The Baby Inheritance (Billionaires and Babies)

by Maureen Child

  He slanted her a look. “Writing a book?”

  “Keeping secrets?” she countered, smiling to take the sting out of her accusation.

  He sighed, turned his gaze back to the fire and said, “She drops in from time to time.”

  “When she needs something?” Lilah asked, wanting to see his reaction.

  “Usually.” Frowning, he turned his gaze back to her. “Why do you care? And why are you asking so many questions?”

  “Like I said, if you want answers, you have to ask questions.” She ran her fingers over the edge of the table. “I just wondered if you and your brothers and sisters see much of each other.”

  His brow furrowed, he asked, “Why does that matter?”

  She couldn’t very well tell him that she was worried that his siblings were taking advantage of him, so she lied instead. “I want to know if Rose will have lots of aunts and uncles coming over all the time.”

  He took another sip of scotch and drained the glass. “I told you I’d take care of her.”

  “I’m not arguing that,” she said, and wished she’d come up with a better lie. She hadn’t come in here to argue with him. She’d wanted to…talk. To make sure he was okay. And that sounded just pitiful, even to her.

  “Well, that’s a first.” Reed pushed to his feet, walked to the wet bar in the corner and refilled his glass. “You’ve been arguing with me since the first day I met you.”

  She supposed that was true, but their relationship, if that was what it was, hadn’t exactly started out friendly, had it?

  “To be fair,” she said, standing up to walk to him, “you did a lot of that, too.”

  He studied her through eyes that suddenly looked as dark and mysterious as a forest at midnight, and something fluttered into life inside her. What was it about Reed Hudson that turned her insides to jelly and made her want to both argue and comfort at the same time? Lilah took a breath and steadied herself, for all the good it would do. Being this close to him, having his eyes pinned on her, was enough to unsettle any woman’s balance.

  “And now what?” he asked. “We’re friends?”

  “We could be,” she said, though a part of her doubted it. There was too much underlying tension simmering between them for a friendship. She didn’t have any other “friend” she imagined naked.

  “We won’t be,” he said and set his glass down with a click.

  He turned to face her and Lilah’s stomach did a slow spin as her heart gave one hard lurch. Nerves jangled into life inside her, but she paid no attention. The night was late, the room was dark but for firelight simmering in the shadows. There was closeness here and she didn’t want it to end.

  Stupid, her brain warned and Lilah didn’t listen. She didn’t want to think too much about what was going on between them right now, because she didn’t want this quiet, intimate moment to end. Not yet. “Why not, Reed?”

  “Because I don’t want to be your friend, Lilah. What I want from you has nothing to do with being pals.”

  She took another breath, but it didn’t help. Her balance was dissolving and she didn’t care. Staring into those green eyes of his was mesmerizing. She couldn’t have looked away if she had tried. And she didn’t want to try. Lilah wanted to look into his eyes until she discovered everything about him. Until the wall he hid behind fell crashing to the ground.

  “My friends don’t smell as good as you do,” he said quietly. “They don’t have hair that looks like gold and feels like silk.”

  Lilah shivered. She’d known when she knocked on the study door that this was what she had been heading toward. For two weeks now, her mind had been filled with nothing but thoughts of Reed Hudson. Even her dreams had been pushing her here, to this moment in the darkness with him.

  “What if I don’t want to be your friend, either?” she whispered.

  “Then I’d say we’re wasting precious time standing here talking,” Reed said, moving in on her, “when we could be doing something far more interesting.”

  Awareness roared to life inside her and Lilah felt every single cell in her body wake up and jostle each other with eagerness. She gave him a slow smile that belied the nerves boiling in the pit of her stomach. “Is that right?”

  He stepped up so close, their shirts brushed against each other. She felt heat pumping from his body and knew that her own was sizzling, too. Bending his head toward her, he inhaled sharply and murmured, “Vanilla today. I like it.”

  “Show me,” she said and met his mouth in a kiss that lit up every inch of her body. Just like the first time he kissed her, spontaneous explosions of desire, need, hunger were set off inside her, one after the other. She was rocked by the force of them, stronger than before, as if her body had just been waiting, biding its time until it could finally let loose.

  He pulled her in tight against him, his hands running up and down her spine, curving over her bottom, holding her close enough she couldn’t miss his body’s reaction to the kiss. And knowing that he felt the same throbbing need she did only fed the fires licking at the edges of her soul.

  The core of her throbbed and pulsed in time with the beat of her heart that was so fast it left her nearly breathless. But then, she thought wildly, who needed air?

  He didn’t let her go as he moved forward, with Lilah backing up until she bumped into the edge of his desk. Their mouths still fused together, Lilah’s tongue tangled with his as he swept inside her mouth to explore, to taste, to torture.

  It had been a long time since she’d been with a man and even then, she’d felt nothing close to what she experienced with Reed. This was something brand new. Exciting. Amazing. The man had talented hands and his mouth was downright lethal.

  He suddenly tore that mouth from hers and dropped his head to the curve of her neck. His lips, tongue and teeth made a trail along the length of her throat and Lilah groaned as she tipped her head to one side, giving him better access. Silently asking for more.

  As if he heard her, he lifted both hands to cup her breasts and even through the fabric of her shirt and the lace bra beneath, she felt the heat of him. Her nipples pebbled and every stroke of his fingers sent a shooting star of sensation slicing through her. She gasped, letting her head fall back as her breath whipped in and out of her lungs. Staring at the ceiling, she blindly watched the fire-lit shadows shifting, pulsing in the darkness.

  All she felt was him. Every last, hard inch of him pressing her into the edge of the desk. His muscular thighs aligned with hers and she held on to his waist to keep from falling. She wanted him on her, in her, over her. She wanted to feel his body pushing into hers, and easing the ache that only seemed to grow more frantic with every passing second.

  He was tall and strong and really built. That one wild thought careened through her mind even as his fingers began to tug at the buttons of her blouse. Impatient now, for the feel of his hands on her skin, she tried to help, but only fumbled and got in his way.

  “I’ve got it,” he whispered harshly, his voice straining over every word. “Don’t help.”

  “Right, right.” She nodded, grateful he could still move since she seemed to be nearly paralyzed with her body’s insistent demands, which clutched in her chest, her gut and, oh, so much lower.

  Then he had her blouse undone and was pushing it off, down her arms to land on the desk behind her. The air in the room was cool in spite of the fire and she shivered a little. But then his hands were back on her breasts and heat spiraled up out of nowhere, delivering a different kind of shiver.

  His nimble fingers flicked the front clasp of her bra and then her breasts were free and being cupped and stroked by those amazing hands of his. His thumbs and forefingers circled her nipples, tugging, pulling gently. He kissed her again, a sweep of his tongue across her lips, as if offering her a small taste of something incredible.

  “Oh, boy,” she said on a sigh and caught his satisfied smile.

  “Only getting better from here,” he promised, and Lilah could hardly
wait. She’d never been like this before, her mind whispered. Never felt so much, wanted so much. No man before him had emptied her brain and filled her body so quickly, so completely.

  At the core of her, she trembled and ached, and dampness filled the heat at her center. She was more than ready for whatever would come next and she let him know just how eager she was, by reaching up, cupping his face in her palms and dragging his mouth to hers.

  Again and again, they claimed each other, breath sliding from one to the other as they delved into a pool of unbelievable sensations. And still it wasn’t enough. Not nearly.

  She reached beneath the hem of his T-shirt and flattened her palms against the hard planes of his chest. She felt the definition of sculpted muscles and nearly whimpered with the glory of it.

  He hissed in a breath, then ripped his shirt off before pulling her tight against him again. Skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, they clung together, relishing every brush of their bodies as the flames around them flashed higher, stronger.

  “That’s it,” he said thickly. “We’re done here.”

  “What? What?” She shook her head. Was he stopping? Was he going to say good-night and leave her like this? Needy? Desperate?

  “My room,” he said shortly, snatching up her blouse and laying it around her shoulders. “We’re going to my room. To a bed.”

  Lowering as it was to admit, she didn’t want to wait that long. Oh, she was in serious trouble. “Don’t need a bed.”

  “There’re condoms in my room.” He looked at her.

  Duh. “Right. Of course. Do need those.” She held on to her blouse with one hand as he grabbed her other hand and tugged her in his wake. They left the shadow-filled room and walked down a darkened hallway, following the dimly lit path provided by the night-lights plugged into wall sockets. His long legs were hard to keep up with, but Lilah managed, driven by the growing hunger chewing at her.

  He pulled her into his bedroom and the only light there came from the slant of moonlight streaming through the windows to lay like silver across his king-size bed. The navy blue comforter looked as wide and dark as the sky. And when he picked her up and dropped her onto it, she felt as if she was flying into that dark expanse.

  Moonlight gleamed in his eyes as she stared up at him, and when she lifted her arms to him, he went to her, sliding his body up and along hers. The incredible brush of his skin felt electrifying. He kissed her again and she felt herself drowning in his taste, in the heat of him.

  She tossed her blouse aside then shrugged out of her bra and tossed it, as well. Lilah didn’t want anything coming between them. She wanted, needed, and she didn’t want to wait. For the first time in her life, Lilah was spiraling out of control.

  He grinned as if he knew what she was thinking and completely agreed. “Now the jeans,” he muttered and reached for the snap on her pants, but Lilah was too fast for him. She had them undone in a blink and then he was sliding them and her panties down off her legs.

  If she was thinking right now, she might have felt a little embarrassed, uneasy, being naked in his bed, the cool night air kissing her skin, the fire in his eyes warming her. But she didn’t want to think. She only wanted to feel.

  “Now you,” she demanded and wasn’t willing to be patient about it, either. It had been a long two weeks, Lilah told herself, filled with bristling tension and heightened awareness until she’d hardly been able to sleep at night.

  She kept her gaze on him while he quickly stripped, and she was really glad she did. He was beautiful. His broad chest was leanly sculpted muscle. Narrow hips, long legs and…her eyes widened and her heart gave an almost painful jolt in her chest. Oh, my.

  He grinned again and Lilah said, “You have to stop reading my mind.”

  “But it’s so interesting,” he countered, joining her on the bed, dropping a kiss on her flat belly, then moving up to take first one nipple then the other into his mouth.

  Lilah came up off the bed, digging her heels into the mattress as she arched her back, instinctively moving closer to that amazing, talented, wonderful mouth of his. She held his head to her breast and watched as his tongue drew lazy, sensual circles around her nipple.

  “God, you taste good,” he whispered against her breast, giving her skin another long lick.

  “It’s my soaps,” she said on a sigh. “Organic. You could eat them if you wanted to.”

  “Your scent’s been driving me crazy for two weeks,” he admitted, looking at her briefly before slowly trailing his mouth down her body again. “Every night, I lay there wondering what you’re going to smell like in the morning. Lemons?” Kiss. “Oranges?” Kiss. “Cinnamon?” Kiss.

  And now he was close, so close to the throbbing, aching center of her. Everything in her clenched in anticipation, expectation. She held her breath as he shifted on the bed, as he moved to kneel between her legs. As he bent his head to—

  “Oh!” Her hips rocked helplessly as his mouth covered her, as his tongue slipped over one sensitive nub of flesh. His hands squeezed her bottom, then moved over her body, sliding up to cup her breasts again, tweaking her nipples while his mouth worked her body into a frantic mass of raw nerves.

  Lilah reached down, tangling her fingers in his hair, never wanting him to stop what he was doing—even though she wanted him inside her, filling her, easing the empty ache that hammered against her with every beat of her heart.

  His tongue stroked, caressed, his breath dusted her skin and she moved with him, chasing the building need, trying to ease it, trying to make it last at the same time. Tension coiled, tightened until every breath was a victory. Her mind fogged over, her body took charge, racing toward the completion that remained just out of reach.

  He pushed her higher, faster, never letting the pressure ease. She both loved and hated him for it. Her head whipped from side to side on the mattress. Her hips continued to move against him. She had no control, wanted none. All she wanted was… The first ripple began and Lilah braced for what was coming.

  But there was simply no way she could have prepared herself for the conflagration that erupted inside her. Her head tipped back, her eyes closed and her body bucked and shivered as he sent her flailing over the edge of reality into a skyrocket-filled fantasy.

  “Reed… Reed…” She gasped for air and groaned his name, when he moved away from her. But while the last of the tremors were still rippling through her, she heard a drawer open and snap closed.

  Moments later, Reed covered her body with his and thrust himself deep inside her. Lilah gasped again at the absolute completeness she felt. He was big and strong and his body felt as if it was meant to be a part of hers.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “I love watching you shatter.”

  She choked out a laugh followed by a gasp as he thrust deeply inside her. “Then pay attention, it’s about to happen again.”

  Chuckling, Reed dipped his head to her mouth and tangled his tongue with hers. He stroked one hand along her body, up and down and then back up to cover her breast as he moved in and out of her with a wild, possessive rhythm that stole her breath and made sure she didn’t care.

  Lilah’s legs came up, wrapped around his hips and clung there as her hands grasped his shoulders, nails digging into his skin. Again and again, he took her breath away. Staring up into his emerald green eyes, she lost what was left of her sanity. All she knew was the feel of him moving within her, the brilliant stab of his gaze and the delicious friction of his skin moving against hers.

  And then the tension coiled in her belly suddenly spilled throughout her system. She rushed to meet what she knew was coming. Moving with him, rushing together toward that pinnacle, she cried out his name as new, fresh waves of pleasure washed through her. And while her brain fogged over, she heard him groan, felt his body tremble and Lilah held him as they both fell from the sky.

  * * *

  What could have been minutes or hours later, Lilah stirred halfheartedly. She was content right
where she was, with Reed’s body pressing her into the mattress. But her legs had lost all feeling—unless it was hysterical paralysis.

  She wouldn’t have been surprised.

  Reed Hudson was something she never could have prepared for. He was, in a word, astonishing. She shifted a little beneath him and stroked one hand down his back.

  “I’m squashing you.”

  “Are you?” she asked, a smile of pure female satisfaction curving her lips. It was a powerful thing for a woman to bring a strong man to such a state that he couldn’t move. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Rather than reply, he rolled to one side, but kept her with him, dragging her on top of him. “Better,” he said.

  Since she could breathe now, she had to agree. Smoothing his hair back from his forehead, she said, “Well, that was worth waiting for.”

  “Yeah.” He looked into her eyes. “I guess it was.” Idly, he traced his hand down her back to her behind and caressed her in long, lazy strokes.

  When he closed his eyes and simply let his arm lay across her waist, Lilah took the chance to study him. Always when they talked, when they were even in the same room together, he maintained a closed expression and wariness in his eyes. Seeing him like this, unguarded, tugged at her heart.

  But the minute that thought entered her mind, she discounted it. This had been about lust, not love. There were no hearts involved here and if she was smart, she’d keep it that way.

  As spectacular as their little interlude had been, it hadn’t really changed a darn thing. If anything, she’d only complicated matters by sleeping with him. Not that it hadn’t been worth it, but Lilah was a big believer in never making the same mistake twice. So as much as she hated it, there couldn’t be a repeat performance and now was as good a time as any to break the news.

  “Reed…”

  He didn’t answer, and she frowned. “Reed.”

  Still nothing. Stunned, Lilah realized that while she had been doing some soul-searching and coming to a hard, but reasonable conclusion…Reed had fallen asleep.