by Lizzie Shane
He carried her through the open doorway into the bedroom—which Trina was sure was as opulent as the rest of the suite, but she didn’t spare a glance for it, all of her attention focused on the man she’d wrapped her legs around. He laid her down on the coverlet and she sank into the softness as he followed her down, pressing his length on top of her. She stretched out beneath him, reveling in the decadent sensation of his weight, parting her thighs so it could press where she wanted it most.
He was strong and firm and all male—and for tonight at least he was all hers. There was definitely something to be said for the unplanned.
Then his hands slid beneath her skirt and she lost her train of thought at the feel of those callouses, the subtle abrasion of them, sliding up the outsides of her thighs, his thumbs curving around to tease at the inner face. She twisted, eager and wanting, but his hands stopped just short of her panties. His teeth scraped down the side of her neck, but her entire being felt like it was focused on his hands, urging them up that last two inches. “Chris…”
“Patience,” he murmured against the skin at the base of her throat. Just his forefingers moved, sweeping up to hook in the waistband of her panties, pulling them down a tantalizing centimeter.
She cursed him under her breath and he laughed softly, exhaling against the upper curves of her highly sensitized breasts. Everything in her felt full—swollen and lush with need.
“Patience,” he whispered again, then his thumbs grazed up, brushing her right where she wanted him and she jolted half off the bed, digging her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders. He didn’t look heavily muscled at first glance, but damn, the man felt good beneath her hands. All strength and confidence.
And he deserved that confidence. He certainly knew how to work with his hands.
“You still with me?” he asked against her lips—as one thumb rolled in a delicious circle and suddenly she wasn’t with him. She was in the stratosphere, gasping at the hard, rushing ascent, and breathing his name like a prayer or a curse.
“Hold on, sweetheart. We’re just getting started.”
She shoved up his shirt, pushing her hands beneath it to feel the warmth of his skin against her palms. “I’m counting on it.”
Chapter Five
Present day. Minnesota.
She hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, in front of God and everyone—including half a dozen cell phone videographers. A short, balding man with a frantic air ushered them both into the tent as Ellie continued to evade security—but the damage had already been done.
“Who is she?” the short man snapped at Chris as soon as the flap fell closed behind them, enclosing them in the dim, cool interior.
“We met in Chicago,” Chris said without taking his eyes off Trina. “It’s mine?”
It was a valid question and he looked like he was in shock so she nodded numbly, rather than shouting, Of course, it’s yours, you idiot! Why else would I have driven all the way out here?
“Oh God,” the short man—whom she assumed must be his manager, Marty—groaned.
Chris flexed his hands. She wanted him to reach out to her, to comfort her, to do something, but he just stared, his throat working and a thousand thoughts racing behind his eyes. He took a slow breath. “Okay.”
“Okay?” his manager yelped. “In five minutes it’s going to be on Twitter!”
“Don’t have a heart attack, Marty,” Chris said, annoyingly calm. Just standing there as if he dealt with this every day. Though for all she knew, he might.
Those same reservations she’d felt in the weeks after their night rose up again. What did she really know about him? In her moments of doubt, she hadn’t been able to help seeing their night together through different eyes. What if they hadn’t really connected? What if everything he’d said had been a line?
They’d had their completely unplanned night, all right. And it had led to an unplanned pregnancy. Surprise!
Marty’s phone rang. “Oh God, it’s TMZ.” Chris’s manager rushed out of the tent to take the call, leaving Trina alone with Chris—a man who suddenly felt like more of a stranger than ever.
This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
She’d had this vision of what it would be like to see him again—a bunch of visions actually—but none of them seemed to be accurate. He was just… calm. Managing the situation. Like she was a panicking home owner on one of his shows.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked, his gaze flicking down to her stomach—and for the first time she didn’t find it sexy that he was unflappable. She wanted him flapped, damn it.
“No, thank you,” she mumbled through the awkwardness choking her.
It was like all the discomfort they’d dodged the morning after had finally caught up with them.
She’d woken up alone in that big hotel room bed to the sound of the shower running, but she hadn’t been embarrassed. The idea of being uncomfortable around Chris had felt impossible. When she thought about what they’d done the night before, a big grin had split her face and she’d muffled her laughter in the fluffy comforter, delight fizzing through her bloodstream.
She’d been impulsive and spontaneous. And it had been heaven.
He’d come out of the hotel bathroom a few minutes later, buttoning his shirt, and he’d smiled when he’d seen her watching him. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You didn’t,” she promised. “I don’t usually sleep in anyway.”
He came over to the bed and pressed his palms to the mattress on either side of her, trapping her between his arms, bending down to steal a kiss before resting his forehead against hers with a sigh. “I wish I didn’t have to get on a plane today.”
She looped her arms around his neck. “So do I.”
They’d talked about it in the middle of the night, in the lazy stretch between the second and third time when neither of them had been interested in sleep. He had a job in Atlanta. She had to unpack her apartment and get ready for the semester to start. Their lives were pulling them in different directions but neither of them was ready to go.
So he’d kissed her again—lingering in bed with her until his manager had called the room and yelled through the phone loud enough that Trina had been able to hear him. She muffled her giggles in the covers, filled with a delicious, giddy pride that she had made this gorgeous man nearly miss his flight.
“I know we said no strings, but I put my number in your phone,” he’d told her as he picked up his carry-on by the strap and slung it over his shoulder. “I expect you to use it.”
“I’ll call you for all my addition needs,” she’d teased, but she’d sent him the first text before he even reached the elevator.
She hadn’t known there was such a thing as a perfect morning-after until that moment, but theirs had been. It hadn’t been until later when she’d begun to doubt. When their communication had suddenly ceased.
Trina studied him now, in the shadowy coolness of the tent. Calm, unflappable Chris. “Why did you stop taking my calls?”
Chris blinked, taken off-guard by the abrupt question. So they were revising history now, were they? “That isn’t what happened. You stopped taking mine. I asked you if you wanted me to come to Chicago and you cut me off. The message was clear.”
He hated how defensive he sounded, but he’d spent more hours than he cared to admit obsessively checking his phone and wondering why the hell she wasn’t responding to any of his texts or taking his calls.
“I dropped my phone in the sink,” she explained, a note of defensiveness in her one voice. “I texted you as soon as I got it working again and you never replied. When I tried calling, your number had been disconnected.”
He frowned, trying to assimilate the possibility that Trina hadn’t been playing mind games with him. “That isn’t possible. I—” He broke off, mentally tallying up the dates. “Shit. That was the middle of August. My number got leaked to the tabloids and we had to have it changed.”
It
had been a giant pain in the ass and he’d already been in a crappy mood… because Trina had blown him off.
“You could have sent me your new number.”
“I didn’t think of it,” he admitted. “Marty takes care of all that and it didn’t occur to me that he wouldn’t have known to tell you my new number.” Or that Trina would be trying to contact him after several days of radio silence. They’d gone from texting almost every day to complete silence. He’d told himself she was busy—but the timing had been suspect. Right after he’d asked to see her again.
He’d been pissed, wondering what the hell kind of game she’d been playing with him, why she’d bothered texting him at all if she wasn’t interested. Then he’d been worried something had happened to her, but he hadn’t known her last name or even which medical school she was going to, so he couldn’t check up on her—and even if she’d been hit by a bus someone at the hospital probably would have picked up her phone and let the man who was sending her repeated texts knew what had happened.
He’d nursed his bruised ego for a week. Then his phone had fallen into a cement mixer on a job site. “About a week later my old phone was destroyed. When we replaced it, Marty had my new phone set up with my old backups, but I hadn’t backed up to the cloud since before I met you so I didn’t have your contact information anymore. I never got your last name. And for all I knew you never wanted to see me again.”
“It’s Mitchell,” she murmured. “Katrina Marie Mitchell.”
The name of the mother of his child. Jesus. His heart kept swooping up and down, not seeming to know what to feel.
“So, losing touch with me had nothing to do with Daniella?”
He frowned. “I didn’t know you knew about her.”
“I didn’t. Someone in line today said something about you two getting back together and I thought maybe…”
“No. Daniella and I were a mistake from the beginning. I haven’t even seen her in over a year. We were over long before you and I...” He scrubbed a hand over his face, recalling the result of their one night together two months ago. “How long have you known about the baby?”
“Just a couple weeks. Sorry to spring it on you like this. I tried calling your PR people, but they’re very good at making sure no one gets to you.”
“They’re going to love this,” he said dryly. “Marty’s probably having a stroke right about now.” He shook his head trying to process it all. “We used protection. We were careful.”
“I know. But when they say those things are only ninety-nine percent effective, I guess they mean it. Welcome to the one percent.” She squirmed under his gaze, her face flushing. “This wasn’t how I wanted you to find out. The only other person who knows is one of my med school friends and she thought I ought to just post a message on your Facebook wall, but I thought you had a right to hear privately—then I go and blurt it out in front of everyone. I didn’t plan it like this, Chris.”
“No, I know that. You aren’t in it for the fame.” He knew women like that. Trina was nothing like Daniella.
“They weren’t going to let anyone else see you and I panicked. I’d been waiting so long and Ellie—this woman I met in line—offered to create a disturbance to distract your security so I could sneak past and all I could think was that we were both going to get dragged away as soon as they caught us and I wanted you to know so badly so it just…” She waved a hand. “Came out.”
“I understand,” he said, with the Addition Magician’s legendary calm, though this time it wasn’t covering humor or frustration. It was covering a low level panic mixed with a healthy dose of shock.
“Please don’t let Ellie get in trouble for helping me.”
“I won’t. I’ll have Marty talk to the mall people.”
“What am I talking to the mall people about?” The flap rustled as his manager returned—and Chris felt himself stiffening—for the first time bothered by the way his manager just breezed in and out as if he were king of the world.
He and Trina could have been having a private moment. They hadn’t been—and from the twelve feet separating them and the rigid way she was standing they weren’t likely to—but they could have been, for all Marty knew.
His voice was sharper than usual when he explained, “Our serenade was provided by a friend of Trina’s to create a distraction. Let’s make sure she doesn’t get hassled for it.”
Marty nodded, making a note on his phone. “I’ll take care of it—but right now we really need to get you on the road. Air traffic control waits for no man.”
Part of him wanted to leap at the opportunity to return to his regularly scheduled life—but then he saw Trina’s face, the raw, stricken look on it. “I can’t go yet.”
“Chris…” Marty began, but he cut him off before he could get going.
“There will be other flights.” He turned to Trina. “How did you get here?”
“I drove.”
“From Chicago?” That had to be ten hours.
She nodded.
“Do you have plans after this?”
She released a short, startled laugh. “No. My social calendar is light at the moment.”
“Chris,” Marty said sharply. “You have a live interview in New York tomorrow morning at seven. And another at nine.”
“Then it’s lucky there are lots of flights into the city. I’ll be there, Marty. Book me on a later flight.” He mentally mapped the route back to the Chicago. “Out of Twin Cities.” He looked to Trina. “Do you mind giving me a ride to Minneapolis?”
She blinked, looking a little dazed at the reminder of what his life was. “Sure.”
“Chris,” Marty snapped again, no longer making any attempt to hide his displeasure. “Can I have a word with you?”
His manager wasn’t going to let them leave until he had his pound of flesh, so Chris nodded easily. “Of course.” He turned to Trina with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Don’t go anywhere. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
She nodded mutely, watching Marty like a bunny watched a viper as Chris followed him out of the tent.
Chapter Six
“Tell me this isn’t why you were off your game after Atlanta.”
“I wasn’t off my game.” Chris glowered at Marty—then realized that even though they were mostly blocked by the stage that didn’t mean he was completely hidden. He wiped the expression of his face, ready to wave and smile for any fans who had lingered in the hopes of catching one last look at him.
“You dropped your phone in a cement mixer and failed to catch three different permit issues on our next build. What do you call that?”
“Okay, fine, I was distracted. It happens.”
“She’s a gold-digger.”
Chris stiffened at Marty’s unilateral verdict. “You don’t know her.”
“I know her better than you do. Who announces they’re pregnant with a celebrity’s baby in public if they don’t want their five seconds of fame? Or a payoff. Do you know the kind of backflips we’re going to have to do to spin this?”
“We don’t need to spin it.”
Marty rolled his eyes. “Wake up and smell the manipulation, Chris. I realize you probably slept with her and I’m sure she was amazing in the sack—”
“You need to stop talking now.”
“Why? Because she’s The One? You don’t have time for The One right now. The One is for after you get this new contract signed, sealed and delivered. Or did you forget about your career as soon as that piece of ass walked in?”
“Careful, Marty,” Chris growled. “Just because I’ve never punched you, don’t think I won’t.”
Marty’s eye-roll reached epic levels. “You aren’t going to punch me because you know I’m right. This is a complication your career doesn’t need right now. What do you want? To ride off into the sunset toward the nearest wedding chapel with a girl you don’t even know? You’re a heartthrob and heartthrobs are, by definition, not married. Especially not with a k
id on the way.” He gripped Chris’s arm in what was doubtless designed to be a brotherly gesture but fell far short. “The network doesn’t want a family man, Chris. They have a family man. They want the stud.”
“So what would you like me to do?” Chris snapped. “Throw her out on her ass? Is the guy who abandons the woman carrying his child better for ratings?”
“A baby with a woman you don’t have a relationship with is fine, as long as you aren’t a deadbeat dad. Single father could work. But don’t get ahead of yourself. We don’t know that she’s really carrying your child,” Marty insisted. “We don’t know anything about this girl. Are we even sure she didn’t target you in Chicago?”
“Relax, Marty. I came on to her.”
“Or she made you think that. How well do you really know her? We need a pregnancy test. Maybe an ultrasound. And a paternity test. Then we can worry about damage control.”
Chris ground his molars—his instincts told him Marty was wrong, but he didn’t really know anything about Trina. “We can get all those things eventually, but I am not starting off my relationship with the mother of my child by calling her a liar and a fraud. And you need to get it through your head that there will be no damage control because this isn’t damage.”
“It is if you want the primetime gig.”
“Of course I want it. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get it, but this isn’t a case where deny-deny-deny is going to work. I need to figure out what she wants.” And what I want. “And to do that I need to talk to her. So get me a red-eye out of Minneapolis and I’ll meet you in New York.”
Trina held her breath inside the blue tent, Marty and Chris’s conversation carrying clearly through the canvas. They really should have walked farther away if they didn’t want her to overhear them—which made her think they must have wanted her to know what they were saying.
Or Marty wanted her to hear every word and Chris was too frazzled to notice they were within eavesdropping range.
