Protecting Emma

by ML Michaels

  “Howdy there, Luke!” she returned finally, adding with a broad smile, “I’m pregnant.”

  Moments later, Madison found herself in precisely the same spot as before, standing right square in the entryway of the Atlanta airport.

  Her boyfriend, by contrast, lay near unconscious in that same entryway, surrounded by a team of newly arrived medical professionals prepared to take him away in a nearby waiting ambulance.

  Finally regaining his senses and bearings in the wake of this shocking news, Luke sat up with a bolt and waved away the attending paramedics, assuring them that he did not need and would not accept transport to Emory University Hospital.

  Finally convincing them that his impromptu fainting spell had been brief and shock induced, Luke sent the paramedics away and rushed to the side of a watching Madison.

  “Madison,” he began, tilting his head hard in her direction as he pinned her with a disbelieving stare, “Did I hear you right just before I—um—stepped out for a moment?”

  Madison nodded.

  “Yep, it’s true. The first time that we made love, my Darlin’, we also made a baby,” she revealed, adding as she raised her hands before her in what seemed a defensive stance, “Now just keep in mind, Luke, that I am a big girl and am more than capable of taking care of myself. We have lots of options to discuss in this situation, and as long as you take responsibility for your part of our—um, problem….”

  Silencing his addled lady with a warm, heartfelt kiss, Luke drew back to stare deeply into her eyes as he assured her, “We don’t have a problem, hon. We have a baby—or at least we will have, in a little more than eight months’ time. And although I know that the final decision is yours, I’d very much like to keep it.”

  Soon the couple sat opposite each other at the central table at Billington’s Steakhouse, hands clenched tightly above its surface as they lost themselves in quiet conversation.

  “Now I know that the timing of all this is awkward and uncomfortable at best,” Madison told Luke, pinning him with a gaze of warm-eyed empathy. “I mean, we haven’t even been involved that long, and here your uncle has just died….”

  Luke shook his head.

  “Doncha understand, Gal? The timing is perfect!” he insisted. “I knew from the first moment I saw you, Madison, that all of this was meant to happen. I swear this to you! I’ve net met a warmer, smarter, tougher, funnier, more absolutely perfect woman. I couldn’t think of a better partner, or mother to my children,” he paused here, adding as he clutched her fingers between his, “And while I wish with all of my heart and soul that my dear Uncle Joe could have met you, I have to think that—just before he passed—he prayed and wished for an angel to be sent to my side, someone who could advise me, look after me a bit, and—when needed—knock some verbal sense into me whenever I go and muss up.”

  Madison arched her eyebrows.

  “Luke, you been sippin’ too much bubbly there dude?” she queried, making a broad gesture toward the beverage that—due to her expectant state—she didn’t dare share. “I ain’t nobody’s angel, you had better know that.” She paused here, adding in a softer, more tender tone, “Like you, though, I truly do feel that I have met my match. You not only healed my heart, baby—you filled it up!”

  With these words, she situated two gentle hands on the surface of her silk covered stomach, grinning self-consciously as she continued, “Of course, while you were at it, you also filled my belly—and with a child that we’re both going to have to support. Now I know neither you nor I is destined to make the cover of Fortune or Wall Street Week anytime in the near future. But I also know that, as a competitive rodeo rider, you do pretty darned well. And, if I may say so myself, I too am making bank with my cush new public relations job….”

  Silencing her with a tender kiss, Luke shook his head from side to side as he considered her cautionary words.

  “Not to worry, Sweetheart. As it happens, that incredible uncle of mine has us covered in that department as well,” he assured her, adding with a broad beam, “He has left his sizable fortune—he had billions—to my sister and me, divided evenly down the middle.”

  The couple sat silent for a moment, contemplating this news as they stared at one another with wide, near glassy eyes.

  And then, Heaven help them, they danced.

  “It’s a blasted good thing they have a dance floor here at the steakhouse,” Madison thought with a grin. “Otherwise we’d be detained by the manager—or at the very least an officer of the law—right about now. No matter though, my honey can afford the bail!”

  She guffawed outright as her lover engaged her in a spirited, rural-flavored square dance, linking arms as they did the promenade and the do si do to their hearts’ content.

  Their worries of the last few weeks gone and forgotten, the couple danced with wild abandon to the tune being played by a live violinist. The crowd cheered their every move as their bodies grew closer and their steps slowed.

  “As much as I love dancin’ with you, Darlin’,” he whispered soft and tender in her ear, “I’d far rather be makin’ love to you instead.”

  With this in mind the couple retreated to Luke’s luxury hotel room, making quick work of one another’s clothes as they collapsed together in a passionate embrace.

  Even as he covered her body with his own, their arms and legs entangling between them, Luke was careful to caress his lady softly and gently, massaging her back, her shoulders and especially her stomach as he whispered to her of how much he loved her, and how honored he was that his child was growing in her belly.

  Emphasizing these words with a good dose of action, the cowboy plied her lips with the sweetest kisses as he ran two attentive hands down the length of her voluptuous body, stroking and coddling her before resting his fingers at the juncture of her womanly thighs.

  These digits did not rest for long as they tickled open her tender feminine folds, stroking and kneading her heaving clit as she moaned with contentment.

  “I know that over the next few months, my darlin’, you’re going to be suffering a lot of physical pain and discomfort as you carry our child,” he whispered against his lover’s lips as he continued to rub her back and stimulate her clit. “So as a way to say thank you, I now would like to show you as much pleasure as a man can give a woman.”

  With these words he quickened and intensified his motions, kneading and coddling her aroused nob as she writhed in an act of ecstatic response.

  Sinking deeper into her lover’s embrace, an enthralled Madison ran her fingernails lightly down Luke’s back as she continued to kiss him senseless.

  Lowering his golden head to her breasts and suckling her nipples, Luke’s agile hand delivered a long last stroke that set her body afire and sent her being soaring across the bounds of an incredible clitoral orgasm.

  Screaming outright in the heat of sweet passion, Madison threw her body against her lover’s and opened herself to him, their hips and thighs locking between them as he pulled his lover closer to him.

  “I love you, Luke,” she released on a whisper, grasping his sculpted cheeks in two tender hands as she added, “In the brief time that we’ve known each other, you’ve added so much to my life. So much happiness and passion, and now the promise of a new life.”

  “We make each other whole,” Luke agreed, holding his lady closer than close as he added on a whisper, “Now let us be one, once again.”

  With these words he surged his long hard shaft to the depths of her soaking wet pussy, their bodies continuing their earlier dance at a far more intimate level.

  Madison’s full breasts crushed the surface of his hard massive chest as Luke gyrated slowly and heatedly against her. His sweat lined length filled her to the core as their bodies moved and swayed together as a single radiant unit.

  The joining of their bodies generated insane friction as he continued to probe and penetrate her, while their hands clutched together and their lips collided in a timeless, binding kiss. />
  The back and forth movement of their entwined tongues more than matched the rhythm of Luke’s divine penetration as they soared together toward a passionate peak—one that threatened to consume them whole in an incredible realm of mutual fulfillment.

  And everlasting love.

  Sealing this love with a deep, meaningful kiss, Luke carried them both across the bounds of an incredible mutual climax as their joined bodies rolled freely and wildly across the surface of his silken bed.

  Moments later the couple collapsed exhausted in one another’s arms, resting their foreheads sweetly together as they stared deep into one another’s eyes.

  “I love you Madison,” Luke said, emphasizing these words with a tender kiss as he rested his hand on her stomach. “I want you to be my wife.”

  A stream of brilliant incoming sunlight awoke a sleeping Madison an hour later, along with two discordant but equally intrusive noises.

  The running spray of a nearby showerhead served to soothe her senses and supplied a marked contrast to the insistent jangling of the bedside telephone.

  Fumbling for its pearled receiver with a tired, awkward hand, Madison raised the instrument to her ear and mumbled, “Hello?”

  “Um, I’m sorry,” replied a meek, apologetic female voice. “I thought that this was Luke McCade’s room.”

  Now fully awake, Madison felt her entire body tense as she informed the woman at the other end of the line, “This is indeed Luke McCade’s room. And I am Luke McCade’s girlfriend.”

  “Madison!” the woman exclaimed. “It’s so good to talk to you. This is Charity, Luke’s sister.”

  “Charity!” Madison returned, adding in friendlier, more relaxed tones, “Luke has told me all about you. I can’t wait to meet you, Girl,” she paused here, her tone swelling with pride as she added, “And the way that things are shaping up, I might just be invitin’ you to stand beside me, as one of my bridesmaids.”

  “Really? That’s incredible!” Charity enthused. “And such a relief.”

  Madison frowned.

  “A relief?” she repeated, tone confused.

  “Oh, didn’t Luke tell you?” Charity queried, tone equally confused. “Our uncle stated in his will that, in order to earn our inheritance, Luke and I each must marry and produce an heir before the end of the year. Now seeing as to how I was already engaged to marry my high school sweetheart, I wasn’t worried overmuch about fulfilling my end of the bargain. But since you and Luke haven’t been datin’ that long—well, let’s just say that I was more than a bit worried about that rodeo bro of mine.”

  Listening in silent shock to the words being spoken, Madison offered rote responses to Charity’s questions and comments before finally ending the phone call—promising as she did to give Luke a message as soon as he stepped out of the shower.

  “And I guarantee you, it will be the message of a lifetime.” She added silently, setting the phone aside as she turned to face the soaking wet, robe-clad man who emerged now from the confines of his master bath.

  “That was your sister on the phone,” she informed Luke, adding as she crossed her arms over her chest, “When did you plan to tell me that you would only get your inheritance if you married and produced a kid sometime in the next year?”

  Luke froze, eyes flying wide as he considered these words.

  “Well truth be told, Madison, I haven’t even thought about that silly stipulation since the moment I touched down in Atlanta,” he revealed finally. “The moment that you told me about our baby, I swear I forgot everything else. Nothing else mattered.”

  Madison shook her head.

  “That’s a pretty major thing to forget,” she deadpanned. “Doncha think?”

  Luke sighed.

  “I know that, Madison—but in my mind, you and our baby are all that matter right now,” he insisted, adding as he made a broad gesture between them, “Look, as a rodeo star I don’t need my uncle’s money to survive. And there’s no way in hell that I would marry a woman that I didn’t love in order to get it.” He paused here, adding as he pinned her with an earnest look, “After my last break up, Madison, I was damned and determined to live and enjoy the single life. My heart was broken so bad, I didn’t even think that it could be fixed again. Much like yourself, with the man troubles that you’ve had, I vowed to focus on the single life and on my work. And there’s no way that some cockamamie will could alter that plan.”

  With these words he pointed an affirming finger straight in her direction.

  “Ah, but meeting the love of my life? The funniest, smartest, toughest woman I’ve ever met?” he continued with a smile. “That, as they say these days, is a dag gum game changer.”

  Madison looked at him for a long moment, then echoed his long, belabored sigh.

  “I wish I could believe you, Luke, but—truth be told—I don’t know you well enough to know beyond a certainty that you don’t have an ulterior motive in marrying me,” she announced, adding as she rose from the bed, “And until I do know for certain, I am afraid that I will have to spend some time away from you.”

  Luke froze.

  “Madison, don’t do this to us,” he plead, holding his hands up high before him in a seeming show of defensiveness. “Don’t do this to our child!”

  Holding her own hands up to silence his words, Madison seared him with a skeptical, narrow-eyed gaze as she turned for the door.

  “It’s our child that I’m worried about,” she insisted, adding over her shoulder, “And just as I’ve always been able to take care of myself, I can and will take care of my baby as well. And until I can be fully certain that you have both of our best interests at heart, then I’m afraid I have to say goodbye to you.”

  One month later.

  Seated in her boss’ office at Barnes and Callas, Madison Stone struggled to focus on the duty at hand, completing and wrapping up the marketing and PR campaign for the all-important Lasso Sportswear account.

  Although she had revealed to Agatha that she no longer wished to work directly with Luke McCade, she still agreed—like any good professional—to see the campaign in which he was a featured star through to its successful end. She wrote and edited the Lasso Sportswear press kit, which included glossy, high definition photographs of the handsome rodeo star whose face she could hardly stand to look at.

  Luke had left many messages on her voice mail system and regaled her with e-mails and special deliveries of roses and candies.

  Steadfastly refusing to acknowledge any and all of his gestures, Madison instead remained enclosed in her apartment and immersed herself in the planning and conceptualization of a new, frankly frightening phase of her life.

  She did not savor the idea of raising a child on her own, particularly not while trying to grow and continue her burgeoning career as a public relations executive.

  “I know I can do it,” she mused now, squaring her substantial shoulders for emphasis. “It won’t be easy, but I know I can do it.”

  Almost as difficult, in her estimation, was trying to heal the broken heart also caused by this troublesome man. Day in and day out she kept herself busy with doctors’ appointments, time spent with concerned friends and family members, and work related duties.

  At night, though, her mind and heart wandered in spite of themselves to other nights spent in Luke’s arms, her skin tingling and her pulse pounding as she remembered the kisses, the embraces, the heated lovemaking sessions that made all of her fantasies come true. Elsewhere in her dreams, she remembered the sweet romance and tender, humor-filled conversations that had punctuated their brief but oh so meaningful relationship.

  “The way he looked at me, kissed me, touched me, it was all so perfect,” she thought, adding as she shook her head from side to side, “I still wonder, though, just how much of it was genuine. I mean, I was so different from the women he’d dated before, and the timing of our affair is just a bit whacked—to put it lightly.” She paused here, adding as an ice cold chill ran down the base of
her spine, “Could it be that he knew ahead of time about the stipulation in his uncle’s will—then went on to seduce the closest available female so he could knock her up, marry her, and claim his share of Uncle’s big bucks?”

  The only flaw in this theory, of course, was that—as far as she knew—Luke’s uncle had not suffered from a longtime illness and was not of significant age. The likelihood of Luke predicting his death was not at all strong—if not completely nonexistent.

  “I still love the man. I must admit it. I just need some answers here,” she thought finally, clutching the edge of Agatha’s desk as she added in silence, “I need some answers fast.”

  “Madison!”

  The sound of a soft but authoritative voice brought her quickly to attention and caused her to sit up straight in her seat as she muttered, “Yes, Agatha?”

  Agatha Barnes raised a quizzical eyebrow in the direction of her chief account executive, at the same time making a broad gesture toward a flat screen TV and DVD player positioned above her desk.

  “I need your full attention for the last phase of the Lasso Sportswear campaign,” she reminded her. “And as you know, the final phase of this campaign involved the production of a television commercial for the cologne.”

  Madison shook her head.

  “I realize this,” she said with a sigh. “All the same, I was not involved in the production end of the commercial and really don’t feel the need to see it, if it’s OK with you.”

  Agatha had heard enough.

  “No, actually it is not OK with me—or, for that matter, with this company,” she insisted, pointing an authoritative finger in the direction of her solemn employee.

  “Part of your job as an account executive, Ms. Stone, is to view and approve every single component of any given campaign,” she reminded Madison. “Now put aside your personal feelings and watch the blasted ad.”

  Letting loose with a resigned sigh, Madison shifted her head to look in the direction of the wide screen television set that hovered just above them.