When he sensed how close I was, he moved his hand from my arse to caress my clit.
“Fuck, Beau!” I moaned as he held me teetering on the edge.
Before I could completely come apart, the sound of a key in the lock echoed through the room. Where we were was in full view of the door.
“Shit,” I muttered as I tried to push Beau away.
At the exact same time, Angel’s face appeared in the open doorway.
“Oh, God,” she murmured as her gaze locked with mine.
Free of our connection, Beau spun on the spot when he heard the sound, leaving both him and me on full display for not only Angel but the street beyond. There was no denying what Beau and I were up to. No excusing it as something she’d misinterpreted.
Beau quickly tucked himself away but didn’t refasten his pants.
“I’ll come back later, shall I?” Angel said, blushing bright red. I hadn’t seen her blush too often before.
“Don’t be silly, sweetness,” Beau said. “This is your house too. We’ll take this to the bedroom.”
I wanted to argue and say I was hardly in the mood anymore, but an escape to the bedroom was at least an escape. Without another word, I slipped down from the table, hid my face behind a curtain of my hair, and trotted towards the bedroom. I stopped in the hallway to see if Beau was coming with me.
“About the mess . . .” Beau’s gaze flicked between Angel and the disaster in the kitchen and dining room. He placed his hand in his mouth—the one that still had the remnants of the cookie dough clinging to his fingers and that had been in and on my body in the most sinfully delightful ways—and offered her one of his slow smiles. “We’ll clean that up later.”
I didn’t wait to see the look on Angel’s face or what she answered in reply. Instead, I raced to the bedroom burning with embarrassment at being caught. When Beau pushed open the door seconds after I hit the bed, he didn’t even mention the incident. Instead, he let his hand find and trail up my thigh.
“Beau, I can’t.”
“Hmm, why not, darlin’?” The lust that burned in his gaze made me want to, but I couldn’t ignore the heat burning in my cheeks.
“Angel knows what we’re doing in here.”
He chuckled as he moved up my body with soft strokes of his fingers. “I think Angel knows we have sex.”
It was almost the same argument I’d used to try to persuade him to have sex with me in my parent’s house.
“But she saw—” I wanted to say everything, but I let the word hang in the air instead.
“I thought the two of ya shared everythin’ anyways.”
“We used to. We haven’t for a while. Besides, telling the story afterwards is different to witnessing the act.” I pressed my hands against my face, realising why that was a bad idea the instant I had as chocolate-chip cookie dough smeared across my face.
He drew my hands away, one after the other. Then he pressed his lips to mine in a kiss that sent all my fires burning anew. “We can stop if ya want to, darlin’. Or we can put it behind us and enjoy the sweetness we’ve got on us.”
As he spoke, he worked his way down to my chest, cleaning up the line of smeared cookie dough he’d left earlier. His clean fingers found my pussy and stroked soft lines along my lips. My breaths grew choppy again before he drew his hand away.
“You play dirty sometimes,” I complained.
“I didn’t hear ya complainin’ when we were playin’ dirty a minute ago. Speakin’ a which . . .” He travelled down my body until his mouth was on my pussy again. “Hmm, Phoebe-flavoured cookie dough, now there’s a taste sensation.”
No more instructions to stop left me as his tongue cleaned every last trace of the cookie dough away.
AFTER BEAU and I had showered, we headed back out to face the music with Angel. In the time we’d spent together, she’d cleaned up the mess we’d made, and had a batch of cookies in the oven with the leftover ingredients.
“You really didn’t have to—”
She waved me off. “What else was I going to do? Stand at your door with a cup to listen to the show.”
I blushed at the reminder of what she’d walked in on. “I’m sorry, I was—”
“Enjoying time with your boyfriend in the privacy of your own home. I’m really not mad, girlie, I understand completely. I just . . . maybe we need to work out a signal so that I know the house is currently occupied? A tie on the doorknob, or is that a little too college dorm room for you?” Even though she was trying to play it off, there was an undercurrent in her tone that told me things weren’t as rosy as she pretended they were. Was it because of the way she felt about Beau?
“Are we good?” I asked.
“Didn’t I just—”
“No. I mean after yesterday, and everything, I want to know that we’re still good. I don’t mean to hurt you. I love you, my Angel.”
A shadow passed over her features, but then she smiled. “We’re good. I just need to learn this new you a little better.”
“And I need to work on finding who I was before. A phone call would never have been enough to rattle her.” I hopped up to sit on the kitchen counter while she fussed with the cookies in the oven. “I miss her.”
As if the heat had permeated through the oven mitt, Angel dropped the tray full of cookies she was holding onto the bench. She stared at the wall. “Yeah. Me too.”
I hopped off the bench and pulled her into my arms, wrapping as tightly as I could around her. Things still felt fractured, but I’d done everything I could to bridge at least a little of the gap.
For the next few days, I was ultra-conscious of everything that happened in front of Angel. When she caught Beau and I having a play fight with the bubbles while we washed the dishes, I’d gone to great lengths to let her see that all of our hands, legs, and extremities were where they were supposed to be and covered where necessary.
When we were all on the couch together, I ensured Angel could see my hands at all times. I didn’t know what would happen to make things change, but I knew something had to because the awkwardness that had settled over the house was choking me.
AS THE DAYS dragged on without certainty over what the next year would bring—would I step out of the car for Beau or race myself—I found myself wanting to make a compromise. I could walk away from racing, walk away from all of that if I had something else to give me purpose.
Besides Beau, who I already had, there was only one thing I wanted more than that life—a baby.
I discussed my desires with Dr Bradshaw during our appointments, but she couldn’t offer tangible solutions. Without talking to Beau about it to find out his thoughts—I didn’t want to raise his hopes if it wasn’t possible—I rang to make an appointment with Dr Reins, my kidney specialist. Maybe there was some way to make it possible, some method I didn’t know about because it had never been an option I’d needed to explore before.
Two weeks after Bathurst, I found myself in his office. It was partly the regular check-up I needed to have anyway, but it gave me the opportunity to raise my questions too. After we’d done the samples he needed for testing, I explained what I wanted so badly.
“I’m not going to lie to you and say it’ll be an easy road for someone in your position to have a successful pregnancy, but there are possibilities. It will also be likely you’ll have some difficulties in falling pregnant.”
As he said the words, my heart raced. It was really possible?
The longing grew.
His words gave me hope I’d never dared to have.
He printed out some information for me, pages and pages of information about dialysis while pregnant, the difficulties I could face, and the stress it would put on my body.
“It’s best in these cases to make an informed decision,” he said as he handed it all over. “You’ve already shown some deterioration in the transplant after the incident overseas, and I am concerned a pregnancy might put undue stress on your body.”
The ris
ing bubble of hope popped and my stomach fell. “What exactly will that mean for me if it does?”
“It is possible you could have a successful pregnancy with no complications or issues. However, it could also mean anything from kidney failure, the need for dialysis or a new transplant. There is even the possibility of death. Keeping your team involved will increase the chances of success for both yourself and the baby. The first step is changing a few of your medications to ones more suitable for pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers. I can give you the scripts for them if you like? You’ll just need to come back for more regular testing to ensure they don’t mess with your levels.”
I grabbed the scripts for my normal medication and the new ones he wanted me to swap to if I started trying for a baby.
When I left his office, my head spun. I needed someone to dissect the information with, but Beau was at work. I could hardly discuss it with Angel when things were so up in the air between us. Besides, I couldn’t be certain her desire for Beau wouldn’t make her try to talk me out of it. Or that she wouldn’t run to Beau to tell him what I’d said before I had a chance to talk to him.
My next thought was Mum, but she was the one who’d always directed me away from the idea of having kids. Not because she didn’t want that for me, but because she didn’t want me to risk my life that way. My relationship with Eden had drifted in the time that I’d been home and had isolated myself from everyone. She’d be there for me if I rang her, I was certain of it, but I didn’t want our first conversation in so long to be about my growing desperation for a baby. Flynn would be there for me in a heartbeat, but I didn’t think he’d really get it. Aunt Ruby would understand better than anyone else because she had struggled with infertility for years before finally having my cousin Noah. My only concern was that anything I said to her might get back to Mum.
It was resoundingly clear that I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about it.
By the time I arrived home, after spending the whole trip running over the thoughts in my head, I’d become more convinced than ever that it was the path I wanted to take. It would be risky, but with Beau’s support and the medical team watching out for issues, I started to believe it might be possible. If I did it, if it were actually possible, I would happily walk away from everything to do with Emmanuel Racing.
When Beau came home, I practically leapt at him and dragged him straight to our bedroom, giving Angel little more than a passing opportunity to say hello. As soon as we were alone and the door was shut, I thrust the envelope of information the doctor had given me in Beau’s direction.
“I want to have a baby,” I said as he took the paperwork from me.
“Say ag’in?”
“I went to see Dr Reins today. My nephrologist—he manages my treatment plans for my kidneys.”
“Okay.”
“He said that it might be possible to try for a baby, that there are some options that we could investigate if I really want to do this. And I really want to do this. I want to have your baby.”
Beau paled as he stared at the envelope. “But didn’t ya say it was impossible? That it could kill ya?”
“I did. And that is a risk, but every pregnancy has risks. Look at Mum with Georgia. That should’ve been normal and complication-free, but it almost killed them both.”
His gaze remained firmly fixed on the envelope now in his hand.
Talk, damn you! “Unless you don’t want that?” I fought to keep my voice level and not show how tight my vocal cords were.
“I do.” His words dragged out.
“But?”
“We’re still only just startin’ out. You ain’t even lived here for a few months. Do ya really think we’re ready for everythin’ life with a baby will bring on top o’ everythin’ else?”
“We can wait if you really think that’s a good idea, but read that information. The healthier I am, the younger I am, the better the chance of a successful outcome.”
“Successful meanin’?”
Me surviving the pregnancy. “Just read the information, and then we’ll talk.”
I stared at him and then dropped my gaze to the envelope. I’d read it all, multiple times, and now he would have the chance to as well.
“Ya want me to read it right now?”
“As soon as possible.”
He moved to one side and tossed the paperwork onto the bed.
When I went to protest, he covered the distance between us and put his hands on my shoulders. “I’ll read it. I’ll consider what it says. If ya really think you’re ready, I’ll be a willin’ participant. But ya need to think about what you’ll be givin’ up, what the risks are, and whether you’ll be able to cope with the pregnancy.”
“The doctor—”
“I don’t care what no doctor said and I ain’t talkin’ about your kidney. I’m talkin’ about you gettin’ through a series of hospital visits, internal exams, and all the things that come with pregnancy.”
I hadn’t thought about those things. Could I lie on a hospital bed and let a doctor touch me? A shiver ran through me.
“Think about it,” Beau said. “I ain’t sayin’ we can’t do it, but you matter more to me than any baby.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Okay. While we think about it though, can we practice?”
He gave me one of his slow smiles. Had he anticipated a bigger argument to his request to wait? “Whenever ya want.”
“What about right now?”
His grin turned wicked as he dragged me to the bed.
It was nearly an hour later before we left the room. Angel already had dinner cooked and served it as soon as we appeared. She met my gaze for a moment before looking away almost immediately without a single word.
Would we ever get back to what we had?
WHEN IT came time for the Gold Coast 600, Angel stayed at home instead of heading to the race. I took her words to heart though, and for every lap I was in the car, I pushed myself. I made every second matter and didn’t give my mind a chance to wander. Between that plan and Beau’s voice in my ears, I managed to hold myself together for the entire race. The autograph and press sessions were still a little overwhelming, but Beau stuck to my side like glue during those, and I made it through.
After that weekend, I couldn’t put off signing the contract any longer. Dad needed to tell the sponsors who would be in the car. Paperwork still needed to be completed and vinyl decoration finalised. That all had to happen sooner rather than later.
When we came home on a high on Sunday night, I had the overdue discussion with Beau after a stress relieving session in bed.
“If you want me to give up the spot for you, I will,” I said, “but if not, I think I want to be out there next year. What am I going to do otherwise?”
“Anythin’ ya put your mind to.”
“I'm serious. All I’ll do is sit around here and wonder what the place would sound like filled with the sounds of our children. And you’re right, I don’t know if I can undergo the physical examinations involved with that. I need to consider that aspect a little longer.”
He brushed his knuckle over my cheek to comfort me.
“Are you upset?”
“Course I ain’t. At least we know kids might be a possibility if that becomes somethin’ ya want. Besides, that car’s yours. It has been for a long time. I ain’t fixin’ to steal that from ya.” He grinned. “Course if ya wanna give me somethin’, I’d love to be the co-driver in the enduros next year.”
“I think I’ll find some way to survive without your sweet voice in my ear the whole race.”
“Sweet?”
“Like honey.”
“Or like chocolate chip cookies.” He chuckled before he brushed his lips against mine.
I hummed at the memory before changing the subject before we got lost in each other. “If that’s settled I’ll talk to Mum and Dad tomorrow to get it all sorted.”
“Sounds good, darlin’. Now, I got a confession
and question of my own.”
“Okay?”
“I’m sellin’ my share of the Lake Retreat.”
“What? But you love that place.”
“Yeah, but I ain’t contributin’ and it ain’t fair to hold Mitch and Joe back by bein’ the majority owner and never bein’ there.”
“But what about—”
“Darlin’, this ain’t the question. It’s happenin’. Fact, it’s almost a done deal. Alls we’re waitin’ on is for me to sign the paperwork, and I ain’t gonna do that without seein’ ’em one more time.”
“I can’t believe you’re selling the place. It’s your home.”
“This is my home.” He glanced around the room before shaking his head. “No, you’re my home.”
My heart fluttered uselessly in my chest at his words. They provided so much strength and comfort. “You’re not going to regret this?”
“There ain’t much in the world I wouldn’t walk away from if it meant a li’l time with you.”
“Some would call that co-dependent.”
“Don’t bother me what anyone else calls it. I’m happy, and that’s what matters.”
His words went from lifting me up to twisting me around. “What happens if something happens to me though? There’s no guarantee that I’ll have a long life.”
“There ain’t no guarantee ya won’t either.”
“That doesn’t answer my question though. What would you do?”
“I can’t say, but I can guarantee whatever peace I could find, it ain’t gonna be found at the Lake Retreat.”
I wasn’t completely happy with his answer, but ultimately it wasn’t my call. It was clear this was something he’d given some thought to. “Okay, so what was the question?”
“The boys have asked me to return for one last bonfire before I sell up. I’ll sign all the documents while I’m there and square everythin’ away.”
Phantom (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #5) Page 10
