A Billionaire and a Baby

by Marie Ferrarella

  Nerves warred with disappointment.

  “I guess she’s more tired than she thinks,” she told him.

  His smile was slow, seeping into her system, covering every part of her like honey over ice cream. “Or more alert than you think.”

  Suddenly, the air around her became very still. She could hear every sound the house made. The slight creaking of the walls as the wind picked up. The sound of crickets outside the living room window, calling to one another, intent on having a mating fest.

  Did crickets get lonely, too?

  The single word shimmered before her. Too.

  Her mouth had gone dry. Damn it, she did feel like a vestal virgin. What was the matter with her? “She always has been a sharp lady.”

  He threaded one hand through her hair, cupping her cheek. Making strange things happen to her insides. “You looked very beautiful tonight. Or did I already tell you that?”

  It took her a moment to get in enough air to answer. “You did. Past tense?”

  His smile widened, pure pleasure marking the path. He had a really nice smile, she thought, feeling herself losing ground. “Past, present, pluperfect, take your choice.”

  Breathe, damn it, breathe. “Are you going to kiss me again?”

  He shook his head slightly, his eyes never leaving hers. “Don’t you ever stop asking questions?”

  “I…don’t think…I know…how.” The words seemed to dribble from her lips, dew slowly sliding down the petals of a rose.

  “Let me see if I can help you with that.” He brought his mouth down to hers, sealing in her questions and releasing a wave of excitement that felt almost overwhelming.

  The kiss was gentle, sweet. The more receptive she became to it, the more it grew until it felt as if there wasn’t a single space left that wasn’t filled by the kiss or by the emotions it generated within her.

  Sherry leaned into him, their bodies touching then pressing against each other as their breaths mingled and their tongues tangled. Desire sprang up, full-bodied and strong, embracing her.

  Her eyes shut, Sherry fell headlong into the kiss, losing her bearings. Not wanting to find them again. At least, not yet.

  Her heart was pounding hard as she felt his warm hands slide along her shoulders, her back. Melting her knees. Making her quiver inside.

  And then there was separation. He was drawing his head back, leaving her adrift. When she opened her eyes, she saw that there was just the slightest look of uncertainty in his. St. John Adair, uncertain? It didn’t seem possible.

  “Maybe I should go.”

  No! The wave of panic almost took her breath away as much as the kiss had. “It can’t be anything I’ve said because I think I just swallowed my tongue.”

  He found her honesty incredibly refreshing. Sin-Jin was beginning to think that she was a rare woman. “No, but maybe I’m rushing things.” She had, after all, just given birth a few weeks ago.

  Sherry placed her hands on his arms, looking up at him. It was as if she no longer had a choice in this, that her destiny was already preordained, written down in some vast book somewhere.

  “Isn’t that what makes you so good at what you do? You know when to rush in and when not?”

  Normally, he thought. But right now, he’d seemed to have lost his instincts. They’d evaporated, leaving him feeling just the slightest bit lost. It wasn’t something he was used to.

  The thought that fools rush in where angels fear to tread meandered through his mind. “I’m afraid that this time I need a little input. Did the doctor say—” He never got a chance to finish his question.

  According to her gynecologist after her exam, everything was back in working order and better than ever. “The doctor says I’m terrific.” Sherry pulled herself up on her toes and brought her lips up to his, kissing him for all she was worth.

  “Yes,” he murmured against her mouth, “you certainly are.”

  He could feel her lips widen into a smile. A smile that imprinted itself on his soul.

  “I never thought I’d hear myself say this, Sin-Jin, but you talk too much.”

  Sin-Jin laughed, sweeping her up into his arms. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”

  And then the laughter faded.

  Chapter Twelve

  He was seducing her.

  From the moment he first kissed her, the seduction began, enveloping her, making her tingle with incredible anticipation.

  There were all sorts of things wrong with this. The words conflict of interest sprang up in her mind in eight-foot-high letters. This was a dalliance, a temporary meeting of bodies, for him. She knew that. It had no future, not even the hint of a promise of a future.

  She had to be out of her mind.

  She’d just come away from a three-year relationship that had self-destructed on her, and here she was, seeking shelter in the arms of a man who had a billfold where his heart was supposed to be.

  Everything was wrong with this picture. And only one thing was right.

  She wanted it to happen.

  Maybe she needed to believe, just for the space of a few hours, that she was desirable, that she was wanted by someone. By a man who could easily, as she had seen tonight, have absolutely any woman he wanted with just a snap of his fingers.

  So what was she doing, being the one he snapped for?

  And yet…

  And yet he hadn’t snapped. He’d given her a way out. A way she didn’t want to take.

  If he was using her for pleasure tonight, well, she was using him as well, using him to feel again, something she’d thought she’d forgotten how to do. And he didn’t have a billfold for a heart. She’d witnessed the actions of a kind, tender man, a man who hadn’t left her side when she needed him, even though she was a stranger to him. A man who’d concerned himself with her son’s health and who had, for whatever reason, chosen to pay all the hospital bills even though she didn’t need him to.

  It was that man she saw in her living room tonight. That man she was making love with. And to.

  Her skin heated as she felt his lips lightly graze the outline of her ear and then the slope of her neck, the hollow of her throat.

  Everything within her tightened with anticipation, moistened with desire. She had to keep reminding herself to breathe.

  Like dry kindling, Sherry felt herself bursting in flame almost instantly.

  She wanted this, needed this. Needed him, if only for the space of a night.

  Live each moment as it comes, her mother had once said to her. It was never more true than now.

  She threaded her arms around his neck, finding his mouth, kissing him hard, her body so close to his the glitter from her gown scattered itself along his tuxedo, branding it.

  “Where’s your bedroom?” His voice was low, raspy against her ear.

  It took effort to open her eyes. When she did, they sparkled with humor as she looked at him.

  Had he said something funny? “What?”

  “A man who asks directions.” She undid his tie. “I like that.”

  The feel of her cool fingers against his throat made his body temperature go up another notch. Desire urgently pulsed through his veins. “That’ll be the only direction I’ll need.”

  The promise stole her breath away. Again.

  She turned from him toward the stairs. Raising the hem of her dress with one hand, she took his hand in the other and led the way up. She was surprised that her knees were still functioning. She could have sworn they’d melted away in the first encounter.

  “This way.”

  At the top of the stairs, as she passed her son’s door, Sherry hesitated a fraction of a second.

  “You want to look in on him?” Sin-Jin asked. He saw the question in her eyes as she looked over her shoulder at him. He wasn’t a mind reader, though there were some who’d accused him of that. “I read body language, remember?”

  Another man would have been in a hurry to get her to her room, to get her out of her clothes an
d make love with her, thinking only of himself. Sin-Jin had placed her needs ahead of his own.

  He inched up a little further in her estimation.

  She cracked the door to her son’s room. Johnny was in his crib, lying on his back, soft, dark lashes just touching his cheeks. An angel sleeping peacefully.

  Tranquility joined the host of emotions crowding within her.

  Very softly Sherry closed the door again. She turned to look at Sin-Jin.

  Who are you? she wondered for the hundredth time. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” His smile crept under her skin, heating her down to the very core.

  Her room was next to her son’s, done all in whites, light grays and blues. Sin-Jin took note of his surroundings. Cool, yet somehow still warm. The room suited her.

  The moment she was inside, he turned her around and kissed her again, softly, gently.

  Something exploded inside of her. Suddenly Sherry felt like the aggressor, eager, desirous, unable to wait for that fulfilling moment, that final release that brought with it exhilaration and peace all at the same moment.

  The instant his lips touched hers, an energy filled her, governing her moves. She started with his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders, stripping it from his arms. And then his shirt. Her hands felt as if they were trembling as she worked the buttons from their holes, moved the fabric from his skin.

  His chest was lightly covered with dark hair. Excitement rose up another notch, mingling with sensuality that threatened to undo her completely.

  He found her eagerness endearing and igniting. The fact that he wasn’t mentally standing back, that he discovered himself to be as eager as she took him completely by surprise. For the first time in a very long while, he wasn’t viewing what was going on in a controlled capacity. Instead he was in the midst of it, caught up in the moment, in the anticipation and the rising passion that seemed to be hammering at him.

  Caught up in the woman.

  He liked to affect people, liked to leave his imprint on their lives. Here it was almost as if the roles were reversed. She was doing something to him, stirring him in ways he, with his perfect ability to recall, couldn’t remember ever having been stirred.

  Stirred not shaken. Well, he was both and losing all sense of time, of place, of everything but the woman who’d done this to him.

  Sliding the zipper of her dress down along the curve of her spine, Sin-Jin branded her with his mouth, his excitement increasing proportionately as the gown slowly slid from her body until it was finally on the floor, leaving her dressed in shimmering stockings that came up to her thighs, a tiny white thong and high heels.

  He felt a tightness all through his body. It took everything he had not to take her at this moment. But he held himself in check. Wanting the moment to go on a little longer.

  Sin-Jin forced himself to back away from her as his eyes skimmed over her body. She was even more sensational than he’d imagined. “You look like every pubescent boy’s fantasy.”

  Her eyes held his, searching for something she needed to sustain her. “And what about your fantasy? What do I have to do to be that?”

  “Just be,” he whispered. The words glided along her skin like a sinful promise.

  Everything drifted into a blurry haze for her after that, full of flash and fire and longing. Of sharp moments surrounding heightened reactions. Each sensation took her a little farther, a little higher up the path that led to the final plateau.

  She never knew she could feel like this, it was like being in the middle of a tempest, and she was both afraid and exhilarated at what was happening to her. At what was coming.

  It was the difference between a song and a symphony, Sin-Jin realized as he felt her eager lips skimming along his throat, his chest.

  His body hummed with suppressed urges as their nude bodies tangled on the bed, generating heat, slick with desire still unspent.

  Moving over her, he threaded his hands through her hair, but rather than enter her, Sin-Jin kissed her over and over again, assaulting her mouth, her neck, the swell of her breasts, her very being.

  Feeling her twist and quiver beneath him was almost more than he could resist, her hips arching in an unspoken, urgent invitation. But suddenly, for reasons he couldn’t quite crystallize, it was important to him to turn this night into something memorable for her.

  And to somehow get his fill of her, though he was beginning to feel that it was impossible.

  When he finally drove himself into her, the sensation was all powerful for him. The dance was short, fiery and intense. And when it was over, when he rolled off her and onto his back, completely spent, he thought he was seriously in danger of never being able to catch his breath again.

  Sin-Jin waited for his usual waning of interest, of desire; the feeling that always came as a prelude to his moving on.

  It didn’t come.

  There was no hollow feeling, no widening hole within his being. No desire to get up and leave as quickly as possible.

  All he wanted to do was hold her closer. And so he did, telling himself to be patient. She’d aroused more passion within him than any woman ever had, it was only natural that the inevitable might take a little longer to appear.

  For now he could drift within this false feeling of contentment.

  Sin-Jin gazed at her, wondering who this innocent-looking woman who had just rocked his world was.

  His breathing only now was becoming more steady. “Are you all right?”

  Her smile was dreamy, pulling him in again. If he’d had the energy, he would have been surprised.

  “I’ll let you know once I find out if I still have a pulse left.”

  Concern nudged itself forward. “Was it too soon for you?” he asked.

  “I believe Goldilocks had a phrase for it.” Sherry turned her face up to his and smiled. “It was ‘just right.”’

  He kissed the top of her head. “So is that who you are? Goldilocks?”

  “Right now, if you were to interrogate me, I couldn’t even give you my name, rank and serial number.” Sherry raised herself up on her elbow and looked at him, her breasts teasing his skin as she moved. “Who was that masked man?”

  Sin-Jin laughed as the contentment he didn’t want to place stock in spread out a little farther within him. “If you’re trying to flatter me, you’ve succeeded.”

  “I’m not trying to flatter you, I’m just trying to figure out if I was in an earthquake or a time warp.” She fell back against the pillow, her hair fanning out about her like a reddish cloud. She sighed deeply. “Wow. If you raid corporations the way you make love, the world might as well give up and make you emperor now. All hail, Emperor Sin-Jin.”

  She was completely guileless. Was that possible for a woman? And a reporter at that? He didn’t know. All he knew was that he was being reeled in and damn if he wasn’t enjoying it.

  Sin-Jin tucked her closer to him. “You weren’t exactly shabby yourself.”

  She pretended to take offense. “Oh, well, that’s terrific. Is that it? That’s what they’ll put on my tombstone? ‘She wasn’t shabby herself’?”

  “Fantastic, all right?” He kissed her temples one at a time, arousing himself as he did so. “You were fantastic.” He kissed each eyelid in turn, feeling himself begin to surge. “And besides, it’s far too soon to talk of tombstones.”

  She sighed, weaving her arms around his neck. “Make love to me like that again and it might not be too soon at all.”

  He smiled into her soul, feeling his own catch fire again. “Is that an invitation?”

  She rubbed against him enticingly. “Do you want it to be?”

  The woman really was a siren. But for now, he assured himself, he knew just where the rocks were, and he wasn’t about to be dashed against any of them. “Questions, always questions. I guess I’ll have to stop you the way I did last time.”

  She turned toward him, her body pressing against his. She felt his response and smiled wickedly
. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  The crying woke him.

  When Sin-Jin opened his eyes, the unfamiliarity of his surroundings momentarily disoriented him. He was in Sherry’s bedroom. The sound that had roused him was coming from the baby monitor next to the far side of the bed.

  He hadn’t realized that he’d fallen asleep.

  Raising himself up on his elbows, he realized that what he was hearing was Johnny crying. The place beside him was empty. He skimmed his hand over it. It was still warm. A small rush undulated through him. He swept it away before it could complete its route.

  Sin-Jin sat up and dragged his hand through his hair. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was almost four in the morning. Well past time to get going. He reached for his underwear and then his trousers. As he pulled them on, he thought about getting dressed and simply slipping out the front door. That way he could avoid the necessity for having to engage in any awkward conversation with Sherry. It seemed like the thing to do.

  The trouble was, he didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to simply vanish into the darkness, like Batman.

  He wanted to stay.

  To see her with her child.

  What the hell was happening to him?

  The next moment, he shrugged. What was the harm in remaining for a few minutes, he upbraided himself. He was overreacting. All he was planning to do was be polite and say goodbye, not promise her half the kingdom.

  The crying stopped. A soft, contented noise followed in its wake.

  Curious, Sin-Jin tiptoed to the doorway of the next room in his bare feet.

  The nursery smelled faintly of talcum powder and of the soft, seductive scent of her cologne.

  Moonlight streamed in through the window, slipping through the white nylon curtains and bathing parts of the room. Half in shadow, half in light, Sherry was sitting in a rocking chair next to the crib, holding her son in her arms and rocking ever so slightly. The infant was sucking madly on the bottle she held to his mouth.

  Sin-Jin stood in the doorway, just watching them for the space of a moment. Wondering why such a simple thing could move him so much.