Tad blinked in confusion. “Do what?”
Feeling depressed and disappointed, she let her arms fall to her sides. “Try and buy your way into my good graces.”
Tad hooked his hands around her waist and helped her down from the chair. He kept his hands there even after her feet touched the floor. “I was trying to show you how much I appreciate you.”
Abby shrugged and said nothing.
“Obviously you think there’s another reason.”
Abby extricated herself from his grip. “Look, let’s not talk about this.”
Tad caught her by the shoulders and ever so gently spun her around to face him. His eyes glimmered with barely suppressed frustration. “Too bad, ’cause I think we should.”
“Have it your way,” Abby muttered, as he motioned her to sit in the chair she’d just been standing on.
“So what’s up?” Tad pulled up another chair, turned it around backward and sat, folding his arms over the top. “What’s got you so upset?”
When she didn’t answer, Tad prodded, “C’mon, Ab, just tell me.”
“Why do you feel guilty?” Abby blurted out.
Tad nearly choked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Abby retorted grimly. “All the gifts have to be for some reason, so what have you done?”
“Nothing!”
Abby had half expected he might react this way. “I knew this was a waste of time!” she said, bolting to her feet.
Tad followed. Started to speak, stopped, then thought for a long tense moment in which he seemed to change his mind and, in fact, change courses completely. “You’re right of course,” he said finally in a smooth cultured tone she didn’t believe for a moment. He smiled and held out a hand. “I have been feeling guilty for not spending enough time with you. The gifts were just a way of showing you that I appreciate you. If they upset you in any way, I’m sorry.”
He was much too agreeable, Abby decided. The Tad she knew and fell in love with, the Tad who reported the unvarnished truth come what may, would never have backed down so readily.
Which meant, of course, Abby thought, fuming all the more, he had to be feeling really guilty about something! It was up to her to find out what.
An idea began to form. And she knew it was a doozie. Knowing he wasn’t the only one who could change tacks rapidly, she smiled at Tad sweetly. “Have you eaten dinner?”
“Yeah.” Tad regarded her with the caution one approached a skunk who was about to spray. “I grabbed something earlier when we were putting tomorrow’s edition of the News to bed.”
“Well, I’m famished. I was just going to have a snack. Want to join me?”
“Uh...sure.”
Abby led the way into the kitchen. This was going to be the test. “A sandwich okay with you?” she asked, already knowing what his answer would be. Her back to him, she mouthed, Whatever you’re having.
“Whatever you’re having,” Tad said.
Well, Abby thought, revenge very much on her mind, you asked for it. With Tad lounging against the counter watching her every move, she brought out pumpernickel bread, strawberry-flavored cream cheese, sardines, onions, green and black olives and chili sauce.
Abby saw him swallow and it was all she could do to repress a giggle. “This looks disgusting, I know, but you’re going to love it, I promise,” she said enthusiastically as she quickly put together a sandwich he would never ever forget. “Here you go.” A scant minute later she motioned him to the table and put the plate in front of him.
Tad watched as she began to put the ingredients away. “Aren’t you having any?”
“I changed my mind.” Abby touched her middle. “Heartburn.” And you caused it, you scoundrel. “But you go right ahead. I’ll just sit with you and watch.”
Tad looked at her and again seemed to really struggle with himself and whatever it was he was thinking.
“Well, maybe just a bite,” Abby said, reaching over and cutting off a wedge of his sandwich. She popped it into her mouth. “Mm-mmm.” Ignoring the hideous taste in her mouth, she sighed and laid a hand across her chest. “This is so-o-o good. Try it.”
A smile on his face, Tad lifted the sandwich to his mouth. For a moment she thought he was going to chicken out, but finally he took a bite. Swallowed. Took a long long gulp of water.
“Now,” Abby said cheerfully, as the nauseating mess made its way to his stomach, “look me straight in the eye, you scoundrel, and still tell me everything I do is wonderful. I dare you.”
Very, very slowly, Tad set down the sandwich. He wiped his hands and his mouth with his napkin. And looked her straight in the eye. “What do you want from me?” he demanded, a muscle clenching in his jaw. Suddenly he seemed every bit as near his limit as she was.
Hot angry color swept into her cheeks. “How about a little honesty?” Abby snapped, pushing her chair back and vaulting to her feet.
“Fine. You want honesty!” he said in a voice that was so low it sent shivers down her spine. “I’ll give you honesty. That was disgusting, but I tolerated it.”
“That’s what I thought.” Abby stomped forward until they stood toe-to-toe. She tilted her head back and glared up at him. “Then why did you eat it? No. Don’t answer. I think I know. Dam it all, you’re humoring me, aren’t you? Aren’t you!”
Tad grimaced. He slid his hands into his back pockets. “Yes. I am. On doctor’s orders.”
“What?”
“Doc told me just to agree with you on everything.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Fuming, Abby began to pace. She hadn’t been this angry since...well, since she didn’t remember when.
Tad continued, his words as calm and deliberate as hers were furious and emotional. “He said your pregnancy would go a lot smoother for both of us if I humored you, and he should know. He has six kids and sixteen grandkids and a beautiful loving wife who still worships the ground he walks on after thirty-five years of marriage.”
Abby sent Tad a withering glance. “The gifts?” she prodded coolly.
Tad drew a deep breath, then confessed, his jaw set. “He told me to do that, too. He said what you’re doing for me—for us—carrying our baby is nothing to be taken lightly. He said I should make sure you knew that, and gifts are one of the easiest ways.”
Abby raked both hands through her hair, not sure whether to laugh or cry, just knowing she felt like doing both. “Not to mention the fact that it would probably get you in my good graces.”
“But it didn’t,” Tad said.
“One or two probably would have.” If they’d been given of his own volition, Abby thought. “But a dozen?” Abby stared at Tad, shaking her head, as her eyes filled. Did he think she could be bought? Was that it? “That’s overkill, don’t you think?”
“Not really, no.” Tad’s expression gentled as he stepped even closer. He put his hands on her waist. “If it were up to me, I’d be giving you presents every day the rest of our lives,” he said softly. “If it were up to me—as long as we’re being honest—we’d still be making love and you’d be sleeping in my arms every night. If it were up to me...”
Letting the ardent thought hang in the air, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her toward the stairs.
“What are you doing?” Abby demanded.
Tad smiled down at her and kept moving. “It just occurred to me, it is up to me.” He sailed through the door to her softly lit bedroom and lowered her gently to the bed.
“You mean it, don’t you?” Abby asked breathlessly as he gazed at her with the passion she’d ached to know again. “You really want to make love to me.”
“With all my heart and soul.” Tad stroked her hair. The next thing Abby knew, his lips were on hers. He kissed her with the abandon they’d discovered in Paris, and she reveled in the hot insistent demand of his mouth over hers, the urgent thrust and parry of his tongue. He kissed her until they were lying on their sides, sprawled length to length in the middle of the double bed. Until sh
e moaned and melted against him, her hands curling around his shoulders.
He drew back, the misty lights of desire and tenderness in his fathomless blue eyes as he scored his thumb across her lower lip. “What would ever make you think I didn’t want you?”
Abby blushed. “My ever-expanding tummy, for one.”
He smiled and slid lower, bent to kiss her tummy through the satin fabric of her pajamas, then touched and rubbed and stroked. “Your tummy is beautiful, and so is the rest of you.”
Abby swallowed around the growing knot of emotion in her throat. “Tell me you missed me, Abby, as much as I’ve missed you,” Tad whispered fervently as he shifted her onto her back and slid upward. Lying alongside her, he tucked one leg over hers. “Tell me you’ve missed this,” he said.
He teased her tongue with the tip of his until her breath was as short and shallow as his. And though Abby’s mind was still fighting him, fighting the surrender, her body had stopped long ago. Heaven help her, she wanted him to make love to her. She wanted to feel everything it was possible to feel. She did not want this moment to pass either of them by, because she knew, even if she didn’t want to admit it, that it had never been like this for her. So intensely pleasurable and out of control. And it never would be again. For her, Tad was just it.
“Oh, Tad...” Abby whispered, already trembling from head to toe, and he hadn’t even started to undress her yet!
As she whispered his name, Tad’s eyes darkened with pleasure. Swiftly, still watching her face, he unbuttoned her pajama top.
“You know I desire you,” Abby said, her voice filled with longing as Tad divested her of her pajama top and whisked off her bottoms, too. That had never been the problem between them. “But—”
“No conditions, Abby,” Tad said as he impatiently tugged off his own clothes and, naked, joined her on the bed. She moaned as he circled her breast, then cupped the weight of it with his palm. “Not tonight and not ever again.” He bent to pay homage with his lips and his tongue until her nipples were tight and achy. “Just love me,” Tad said as he rolled her slightly onto her side, slid one arm beneath her hips and arched her lower body against him. “Just let yourself go and love me.”
As he continued to kiss and touch and caress her, dizziness swept through her in waves. The hot melting feeling in her abdomen grew, and a need unlike any she’d ever known built within her. No one had ever loved her so fiercely, so possessively, Abby thought, as she returned his kisses passionately and her hips rose instinctively to meet him. No one had ever loved her in such a fundamental way.
Needing to touch him, too, she ran her palms across the smooth hard muscles of his back, across the hard muscles of his stomach and up across his chest, until she could feel his thundering heart. As she touched lower still, she marveled at the velvety hardness and the depth of his need, a need only she could ease.
As she looked into his eyes, the intensity and tenderness of his dark blue gaze held her mesmerized. When he looked at her that way, she felt beautiful, inside and out. And she knew he was right—they did need to love each other again, physically and in every other way.
The next thing she knew he had shifted her onto her back again and nudged her legs apart. She opened herself up to him as gently and irrevocably as a flower blooms in the spring. He caught her by the hips to steady her and then he kissed her. Again and again and again, commanding everything she had to give until she no longer knew where her body ended and his began, until she had never felt so much a woman nor been so aware of a man. She surged against him, loving the touch and taste and smell of him, loving the way their bodies automatically came in contact in all the right places as he satisfied one hunger and fed another.
Tad had always wanted a spirited woman. A woman who was strong but soft, feisty but giving, a woman who wouldn’t be afraid to experience pleasure to the max. He knew she’d been hurt badly in the past. So had he, he thought as he trembled with the need to hold back his own release. That didn’t mean they had to spend even one more day as husband and wife in name only. In six months they’d be having a child together. Starting now, they could really be a couple and have a life together, too.
Abby trembled from the fit of her body against his, from the pressure nudging her feminine cleft. His whole body was quaking as he stretched out on top of her, spread her knees and slipped between them. The soft V of her thighs cradled his hardness, and his sex throbbed against her surrendering softness. Again, he bent to kiss her, loving her an inch at a time, going deeper and deeper. She rocked against him, taking him inside her, closing tight. Sensations swept through him. He could barely control himself as she shuddered and writhed beneath him, her insides clenching around him, urging him on to release. He heard her moan and felt her tremble, and then it was just too much. Going deep, he followed her over the edge. And then they were both gone, floating, free, feeling a peace they hadn’t felt in weeks.
AN HOUR LATER, as they lay wrapped in each other’s arms, Tad shifted so that she was beneath him. Bracing his weight on either side of her, he said, “Let’s make a promise to look to each other for pleasure—at least until after the baby is born. I know, I know, you’re worried us making love every night will complicate things.”
“It will,” Abby told him sternly.
“But it’ll also make things all the more bearable,” Tad said, kissing her brow. “Admit it. You want me, too.”
Abby sighed. “You know I do.”
Tad grinned. Getting her to admit that was a major victory. “Then stop worrying about what’s going to happen six months down the road,” he told her gently. “We can’t predict the future, Abby.” Reaching for her hand, he turned it palm up and kissed the middle of it. “We can live in today.”
The fight to keep him at arm’s length faded as quickly and unexpectedly as it had come. “All right,” Abby said. She touched a finger to his lips, compelling him to silence. “I’ll do it on one condition.” Her golden-brown eyes flashed an ardent warning.
Tad would have given her anything if it meant having her back in his life again. He grinned. “Fire away.”
“No more fibbing to me, even if you think it’s for my own good,” she said as their ragged breaths meshed as one. “And no more gratuitous gifts. Okay?”
Relief flowed through Tad. These were conditions he could meet. He kissed her again, knowing, even if Abby didn’t yet, that this was just the beginning. They would find a way to make this work over the long haul. He would see to it.
“Okay.”
Chapter Eight
Two weeks later
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Abby asked Tad after everyone but the two of them had gone home.
Tad looked up from the computer printout in front of him. Outside, a drenching rain continued. Knowing it was his job to protect his pregnant wife as much as possible from all of life’s difficulties, yet knowing he owed her honest question an honest answer, he stood his pencil on end and met her eyes. “I didn’t want you to worry.” And let’s be honest, I didn’t want anything to interfere with the immensely satisfying, immensely passionate turn our relationship has taken.
Since Abby had surrendered to her feelings, they’d made love every night with as much passion, if not more, than they’d discovered in Paris, and selfish father to be and husband that he was, he didn’t want anything putting a damper on their love affair. And who knew? Maybe, if things were good enough before the baby was born, she would decide to stay with him after the baby was born, Tad thought.
Abby’s golden-brown eyes flashed and her chin took on a stubborn tilt as she continued taking him to task. “I should know when the newspaper is in trouble.”
“We’re doing okay,” Tad defended himself.
Abby began to pace. Because she’d always preferred to wear skirts and dresses to work, she’d taken to wearing a variety of slimming above-the-knee maternity skirts with his shirts and ties. Tad knew he wasn’t the only one who thought she looked as fetching as could b
e. In fact, now well into her fourth month of pregnancy, she was one sexy lady.
With a concerned glance out at the rain and another in his direction, Abby reminded him gravely, “Five of the major advertisers have pulled all their ads because of the final article on the salmonella outbreak at the Mighty Fine Restaurant. None of them have any plans to reinstate with us in the future.”
Tad sighed, knowing, even if he’d been able to predict this calamity, he still wouldn’t have done things any differently. “They may change their minds,” he said evenly, “particularly if Tim Grau changes his mind and turns this unfortunate situation to his advantage.”
Abby paced closer, her suede flats moving soundlessly across the polished wooden floor. “Did he get back to you on your offer to use the situation to further public awareness?”
Able to see they were going to be here for a while, Tad kicked back in his chair and propped his boot-clad feet on the corner of his desk. He folded his hands behind his head. “You want his exact words or the general idea?”
“That bad, hmm?”
Tad shrugged. “Tim doesn’t want the general public to know that some of his help were chopping raw vegetables on the same cutting boards they used to cut up the raw chicken.”
Abby groaned and started to run her hands through her hair. Remembering belatedly she’d put it up with a barrette on the back of her head, she began to take it down. “If only they’d all known to keep the two items separate and use a lot of hot soapy water on any surface the raw chicken touched,” she lamented as she ran her fingers through her silky mane.
“My point exactly.” Still enjoying the way the overhead lights hit her hair, making it sparkle with golden lights, Tad crossed one ankle over the other and steepled his fingers on his lap. “The Blossom Weekly News could have made him and his staff out to be heroes for educating the public and reassured everyone at the same time that it wasn’t going to happen again.”
Make Room for Baby Page 10
