When she was three months pregnant, Kiefer talked her into having dinner with him. Delphina had a good time, but it only reminded her of how much she missed him. It wasn’t a feeling that she appreciated.
When she was six months pregnant, he invited her over to decorate the baby’s room at his house. His new job was going well, and he was still sober. She was very proud of him, but still had doubts as to how long it would last. There was talk around town that he was seeing a woman. She had made a few friends at work and they all knew who Kiefer was. All of the single women in town seemed to think he was hot as hell. Even Delphina had to admit that he looked even better than he had before. He had cut his hair and was clean shaven most of the time.
They were sitting in Kiefer’s living room after they’d finished the baby’s room when Delphina asked him about his new girlfriend.
He gave her a strange look. “I don’t have a girlfriend Del. I haven’t gone this long without sex since I was a virgin.”
“Yeah right Kiefer. It’s going around town that you’re seeing someone.”
Kiefer chuckled. “Did it ever dawn on you that they might be talking about you Del? We’ve been out to dinner a few times and you’ve let me go to your last few doctors’ appointments.”
“I’m not your girlfriend.”
He shrugged. “I’m not the one that said it. But you could be my wife if you wanted to be.”
“We’re not going to discuss that again.”
“Del, don’t tell me that you don’t miss me being your man. I can see it in the way you look at me sometimes, that you want to kiss me. Right now I think you want to do a whole hell of a lot more than kiss me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“How about I kiss you and we can find out?”
Her heart started to beat faster. “No.”
He brushed his hand over her cheek. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me. Tell me that if I took you back to the bedroom and made love to you that you would just walk away from me again.”
“I don’t want you Kiefer.” But the words didn’t sound true even to her ears.
He smiled. “You’re lying. You looked at me for two seconds and then you looked away. We’ve been together too long for me not to know when you’re lying.”
“We’re not together anymore.”
“I’ve been good to you haven’t I? I’ve obeyed your wishes and I haven’t bugged you all the time about getting back together. Give me one more chance Del. I promise you that if I fuck it up I won’t ask for another chance. We don’t have to get married right away. Just let me be your man. I can make you proud of me.”
Delphina sighed. “I am proud of you Kie. You’ve been doing so well lately. I’m too vulnerable right now. I think I need to go.”
“Baby, do you know how proud it makes me that you’re the woman that’s having my baby? When I messed around, I was terrified that some trashy slut was going to get knocked up with my kid because I was drunk and didn’t think about using a rubber. It wasn’t just because I didn’t want to have to pay some bitch child support for 18 years. It was because I knew that when I was ready to have a kid, I wanted it to be with the right woman. You’re the right woman Del. You’ve always been the right woman for me. I knew it the first time I looked at you, I was just too stupid to realize what I was doing to you, how I was making you feel. I can never tell you how sorry I am. Let me make it up to you. I will do anything if you’ll just give me one last chance.”
“I can’t do this right now.” Delphina grabbed her purse and got up off of the couch. Tears were running down her face by the time she made it out the door. Kiefer called out to her, but she ignored him. She couldn’t face him. She wanted nothing more than to be in his arms at that moment.
She drove home and cried until she had no more tears. Two hours later, she was standing on his doorstep. He answered the door and gave her a cautious smile.
“Hi. I didn’t mean to make you cry. You know that I never could stand to see you cry.” He moved out of the doorway so that she could enter the house and when she had he shut the door behind them.
She tried to ignore the fact that he was wearing nothing other than a worn pair of flannel pajama bottoms. She sat down on the couch. She took a deep breath and then let it out.
“If I give you another chance, it will be the last one. If you cheat on me even one more time, I will walk away from you and never look back. You will always be the father of my child, but that doesn’t mean that you always have to be my man. If things go well enough between us, I’ll move in here after the baby is born. I don’t want to marry you right now. It may take another three years for me to trust you enough to want to marry you.”
Kiefer was silent for a minute. Then a grin broke out on his face. “You’ll really take me back?”
Delphina nodded. “Yes.”
“Can I kiss you now?”
“Please.”
He kissed her slow and easy, but it only left her wanting more, so she turned up the passion a notch. He pulled back from her several minutes later and gave her a cocky grin.
“You’re horny aren’t you?”
She hit him with the pillow from the couch. “So what if I am?”
“I do still know how to take care of that.”
She shook her head at him. “I’m sure you do. That doesn’t mean that I need to hop right back into bed with you.”
“How about I kiss you again and we let nature take its course?”
She nodded, because she couldn’t speak. There was so much passion in his eyes that it made her almost dizzy looking at him.
Their nature did eventually lead them back to his bedroom. She was more than a little self–conscious as she stood naked in front of him. While she was thrilled with what her pregnancy had done to her breasts, she felt like her stomach was huge.
He followed her eyes from his flat abdomen to hers that was expanding with the growth of their child.
“You’re beautiful baby. We’re gonna take it slow and easy. If it’s not comfortable for you let me know.”
“This probably sounds like a dumb question and I probably should have researched it myself, but how do you have sex when a woman is further along in her pregnancy?”
Kiefer smiled. She shot him a dirty look. “No. I haven’t been with a pregnant woman before. I took the liberty of doing some research of my own. I had a feeling that you might come around while you were still pregnant.”
“Uh huh.”
“Shh baby. Come here.” He led her to the bed.
They made love three times that night. She didn’t have to work the next day so she spent the night at his house. It was like coming home to fall asleep in his arms again.
She moved in two weeks before the baby was due. He had proven to her that he was trying his best to be the man that she needed him to be.
Macy Kendrix was born right on time. She weighed 7 pounds 7.5 ounces and was 21 inches long. Kiefer was a wonderful father. He proposed on the one year anniversary of their second chance relationship and Delphina accepted
I Can Love You Like Nobody Can
Cecilia was sitting in a restaurant with her husband of six years when a woman walked by. Cec had the offhanded thought that she was beautiful, until she realized that Liam had smiled at the woman. She gave Liam a questioning look. The woman had disappeared, but his eyes had followed her exit. He looked like he was a million miles away.
“Liam, who was that?”
Liam turned back to her, brushing a strand of dark hair out of his eyes. Cec was always bugging him to cut his hair, but he’d never listened to her about it before, and she was sure that he wasn’t going to start anytime soon. “Nobody.”
Cec raised an eyebrow. “That smile was way too familiar for you not to know who she is. So why are you lying to me?”
Liam shook his head at her. “Cec, why are you being paranoid? So the woman was attractive and I looked at her. Are you on your period?”
/> Cec shook her head at him. “Every time a woman has an issue with a man, the first thing he asks is are you on your period. I don’t have to be on my period to notice that you totally check out a woman, smile at her like you know her and then tell me that she’s nobody. I’m going home. Have a nice rest of the day at work. I’m guessing that you’re going to be home late again tonight.”
Liam sighed. “Yes. I’m sorry baby. But you know we need the money.”
“I can look for a job. I told you that it’s not a big deal.”
“We made an agreement before we got married that you wouldn’t have to work. You were going to stay at home and raise our kids.”
Cec sighed. “We don’t have any kids remember?”
Liam rolled his eyes. “Of course I remember. I have to go babe. I’ll see you later.” He leaned over and gave her a kiss.
“So I’m assuming that you’re working late with nobody again huh?”
Liam let out a frustrated sigh. “Cec, haven’t you ever heard that assuming things makes an ass out of you and me? This is a one man campaign. If they keep laying people off we might have to go live in your parents’ guest house.”
“Ugh. Maybe if your parents were the ones that had the guest house. But mine-no way. I’ll live in a cockroach infested studio apartment before I live with them again. They won’t stop asking when we’re going to give them a grandbaby.”
“We’ll make a baby when we can afford one.”
“Sometimes that sounds like it’s not going to happen until I’m going through menopause.”
“Baby, it’s gonna get better. I promise. I’ll see you later. Don’t bother to cook dinner for me. I’ll get takeout.”
“I wish you’d let me send you something for dinner if you’re working late.”
“You do too much as it is. You’re like a superwoman.” Liam gave her another quick kiss. “Bye babe.”
He turned and walked away. Cec sighed as she got up from the table. She didn’t like the feeling she had gotten when the woman had walked by their table. She knew she was attractive. She wasn’t normally self-conscious, but Liam’s “nobody” had been beautiful hands down. If they were in a beauty contest together, Cec was sure that “nobody” would come out the winner by a unanimous decision.
Cec brushed her dark hair back over her shoulder and grabbed her purse from where she’d tossed it on the empty chair beside her. She left a tip on the table and then walked to the register to take care of the check.
As she walked home, uncomfortable thoughts were circulating in her head. She was an attractive woman with her trim figure, dark hair and eyes and creamy pale skin. But Liam was undoubtedly a very attractive man even if he did need a haircut. He was 6’2 and had muscles like he worked out, though he did only on rare occasions. He looked like a man that had a manly job, when his job was in advertising. At the moment, he was one of the very few left in advertising at the green household products company that he worked at.
Cec understood that there had been layoffs, but she was beginning to doubt more and more that he was really just working late. In what she called her crazy paranoid moments from early in their marriage, she had believed that a woman that looked like she should be on the cover of a magazine would steal Liam away from her. He HAD been on the cover of a magazine. Women had called their house for months afterwards, though the picture had showed the wedding ring on his finger. The article about him inside had also mentioned his wife, but Cec doubted that most of the women that called their house had bothered to read the article.
Then again, she thought as she put the key in the door to unlock their house, some women didn’t seem to care if a man was married. Some women actually seemed to take it as a challenge to steal a man away from his wife or girlfriend. Cec had met way too many of those kind of girls in high school. Her high school boyfriend had been stolen away from her by one of them. Of course she had a feeling that it also had to do with the fact that she wouldn’t have sex with Gene, and the other girl was known to put out.
Cec shook her head at herself as she sat down on the couch. She was going to drive herself crazy if she didn’t stop thinking about the woman at the restaurant and she knew it. She tried not to think about it as she went about her daily activities of laundry and house cleaning, but it wasn’t working. It didn’t help that Liam got home even later than usual that night either.
She was reading a book when he walked into their bedroom. He gave her a look. “What?” she said.
“Why are you awake? It’s after midnight.”
Cec rolled her eyes. “I can read a clock Liam.” She felt irritated and knew that a fight could start all too easily. “Why are you coming home now when you’ve got to be at work in eight hours?”
Liam sighed. “Babe, I told you. I have a very important project to finish. If I do well enough, there’s a chance that I’ll get the job as head of advertising.”
Cec snorted, suddenly wanting a cigarette like she hadn’t wanted one since she’d quit five years before. “You already do all of the work. I thought they got rid of that position. I thought they had to pay the last guy too much.”
“They wouldn’t have to pay me as much as they paid him and they know it. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed babe. Why don’t you go to sleep? You look tired.”
He went to the bathroom before she could say another word. She gave the closed bathroom door a dirty look. She marked her place in her book and then rolled over towards the edge of the bed. He hadn’t noticed that she’d put on a piece of her sexiest lingerie. She knew that he was tired when he got home from work, but it seemed like forever since they’d made love. Right now, she thought she’d even take some down and dirty wham bam thank you ma’am sex.
He took forever in the shower. She was half asleep by the time he crawled into bed. He pulled her to him and then leaned over and turned off the lamp. “What’s wrong babe? What’s on your mind?”
“Nobody. Oh, I mean nothing.”
Liam sighed. “Don’t start that shit again. I don’t want to fight. I’m tired baby. Goodnight Cec. I love you.”
“I love you too, but ignoring it isn’t going to make it go away.”
“There is nothing to make go away Cec. You should wear that teddy when I’m not so damned tired. I’d ravage you.”
“Sure.”
Liam slid his hand between her legs. “Don’t sure me.” He let out a quiet groan. “You’re not wearing panties. And you’re rather moist. Who knew that arguing turned you on so much?”
“Ha ha. Make love to me Liam. I don’t care if it’s quick. I’d take a quickie right now.”
Liam lightly stroked her womanhood. “I can feel that. Damn can I feel that. Have I really been neglecting you that much? I’m sorry baby.”
Cec moved against his hand and spread her legs slightly. “You have. Take me just like this. Please.” Cec didn’t care at that moment if he was thinking of someone else. “I’ll make your coffee extra strong in the morning. Love me Liam.”
He groaned again. “I think I’m gonna have to or I’ll end up with blue balls.”
“Weirdo. Can you take your pants off with one hand?”
Liam chuckled. “My horny wife. Yeah, I think I can manage. Or you could always touch yourself for the thirty seconds it takes me to take my pants off. You know how much it turns me on when you do that.”
“Not tonight. Please Liam.”
“Yes baby.” He shifted slightly. It seemed to Cec to take forever before he was finally inside of her. But it was so blissful when he was that she was sure she was going to have an orgasm right away. When he pushed himself more fully into her she did have an orgasm. She cried out his name so loud that she was glad that they didn’t have children. He laughed at her, but he came soon after she did. When he withdrew from her, she felt a little less suspicious than she had earlier. She was pretty sure that if he’d had sex with someone else recently he wouldn’t have come to orgasm quite so fast.
She turne
d her head and kissed him. “Thank you. I love you Liam.”
He chuckled. “Thank you darlin’. I needed that more than I realized. I love you Cec. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight Liam.” She snuggled back into his arms and was soon asleep.
Cec started to feel better about their relationship, but her suspicions rose again over the weekend. They went for a long drive, and Liam seemed as if he was a million miles away again. When she asked him what was on his mind, instead of nothing, he said nobody, even though she hadn’t asked him who was on his mind. She cried a little that night while he was in the shower. She felt like he was slipping away from her. She loved Liam so much that it hurt sometimes. She was so afraid to lose him.
They got into a fight when he got out of the shower. He ended up sleeping on the couch that night. He was gone when she woke up in the morning. She wondered if she had driven him into the arms of his “nobody”.
He returned home in the late afternoon, with takeout and a bouquet of flowers as a peace offering. She tried to tempt him into sex that night, but he told her that he had to get up extra early in the morning.
Monday night, she waited to take her shower until after he got home from work. She knew that he had already showered that morning. She crawled into bed naked and kissed him with a passion that felt almost frantic even to her. He pulled back after a minute. “Baby, are you sure you’re okay?”
“No, I’m not okay. You’re a million miles away all of the time.”
Liam sighed. “I’m stressed. There’s this new guy in the department. There’s talk around the office that they’re going to give him the head advertising position instead of me since he was an advertising exec at some other company. I’m sorry baby. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
Cec pulled completely away from him. “And part on what’s on your mind is your ‘nobody’ isn’t it Liam? Tell me the truth. I can take it if you’ll just tell me the truth. We can make this work. I love you too much to walk away. But I can’t stand your lies anymore.”
Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set Page 204
