“I see,” he answered, though he was more lost than he’d ever been. However, this time before he could question her, she’d spun on her heels and marched off. Still stunned, he stood there and watched her. Eventually his gaze drifted lazily down to her backside. She really did have a nice butt. He continued to stare when she stopped to talk to someone in hospital scrubs. After she pointed Anna in the right direction, Taariq waited to see whether Anna would glance back at him. He hoped that she would, mainly because he was starting to like getting under her skin.
Anna sashayed off, but just before she turned a corner, her gaze shot back at him.
Taariq lifted his hand and gave her a small wave. “Toodle-loo.” He chuckled under his breath.
My Only Desire Page 10
