So he stopped fighting all the reasons crowding his mind why hooking up with Bree again wasn’t such a great idea and let his body take over. His body was a hell of a lot more switched on than his brain, so he’d moved out of the doorway and backed Bree against the entranceway wall before she could do more than make a soft squeak of protest.
“What is it with you trapping me against walls,” she said, but whatever further objection she was about to make tapered off into a low-pitched moan as his knee slid between her thighs, and his mouth descended to drop a kiss on her collarbone.
“I like vertical surfaces.” He tasted the skin of her throat, so smooth he was tempted to lick her up like his favorite gelato.
“Only vertical?”
He nibble-kissed along her jaw, and her breathing grew ragged.
“I’m partial to horizontal ones, too.” He leaned into her, oxygen suddenly in short supply as her breasts snugged into his chest. “Your bed, for example.”
He skimmed his palms up her arms and cupped her face. Her long lashes swept down, but her hands, fisted in his shirt either side of his hips, told him all he needed to know.
Bree wasn’t done with him either.
“West’s due home in a couple of hours. I can come over then.” He dipped his head and brushed a quick kiss over her mouth. Any more than the lightest touch of her lips and he’d be kissing the stuffing out of her like an out-of-control teenager.
“You can help me decide whether I like vertical or horizontal surfaces best.”
He pulled back, smiling at her, and yeah, expecting to see her smiling in return. Only she wasn’t. Her gaze was steady and unflinching, a look on her face that said this is going to be unpleasant, so I’ll just suck it up and say it.
“What?” he said.
Her hands, still bunched in his shirt, loosened and fell away.
“I need to tell you something.”
Shit. Along with “we need to talk”, “I need to tell you something” ranked high in conversation starters that made him want to run a mile.
“Hey, uh, guys?” Piper’s voice drifted down from above. “Can you two stop the verbal foreplay and come upstairs? I’ve either peed myself or my water’s broken.”
Chapter 12
If Bree had her camera, she could’ve snapped a portrait of Harley and entitled it, “Man Frozen in Terror.”
“We’re coming, Piper.” She got a grip on Harley’s shirt at nipple level—maybe even snagged a couple of chest hairs, too, as his stunned gaze zipped down to hers with a wince.
Good. She had his undivided attention.
“Don’t you wuss out now,” she said in a low tone, as bad-assed as she could make it, even though her heartbeat did the funky chicken dance in triple time. “Piper needs us both to be calm.”
“I’m calm. Bloody chilled, in fact.”
Upstairs, Piper let out a combination moan-growl.
“Move.” Bree gave him a not-so-gentle shove and slid past him into the hallway. Relieved to hear his footsteps behind her, she raced up the stairs.
Piper was hunched over at the top. Her arms braced on the wall, head drooping toward her chest and her lips peeled back in a grimace. “Thought they were gut cramps from having the trots today,” she said. “Dammit.”
Bree laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “Easy enough mistake to make.”
Piper’s stretchy leggings were soaked and clinging to her long legs, and she followed Bree’s gaze down. “Missing the quiz tonight was a good call. Can you imagine the pandemonium with all our guys stampeding for the exit at once?”
“West wouldn’t have.” Harley’s deep voice, now steady and reassuring, came from behind Bree. “And while the rest of us might’ve freaked for an instant”—heavy emphasis on the “instant” in case Bree didn’t get that chilled Harley was now in residence—“we’d still have taken care of you, Pipe.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Piper straightened, pushing away from the wall, her legs trembling. “I want to get changed.” She looked down the hallway but remained glued to the spot, another wave of tremors spreading through her.
Harley scooped up Piper in his arms.
“I can walk,” she grumbled.
But her arm wrapped tight around Harley’s neck as he carried her down the hallway to her and West’s bedroom.
Bree ran to the linen closet and grabbed a stack of towels then followed Harley into the bedroom. He’d set Piper on her feet and had his arms wrapped around her as she leaned against him making small, wounded pants. One large palm stroked up and down her back, and he dipped his head to press a brotherly kiss on the top of her head.
“You can do this,” Bree heard him say softly. “You’re the toughest broad I know.”
Contraction obviously dissipating, Piper smacked Harley’s hip and said, “Did you seriously just call me a broad?”
Something inside Bree’s chest went all light and squishy like a toasted marshmallow. She fought the instinct to back out of the room, feeling like a gauche intruder into a friendship that spanned twenty-five years. Then Harley glanced up at her hovering in the bedroom doorway. A flash of dark energy zapped between them and his brow furrowed.
“Was this what it was like for you when you had Carter?”
It was on the tip of Bree’s tongue to tell him the truth. To say, “No. When I went into labor with your son, I didn’t have your arms around me. I didn’t have you at my side telling me I could do this. I didn’t have you showing me through the gentleness of your touch that you cared about my pain. I didn’t have anyone but a brusque midwife, a yawning, on-duty doctor, and my sister, who had even less idea than I did on how to cope with the endless contractions.”
“Something like it, but every woman’s labor is different.” Bree crossed over to the bed. “Help me strip off the covers and spread these towels on the sheets. Then go and call West and Joe while I help Piper get changed.”
Ten minutes later, the cavalry—which included a wild-eyed West, a stoic Joe, and Piper’s frantic mother, Glenna—descended on the Westlake’s bedroom. Bree and Harley ducked into the living room while Joe conducted his examination.
Bree had absolutely no idea what to say to Harley, so she did what she did best when on the verge of a freak-out—she got busy. She gathered up the playing cards into a neat stack, wiped chip crumbs from the table, and filled the kitchen sink, pathetically relieved at the small stack of dirty dishes to wash. Anything to avoid eye-contact.
The heat of his gaze landed on her every now and again while he walked from point to point in the Westlake’s living room, the chirp of his phone signalling more incoming messages. Fortunately, the awkward silence was broken when Ben thundered up the steps. Harley immediately pulled him in for a back-slapping bro hug.
“How’s it going, Bree?” Ben waved to her in the kitchen.
Bree lifted a soapy hand and managed a smile, fake as it was. “Under control. I’ll just finish these, and I’ll put the kettle on.”
From down the hallway came a spine-chilling howl. Both Ben and Harley’s head whipped toward the sound.
“Think we’ll need something stronger than tea,” Ben muttered, his big hands balling into fists. “Jesus. She sounds like Sigourney Weaver in Alien.”
“Need a hand in whaling on West for what he’s done to your baby sister?” Harley asked with a fist-to-palm motion.
“Piper will deal out any necessary punishment, I’m guessing.”
Another scream echoed down the hallway and Ben flinched.
“God, though, it must rip your fucking guts out seeing your woman go through that and be helpless to do anything,” he added.
“I wouldn’t know.” Harley’s gaze unerringly found hers. The accusation in his eyes was crystal clear, but beneath that, Bree could’ve sworn she saw something else—regret? Guilt? Concern?
Bree turned back to the sink, swirling her fingers through the hot water. It didn’t matter what Harley felt about missing Carter’s
birth. What mattered was how he’d feel about their unborn child’s.
***
Bree carried yet another mug from the kitchen and deposited it on the coffee table by Glenna.
Piper’s mother wrapped her fingers around Bree’s wrist. “We so appreciate you staying and keeping us fed and watered—thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Bree patted Glenna’s hand. “Anything I can do to help.”
Next to Glenna, Shaye remained tucked tight against Del’s side while he gently played with her ponytail. Like Glenna, Shaye and Del had rushed over as soon as Harley called them. They’d walked in only moments before Joe entered the living room to announce there wasn’t time to call in a chopper to get Piper to Invercargill hospital. Baby Westlake would make an appearance sooner rather than later.
Not to be outdone on the support front, West and Del’s dad, Bill, arrived with Claire—his ex-wife and the men’s mum—at his side. It was a badly kept secret that Bill and Claire had reconciled sometime before or after Bill’s kidney transplant at the beginning of the year. Apparently, the prospect of becoming grandparents had lowered both their guards for PDA, as the two of them sat opposite Del, Shaye, and Glenna, with Bill’s arm tucked firmly around Claire’s shoulder.
Most of the time, the eight of them sat-stood-paced in silence—interrupted only by the electronic noises of texts sent and received and Piper’s shouts of pain growing closer together.
Bree retreated to the kitchen, running on auto-pilot. Her heart gave a little, lurching jolt at Harley by the big picture windows tracking her with an indecipherable gaze. She’d expected him to leave the moment the rest of Piper’s and West’s family arrived. But he’d once again proved her expectations of him were too low. Not only had he stayed, but he’d kept Ben steady, soothed Glenna when she’d started to cry, and kept Bill occupied by taking orders on who to call to arrange staff to cover for West’s absence the next morning. He was a rock, in other words.
And she didn’t know quite what to make of it.
Bree yanked open the pantry and grabbed the flour container. She put it on the counter and went back for the sugar and eggs.
“What’s wrong?”
Harley had somehow sneaked into the kitchen without her hearing him, and he leaned, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets, against the fridge.
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m making something for them to eat,” she said.
“Bree.” He lowered his voice, as if he didn’t want anyone in the other room to hear. “You’re crying.”
“No, I’m not.” But when she raised a hand to her cheek, her fingers came away wet. She wiped them on her shirt and crouched to remove a mixing bowl from a low cupboard.
She stood, only to find Harley had moved and once again, damn him, had her trapped between his big, warm body and a hard, immovable surface. His breath tickled the back of her neck, and she shivered, placing the bowl on the counter in front of her.
“Someone will see,” she said in a strangled whisper. “Back off.”
“No one’s looking, and frankly, if they are, I don’t give a shit. Tell me what’s put the bug up your ass.”
Or the baby in your belly. Bree squeezed her eyes shut, gripping the counter edge until she thought her knuckles would pop right through her skin.
“Let it go.”
“Can’t do that. Talk,” Harley said in that reasonable but stubborn Alpha-male tone that used to drive her crazy. Still drove her crazy.
“Bite me.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he said and then proved his lack of willpower by grazing his teeth on the fleshy part of her earlobe. “And quit stalling. Is it your mother? Has she been rattling your cage about the gallery again?”
Bree shook her head, gave him a little jab with her elbow, but he wouldn’t take the hint that she really didn’t want to do this here.
Harley’s palms covered her rigid fingers, his mouth pressed to her shoulder. “Carter?” His lips moved against the thin cotton of her shirt. “Carter’s okay?”
That Harley would think for a moment she wouldn’t tell him if Carter wasn’t okay, cut deep. Sliced through some of the ties keeping the little secret growing in her womb hidden from Harley.
“Or is it me?” Tension wove through every heavy strand of his words. “Did you intend to let me know we were done? That you don’t crave me the way I’ve been craving you?”
She turned, the brush of his arms on hers sending hot tingles flurrying south. Pretty sure the lust zipping through her was totally inappropriate, she stiffened her spine and squashed it. “What part of ‘let it go’ didn’t you—”
Harley kissed her, a deep, shut-the-hell-up kind of kiss that yanked her command of the English language out of her brain. She gripped his biceps with fingers carved from marble, digging into the hard muscle there as if holding on to Harley would stop her from flying apart.
Nothing would stop her flying apart once he knew. Nothing. And the longer she put it off—letting his tongue slide sensuously against hers—the more painful the plummet to earth. She jerked her face away, blood pounding so hard in her ears the sounds of Piper’s screams seemed to come from a great distance away.
Bree kept her gaze locked on the row of cabinet doors behind him. “Harley, I’m pregnant.”
The only movement from the man pressed against her was a sudden tightening under her fingertips—which were still dug into his arms. He wasn’t the only one carved from marble. If Bree inhaled too deeply, she thought her expanding lungs might just crumble into powdery dust. Running through a list of possibilities about his initial reaction, she came up with three possibilities.
Is this a joke?
Are you sure?
Is it mine?
While she could forgive the first two, she’d have to knee him in the balls if he uttered the last one.
Harley’s breath hissed out in a long, drawn-out sigh and seconds after it, a high-pitched wail of a baby split the air. Pandemonium erupted in the Westlake’s living room with the six keeping vigil all scrambling to their feet and buzzing around like bumblebees.
Ben, who’d been pacing up and down the hallway, stuck his head into the living room. “It’s a healthy baby girl!”
A few endlessly long beats passed then Shaye tumbled into the kitchen. She flung herself at Harley, knocking him back half a step as she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek.
“I’m an auntie again!” she squealed.
Then she let go of Harley and swept Bree around in a jiggling circle, giggling like a crazy woman. “Did you hear that, Bree? A little girl!”
Bree squeezed Shaye tight. “Now you have another beautiful niece to spoil.”
“I was so hoping it would be a little girl—I mean, a boy would be lovely, too, but oh—now I can go home and make my raspberry and white chocolate cupcakes with pink ganache icing! Your favourite right, Harley? Harley…?”
Bree, with her back to the kitchen entranceway, froze.
“Where did he go?” asked Shaye.
Bree gave Shaye another squeeze and peeled herself from her friend’s embrace. “He must be with the rest of them in the hallway, waiting to catch a glimpse of your new niece.”
Shaye continued chattering on while Bree’s blood filled with ice crystals. Harley wouldn’t be waiting in the hallway—she wasn’t a gambler, but she’d toss in all her chips on that bet.
No. Harley hadn’t stuck around to confirm her worst fears, but perhaps he hadn’t needed to. It was proof enough that he’d walked out into the dark without saying a word.
***
Knocked up. In the family way. A bun in the oven.
In stealth mode, Harley slid past the Harlands and Westlakes and down the stairs, heading out the front door into the night. The damp, salt-slicked sea air buffeted his flushed face but did nothing to cool the fire blazing in his gut.
Up the duff. Expecting.
What the actual fuck? How could he have been so careless—no
t once but twice?
He strode down the hill toward Halfmoon Bay, a full moon guiding his steps. By the time he hit the main road, his long stride had lengthened into a jog. Once the first streetlight came into view, it was a full-out run—to his twin’s house.
Where else would he go when life flipped him head over ass?
The lights were off, but it didn’t stop Harley from hammering a fist on his brother’s front door. As he waited, he allowed himself to be momentarily distracted by the small satisfaction that Ford’s place was completely dark at just past ten. Before he’d taken a risk with Holly, Ford couldn’t sleep without the hall light on and the bedroom door left open. A shitty residual of their childhood when Pania would sometimes wallop the four-year-old twins for waking her if they got up during the night to use the bathroom. Unlike Ford, Harley didn’t mind the darkness so much as he hated being kept away from people. And right now, he needed people—his twin, to be exact.
Light flared from somewhere in the house, then came the heavy pad of footsteps.
Ford jerked opened the door, a fearsome scowl on his mouth. “Baby Westlake arrived without penis about ten minutes ago, eight pounds, two ounces. We got the group text from Shaye. Piss off, we’re sleeping.”
Ignoring his brother, who now went to bed at a nana-ish time and still hated being woken from his beauty sleep, Harley shoved past and stalked down the hall to Ford’s living room. He hit the lights and crossed the floor to the open-plan kitchen, aimed straight for Ford’s pantry. Bottle of scotch from the top shelf, then a tumbler from the kitchen cabinet. He thought about ice for a millisecond and then sloshed whiskey into the glass. No time for ice.
“We drinking to the birth of our mate’s first kid?” Ford ambled over from where he’d watched Harley from the doorway.
“Nope.” Harley drained half the glass, winced as the whiskey burned a trail down his throat. Thanks to his mother’s torrid affair with drugs and alcohol, Harley generally avoided strong spirits. Tonight wasn’t a general sort of night.
Drawing Me In: A New Zealand Secret Baby Second Chance Romance (Due South Series Book 7) Page 17
