by Cox, Whitley
“Too much rum?” Heath joked.
Krista shook her head. “I, uh … uh, no … I … ”
Apparently, that was all his mother needed, because the lightbulb flicked on so bright over her head that it was practically blinding. She grabbed Krista by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come with me, dear. We’ll fix you something better in the kitchen. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, Heath adds too much rum.”
“Go big or go home,” Heath called after them with a laugh.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Rex asked, giving Brock a what-the-fuck look.
But Brock didn’t have time to deal with his brothers. He knew his mother knew. The woman had had four pregnancies of her own and certainly wasn’t an idiot. He had to defuse the situation. He had to help Krista. Pushing himself up from the couch, he beelined it for the kitchen only to hear “How long?” whispered from his mother’s mouth.
“How long what?” Krista stammered, her eyes darting up to Brock’s.
“How far along are you?”
Krista made a sheepish look and let her eyes travel to her feet. “Mrs. Hart … ”
“Joy.”
“P-pardon?”
“My name is Joy, dear. Call me Joy.”
“Mum.” Brock stepped up behind Krista.
“Let the woman speak,” his mother snapped, her eyes hardening as they took in his frazzled state only to soften again when she glanced back at the equally frazzled Krista. “You were saying, dear?”
Krista swallowed with a nod. “Okay … Joy. You have to know, I didn’t trap your son. I didn’t trap Brock. It … it was a night of drunken stupidity.”
Brock didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he placed them on Krista’s shoulders. The woman was tense.
Tears welled up in his mother’s eyes, and she reached for Krista’s hands. “It’s Brock’s?” Her eyes flitted back up to Brock. He nodded at the same time Krista did. “I’m going to be a Nana?” Krista nodded again. “Can I … can I?” She lifted one of her hands from Krista’s and made to touch her stomach, hesitating until Krista nodded again. A rogue tear dripped down her cheek, and she looked up at Krista with a smile. “Welcome to the family, dear.”
Brock let out another sigh. Well, that had gone better than he expected. Much better.
“What’s going on in … here?” It was Heath, and had he been wearing shoes you would have heard them screech on the linoleum floor. Instead his socks slipped, and he nearly crashed into fridge. His eyes darted back and forth from Brock to their mother to Krista to their mother’s hand on Krista’s stomach.
Krista swallowed. “Hi, Uncle Heath.”
* * *
“So are you guys getting married then?” Chase asked gruffly as they all sat around the dining room table a little while later, playing Risk and eating pizza. As was tradition, each brother had their own large pizza sitting in front of them. Obviously, Krista was free to have her own as well, but she chose to split one with Brock’s mother. Seemed both women liked the idea of chicken, mushroom and spinach. Brock had shaken his head at their order. He went with meat and plenty of it. Always.
“I’ve asked,” Brock grumbled, tipping back his drink and draining it. “She said no.”
Krista rolled her eyes at him, and he snorted. “It’s complicated.”
Chase picked up the dice from the board and started shaking them in his meaty palm. “I don’t see the complication. You’re having a baby together. You have sex. Makes sense to be married.”
Brock’s mother joined Krista in another eye roll. “It’s the twenty-first century, you big buffoon.” She snorted. “Family styles are always changing. Would I like for my grandchild’s parents to be married and in love? Of course. But let’s let Brock and Krista figure out how they want to raise their family, okay?”
God, Brock loved his mother. A family therapist, she’d had nothing but patience for her sons as they grew up. When Brock’s dad had died, Brock had been only twelve, and his mother was in the middle of getting her master’s degree. She had planned on quitting to get a full-time job and just raise the boys, but Brock wouldn’t allow it. Instead he took odd jobs on the weekends and after school to help make ends meet, and his mother alternated between part-time school and a night-shift job on a cleaning crew. It had taken her a little longer to complete school, but she’d never just quit. And eventually, she’d gone on to get her PhD as well and was now Dr. Joy Hart. There wasn’t a woman in the world he was prouder of or admired more. And the way she had embraced Krista and her and Brock’s unorthodox relationship just proved his mother was one hell of a woman.
“You asked her to marry you?” Heath asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
Brock lifted his shoulder. “It’s the right thing to do.”
His mother scoffed. “The right thing to do is be in that child’s life. Whatever becomes of the two of you,” she pointed her finger between Brock and Krista, “would just be a bonus.”
Truth be told, though, he was beginning to have feelings for Krista. He was just total shit at showing it. Then she’d ask questions, and the fear would settle in and he’d clam right up. He’d never lived with a woman, never let a woman get this close, and for some reason, it scared the living shit out of him. But Krista, despite how much they butted heads and both seemed to be control freaks, made him want to open up. He just didn’t know how.
“Are you going to find out what it is?” Rex asked, diving into another slice of pizza.
Krista shook her head. “Brock doesn’t want to, and I kind of like the surprise aspect of it.”
Heath laughed. “Well, for your sake, I hope it’s a baby and a girl and has your size head. Brock’s head was enormous! And all Hart boy babies weigh at least ten pounds or more at birth, right, Mum?” He continued to chuckle as he elbowed Brock in the ribs before devouring a piece of pizza in four bites.
Brock and his mother both winced at the same time. It was true. He and his brothers had been big babies.
“If they offer you the drugs, take the drugs,” his mother started, “that’s all I’m saying. Harts make big babies with big heads. I don’t know about a girl, because I never had one, but if it’s a boy, chances are he’ll come out looking like a toddler.”
Brock glanced over at Krista. Fuck, the woman had gone white as a sheet.
* * *
Krista yawned and then yawned again as she helped clear the table after dinner and board games. The clock on the mantle said it was closing in on eleven. She hoped the Harts weren’t early risers on Christmas. She was exhausted.
After a rousing game of Risk that had Heath coming out victorious and Chase and Brock red in the face with steam coming out of their ears, they played Hearts (how fitting), dominoes and then finished the night off with poker, which saw Chase and Brock getting redemption from their baby brother and fleecing him of nearly three hundred dollars. The boys were busy putting the board games away and stoking the fire, so Krista joined Joy in the kitchen to help put away dinner.
“I just wanted to say thank you for opening up your home to me,” she said shyly, opening up the dishwasher and putting the dirty glasses inside. “And for being so cool with the fact that your son is having an illegitimate baby with a woman he hardly knows. Believe me, this was not how I saw my life going, either.”
Joy stopped what she was doing and turned to face Krista. “No matter whether you two love each other or not, that baby will be so, so very loved. And Brock will be so, so very loved by that baby. He needs that. He’s spent his entire life making sure that our family didn’t fall apart after his father died. Making sure his brothers succeeded and didn’t fall off the rails, making sure that I was always taken care of, that I could continue with school and finish my degree. He is the most responsible man I know. Almost to a fault. He made his family his life. So whether you’re married or not, in love or not, I know that this baby is going to have the best daddy in the world. And that makes me incre
dibly happy.”
Krista swallowed and then bit the inside of her cheek. “He’s a good man.”
“He’s an amazing man. He spent nearly his entire life taking care of everyone else. He put his emotions aside to get the job done, and now his shell is extra hard. Extra tough to crack.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “But I think you might be just the woman to crack it.”
* * *
Krista pulled back the covers on the bed. Those big plush pillows looked so good. Her body was positively screaming to be horizontal.
“Hope you don’t mind sharing a bed tonight,” Brock muttered, pulling back the covers on his side of the queen-size bed in the spare room that used to be his old room. Unlike Krista’s old room at her parents’—which was still a shrine to her younger self—Backstreet Boy posters and No Doubt concert tickets still tacked to the wall—Brock’s room had been redone and was now just a soft muted brown with teal accents and a camel-colored bedspread.
She lifted one shoulder and climbed under the covers, sighing with pleasure at being off her feet. “We’ve done it before.”
He snorted. “You mean that first night?”
“Mhmm.”
“You snore, you know.”
She punched him in the shoulder. “I do not!”
He nodded. “Do too. Almost had to go sleep in another room. It was like spooning with a grizzly.”
“We didn’t spoon,” she said indignantly.
He lifted up onto one shoulder and rolled over to face her. “Yes, we did. You may have passed out right away, but later in the night, you snuggled up next to me and told me in your drunken lady mumble that you were cold and wanted to spoon.”
“I DID NOT!”
He gave her a look of impatience. “Why is this something I would lie about?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know.”
“What do you know?” His voice took on a silky-smooth purr as his hand skimmed across the sheets and landed on her belly. She covered his hand with hers, but he pulled it away and made to push his fingers beneath the waistband of her pajama pants.
“In your mother’s house?” she hissed. The idea of getting freaky in his childhood home, in his childhood bedroom, equal parts turned her on and terrified her.
But as always, her libido won out.
“I’m in charge tonight,” she said confidently.
“Krista … ” he hummed, his voice stirring embers of arousal inside her into tall, licking flames.
“You shanghaied me into coming to Christmas dinner with your family, when your mother didn’t even know about me. You owe me.”
He was quiet for a moment, but then she was pretty sure she heard a barely discernible, “Fine.”
Yes.
She swallowed. The power tasted divine on her tongue. “What was that?”
He cleared his throat. “I said fine.”
She had to keep herself from laughing. Some nights he willingly gave up the power, like that night by the fire, though he got anal sex out of it, so it wasn’t really an exchange of power. But then other nights he was reluctant. It was nights like these that made Krista’s inner dominatrix come out.
She knew that the power struggle between them was going to be ongoing, at least for as long as they decided to continue sleeping together. They both liked to be in charge in the bedroom and had a hard time (especially him) relinquishing that control. And even though they’d never really sat and discussed it, because they never sat and discussed anything, she appreciated that he was willing to give it a try, at least for a little while.
Then the thought occurred to her: Could she get him to open up while she was in control? Ask him questions, demand he answer her? Or would he shut down and call the whole damn thing off? Was it worth risking no orgasm for information?
Or she could pump Joy for information on Brock. Corner each of his brothers and make them dish the dirty deets.
She’d have to stew on it a bit.
“You know how hard this is for me, right?” he said quietly, his throat bobbing as he swallowed and ground his molars to control his nerves.
She nodded solemnly. “Yes, I know.”
He licked his lips. “W-what would you like me to do?”
Grinning in triumph, Krista pushed him over onto his back and then sat up, looping one of her legs over his hips until she was sitting on top of him, straddling him.
“I want some answers,” she said, running her hands up his hard stomach until her thumbs and fingers rested over each of his nipples. “I’m tired of being shut out. I’m going to ask you four questions, and you have to answer three. Deal?”
As if sticking a fork in an electrical socket, his whole body jolted, and the man went ramrod straight. Were four questions too many? Should she have started with two?
“Deal?” she asked again, tugging ever so slightly on his nipples.
All he could do was nod.
“Good. Question number one: What is your favorite color?”
He already appeared bored. She tugged up hard on his nipples until he clenched his teeth and sucked in air.
“Fuck,” he gritted.
“They’re my questions, and I’ll make them as invasive or benign as I please. Got it?”
He swallowed.
“Got it?” she tugged up even harder on his nipples. He hissed but managed to grind out a barely discernible “yes.”
“Good. Now answer the question.”
His gaze landed on hers. “Blue … like your eyes.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Damn, the man could be seductive.
“Hmm,” she hummed, averting her gaze, not wanting him to see how his words affected her. “Interesting answer. I’m guessing there’s a certain part of your anatomy turning a shade of blue too.”
He bucked up beneath her. “Probably.”
She chuckled. “Then answer the questions more promptly so we can fix that. Question number two: What is your best memory?”
As if the man’s body couldn’t get any more rigid. His face turned an almost unhealthy shade of white, and he shifted beneath her.
“Remember, you only need to answer three of the four,” she said softly, worried that she might have pushed too hard too quickly.
“Christmas when I was ten,” he whispered. “My dad had it off. We were all home. Heath was only two but the size of a four-year-old. It snowed like crazy that year. He tossed all of us into a huge sled, and we went tobogganing. Then we all, my parents included, slept in the living room that night in front of the fire in our new Ninja Turtles sleeping bags.”
She couldn’t quite tell, because he was looking anywhere but at her face and the room was dark, but the reflection off the clock on the nightstand glimmered in his eyes, and she could have sworn there were tears.
“Which Ninja Turtle were you?”
“Leonardo,” he said, his voice hitching just a tad.
She struggled not to giggle. Krista didn’t giggle. “Of course. The responsible, serious one. Makes sense.”
“Also the smart one,” he added wryly.
“Donatello was smart too. The techie nerd.”
“That’s Chase.”
She hummed softly and ground her pelvis against his erection. “And let me guess, Heath was Michelangelo. And Rex was Raphael?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
She licked her lips and swirled her hips again. “Leonardo was always my favorite. For a turtle, he was sexy.”
His hands came up and he gripped her hips, forcefully pulling her down onto his lap so she could feel just how hard, how turned on he was. She felt the same way. Sitting atop Brock, riding him, even with fabric between them, was her favorite place to be these days. The way he looked at her as they both reached climax stole the oxygen clear from her lungs and made her whole body vibrate and burn.
She sobered and stopped her hip swirls, despite how strong his grip was on her hips and how much he was encouraging her to continue. “Okay, next questi
on. What is the most reckless thing you’ve ever done? You’re so responsible, so … grown up, what’s one thing you’ve done that is so out of character you didn’t even recognize yourself when you were doing it?”
His lips curled up into a diabolical smile. “That’s the fourth question. I don’t have to answer it.” Her mouth opened in protest, but her cut her off. “Favorite color, best memory, ninja turtle, this question.”
Shit, he was right.
Making a mock pout with her lips, she glared down at him. “Fine.”
Suddenly, she found herself up and off him and flipped over onto her back, her arms pinned above her in one of his hands.
“Damn, you really are a ninja.”
That smile was back. The man didn’t smile often, but when he did, holy hell. “Marry me, Krista.”
She exhaled loudly and motioned to push him off her, even though her efforts proved to be futile. It was like trying to move stone.
Way to kill the mood, dude.
“Don’t ask me that again until you’re head-over-heels, can’t-imagine-your-life-without-me, in love with me, okay? Because until that’s how you feel, my answer will always be no.”
His head dipped, and he took a nipple through her nightshirt into his mouth. She squeaked, followed by a groan from the blooming heat that spread through her chest and zoomed down between her legs.
“I do feel things,” he said softly, lifting his head and gazing down at her. Krista’s eyes went wide. “But if you’re not willing to agree to marry me right now, can we at least make each other feel good … as per our arrangement?” Levering himself onto one arm, he released her hands and went to work tearing off her pajama pants and relieving her of her shirt. She was already panty-free, so once the pants were off, she was bare.
She smiled. “We can definitely do that.”
His grin widened, and his eyes morphed from green to black in two seconds flat. He cupped her face and brought his lips down to hers.
The kiss was slow and romantic. A kiss that she wasn’t used to getting from this feral sex beast. Normally his mouth smashed down onto hers and his tongue challenged hers to a dance-off. But this kiss was gentle and so full of emotions that she had to suppress the lump that was forming in her throat. His hands traveled down her neck and body, cupping her butt and pulling her up to him, urging her to rock against him, accept him into her body. They both moaned as he finally entered her. The perfect fit.
