Room Mates_The Series

by Kendall Ryan

  “What difference does it make, then? She gives up drinking for a month. You put the results in an envelope and date until it’s time to open the thing.”

  “But if the pregnancy is ectopic or something—”

  “Then I’ll know the results and run things smoothly as they normally would go,” Trent said. “Now, I came in here to tell you the hematologist just dropped off this week’s tests. What do you want me to do?”

  My stomach clenched into a tight knot. Could I live with not knowing about the baby for an entire month? If it meant I got a shot at developing a real relationship, naturally, with Bren, then the choice was easy. For me, at least. I just hoped she’d let me lead in this situation.

  “I guess pitching her the idea couldn’t hurt.”

  “It can’t. I’ll go take care of everything.” He pushed himself from his seat and strolled from the office, and I stared down at my half-eaten sandwich, suddenly no longer hungry.

  Could I really do this? As badly as I wanted to rip into that envelope, I knew that Bren deserved to be the first person to know.

  More for something to do than anything else, I picked up the sandwich on my desk and took a bite, barely tasting the food before swallowing it. In a matter of minutes, Trent returned, a sealed, unmarked envelope in his hand.

  He sat it on my desk on top of the clipboard holding my litany of mistakes. I wondered if he’d done that on purpose.

  “Here you go,” he said, his tone totally flat.

  I searched his face, but he looked impassive as ever.

  “What?” I asked.

  Trent shook his head. “I told them not to tell me unless there was a pregnancy and a potential problem. Only one person in this office knows the truth and I’m not telling you who it is.”

  “Right.” I nodded. “Smart,” I muttered, impressed in spite of myself.

  “Now, you should probably call your girl. I imagine you’ve got some talking to do.”

  Trent slipped from the room again, and I glanced at my phone before pulling out Bren’s intake form and dialing the number there. The phone barely had a chance to ring before her clear, crisp voice sounded on the other end.

  “Hello?” she said, her voice washing over me like honey.

  “Hey,” I started, “it’s Mason.”

  “Oh, hey.” The nervous spark in her voice heightened. “Do you have the test results?”

  “I do, and everything is fine, but I think we should talk about it in person. Is there any chance you could meet me in my office this afternoon when you get out of work?”

  “It’s my day off,” she said. “Is there a time you had in mind?”

  I glanced at the clock. It was nearly one—not time to go home. But then, Trent did owe me a favor or two…

  “I’ll have my partner cover my appointments for this afternoon. Could you come in now?”

  “Um, sure. You said you’re sure everything is okay?”

  “I’m sure. I just think it’d be better to talk in person.”

  She agreed and hung up, and then I forced myself to take a deep breath and focus on the work in front of me. With a quick note to my assistant, I asked her to work my schedule around. Then I stared at the intake and patient records I’d ruined earlier that day.

  With any luck, not knowing for the next month might get easier. But right now?

  Right now I kept staring at the clock every few minutes, waiting for the buzzer to sound and let me know that Bren had finally arrived. After ten torturous minutes, though, it finally did.

  “Let her in,” I told my assistant, then sat up straighter in my chair as I waited for the door to creak open and Bren’s pretty, heart-shaped face to peek around the corner. When it did, I had to bite my tongue to keep from breaking into a huge grin at the sight of her.

  It felt like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. In washed-out shorts and a faded blue blouse, she was knockout. Her hair was long and wavy today, and her wide-set gray eyes stood in stark contrast to her pale skin.

  Due to nerves or morning sickness? I couldn’t help but wonder.

  “Please, sit,” I motioned to the chair Trent had occupied before and she settled in easily, though she hitched her purse a little higher on her shoulder rather than setting it on the ground. I double-checked to make sure the door was closed, then picked up the envelope containing our combined fate and handed it to her.

  “What’s this?” she asked, then moved to open it, but I stopped her.

  “Wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “I have a proposal, and you can decide whether you want to open it when I’m done, all right?”

  Chapter Ten

  Bren

  Two minutes after he was done with his little speech, I was still blinking back at him in stunned silence.

  “So, let me just get this straight,” I said, finally finding my voice. “You want to wait until I’m almost two months pregnant to find out if I’m pregnant at all?”

  It sounded ridiculous—ludicrous, even. I had to be missing something.

  But no, he just sat there with those clear blue eyes staring at me, as if this was the most obvious solution on the planet.

  “I’ve thought a lot about it and I think this is the only way.” He nodded. “To know if there’s definitely something here that has nothing to do with this potential baby, which I think there is.”

  “Right.” I took a deep breath and stared down at the envelope. “I guess…I just don’t see why it matters. Like, either we get along and everything is great or we don’t and then have seven months instead of eight to figure out how we’re going to raise a baby.”

  Both of which, of course, were terrible options.

  After all, I didn’t want to see where this led. Hadn’t I told him as much by sneaking out that night? And hadn’t I made that loud and clear when he’d asked me about it at dinner?

  He was a nice guy, a romantic. A hot, successful doctor with a heart of gold and magic hands.

  He was exactly the kind of guy a girl could fall for.

  If a girl wanted to fall. Which I, most definitely, did not.

  “I just don’t think either of us should settle,” he said. “If we find out that we have a baby coming, we’ll want to make it work between us for the baby’s sake.”

  “Or we could never try and successfully co-parent because we never crossed that boundary to begin with,” I countered, half hoping he would agree and half hoping that he’d shut me down.

  He tapped his fingers on his desk, staring long and hard at the wood before his gaze rose to mine again. “Do you really think that’s an option? We’re going to spend years co-parenting together not knowing what it’s like to be with each other again—after everything that happened that night—and we’ll both never have a moment of weakness and want to find out? Maybe you can, but I know I sure as fuck can’t.”

  His gaze burned through me, and again I remembered the heat of his body against my skin, the weight of his as he moved on top of me, filling me with so much pleasure I felt like I could explode.

  I swallowed hard, tamping down any lingering desire. Dismissing it as irrelevant to our future. “The attraction is not something I can deny,” I admitted.

  “So this is the only way. The right way. Let’s see where it goes.”

  “But if we have a baby on the way, there are things we need to discuss. Giving up a whole month just to pretend this isn’t happening—”

  “Then let’s not. If it’s that important to you to get a plan together, let’s go somewhere and set one up. You and me. Once all that is laid out, we’ll be able to continue not knowing. Unless, of course, you hadn’t planned on keeping the baby?”

  Automatically my hand moved to my stomach, and I considered what he’d said. The words had been free of hurt or judgment, and I knew he was allowing this to be my decision, but the choice had already been made. In truth, it had never been a question at all for me.

  “I’m keeping it,” I said. “If there’s a baby.�
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  He nodded. “If there’s a baby.”

  He held out his hand and nodded toward the envelope, and I handed it to him. He stuffed it in his pocket, shrugged off his lab coat, then moved past me to the row of hooks behind my chair. Picking up the leather jacket hanging there, he put it on, then held out his hand to me again. “Now let’s go. Time’s a-wasting.”

  I followed him, and together we walked through the office, through the atrium of the building, and finally out onto the street, where a friendly row of shops greeted us.

  “You like frozen yogurt?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Good. There’s a really good place over here.” He nodded toward a little shop with a pink awning. We approached it, and then he held the door open for me.

  I stepped in and stared at the wall of options, momentarily overwhelmed.

  “They have dividers,” he said. “You can get more than one.”

  He handed me a cup with four-way divider in it and I went to town pouring pistachio, coconut, chocolate-covered pretzel, and salted caramel yogurt into my cup. When I was done, I met him at the buffet of toppings and noticed him shoveling chocolate-covered raspberry jellies onto a massive serving of chocolate yogurt.

  “Chocolate lover, huh?” I asked.

  He nodded, then made for the brownie bits like he’d never seen anything so decadent before in his life. “For sure.”

  “I’m more of a yogurt purist.” I squirted fluffy whipped cream on top of each of the sections of my yogurt, then set it on the scale for the friendly-looking cashier.

  “I’ve got it,” Mason said, “Just give me a minute.”

  He stopped in front of the hot fudge canister and poured a healthy dollop on top of what had to be a two-thousand-calorie dessert.

  If I’d been worried about having to be super healthy around him just because he was a doctor, his actions blew that theory out of the water. We were going to be ourselves, and that made me smile.

  When I looked up, I saw the cashier eyeing him like she wanted to devour him, and a surge of jealousy coursed through me before I got hold of myself again.

  “All set,” he said, then shelled out the money to pay for our treats before making his way to one of the little white tables in the front of the store.

  I grabbed a cheery-looking magenta spoon and joined him at the table, ready to dig in.

  “Okay, so, down to business.” He took a spoonful of what had to be pure hot fudge, then said, “You want to talk about the baby. Let’s work it all out so you won’t need to worry about it for at least a month.”

  “Well, there’s the complex stuff.” I played with my pistachio yogurt. “Like, I’ll need to learn a lot. I’m an only child—I don’t have much experience with babies. I’ll need to consider looking into classes and such.”

  “I’ve got you covered.” He shrugged. “I know everything about babies. When your milk comes in, the benefits and detriments of nursing, all of it. I know every stage of pregnancy backward and forward.”

  “Right.” I tilted my mouth to the side. “But what if something is wrong?”

  “I have a friend who will look after you just to be on the safe side.”

  I took a deep breath. Okay, that made sense. “And what about the other stuff…the exciting stuff?”

  “Like what?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Picking out a name. Picking out colors for the nursery. I won’t get to do any of that. Plus, what if you really want to name your son after yourself and I want a different name?”

  “Something wrong with the name Mason?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “No, I just had a different name in mind.”

  “What’s that?”

  “For a boy, it’s really important to me to name him Jacob.” It had been my father’s name, the name my parents would have given me if I’d been a boy. The name my brother might have had if my father had lived long enough to have another child.

  “What’s so special about Jacob?” he asked.

  It was the perfect chance to tell him—to explain why I couldn’t be his one and only, even if I’d wanted to. But I wasn’t ready for all that just yet. I couldn’t open my heart like that—especially not to someone who was still relatively a stranger.

  “It’s a family name,” I said simply.

  He nodded. “Jacob it is, then. Problem solved.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip. “I picked the boy name. Feels only fair you pick the name for a girl.”

  “That’s easy. Gwen.”

  “Gwen?” I asked. I didn’t mind the sound of it. In fact, it was even kind of cute.

  He nodded again. “It’s my mother’s name. I think she’d be honored.”

  “Settled then. Gwen or Jacob.” I stabbed my spoon into my yogurt, trying to ignore the completely overwhelming feeling that—now that this baby had a name—everything was all too real. Which, of course, it might not be.

  But then…

  If it was, didn’t I owe it to my child to give his or her father a chance? It might destroy me in the process, but then…didn’t all parents make huge, life-changing sacrifices for their children?

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll do it your way. But you keep the envelope. If I have it, I’m going to rip into it. I can’t live with the temptation.”

  He gave me a solemn nod, but the envelope was only half the temptation. Now that I’d made my decision, it was sort of open season, at least for now, on the good Dr. Bentley.

  And the thought excited me almost as much as it terrified me.

  Chapter Eleven

  Bren

  His warm tongue laved against my straining nipple, causing another moan to rip from my throat.

  “Enough teasing,” I groaned.

  A warm male chuckle vibrated—against my inner thigh this time. “So bossy,” he murmured. “I want to take my time with you.”

  His hot tongue met the oversensitive spot between my thighs, and any further arguments died on my lips.

  Gah!

  Digging my fingers into his hair, I tugged slightly, loving the way it felt to be in this position at all.

  One-night stands weren’t supposed to be like this, right? It was like someone designed this man just for me. He took his time hunting out every secret spot that made me shiver and then lingered there until I was desperate and trembling with need.

  “One more,” he whispered, the stubble from his jaw brushing between my thighs in the most distracting and delicious way. “Come once more for me and I’ll give you what you want.”

  “Then let’s get the show on the road.” I lifted my hips, raising my warm, wet center straight to his mouth.

  He chuckled again before diving in with gusto. His tongue could have set Olympic records with how skilled it was, and how embarrassingly fast he brought me to the edge.

  “Mason!” I cried out his name, already there—right at that blissful moment before the most intense pleasure crashed through me—for the third time since I’d found myself in his bed.

  He rose to his knees, his long fingers replacing his mouth, stroking in slow circles. He continued to hold me there—just at the edge—as he quickly covered himself with a condom.

  “I want to feel you come this time,” he said on a groan as he entered me. My body tightened around him, the invasion intense but oh so welcome.

  His thick length speared me, and my entire body tightened. Deeper still he slid, and I cried out, so close.

  “Right there,” I said. “Just like that.”

  “You feel so perfect. Now come for me,” he sighed.

  I opened my eyes.

  No, no, no!

  I groaned in frustration.

  I sat up in bed—alone—covered in a thin sheen of sweat, my heart pounding and panties soaked through.

  The best sex of my life, and it was only a dream.

  Holy shit. I just had the most realistic fantasy about Mason. I’d relived some of our steamier moments from our night together.
r />   But my overheated body couldn’t tell the difference between a sex dream and the real thing.

  Turning over on my side, I punched my pillow into place, wondering how in the world I’d get back to sleep now.

  ***

  “Can I ask you a question?” I glanced at Mandy over the surgical mask I wore, my voice muffled.

  She was disinfecting a cut on the inside of a sloth’s hind leg. Poor little guy.

  “’Course. Anything. You know that.” Her eyes behind her thick tortoiseshell frames narrowed on mine.

  Drawing a deep breath, I steeled my nerves. “Tell me more about growing a human inside you.”

  Mandy set down the gauze she’d been using and grabbed a bottle of disinfectant. “You’ll have to be a little more specific than that. What about it?”

  “I had this dream last night. It was so vivid.”

  “Yeah, I remember having some crazy dreams.” Mandy nodded. “What about?”

  Glancing down at Mr. Pokey, I stroked his fur softly, a smile quirking up my lips. “Yeah, this was no ordinary dream…it was more of a vivid flashback of my time with Mason.”

  Mandy set down her tools, her eyes meeting mine. “Oh my God.”

  “What?” Her intense scrutiny gave me chills.

  She took a deep breath, and we moved away from our patient, removing our rubber gloves and throwing them in the trash.

  “I almost don’t want to tell you this…but when I was pregnant, my libido was out of control. I was so horny. All the time. Poor Todd. I had a big belly, so sex was awkward, but that didn’t stop me from begging him to take me from behind.” She chuckled, clearly remembering something I did not want to know about.

  At this new information, my mouth pulled into a frown. None of what she was telling me was making me feel any calmer about my situation. I figured my odds of being pregnant were fifty-fifty, but every time Mandy spoke, it was like I learned of another new symptom to freak out about.

  With this new information, my chances of not jumping Mason’s bones the next time I saw him were, what? Slim to none.

  I was so screwed.

  Chapter Twelve