Second Chance, Baby

by A. C. Arthur

  “What’s the matter? Did I hurt you?”

  Looking down at her, Ty watched as she bit her bottom lip, her eyes closed so tightly he thought he’d have to physically help her reopen them. Ty quickly shifted his weight, wondering if he’d been too heavy on her stomach, on their baby.

  “Felicia, sweetheart. Talk to me. Are you hurt?”

  “It’s okay,” she said finally and reached up to touch a hand to his shoulder. “I’m fine.”

  “What did I do?”

  “It’s just another pregnancy symptom.”

  “What?”

  “My…ah…my nipples are really sore. They say the tenderness will go away in a few weeks. I guess I hadn’t realized how sore they were until you touched them. It’s not like I’ve been touching them myself and—”

  “And if you even say something that remotely sounds like another man’s been touching them, I’m not going to be responsible for my actions,” he said, moving so that he was sitting up and her feet were in his lap.

  Felicia shifted, too, pulling her shirt over her exposed breasts as she did. “I wasn’t going to say anything like that. Did you think I forgot how possessive you are?”

  Ty shook his head. “Possessive is what a boyfriend is. I’m your husband. The thought of another man touching you makes me deadly.”

  “I would never cheat on you, Ty. Even though we were separated, we were still married. I took our vows very seriously.”

  He looked at her, saw how intense she’d just gotten. “Past tense? You’re not still committed to us?”

  She took a deep breath. “I wanted to be. I tried to be. But—”

  Ty took her hands. “Okay, I see the need to reassure you is imperative in making this work. I apologize for not being there as much as you needed me to be and I am going to honestly work at changing that. I love you and I want you…I want us,” he said, dropping a hand to her stomach. “I want us to be together. To be a family.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes as she said, “I want that, too.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll have. I told you when we first got married that I’d take care of you and I will. Just give me the chance.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her again, and like clockwork the kiss deepened. His hands were touching her breasts, much softer than he had before, and she was making that sweet little sound she did when she was close to erupting.

  The room filled with a series of chimes. Felicia jumped and Ty sighed against her mouth. “It’s my cell.”

  “Oh,” she said, putting a hand to her chest as it chimed again. “Do you need to answer it?”

  For a minute, Ty contemplated. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone. Glancing down at the number, he saw that it was Brentwood. It was almost nine at night, and the investor he wanted on board with him as badly as he wanted to make love to his wife was calling.

  “Yeah,” he answered tightly. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  As Ty took the call, Felicia felt like she’d stepped under a cool spray of water. Just like that, their mood, the moment of intimacy that they hadn’t shared in so long, had been interrupted by a business call.

  She didn’t have to see the number or hear him say it was business, she just knew. Ty was predictable that way. If it were family he’d have let them go to voice mail, then listen to the message to see if it was an emergency. If it were a stranger, he would have cursed and thrown the phone across the room. But he’d looked at the number and recognized it. He’d gotten that controlled, focused look in his eyes and he’d taken the call. It was business.

  Getting up from the couch, Felicia went into her bedroom. She discarded the shirt that was now of no use to her and riffled through her drawer for a nightgown. She pulled it over her head then stripped off her pants and her shoes. Grabbing her unruly hair into a bundle, she stretched a band around it and looked for her slippers. She found them and returned to the living room, where Ty was just closing his phone.

  He turned to her with a puzzled look on his face, clearly not getting her change of attire.

  “I’m tired, Ty. I’m going to bed,” she announced in a voice that was much more stable than she was feeling.

  Ty walked to her, grabbed her around her waist and pulled her close to him. “I’d planned on putting you to bed.”

  And she probably would have let him, but she now knew in her mind it was too soon. Too soon to jump back into bed with him, to move back into the penthouse, to pick up where they left off. Her leaving him would have all been for nothing if she did. The phone call had brought those facts home.

  “That’s probably not a good idea just yet.”

  He frowned. “Is that sore, too?”

  It took her a moment to figure out what he was talking about, and when she did, she slapped playfully at his chest. “No, silly. It’s not a good idea because we’re taking this reconciliation slowly.”

  “Sweetheart,” he groaned as he pulled her closer to him so there was no doubt she felt his desire. “I need you.”

  “I need to get to bed,” she said, although her body was screaming, Take me now!

  Pulling back from her, Ty gave her a look that reminded her just how sexy he was. His butter-toned complexion and dark goatee made him look distinguished and important. The eyes that could be cutthroat and menacing in business were also warm and compassionate at home. “You sure I can’t convince you?” he asked, licking his full bottom lip.

  She moved out of his grasp to the front door, opening it for him. “I’m positive. Good night, Ty.”

  “All right,” he said when he stood in the doorway. He turned back to grab her around her waist. “But you can’t run forever.”

  Felicia had to smile. “That line worked when we were in college. We’ve been married for five years and it’s not going to work now. We’ll reunite in that way when the time is right.”

  His hand moved lower to cup her bottom. “You know how convincing I can be.”

  “And you know how stubborn I can be.”

  He smiled wickedly. “You won’t last a week.”

  Ty was fiercely competitive in all things. “And what do I get if I do?” she challenged.

  He lifted a brow. “What do you want?”

  “A house for me and my family,” she answered simply.

  Chapter 5

  Two long weeks later, at 3:15 a.m., Ty’s house phone rang. He rolled over, cursing before his arm stretched to reach the receiver. He hadn’t been sleeping well, thanks to his beautiful wife and her insistence that they work their way up to making love again.

  For all the money he had, as smart as he was and as charming as he believed he could be, she still wasn’t giving in. Hell, she acted as if she were a virgin and he a horny wolf on the prowl. It was a sin and a shame to keep a man in this constant state of arousal.

  He knew his voice was gruff and irritated as he answered, but at this point he didn’t give a damn. “Hello?” “Ty?”

  Her voice was soft and sexy and brushed over his aching body like a long smooth feather. “Felicia?”

  “I need you.”

  Ty jumped out of the bed so fast he banged his knee against the nightstand. “What? Sweetheart, are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I just need you to do something for me.”

  Holding the phone against his ear with one hand, Ty’s other hand went instinctively to his arousal. Please let her say it, please, if there is a God, let her say it. “Anything, sweetheart. You know that.”

  “I want some ice cream.”

  His hand stilled. His body froze. “Ice cream?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Mint chocolate chip.”

  With a silent curse, he snatched his hand from his groin and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s…” He paused and looked at his clock. “It’s three in the morning and you want mint chocolate chip ice cream?”

  Felicia was now eleven and a half weeks pregnant. The baby book he’d purchased the day after he’d left her apartment�
��because after the breast incident he’d wanted to know all the symptoms and side effects of pregnancy—said that cravings were normal throughout the entire nine months. He hadn’t realized that this craving would have no conscience for a man suffering from lack of sex and trying to close a big business deal. This would be so much easier if she were lying here next to him making this request.

  “Ty, are you still there?”

  The sound of her voice, the memory of how soft she was in the middle of the night when he would roll over and reach for her, the fact that she was carrying his child, had time and distance melting away. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Felicia opened the door before he had a chance to knock. She was dressed in a Bugs Bunny nightshirt, the floppy ears falling over each of her breasts. She was bare from her knees to her feet and her hair was disheveled. Yet to him she’d never been prettier.

  “Mint chocolate chip,” he said, smiling, as he held the bag with the ice cream out toward her.

  She smiled in return, taking the bag from him with one hand then pulling him inside with the other. He’d had to drive his Aston Martin V8 Vantage—which, luckily, he had driven into the city for yearly maintenance yesterday—to her house, as he couldn’t see waking up Deuce at this hour for an ice cream run. All the way over he’d tried to think of anything besides making love to her. But it was pointless; more often than not in the last two weeks he’d found himself thinking of her. Whether it was in a carnal way or just about her smile, the sound of her laughter, or how good it felt to be with her in those evenings that he’d made a concerted effort not to work. She was always on his mind.

  He closed and locked the door behind them, giving in and watching the sway of her very round, very delectable bottom in the short nightshirt. He’d thrown on some sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and his tennis shoes, and left the house, so his sex was free to move about at will. Which it was currently as he watched her walk across the room.

  She didn’t stop in the living room, as he’d thought she would, but continued back to her bedroom. “Can I get you anything else?” he asked.

  “Yeah, come watch television with me,” she said without stopping to see if he would follow her or not.

  Of course he did. He sat tentatively on the side of her queen-sized bed as she got under the covers and took her ice cream from the bag.

  “There’s a spoon and some napkins in there, too,” he told her without turning around. He couldn’t look at Felicia under the covers and surrounded by pillows without wanting to get under there with her. If she wanted him to watch television with her until she fell asleep, he would, but he’d stay as far away from her as he could in the process.

  “Come up here and share it with me,” she said and he heard her pulling the top off the container.

  Ty groaned. “Felicia, sweetheart, you’re killing me.”

  “What?”

  “I’m trying to be a gentleman but you’re not helping.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She was talking over a mouthful of ice cream when Ty risked it and turned to look at her. “When a man gets a call from a woman, his wife nonetheless, at three in the morning, it’s not normally for ice cream. Then I get here and you barely have clothes on. You want me to sit in this bed and watch—” He glanced back at the television on the stand across the room. “You want me to watch some old black-and-white movie with you and get all cuddly in bed. I’m about to explode from sexual frustration and you ask me to do this.”

  For a moment she just stared at him. Then she smiled, scooping another spoonful of ice cream and extended her arm to him. “You forgot I offered to share my ice cream with you, too.”

  “Christ!” he growled and fell back on the bed, dropping an arm over his eyes.

  “I called because I missed you,” she said quietly, after a few moments of silence.

  Ty sighed. He sat up, leaned over and took off his shoes. Standing, he removed his sweatshirt and sweatpants then climbed beneath the covers beside her. He lifted his arm and she snuggled closer to him. “I miss you, too.” He kissed her forehead and let the feel of his wife in his arms, in bed, melt over him.

  It had been too long. Missing her did not seem to accurately describe what he felt. He wondered if she had any idea how much he really loved her.

  “So what’s this we’re watching?” he asked when she’d resumed eating her ice cream.

  “The Women.”

  “That’s a strange title for a movie.” He looked at the screen, trying to see if he recognized any of the actors, and wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t.

  “It’s because there are no men in the cast.”

  “No men in the entire movie?”

  She shook her head. “None.”

  “So what do the women do for an hour and a half?”

  “Gossip, cheat on their husbands, file for divorce and then reconcile,” Felicia said, counting off by tapping the spoon against the ice cream container.

  Ty’s heart clenched. “And you find that entertaining?”

  She turned and looked up at him. “I find it hopeful. It proves that marriages gone bad can be good again.”

  Her words were so serious, her expression so stoic, Ty leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “Our marriage will be good again.”

  Waking the next morning with Ty sleeping beside her had made the minor cramping in her back and the twisting in her stomach ease a bit. Felicia got out of bed slowly as the doctor had prescribed and made her way to the kitchen to get some crackers and a glass of water.

  The craving for ice cream had been strong last night and had actually started earlier in the evening. But Ty had told her that morning when he’d called her at work that he had business meetings all day and wouldn’t be able to stop by her place for dinner. She’d been distressed about that all day long.

  He still has to work, she’d told herself over and over again. He couldn’t spend every minute of every day with her, no matter how much she would have enjoyed it. These last couple of weeks with him had been blissful. Except for the fact that she came to her apartment at night and he went back to the penthouse, it was almost like a real marriage. Four out of the seven nights a week they were having dinner and spending the evening together, which was more than they had when she was living with him. He still talked about business, and she hadn’t really expected him to stop. Managing his own hedge fund was a dream come true for Ty. Felicia shared his excitement; she simply wanted more of his time.

  In the other room she heard his cell phone ringing and she sighed. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet and he was already working. Finishing off her water and then going to the bathroom, she tried not to think about it. He’d come when she’d called last night. He’d watched that movie with her and he’d held her while she slept. She wouldn’t ask for anything more. Not today.

  He was sitting on the edge of the bed when she entered the bedroom again. His cell phone was in his hand and he looked contemplative.

  “Something wrong at the office?” she asked as nonchalantly as possible. She then moved to her closet to find something to wear to work.

  “That was Malcolm.”

  She turned to him. “Is everything okay? Evelyn’s fine?”

  “Mom’s okay. At least she’s acting like she’s okay. She’s going through the motions and functioning but there’s this aura of sadness around her. I know it’s to be expected, but it’s still hard to watch.”

  “Losing your father was really hard on her. They were very close.”

  Ty nodded. “They were. After Dad took office he wasn’t there as much, but Mom had other things to occupy her mind.”

  “All the committees and fund-raisers in the world don’t take the place of having a husband,” she said simply and watched as his gaze settled on her. Not today, she reminded herself. “So what did Malcolm want so early in the morning?”

  “He needs to meet with me about something.”

  �
�That was cryptic,” she said, then went back to her closet.

  He came to stand behind her. “Wear the red shirt with those pants,” he said. “I like you in red.”

  She turned to face him and frowned. “I don’t think I can fit in the pants. I wore them the week before last and they were a little snug around my waist.”

  Ty tweaked her nose. “Sounds like you need to go shopping for maternity clothes.”

  He’d changed the subject, not wanting to tell her what was going on with him and Malcolm. To her relief, she knew that wasn’t business. Malcolm was ambitious, but not in the moneymaking scheme of things. He had more civil goals in mind and, as she’d heard from Shondra, he was going to follow in Harmon’s footsteps and run for office. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  When she would have turned back to her clothes, Ty held her still, hugging her tightly then pulling back enough to kiss her lips lightly. “Malcolm and I weren’t talking business. There are some family things we’re trying to tie up.”

  She sighed. “Is there something I can help with? I know I’ve been keeping my distance for a while but you know I love your mom and your family. If there’s something I can do—”

  He put a finger to her lips. “Shhh. I don’t want you worrying about it. I’ll handle it. You just take care of yourself and our baby. Okay?”

  Felicia smiled, loving the feel of intimacy and normalcy they were sharing. Like a regular married couple about to get ready for work. “I can do that.”

  “Good. Now I’ve got to get back to the penthouse to change for work. Do you need anything before I go? Another pint of ice cream, some pickles? Maybe a hot pretzel with mustard?”

  She laughed, pushing him away. “No. I don’t have any cravings at the moment.” She lied. She was craving him. How she’d managed to sleep beside him clad only in his boxers, she had no clue. But having him standing there, holding her, when his erection was so apparent, had warmed her all over. God, she wanted to push him back on that bed, lift her nightshirt and straddle him. It had been so long since she’d felt him inside her that some nights she’d debated calling him for just that reason.