by Sheila Kell
Wanting more time to prepare her since that’d been the shortest amount of foreplay he’d had since he was a teenager, he stood and slid her pajama pants down her legs while she removed her shirt. Rolling on her back, he caught a perfect view of her trimmed mound. His mouth watered, wanting to taste her, but he had other things on his mind first.
After removing only his sweatpants, he crawled back up on the bed. “Turn back on your side.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but obviously decided against it as she did as told.
With his hand on her hip, he slid her back to him. Reaching around, he probed her entrance with a finger and found it slick and warm. If possible, he’d just hardened to stone. “Damn, Kelly.” So much for needing to prep her for him.
“I want you, Trent.” She turned her head toward him, and he leaned over and kissed her hard. The angle made it awkward, but their tongues still found each other and danced together. Damn, she tasted sweet.
“I don’t have a fucking condom,” he bit out in frustration. Of all the things not to pack when to stay over at her place.
She chuckled. “You don’t need it. I’m already pregnant.”
True, but that wasn’t the only reason to wear them. “I’m clean. I swear it, Kelly.” Fuck, he had to get inside her, but thinking of a condom had been automatic for him. He’d never had sex without one. Until now….
That settled, slowly, he picked up her leg and pulled it back over his, then slid even closer. Anticipation licked through his system. He guided his rigid cock to her entrance and slid inside her velvety heat. The deeper he sank, the more he fought coming with how good… how perfect it felt to be inside her. Damn, he’d been a fool not to fuck her before now.
Wanting to ensure she enjoyed it as much as he was, he gritted his teeth and reached around to rub her clit. Savoring the feel of being inside her, he moved his pelvis slowly, slipping deep in and then almost pulling out completely. The pulsing of his cock told him that even that wasn’t working at holding back his orgasm. He wouldn’t last long.
He made circles on her nub, kissed her neck and back and smiled at the mewling sounds she made. When her body tensed and her breathing came in heavy pants, he knew she was close and focused his efforts on bringing her to climax.
“I’m gonna come,” she rasped. Her breathing hitched. Then she made the sexiest sounds as she splintered in his arms.
Moving his hand back to her hip, he pumped into her a few more times before enjoying his own release. An off-the-charts climax that had him almost seeing stars.
Both spent, they lay connected until Kelly jumped up and raced to the bathroom with, “I’ve got to pee,” following in her wake.
Chuckling, he stood and found his sweatpants, grateful Kelly hadn’t said anything about him removing his shirt. Checking his stitches, which pained the fuck out of him after that activity, he found them thankfully dry but a little red probably from irritation of his movement. He was lucky as fuck he hadn’t ripped any, but he and Kelly’s sex had been tame in that position.
Dressed, he straightened the covers for her return. For all he knew, she could ask him to sleep on the couch now. He’d tempt fate and stay. Holding her for the rest of the night seemed right. Plus, he found he really wanted to do so. He missed those nights of holding her. At least this time, it would be in the throes of sated bliss versus her needing only comfort.
Reality hit him with the strength of a two-by-four to the forehead. He’d had sex with his best friend. How did he handle things now? He wanted to be the man for her, but she wanted him to be in love. He wanted to be free of his demons.
Sighing since he didn’t have the answers, he slid onto the bed. Nobody said this shit would be easy.
Kelly reentered and slid back into bed, naked.
His dick twitched at the temptation. Already? Christ.
She gave him a quick kiss on the lips, then turned on her side and scooted into him. She fit so perfectly. “Thank you.” She dropped off to sleep again.
What the fuck? Wasn’t it the guy who fell asleep right away? The question he really needed to be asking was if they would feel awkward come morning? He knew their making love changed things between them. But how exactly?
THERE’D BEEN NO time for awkwardness when Trent and Kelly awoke to the pounding of workers outside. Once he’d finally drifted off to sleep, cuddled next to her, it’d been the most peaceful night’s sleep he’d had since the bomb blast. No nightmares. No waking in a cold sweat. Not wanting it to end, he pulled her closer and groaned, attempting to tune out the unwelcome sound.
When he realized the noise was actually on the front door, he rolled away from Kelly and dropped his feet on the floor when realization dawned that they’d overslept, and their ride had arrived.
He checked the peephole before answering and stared at one pissed off Matt Hamilton. “Get the fuck up! Do you know how much it costs to keep a plane waiting?”
Rubbing his hand over his face, Trent frowned at his brother’s unexpected, harsh tone. “We’re up. Give us five”—he glanced back to the bedroom, thinking she might need longer—“no, fifteen.” He closed the door behind Matt. He hoped Kelly could get ready that fast. Then again, the faster he pushed her, the less she would want to talk about last night and with someone driving them, there’d be no possibility of it on the way to the private airport.
He returned to the bedroom ready to roll her out of bed and pull a football coach approach if needed to hustle her up. Instead, he found the bed empty, but smiled when Kelly popped her head out of the bathroom with a toothbrush in her mouth. Around the suds starting to dribble down her chin, she said, “Give me ten minutes.”
Fighting the urge to walk over and wipe her chin for her, he nodded and returned to the living room and his overnight bag to change. Since Kelly had sworn off caffeine during her pregnancy, he didn’t even attempt to make coffee and drink it in front of her.
After changing, brushing his own teeth in her other bathroom, and loading his bag in Matt’s car, he sat on the couch with his brother in silence and wondered how long she’d actually take. To avoid unnecessary conversation, he kept himself occupied by playing around on the Internet on his phone. He checked a Facebook page he’d started long ago but didn’t maintain. A few women he’d dated—he used that term loosely—had been trying to locate him while he’d been out of town. He noted how most were blonde, like Kelly had changed her hair. Funny how now that he had Kelly in his life—however he had her—he didn’t care about the other women. Not that he’d cared that much before. They’d been a means to an end. Unafraid to admit it, it used to be, he lived for a piece of ass and a good time.
Never in his wildest dreams did he think deciding the one person to spend the rest of one’s life with would be so confusing and difficult. No wonder they wrote so many country songs about the heartache of finding love. There was that word again. Love. If he wasn’t in love with her, was he feeling sorry for her being alone and that was why he wanted to marry her? Although he still feared she’d turn him away because of his scars, he also knew no other woman would accept him as he was. So, did that mean he was settling?
And, why the fuck did he have all these crazy feelings? He was a guy for Christ’s sake. Eat, fuck, and sleep. That was all that was needed in life and not necessarily in that order.
“Ready.” Kelly, dressed in light blue pants with a blue-and-white striped top, tugged a wheeled suitcase into the living room.
Popping up, Trent approached her and reached for the suitcase and picked it up. His shoulder muscles immediately struggled. “Good God. What have you got in here?” He made a show of walking to the kitchen and peeking into the room.
“What are you looking for?”
“Just seeing if you had the kitchen sink in here.”
Laughing, she walked past him to the door. “Don’t be silly. It’s just what I need.” She turned to his brother who held the door open. “Hello, Matt.”
A smile race
d across his brother’s previously grim face. “Morning.”
“It’s enough to move a small family,” Trent muttered under his breath still on his conversation, not hers and Matt’s. Was he truly jealous of the attention she showed his brother? He shook his head at the insanity. Having sex with her had definitely screwed with his head.
While Matt drove, he and Kelly sat in the back even though Matt grumbled about not being a fucking chauffeur. Trent tried to keep the conversation off anything that would make them think of the night before. His mind went through and discarded topics. Knowing they’d never resolved this one before they’d agreed to the trip, he broached it. He turned to her. “Are you going to go see your parents while you’re there?”
“I don’t know.” Her gaze slipped to the side, looking out the window.
“We’ve discussed this. They’ll want to see you. They love you and won’t care that you’re not married.” At least he hoped they didn’t. With as close a family as she’d always described, Trent couldn’t imagine anything but them embracing her. Although they might convince her to move home, and that wouldn’t do for his purposes.
She turned to him. “If I go, will you go with me?”
Happiness slipped through his veins, and his heart leaped at her wanting him to meet her parents, even though it was just for support. Her choice of letting them know he was the one she leaned upon when she needed it gave him hope for her to change her mind about the two of them. “Of course.”
They arrived at the plane in forty minutes to a frowning pilot who’d been hired last minute to get his ass up early for the flight he and Kelly had delayed.
With a smiling and chatty AJ waiting, Trent didn’t have a chance to speak with Kelly again before takeoff. Not long after they were in the air, sitting across from each other, she dozed and Trent watched her. What to do now? She hadn’t said anything this morning, nor acted any differently. Although what had he expected since they hadn’t been alone? Maybe she’d have tried to avoid him or been all touchy-feely close. She’d been the same. As if it hadn’t happened. That made him feel a bit cheap.
“You know, it’s funny,” AJ said, sliding into the seat next to him, “pregnant women can get horny as hell.”
Bristling, he growled at his brother. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Had he been just a fuck for Kelly instead of anything special? Something to scratch her pregnant itch? No, she said she loved him. Was in love with him. He groaned at allowing AJ to get into his head. “What do you want?”
“What are you doing?”
He turned and pulled his eyebrows low in confusion. “Thinking of our trip.”
With a sigh, AJ shook his head. “No, with Kelly.”
A sudden panic filled him. Could AJ tell they’d slept together? No. That was ridiculous. He had to be fishing, nothing more. “Protecting her.”
“You’re wrapped up in her, different than I’ve seen you with her before.”
Sighing, he decided if there was anyone he could talk about this with, it was AJ. They’d been as close as brothers for a long time, before they’d found out they were actual brothers. Funny how that worked out. He sighed and hoped AJ didn’t laugh at him. “I asked her to marry me.”
Shock flashed on his brother’s face. “You— Wow.” AJ shifted in his seat and crossed one leg over the other thigh and bounced it. “What’d she say?”
Trent gave him a look of disbelief. “She said no.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. She said I wasn’t in love with her.”
“Are you?”
“Well, no.” He had something deeper than just love for her, and sleeping with her had only reinforced it. But in love? He still didn’t believe that. “At least I don’t think so.”
“I see.”
“What do you mean you see?” Trent asked testily.
“It’s just that you must have some pretty strong feelings for her to offer to marry her and raise someone else’s child from an infant.”
“What’s wrong with raising someone else’s child?” Irritation spiked through him. Roger McKenzie had done it and had done a great job at it. At least Ashley wouldn’t find out her father had abandoned her on purpose for his own political career.
AJ held up his hands to ward off an argument. “That didn’t come out right. Nothing is wrong with it.”
“Men do it all the time.”
AJ gave a single head bob. “You mean like your father?”
Trent nodded in response. “Yeah, like my father.”
“Did they love each other?” AJ paused. “Your parents, I mean.”
“Yes, I believe they did.”
“Then you see why Kelly wants someone who loves her enough to make a life together.”
“When did you get all knowledgeable with shit like this?”
AJ smirked and his face brightened. “When I got a wife and child of my own.”
Megan was a great woman, but not the woman he’d want to spend the rest of his life with. He looked again at Kelly, her head lolling to one side while she slept. Standing, he moved to her and pulled the blanket up to cover her better. In his heart, he knew that the woman for the rest of his days was Kelly. To win her, he needed to have her accept his scars, accept that he could have that life, and solve the mystery around the threat to her.
Oh, and fall in love. Piece of cake.
NERVOUSNESS AND FOREBODING struck Kelly as she exited the airplane in Billings, Montana. At no point had she and Trent had time to talk about what had happened between them. Maybe she’d been wrong allowing her hormones to take over and convince him to make love to her. He obviously hadn’t wanted to at first, but then he’d been turned on so, of course he wouldn’t turn away a willing woman. And she’d been more than willing.
The sex had been amazing, and her imagination drove her wild in her dreams thinking about how it would be if they took their time and loved each other’s bodies first. That’d mean he’d have to take off his shirt. No, she hadn’t missed that he’d left it on. They hadn’t talked about his accident or what she knew had to be extensive scarring.
At one time, she’d thought them the best of friends, but his keeping all of that from her was a burden she hated rested on his heart. Surely he’d shared it all with Jamie, who’d been the one to care for him both in and out of the hospital.
It was wrong of her to be jealous of a dead woman, but she couldn’t stop her heart from feeling the pain. When she’d found out she, along with everyone else, had been barred from Trent’s hospital room, she’d almost gone into mourning over the hurt and pain it had caused. But Brian had been there to pick her up.
Thinking of Brian, she had one hour to prepare herself for seeing his father again. She didn’t know what kept holding her back from visiting. Knowing her baby needed a family kept her tied to Brian and his family.
When they’d crossed the tarmac, it had been cleared, but she could see in the rental car parking lot, they’d recently had snow. With the overcast sky that greeted them, they might be in for more snow soon. Shoving her gloved hands in her coat pocket, she cradled the sides of her belly. Although the doctor said she was fine, in her mind, she appeared big for six months along.
Something hit her square between her shoulder blades and she froze, then smiled. Ducking down as best as she could, she removed her hands from her pockets and wrapped them around a big pile of snow pulled up between the cars and made it into a ball. The three men, carrying luggage, acted as if nothing had happened. The corner of Trent’s mouth ticked up and she had him. Standing, she launched her snowball and hit him squarely in the chest before he could react.
Since he sought a somewhat dry place to place the luggage before playing, she had enough time to make another snowball and launched it as he squatted down, nailing him on the forehead. With exceptionally fast snowball-making skills, he launched them at her one after another, beating her two to one, hitting her almost everywhere but the belly. She moved from spot to spot, hoping to t
hrow him off, giggling the entire way.
Breathing hard, she had to call a halt because her side hurt from so much laughing and running. Then, Trent threw her off by grabbing her up and spinning her around until he winced at what she suspected was a twinge in his stitches. Her breath caught when he gave her a quick peck on the lips before setting her down.
Without a word, he returned to collect their luggage while she fought for control of her breathing and her heart. The man didn’t realize what he did to her. A sinking sensation slid through her.
Settled in the backseat of the rental beside Trent, she folded her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead.
The hour went by quietly with a strange tension in the vehicle. When they reached Reed Point, AJ laughed at the sign that said, “Sheep drive capital of the world.” Kelly perked up at it. Driving down the main street—the only real street with businesses—she pointed out the interests.
She directed their attention out her side window. “That’s the Waterhole’s Saloon. Best lunch around. Next to it is the old hotel and lounge.” She frowned. “Like many businesses, they closed their doors.”
“What about getting basic supplies? Do you have a Walmart or Target here?”
Almost hopping in her seat, she said, “No, we have better. It’s almost like an old general store.” Giving them directions, they found a newer part of town with a few businesses lining one side of the street.
“Pull in would you?” Kelly asked. “I want to get something.”
Matt caught Trent’s eye in the rearview mirror and pulled over at Trent’s slight nod.
When Kelly entered the store, an older man, graying and slightly stooped smiled broadly and greeted her by name. She rushed into his arms and kissed him on the cheek when they parted.
“Look at you, young ‘un,” Marvin Sinclair said.
With her hand resting on her belly, she laughed nervously. Now her parents would know as word would spread. “I’m hoping you might have pickled bologna.” When the man’s brows drew down, she rushed to add, “It’s a craving I haven’t been able to satisfy.”
