by Lili Valente
Judging by his profile, you would never think that he’d just been asked to make a baby with a near stranger.
I bite my lip, and when that threatens to fail me, I nibble the edge of my thumbnail, determined not to say anything wilder than I have already. If there’s even a chance he’s considering my suggestion—or just considering keeping me around for the fun time we planned—I don’t want to do anything to derail that.
Yes, I want to get pregnant, but I also want to kiss Zack again.
To do more than kiss Zack…
I swear, he gets more handsome with every passing mile. How have I never noticed the delectable way his biceps strain the seams of a T-shirt? Or the sexy veiny-ness of his forearms?
Yes, I’ve been in a serious relationship, but I’m not blind.
But then, when I’m in love, other men tend to go into soft focus. I’m still aware they’re there, of course, but they don’t capture my attention. When I’m in love, my man is the only one sharp around the edges.
As recently as a few days ago, my heart still belonged to Fernando, no matter how rough things were getting between us. My love blinders are just coming off. I’m in a vulnerable state. I should be taking time alone to heal or, at the very most, taking baby steps back into the dating world. Jumping into bed with someone else is almost certainly a bad idea.
So if Zack decides to send me home on the next bus, I resolve to be at peace with it. I’ll thank him for a lovely drive, assure him there are no hard feelings, and hope we can part ways as friends.
I’m about to break my vow of silence to tell him so when he says, “If we did try… If we decided that this is something that makes sense for both of us, I wouldn’t want to sign that paperwork.”
The record playing in my head screeches to a stop, leaving stunned, buzzing silence behind.
“What did you say?” I ask, certain I must have misheard him.
He flicks on the right turn signal, pulls onto the wide shoulder of the highway, and shifts the car into park. He shuts off the engine and turns to me, his soulful brown eyes meeting mine. “If we decide to try to get pregnant, I won’t sign paperwork giving up my rights. I’d want to be a part of the baby’s life.”
I blink faster, joy and disbelief slapping each other silly inside me as I stammer, “R-Right. Of course. Yes, that would be fine. Wonderful, even! Babies need fathers.” I wave a shaky hand through the air. “I mean, I never had one, and I guess I turned out okay, but I hear they’re good to have around.”
Zack’s lips stay pressed into a tight line, making it clear he’s not joking about anything right now, making my head spin so hard I’d need to sit down if I weren’t already.
“My mom wasn’t even sure who my father was,” he says softly. “When I was younger, it bothered me. I wanted to know so badly. For a long time, it felt like a piece of me was missing.”
I nod. “I get it. It hurt so much that my dad wanted nothing to do with me. I mean, I know I was an accident, and he never wanted children, so it wasn’t personal, but still…”
“Exactly.” Zack reaches out, and I take his hand, the feel of his fingers threading through mine comforting and tingle-inducing at the same time. “I swore I’d never do that to a kid. If there’s a child out there in the world who belongs to me, he or she is going to know it. They’ll know they’re mine and that they’re loved and wanted and supported every step of the way.”
Tears spring to my eyes, and my throat goes so tight all I can do is nod again in complete agreement with every word he just said.
God, this man…
He’s even more incredible than I thought he was.
“So if we decide to try,” he continues, “then I’d want us to work out a shared custody agreement that works for both us and the baby. But I haven’t decided if I’m fully on board yet. I need some more time to think it over. It’s a big decision.”
Swiping a tear from my cheek with my free hand, I rush to assure him. “Of course. It’s huge. Take as much time as you need,” I say with a breathy laugh. “I honestly can’t believe you’re even going to think about it. It’s so totally out there.” I wince. “And now I can’t believe I said that out loud. I never know when to stop talking.”
Zack smiles. “I like people who say what they’re thinking. And I’m considering it because I want kids. I always have. But touring makes it hard to find someone to date, let alone keep a relationship going, and I don’t see that part of my life changing anytime soon.” He arches a brow. “Unless the album I’m about to make crashes and burns. Then I might be around a lot. So that’s something you should consider, whether you’d want a co-parent who was up in your business all the time.”
“So far, I like you in my business,” I murmur, skimming my nails up his wrist to his forearm. “Honestly, I’d like you even more up in my business at your earliest convenience. I’ve been thinking about it pretty much constantly since we got in the car.”
He smiles, a broad grin that makes my stomach flip. “Me, too. You are so sexy in that dress…” He lets out a shaky sigh. “I’m afraid if I look at you too long, I’m going to have to drag you into the back seat, high school style.”
“Well, it’s a big back seat,” I tease. “And parts of high school were fun.”
He laughs. “I think we’re both mature enough to wait for a bed and a closed door, don’t you? As much fun as it is to get caught making out by the cops…”
I wrinkle my nose. “No, that isn’t fun at all. Or janitors. My boyfriend and I got caught kissing in just about every closet in my high school.”
“At least he was good at something.”
My cheeks heat. “He wasn’t, actually. I was just young and…really into kissing.”
“I’m still really into kissing,” he says, leaning his face closer to mine.
“Me, too,” I whisper, meeting him halfway for a long, sweet, sexy kiss that promises tonight is going to be a night I’ll never forget, no matter what.
Chapter Six
Zack
I’m completely off the rails.
First, I shove a man into a piss puddle, then I ask a woman I barely know to come with me to my song-writing retreat, and now I’m seriously considering making a baby with her.
A baby. A child.
A life I will be responsible for and beholden to for the rest of mine. This is not something to be taken lightly or a decision to be made when I’m obviously not in my right mind.
So why am I ninety percent sure I’m going to do it anyway?
At the hotel front desk, I ask for one room—and one king-sized bed—without thinking twice. And when Colette asks if I want to grab a drink at the hotel bar before we head to dinner, I order whiskey on the rocks instead of a sanity-retaining beer.
Whiskey is trouble, but apparently, so I am.
I don’t know who this new Zack is or what I’m going to do with the mess he’s made of my life once Normal Zack is back behind the decision-making wheel, but right now I don’t care. Right now, all I want is Colette under me, begging me to fuck her with nothing between us but skin.
“You want to hear something funny?” she asks, crossing her legs on the barstool beside me, sending one curvy thigh emerging from the slit in her dress.
Christ, this dress…
It’s been killing me slowly all day long, but what a way to go.
“I do want to hear something funny,” I say. Anything to keep my mind off her thighs and how much I want to be between them.
“The sperm bank I went to didn’t have any redheads in their catalog,” she says, eyes dancing as she steers her lime around her gin and tonic with a slim black straw. “They screened them out.”
“Bastards,” I murmur over the rim of my glass as I take a deep drink. I swallow and add, “But I’m not surprised.”
“Really?” Her brows lift. “I was. What’s wrong with redheads?”
“Aside from the fact that we’re all descended from devils and witches, are genetic muta
nts, and have a low tolerance for pain?”
She laughs, a husky sound that goes straight to my dick. “Right, aside from all that.” She scrunches her nose. “People don’t really think things like that, do they?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, but I’ve heard from a decent number of women that they usually don’t go for men with red hair.”
Colette’s lips curve in a smirk. “Oh yeah? But they make an exception for you? How generous of them.”
I arch a wry brow. “I’m sure the fact that I used to play for one of the biggest bands in the world helped my redheaded self in the getting laid department.”
“I’m sure, but the anti-redhead thing is still ridiculous. I honestly can’t imagine what the problem is. Red hair is lovely.”
“I think it’s the pale skin and freckles that are the major deal-breakers,” I say. “Growing up a redhead in a beach town wasn’t always easy. My grandmother spent a king’s ransom on sunscreen to protect my pasty ass.”
“I don’t think you’re pasty,” Colette says. “And I like freckles. The ones on your forearms are sexy.”
She traces a finger across the back of my hand and up my arm while I fight the urge to flex like a cheesy bastard. This woman brings out the primal, stupid part of me like no one I’ve ever met.
I need an intervention.
I should call my friend Shep, tell him I’m a danger to myself in my present state, and ask him to come to pick me up before I do something stupid. The hotel is three hours from Hidden Kill Bay, and Shep is probably sitting down to dinner with his wife right now, but he’d get me if I asked him to.
He’s that kind of friend, the kind who says he’s there for you, no matter what, and truly means it.
But I don’t reach for my phone; I reach for Colette’s thigh, letting my hand curve around her soft, warm skin. I watch hunger flicker behind her incomparable eyes, and instantly, I’m hard again.
If the hostess calls us to our table now, I’m going to embarrass myself, but I don’t care.
“Do you have freckles anywhere else?” she asks in a voice that sounds as lust-drunk as I feel. “I know I’ve seen you in a swimsuit before, but I wasn’t paying close enough attention back then.”
“But you’re paying attention now?”
“Oh yeah.” She nods slowly. “So much attention. All the attention. In fact, I’m afraid I have a bit of a one-track mind right now, Zackary.”
“I’m afraid I do, too, Colette.” My fingertips press deeper into her thigh, and her breath catches on a moan so soft I can barely hear it.
But I do hear it, and it makes me even hotter, harder.
“That’s not good. One of us should be in their right mind.” She leans in, granting me a heart-stopping view down the deep V at the front of her dress. “Is there anything I can do to help you get grounded? You really should be thinking logically before we go upstairs.”
“I should,” I murmur. “But all I can think about is getting my mouth all over you.”
Her tongue slips out, sweeping across her bottom lip. “God, I want that. So much. Your mouth and your hands and—”
Her words end in a moan as I cut her off with a kiss. My lips slant across hers, and my tongue sweeps into her mouth, tasting gin and lime and this woman. She’s sweet and tart, like ripe summer grapefruit and sea salt licked from sun-warmed skin.
The moment her tongue circles mine, I know we’re not going to make it to dinner.
And then she whispers, “I know it’s crazy, but I swear I want you inside me more than I’ve ever wanted anything,” and I’m in motion.
I vaguely remember tossing two twenties on the bar and taking Colette’s hand, but I don’t fully catch up with myself until I’m tugging the hotel key from my pocket in front of our door on the seventh floor.
Gripping the handle tight, I glance down at her, knowing it’s our last chance to stop this before it’s too late. “I have condoms in my bag in the bathroom. I can get one as soon as we go in. We don’t have to decide right now if we aren’t ready.”
Colette steps inside, pulling me through after her. As the heavy door snicks shut, she guides my hand through the slit in her dress, between her warm thighs, and then higher.
My fingers touch the soaked fabric between her legs, and my head threatens to explode.
“I’m ready.”
I pull her panties to one side, clearing the way for my hand to explore her slick heat. I groan as my middle finger pushes inside her, gliding deep into where she’s so hot and tight, my jaw clenching as her fingers fist in my shirt and a turned-on sound escapes from the back of her throat.
“I don’t want a condom,” she says, her breath hot against my neck. “I just want you, but you have to decide if—” She breaks off with a soft cry as I add a second finger, fucking her with my hand as she tightens her grip on my neck.
“God, I want to touch you,” she says. “Can I touch you?”
“Yes. Fuck, please, touch me.”
She reaches for my zipper, dragging it down and taking my aching length into her hand, and time skips again.
This time, I catch up with my body as we’re tumbling onto the bed. Colette’s dress has vanished, and her breasts are in my hands as she stretches out on top of me. I guide her nipple to my mouth and suck the tight flesh, teasing her with my tongue as I explore her body with my hands. She’s even more beautiful than I imagined she’d be, but it’s the way she feels that’s driving me out of my mind.
She’s just so fucking perfect. Her ass in my hands and her stomach trembling against mine and her breath hot on my lips as I roll us over and kiss my way down her ribs—every moment feels so good, so right.
“Please,” she breathes, her hands tangling in my hair. “Please. Inside me. Please. I don’t want your mouth, Zack, I want—”
She breaks off with a cry as I tug her legs apart and drag my tongue up the seam of her, the salty taste of her pussy flooding my mouth as I find her clit.
“You taste so good,” I murmur against her skin as she moans low in her throat. “I’ve been dying to make you come like this.” I reach up, rolling her nipple with one hand as I catch her jaw in my fingers. I rub my thumb across her bottom lip, groaning against her swollen flesh as she sucks it inside her mouth. Her hips buck into my tongue, and I give her what she’s asking for, kissing her harder, deeper until my mouth is grinding against her core, and she’s making the sexiest about-to-come sounds I’ve ever heard.
I’m so hard my cock is in sex purgatory, wondering what the hell he did to deserve this kind of suffering, but I’m not about to stop eating her pussy until I feel her…
Hear her…
Taste her…
She cries out, her heels digging into the mattress as her hips lift into my mouth. A beat later, her thighs begin to shake, and a rush of heat floods across my tongue. I grab her ass in both hands and pull her tighter against me, devouring her as she comes with her fingers tangled in my hair, begging, “Please, inside me. Now, Zack, please. Please…”
Her words end in a sob, and I know it’s time to end the suffering—hers and mine.
Surging over her, I capture her mouth, kissing her with her salty-sweet taste still on my tongue as I guide my cock to her entrance. She’s tight, but so wet I sink into her without a hint of resistance, gliding deep until I’m buried in her molten sweetness and wondering if it’s possible to die from pleasure.
“You feel so good,” I murmur against her lips, my hand shaking as I brush her hair from her forehead. “So fucking good.”
“Yes.” She sighs, wrapping her legs around my hips.
I want to move, to ride her, take her more than I’ve ever wanted anything, but I’m so turned on I’m afraid I’m going to embarrass myself.
I knew bare would be different than with a condom, but I had no idea it would be like this.
That every sensation would be so intense, that I would feel so much closer to her than I expected. That I would want to say things you don�
�t say to a new lover. Things like—You’re the most perfect thing that’s ever happened to my body. You feel so right under me. I want to be inside you as much as possible for the rest of my life. God, baby, let’s never stop fucking.
It’s too soon for all of that, and it’s way too soon for me to come.
Clenching my jaw, I force myself to stay still. I draw in long breaths as she wiggles beneath me, taking me deeper, making holding on even harder. “Just a second,” I say, my voice tight as I grip her hip gently in my hand. “I need a second. I’m too close.”
“I’m close, too,” she says, rolling her hips, making my breath catch as the hot folds of her pussy clench and release around me. “And I’m dying to feel you come. I swear, it makes me so hot I can hardly stand it. I want to feel you come inside me so much, so much,” she says, her hips rocking until I can’t resist the urge to thrust inside her, pumping deep and slow, matching her rhythm as her lips part and her breath comes faster. “God, yes,” she whispers, holding my gaze as we move. “Just like that. Yes, it’s so good. So perfect.”
“So perfect,” I echo, mesmerized by her eyes, by the vulnerable expression on her face, by her absolute fearlessness as she reaches the edge and tumbles over without breaking our connection.
She keeps her eyes locked on mine as her features twist and her body tightens around me, and I know I’m a goner. “God, Colette,” I grit out as I get closer…
Closer…
Until I’m so fucking close…
Oh God, right there, right now.
For a split second, I consider pulling out and coming on her belly, but something primal inside me cries out against it. I don’t want to come anywhere but buried deep in her pussy, so I do. I thrust forward one final time and fall apart with a cry, my balls pulsing and my cock jerking deep inside her. I come and come, the orgasm unspooling like an endless thread as I lay every piece of me at her feet, and she wraps her arms around me and holds me tight.
And it is…good.
So fucking good.
