The Baby Proposal

by Andrea Laurence

  Lana looked at him with a frown. “I never knew you liked cookies.”

  “Who doesn’t like cookies?” he replied, snatching another off the rack.

  “Well, I mean, I didn’t know you were so fond of them. You’ve never been big on desserts when we’ve gone out.”

  “That’s because most restaurants don’t offer cookies. Especially warm ones.” He reached out for a third, but Lana smacked his hand.

  “Pace yourself.”

  Sonia giggled and continued to scoop another batch of dough onto the cookie sheet.

  Lana looked down at her watch. “You know what, Sonia, you were supposed to go off duty half an hour ago. Tonight is your weekday evening off.”

  Once they decided that Sonia would be a live-in nanny, they arranged for her to have all day Saturday and Wednesday nights off. There weren’t luaus on either day, so Lana or Kal could be home with Akela when she was gone.

  Sonia turned to the kitchen clock in surprise and dusted her hands off on her apron. “You’re right! I have book club tonight. I’d better get cleaned up and get out of here or I’ll be late. Do you mind if I take some of the fudge for the ladies?”

  “Not at all.”

  Sonia quickly made up a small plate of fudge squares and hurried to her room to get ready to leave.

  Once they were alone, Kal and Lana worked together to clean up the last of the baking stuff and put the cookies and candies in airtight containers.

  “Those cookies are great, but I think I need more than that to eat tonight.”

  “You’re right. It’s about time for Akela’s dinner, too. If you can feed her one of those jars of baby food, I’ll see what I can find in the pantry to make for our dinner.”

  Kal looked at her with unmasked surprise. “You’re going to cook?”

  Lana crossed her arms over her chest in irritation. He couldn’t help noticing the way she cocked her hip and pressed her breasts tight against her shirt with the movement. Even though he’d seen Lana perform in a lot less clothing, this was better. He liked seeing the casual side of her—her womanly curves evident, but hidden away like a treasure he ached to seek out and uncover again. Most of the time at work, she was in performance mode or strict choreographer mode. Neither was much fun to be around, frankly.

  “Watch it, mister.” Lana smirked and turned her back on him to look in the refrigerator.

  He’d be lying to himself if he said he didn’t also like her in sassy wife mode. In their home, with her hair up in a messy bun and a clean, fresh face. In their bed, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes glassy with desire. As she bent over to look in the fridge, the clinging yoga pants she wore after finishing dance rehearsal that morning highlighted one of her best assets. Those hips were carved by Mother Nature to be cupped by his palms. He could still feel the silk of her skin against his, making his hands tingle with the memory of touching her.

  Things between them had been a little awkward since they had sex. They’d both tried to dance around the issue and deal with everything but that. It was easy to ignore the tension and ignore each other when the baby needed to be fed and work beckoned. He didn’t want it to be that way. He didn’t know how long this situation would last, but he wanted the best of both worlds—the mind-blowing sex and the amazing friendship they’d had before. It made sense that they should enjoy the physical pleasures...they were married, weren’t they? It shouldn’t cost them the easygoing friendship he enjoyed. He didn’t understand why one had to affect the other.

  Maybe tonight, after Akela went down for the night and Sonia was out for the evening, they could talk about it. That was one thing they hadn’t really had the opportunity to do since it happened.

  And maybe, if he was lucky, she’d let him make love to her again.

  * * *

  Lana had to admit that having Sonia around made a world of difference. She felt better being back at work and didn’t pass out with exhaustion the minute her head hit the pillow. Akela was another matter. Sonia kept that baby busy. They went on walks, played peekaboo, read books and had plenty of tummy time. After a bath and a quick change into her pajamas, now it was the baby who was out cold when she laid her out on the crib mattress.

  “Was she fussy?” Kal asked as she came back into the living room.

  “Not at all. She’s already asleep. Between Sonia and the lavender bubble bath, she doesn’t stand a chance.”

  Kal nodded and looked at her with the same dark eyes she’d fallen prey to the other night. “Come sit with me.”

  Lana was considering cleaning up after dinner, but it didn’t take much to convince her to put that off. Kal was sitting on the sofa near the gas fireplace. It was rare that you needed one in Hawaii, but with the Christmas lights twinkling and the candles around the room flickering, it added a bit of ambience.

  Kal had changed out of his work suit. He was in a pair of jeans and an old surfing T-shirt she’d never seen before. The way it clung to his broad shoulders and large arms, he probably had bought the thing in high school. It looked good on him, though. He was handsome as always in his power suits, but when Kal had jeans on, it meant it was time for fun, not time for work. That was the time she enjoyed the most.

  Lana settled onto the couch beside him and accepted the glass of wine he offered. “The house looks beautiful,” he said. “I mean it. I spent a fortune having an interior decorator put this place together, and in a single day you made it feel more like a home than it ever has.”

  She swallowed her sip of wine, surprised by his words. “Thank you. I’m glad you like it. It’s just a few things. I didn’t want to take over your whole house, but I wanted to make a good Christmas for Akela’s first.”

  “It’s your house, too, Lana. If you want to decorate the whole place, I’ll give you my credit card and you can go crazy. This is a special occasion.”

  Lana tried to shrug that off. They both knew this wasn’t a real marriage. Sex hadn’t changed that any more than their vows had. “I’d hold off on buying a commemorative ornament, since we won’t make it to our second Christmas.”

  Kal sighed. “Other people don’t know that, though.” He stretched and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “At the very least you have to admit that this is quite a romantic setup with the lights and the fire.”

  “It is.” She hadn’t thought of it that way at the time she put it all up, but she hadn’t envisioned snuggling on the couch with him like this, either.

  “It’s a shame you didn’t hang any mistletoe.”

  Lana stiffened. Apparently they needed to have the discussion they’d avoided since they had sex. If Kal was under the impression that it was going to happen again, he was wrong. She’d let herself get wrapped up in the moment, falling under the spell of the fantasy they’d crafted for appearances, but she couldn’t let it continue. She knew her heart and how easily she could fall for Kal. That would only end in heartbreak for her.

  He would walk away from this whole thing like it was just another adventure they’d shared without carrying any feelings for her. He might want her physically while they were together, but he didn’t want to be with her beyond this arrangement. Lana knew that. Sex just led to thoughts of a future they wouldn’t have. She couldn’t do that to herself. “I don’t think mistletoe is the best idea, Kal.”

  “Sometimes the worst ideas are the most fun, Lana.”

  She turned to pull away from the arm that was cradling her to his side. “Kal...that night between us was...”

  “Amazing?”

  “A mistake,” she corrected. “I think we both let this fake relationship get the best of us, but it can’t continue. It just clouds our friendship with all these physical complications.”

  “Physical complications? What’s an orgasm or two between friends?”

  Lana ignored his smirk. “I’m serious, Kal. You might be the master of sex without strings, but we’ve got a lot of history together. I don’t want things to get complicated. Our friendship is so importa
nt to me. I don’t want to compromise it.”

  Kal’s face grew uncharacteristically serious as he reached out and caressed her cheek. “The last thing on this earth I’ll do is hurt you, Lana. If you’re not attracted to me—”

  “I didn’t say that,” she interrupted.

  “Then you are attracted to me,” he said with a mischievous twinkle returning to his eye.

  Lana sighed. This conversation was not going the way she’d expected it to. Was Kal truly attracted to her? She couldn’t imagine it. “The point is not if we’re into each other.”

  “I think that is the point, Lana. Listen, I know that we’re not compatible in the long run. We want different things out of life and relationships. But this is a special opportunity we’ve been given to enjoy our time together. We’re married. We might as well enjoy some of the perks. I think it will carry over out of the bedroom and make our relationship seem more authentic in the eyes of others.”

  “And when it’s over?” Lana asked. Were they just supposed to go back to the way things were before? Was that even possible?

  “And when it’s over, it’s over. You go back to hunting for your soul mate and I regain my crown as the most eligible bachelor on Maui.”

  Lana shook her head. She knew she couldn’t just go back to looking for another guy the way she had done before. Being with Kal might have very well ruined her for every other man. But right now she was more worried about how the two of them moved forward together. “So our friendship just goes back to the way it was before all this? I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  Kal sighed and sat forward in his seat, pinning her with his dark gaze. “Lana, the minute you proposed to me, our friendship changed. It will never be exactly the way it was. When we married, when we kissed, when we had sex...all those things changed it. But that’s okay. Relationships aren’t meant to be static. They evolve. We might as well enjoy where our friendship is right now while it lasts, because it will evolve to something else in the future. It’s not better or worse, it’s just the way life is.

  “And no,” he continued, “I’m not offering you that white-picket-fence future you want when this charade is all over. It’s what you want and it’s what you deserve. One day you’ll find it, but you and I both know it won’t be with me. You know me better than anyone else, so you know exactly what I’m offering and what I’m not. So why can’t we enjoy where our friendship has evolved to right now? Indulge in the physical while it lasts?”

  Kal very nearly had her convinced. It all sounded good in theory. Keeping her emotions out of the situation would be hard, but maybe she could do it. He was right—her eyes were wide-open where he was concerned.

  “Lana, you can’t tell me that in all our years of friendship, you hadn’t been the tiniest bit curious about what it would be like to make love to me. I’ll be honest and say I thought about it. A lot.”

  “Kal!” Lana complained.

  “We’re being honest here,” he insisted. “Tell me that you never once fantasized about me.”

  Lana tried not to squirm under his heated gaze. Of course she’d fantasized about him. She wasn’t about to admit to how much, though. “I can’t. You know full well I can’t say that.”

  “Okay, then tell me you didn’t enjoy the other night.”

  This time Lana frowned. “You know I can’t say that, either.” It was incredibly evident she’d had a good time. If she hadn’t worried about waking the baby, she would’ve screamed the house down.

  “Okay, then.” His hand reached out to stoke her bare arm. The caress sent a shudder through her whole body that would’ve betrayed any lie she told about not wanting him. “So let’s just stop stressing out about the whole thing and just do what feels right for us. If that means making love every night...” He let the words hang in the air between them. “...then so be it.”

  That was certainly a tempting offer. The idea of spending the upcoming weeks getting to know every inch of Kal’s hard body was a benefit of this arrangement that she’d never anticipated. It might not be smart but was definitely tempting. “You’re working pretty hard to convince me to sleep with you again, Kal.”

  A smile curled his lips. “Harder than I normally have to work, I assure you.”

  “Good. You should have to work for it. All those women falling all over you just inflates your ego.”

  “You’re always there to take me back down a notch. It’s a bit of a turn-on, I have to say. Most things about you turn me on.” Kal looked at her with desire hooding his eyes as he spoke. She never imagined he’d look at her that way and yet here he was, talking about her as if she were some kind of sex siren. “What do you say we retire to the bedroom for the evening and I help you get on Santa’s naughty list?”

  Lana leaned in close, considering his offer. If he really did like it when she was sassy, she’d be sure he got a good dose of it. “Hmm...” she said thoughtfully as she ran her hand over the stubble of his cheek and down the tight fabric of his T-shirt to his bulging biceps. “That sounds like a nice offer, but I’ve got a better one.”

  “What’s that?” he said with eager interest.

  “I cooked dinner, so you need to clean the kitchen. That’s how marriage works. And when you’re done, then maybe,” she said seductively, letting her thumb brush over his bottom lip, “I’ll let you earn some coal for your stocking.”

  Kal wrapped his arms around her waist and tugged her into his lap. “How about we earn the coal and then I clean the kitchen? Does the order really matter as long as it all gets done?”

  Lana considered his counter offer with a smile. “I suppose not.”

  In one swift movement, Kal stood up from the couch with Lana in his arms and started carrying her toward the master bedroom. She bit back a yelp of surprise, hoping not to wake the baby. She clung to his neck and buried her face in his soft, worn surfing T-shirt as they went down the hallway. The scent of him permeated the fabric, and once she drew him into her lungs, her whole nervous system seemed to spring to life.

  She was instantly ready for him. As much as she had resisted this mentally, her body was on board with getting as much of Kal as she possibly could before all of this was over. Her nipples were tight against her top and her breasts ached for him to touch them. She felt her core turn to warm liquid when he looked down at her and smiled. One time together was all it had taken to train Lana’s body. This time she was ready without so much as a kiss.

  Kal sat her at the edge of the bed, and she wasted no time pulling off her top. They both quietly and swiftly cast aside their clothes. He pulled away long enough to shut and lock the bedroom door in case Nanny Sonia came home early, and then he crawled onto the bed beside her.

  He immediately drew her body against his, and her upper thigh made contact with the firm length of his need. Kal groaned aloud, and then caught himself. He sat still, not even breathing for a moment, to see if he’d awoken Akela. When he realized it was still safe, he pressed his lips to hers, smothering any more sounds.

  They came together quickly in a tangle of legs and blankets. Lana gasped silently as he filled her. She clung to him even as he rolled onto his back and brought her with him. She flipped onto her knees, bracing herself with her hands as she found herself astride him. Kal pulled her down against his chest until her face was buried in his neck, and then he started moving slowly beneath her.

  It was an agonizing journey to release, with each moment slow and deliberate. They moved silently together in the dim moonlight of the bedroom, the quiet gasps and heavy breathing sounding like a cacophony in each other’s ears. Their bodies tensed and flexed together, Lana sensing he was getting close by the rapid beat of his heart and the press of his fingers into her hips.

  When her release came, she buried her face in his throat and nearly sobbed as the waves of pleasure rocked through her. Kal bit tentatively into the thick muscle of her shoulder as he held her still and fought to hold himself back, but he was lost. The flutter of her orgas
m coaxed one from him, and he poured into her, his mouth agape with unexpressed feelings.

  Lana rolled off Kal onto her side of the bed and took a deep breath to recover. Even their quick, frantic lovemaking was amazing.

  She was on the verge of closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep when she felt Kal’s weight shift on the bed. When she looked up, he had stood and was tugging his clothes back on.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “A deal is a deal,” he insisted. “I’m going to clean the kitchen. And when I’m done, I’m coming back in here with that container of chocolate chip cookies.”

  Lana wrinkled her nose. “What are you going to do with a whole container?” He was going to make himself sick eating all of them.

  “I don’t know yet,” Kal admitted. “But even if all I do is line your beautiful, naked body with them, lick melted chocolate from your nipples and eat them off you one at a time, it will be the greatest meal I’ve ever had.”

  Eight

  You need to come home. Now.

  Kal frowned at his cell phone and the disconcerting text he’d just gotten from Lana. Is Akela okay? Did social services come back already?

  Everyone is fine. But you’re going to want to come home and see who’s showed up. Note: it’s not social services this time.

  He was usually in the office for another hour or so, but he knew better than to ignore this message from Lana. He slipped his phone into his pocket and walked out of his office. “I’m heading home,” he said to his assistant, Jane, outside the door. “I don’t think I’ll be back. Something came up.”

  Jane looked at him with concern lining her face. He may have stopped staying late, but he still wasn’t the type who left in the middle of the day. “Is everything okay, sir?”