His Badge, Her Baby...Their Family?

by Stella Bagwell

  “I’ll help you,” he offered.

  She turned and started out of the room. Vince drew in a deep breath and followed her.

  *

  What was happening to her? To them? The questions continued to roll through Geena’s head as she spooned coffee grounds into a filter. This day with Vince had transported her into some sort of fairyland. She was beginning to believe he cared about her. Cared about her more than anything—even more than his job. One little picnic at the lake shouldn’t have that much influence on her common sense.

  No, this went beyond the picnic, she mentally argued. She was changing. He was changing. She could feel it happening. And it had nothing to do with the sexual tension that was arcing between them like lightning between two storm clouds.

  “I’ve put the macaroni salad and the fruit in the refrigerator,” he said. “You want to leave the cake out on the table?”

  He walked up behind her and a masculine mix of cologne, wind and sunshine drifted to her nostrils. The scent, along with his breath rushing against the back of her neck, tilted her senses.

  “I can’t eat any more of it. But you might.”

  “I’m not hungry. Not for food.”

  His provocative remark had her slowly turning to face him, and as her gaze locked with his, her heart slowed to a heavy thud. Desire was clouding his brown eyes. The same sort of desire that was gripping her body, her senses.

  “Vince—”

  “I want to make love to you, Geena.” He slipped his arms around her waist, and she felt the oxygen rush from her lungs.

  “Is that the reason for the date today?” she asked impishly. “To seduce me?”

  He rested his forehead against hers. “No. You don’t honestly believe that, do you?”

  The hard bands of his arms were sending waves of heat crashing from her face all the way down to her feet, while the close proximity of his lips made her half-crazed with the need to kiss him.

  “No. We both know that all you have to do to seduce me is walk into the room.”

  “Today was—I wanted both of us to get a glimpse of how it could be together—that’s what today was about,” he said. “And now, I don’t want it to end.”

  Letting her body speak for her, she slipped her arms around him and drew herself closer to the hard warmth of his body. “We won’t let it,” she whispered.

  Suddenly his hands were framing her face and tilting her lips up to his. When his mouth finally made contact with hers, something sweet and fiery swept through her, very nearly wilting her bones.

  At first touch, the kiss was a tender exploration. But after a few short moments it deepened into a hungry foray that pushed its way deep into her senses until everything turned into a hazy mantle wrapping itself around her.

  His hands slipped into her hair, then quickly slid down her shoulders and onto her hips. As he pulled her tight against him, Geena could already feel the bulge of his desire straining against the fly of his jeans.

  She wanted to touch him there. She wanted to touch him everywhere.

  Tearing her mouth from his, she grabbed his arm. “Come on,” she whispered hoarsely. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”

  “Emma is in there.”

  Geena shook her head as she urged him out of the kitchen. “I put her in the big crib—in the nursery.”

  With her hand wrapped around his, she led him to the bedroom, but before they reached the side of the double bed, Vince paused to pull her back into the tight circle of his arms.

  Pressing his lips to the corner of hers, he whispered, “Geena, before we take another step. I want you to be sure about this. If you have any doubts—”

  “Doubts about making love to you? No. How could I doubt something that’s gone over and over in my mind for the past six years?”

  He tilted his head back, and the wondrous light she spotted in his brown eyes jolted her. Because it looked very much like love.

  “Oh, baby, my sweet Geena. You can’t know how I’ve dreamed of this—longed for this.”

  With a hungry groan, he found her mouth, and for the next few moments he kissed her so deeply and thoroughly Geena feared she was going to melt right there in his arms. Breathing was nearly impossible, and her legs were threatening to buckle.

  Finally, he began to walk her backward until they both fell onto the side of the bed. Somehow their mouths managed to remain connected through the fall, and as Vince continued to kiss her, his hands went on a wild journey over her arms and shoulders, then down her back and onto her buttocks.

  Eventually, his fingers reached the hem of her sundress and he shoved the material up toward her waist. As he ran his palm over her bare thigh, Geena took the liberty of yanking the tails of his shirt from his jeans and moving her hands beneath the loosened material.

  His skin was hot and smooth, begging her to widen the range of her exploration. Touching him, kissing him was like coming home, and yet something about the pleasures also felt new and exciting, as though they’d never made love before.

  She pushed her hands farther beneath his shirt and then she felt it. A hard, jagged line of scar tissue running along the bottom of his right rib cage. The discovery caused her to pause, and he pulled his mouth away and looked into her eyes.

  “You don’t have to stop,” he whispered. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “It hurts me to know a bullet ripped into you. That your flesh was torn apart. Let me see.”

  Not waiting on his response, she took it upon herself to unbutton his shirt and push it away from his chest. Bending her head, she pressed her lips to the rigid white line, then continued to slide her lips along the mended skin until the mattress prevented her from going farther.

  His groan was a mixture of pleasure and pain as he snared a handful of hair and tried to tug her head away from his abdomen, but she didn’t give in to the pressure. Instead, she pushed him onto his back and continued on an upward path until her lips fastened over a male nipple.

  As her tongue laved the tiny brown bud, his hands reached to undo the zipper at the back of her dress. When the straps fell over her shoulders, she sat up and allowed the bodice to fall away from her bare breasts.

  His gaze narrowed on the pale orbs and puckered pink nipples. “You were always so beautiful, Geena. Even more beautiful now that you’ve had Emma.”

  Reaching out, he gently wrapped a hand around one plump breast. Geena bent over him and plastered a long, hungry kiss on his lips.

  Her lungs bursting for air, she was finally forced to break the contact, but Vince didn’t let the interruption stop him. He immediately went to work removing her dress, panties and slip before finally moving on to the sandals on her feet. By then every cell in Geena’s body was throbbing with anticipation. She’d never wanted any man this much. She’d never wanted him this much and she refused to keep her hands off him, even as he quickly shed his own clothing.

  When he finally laid her back on the bed and stretched out beside her, Geena was trembling with need, and she pulled herself close to him and buried her face in the corner of his neck. “Oh, Vince, why has it taken us so long to get here, to this?”

  His arms tightened around her as he brought his lips next to her ear. “I can’t answer that. But it doesn’t matter, my sweet. We’re not going to regret what was lost. From this moment on we’re going to concentrate on the future and making each other happy.”

  “Happy. Oh, yes, Vince. I want to make you very happy—and all mine.”

  “All yours. I like the sound of that.”

  Groaning, he tilted her head so that he could gain access to her lips. Once he started kissing her, the need to say anything more was lost to the passion quickly rising between them.

  His hands were everywhere. Skimming over her breasts and belly, the curve of her hips and down the length of her thighs. Eventually, the kiss ended and his lips decided to take a meandering trip down the side of her neck, across her collarbone and down to one breast. When his tongue finally made a slo
w circle around the nipple, she wanted to shout with pleasure. She wanted to capture his head with her hands and hold him to her so that the magical pleasure of his mouth could never leave her.

  After a few moments, Geena was certain she’d turned into a pulsing flame and Vince was the fuel splashing over her senses and pushing the fires inside her to an unbearable heat.

  By the time he pulled back and questioned her about birth control, she was in such a fog of smoky desire, she hardly registered what he was asking.

  “Birth control? No,” she finally managed to answer. “The breast-feeding acts like a birth control. But it doesn’t remove a slight chance of pregnancy.”

  He let out a long breath. “I’d better take care of the slight chance.”

  She didn’t completely understand what he meant until he left the bed and dug his wallet from the pocket of his jeans. When he turned his back to her and she heard the faint sound of ripping paper, she realized he was dressing himself in a condom.

  The added protection was the smart thing to do. Yet Geena wished it wasn’t needed. She wanted to feel every part of Vince, feel his flesh sliding against hers.

  But having another baby so soon would be risky, she silently reasoned with herself. Not only to her health, but also to this tenuous bond they were forging between them.

  *

  When Vince turned back to her, she opened her arms in a welcoming gesture and he moved over her, his head reeling with anticipated pleasure.

  Making love to Geena. Yes. He’d wanted this for so long. Years, in fact. Yet it hadn’t been until today, until he’d saw her laughing face lit up with sunshine and felt the trust in her hand as it wrapped around his, that he’d known it would finally happen. Now that it was, he was finding it a constant battle to contain his desire.

  With his hands planted on either side of her head, he lowered his mouth to hers. As he began to kiss her once again, her legs opened and a moan sounded deep in her throat. Her invitation was obvious, and yet he hesitated. Because he realized that once his body connected with hers the ecstasy would end far sooner than he wanted and needed.

  But when her hands grabbed his buttocks and pulled him forward, he had no option but to give her what she wanted.

  “Oh, Geena, darling, tell me if I hurt you,” he whispered, his voice rough with desire.

  “I’m hurting now,” she said with a breathless groan. “Because I want you so much. All of you.”

  Gripped with desire, he aligned his hips with hers and ever so slowly entered her warm body. The intimate connection caused his senses to splinter and scatter off into space like pieces of useless fluff.

  Left without the ability to think or reason, all he could do was react to the racking desire pushing him forward. The moist heat of her body made him forget his plan to go slow, and even if he had remembered, he couldn’t have stuck to it.

  As soon as her hips arched toward his, he instinctively drove himself deeper, until there was no space left between them. Then he paused, as the need to see her face became nearly as great as the raging fire in his loins. And as his gaze swept over her tangled gold hair and dark kissed lips, he wondered how he’d gone on existing without this, her.

  “Vince. Vince. This is—so perfect! So right! Make love to me. Never stop. Never stop!”

  The urgency of her words snapped his momentary paralysis and he began to move inside her. Gently at first, then faster as their need for each other began to climb to impossible heights.

  Quickly, the room began to fade around him to leave nothing but her soft, warm body writhing beneath his, begging him to take away the aching desire. Her hands were touching him everywhere, gliding over his sweat-slick skin. Her lips tasting, supping, traveling down his neck and onto the ridge of his shoulder.

  The pleasures she was giving him were more than his body could handle at one time. And though he wanted to keep taking, wanted to keep giving, he was rapidly losing all control.

  Delving his hands beneath her back, he pulled her upper body forward until her breasts were pressed against his chest and her mouth was captured beneath his.

  Instantly, their ride grew even more frantic and wild. Until somewhere in the distance, Vince could hear her soft moans and recognized her body was tightening like a coil preparing for sudden release.

  Her response was all it took to push him into a mindless place where there was nothing but burning hot stars shooting in all directions and dark, velvety skies brushing over his skin, sending shivers of delight vibrating through to his very soul.

  The magnitude of the quakes overwhelmed him, blinded him with feelings so fierce he couldn’t stop a guttural cry from escaping from his throat.

  By the time the pieces of his shattered mind settled into place, he realized they’d both fallen back to the mattress. Geena was lying on her side, facing him. She was still drawing in long, deep breaths, and a sheen of sweat glistened on her face. The sight of her dreamy, half-closed eyes and swollen red lips caused his throat to tighten, his chest to swell.

  Smiling weakly, she rested her palm against his cheek. “You’re frowning,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  Groaning, he gathered her close against him and buried his face in the side of her tumbled hair. “No. I’m not okay,” he murmured huskily. “I’m hurting. My heart is about to burst with love for you.”

  For a moment she went so still he thought she’d stopped breathing. But then she tilted her head back and looked at him in stunned fascination.

  “Love? After everything we’ve been through?”

  Closing his eyes, Vince tucked her head in the crook of his shoulder, then gathered her in the tight circle of his arms.

  “In spite of everything we’ve been through,” he whispered roughly.

  And now that he could admit his love to himself, and to her, he had to decide what he was going to do about it. Or was she going to tell him it was too late to make the three of them a family?

  Chapter Twelve

  Cocooned in Vince’s arms, Geena pressed her cheek to his damp chest. The sound of his heart beating fast and hard echoed the pace of her own racing pulse.

  During their marriage she’d made love to this man an endless number of times, but never had it felt so perfect. Never had she felt so completely happy.

  After a moment, he asked, “You don’t have anything to say?”

  “I have a thousand things to say.” She soothed her palm over his rock-hard belly. “But right now I’m lying here in your arms trying to decide the best way to tell you.”

  He brought his thumb and forefinger beneath her chin and tilted her face up to his. “Tell me what?”

  Smiling tiredly, she raised up on one elbow and cupped a hand alongside his face. “How much I love you. How much I never stopped loving you.”

  With a hand at the back of her head, he drew her mouth down to his, and as he gently kissed her, Geena felt certain her heart was going to dissolve into a handful of useless goo.

  “Oh, darling,” he murmured. “Why did it take us this long to come to our senses?”

  Sighing, she eased down next to him and pillowed her head on his shoulder. “Because we were both so hurt. And neither of us wanted that to happen again. But I’m not afraid anymore, Vince. From now on, I’ll never be afraid of loving you—making a family with you.”

  His fingers gently stroked her hair. “You sound awfully certain of that.”

  “Mmm. I guess my turnaround seems sudden to you. But actually, it didn’t just happen. I’ve been thinking about this—us—for days now.”

  “Actually, I thought—well, I wanted today to be a beginning for us,” he said. “I wanted both of us to have a chance to be together just for the sake of it. I wanted the chance to make a subtle pitch for the merits of us getting back together. I didn’t imagine it was going to wind up like this.”

  She chuckled. “Really? You sounded pretty confident a few minutes ago in the kitchen.”

  “I was just putting on my best cool a
ct.”

  Lifting her head, she gave him a tender smile. “You don’t have to be cool with me, Vince. Or brave or funny. Or anything except you.”

  He grinned, and the idea that she could actually make him happy lifted her spirits as high as the sky.

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  Sighing, she returned her head to his shoulder. “There is one thing that scares me, though,” she admitted.

  There was a long, pregnant pause before he finally asked, “What is that?”

  “It scares me to think about what would’ve happened if I hadn’t made the choice to move to Carson City. What if I hadn’t wrecked my car or had amnesia? We would’ve never seen each other or been given this second chance. And that’s a very scary thought to me.”

  His hand made soothing circles on her back. “Evan says God puts us in certain places at certain times for a reason. He believes divine intervention caused you and me to get back together.”

  “How did Evan know we were getting back together?” she asked impishly.

  He chuckled. “Evan believes he’s smarter than everybody else. To hear him tell it, he can figure things out before they happen. I’ll tell you another thing about my partner. He didn’t always like you.”

  “Oh. He’s only known me for a short time.”

  “When we first became partners and I talked to him about you and our divorce, I think he got the impression that you were a bad wife. It was totally my fault he formed that opinion. I should’ve explained there was more going on than your drinking.”

  A few days ago, it would have bothered her for Vince to bring up the subject of her drinking, but now she was surprised to find that she welcomed it. “Well, I wasn’t exactly a good wife.”

  “I wasn’t exactly a good husband, either,” he reasoned.

  “We were too young to know the right things to do to make our marriage work,” she told him.

  He shifted the both of them so that she was lying flat against the bed and his somber gaze was searching hers. “You’re right about that, Geena. But the other night when I talked about being Emma’s father—you remember how that went.”