The Army Doc's Baby Secret

by Charlotte Hawkes

  Lifting her arms, Tia wrapped them around his neck, shuddering when he let his hands trail down her body with such control that she was certain he was only trying to torment her.

  He started with her neck, the backs of his fingers skimming a line down from her jaw to her chest. Tracing the edge of her crisp white shirt right down to the first—perhaps prudishly high—button, then back up the other side, pressing one kiss, then another, and finally a third.

  She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but found she couldn’t. Her mind was too foggy. And there was the haunting fear that if she said the wrong thing she might break this unexpected spell.

  And yet...somewhere...something needled her. Niggled at her.

  What was she forgetting?

  But then he let his hands wander down her back, dancing over her spine, her hips, until they were cupping her backside and she could do nothing but move with him and press tighter to him.

  Heat against steel. Heady and exhilarating.

  Just as it had always been with him.

  No other man had ever had this effect on her. Not before Zeke, and certainly not after. She’d never even tried. There had never been anyone like him. And that, she told herself, was the only explanation for why she responded to him as if she were a drowning woman and he were the only one who could throw her a lifeline.

  She shifted against him urgently, revelling in the sensation of every inch of his sinfully hard body pressed so exquisitely against every inch of her. Exalting as she heard the unmistakable catch of his breathing. Then the hot, still slick feel of his mouth again as she matched his kisses stroke for stroke, urging him on without even a word.

  Moving herself against him, until he was reaching for her shirt, making only the briefest attempt to undo the awkward, slippery pearls before cursing softly into her mouth and simply giving one efficient tug. They popped off naughtily, then skittered noisily, feverishly, across the hard floor.

  And then Zeke was dropping his hand lazily down the valley between her breasts, his knuckles grazing each soft swell, his tongue teasing swirls over her sensitive skin. Again and again he let his tongue sweep over her, each time stopping short of the nipples that swelled, almost painfully, with the need for him to touch them.

  In the dim distance, she could hear her soft moans, her half-uttered pleas, but it was surreal. Like an old dream that she had clung to for so many years. An old memory.

  Yes, it had been far, far too long.

  And yet...

  As her memory clicked over, Tia allowed instinct to kick in. She let her hands glide over Zeke’s shoulders, drawing something from their strength, their familiarity. She traced her fingers over the bunched shoulder blades and down the muscled back. She cupped his hard backside just as he had done with her.

  And then she very slowly, very deliberately, lifted her hips up to meet him. To press against the hard evidence of his own desire. The way they had done countless times, so many years ago, drawing him in as though it was her who was doing the seducing, not him.

  Perhaps that was why he suddenly drew back from her, breaking the kiss and leaving her almost bereft, her eyes flashing open, her hands reaching to cup his cheeks only for him to catch them, and draw them to his chest.

  ‘Zeke...’

  ‘No.’ His rebuttal was harsh, ragged. ‘My pace. Not yours.’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘Stop talking, Tia. Just wait,’ he commanded.

  She didn’t think she could have done anything but obey, just as before, even if she’d wanted to. But the truth was, there was a part of her that was only too happy to stop thinking, stop running, and do exactly what Zeke told her to do.

  Then he stopped, his face so tantalisingly close to hers, his gaze holding hers wordlessly, his eyes almost black with desire. When he slid his hands to her waistband, unhooked the buttons and the delicious lick of the zip wound its way into her ears, she thrilled in anticipation.

  His hand dropped between them; she could only gasp, her eyelids feeling suddenly heavy as he toyed with her skimpy underwear, which had been like her own private joke with herself.

  ‘Somewhat incongruous with that preppy, oh-so-professional shirt, aren’t they?’ he accused, but she took a little comfort in the huskiness of his voice, which betrayed him.

  ‘I guess I like to surprise.’

  His mouth tautened to a grim line.

  ‘As do I.’

  It only dawned on her what he was doing when he dropped abruptly to his knees and pushed her tight suit skirt up to her hips. He intended to make her lose control whilst he held onto his. Hardly fair, or sporting.

  ‘Wait...’ she protested, trying to jerk away, but her voice was flimsy at best and, besides, he was more than ready for her. ‘That isn’t...’

  The words died on her lips as Zeke deftly hooked her scrap of lace to the side and anointed her with his mouth, pulling one leg over his shoulder to allow him complete access.

  Tia cried out, helpless to do anything but lean back on the edge of her desk and thread her hands through his hair, uncharacteristically longer than she ever remembered. And then her mind stopped thinking anything as he feasted on her, paying homage to her as though he had fantasised about doing this again, for as long as she had.

  Even though she knew that, of course, was illogical.

  But this wasn’t the time for doubts. Not when Zeke was revering her with his hands, his lips, his tongue. Licking into her until her hips were moving of their own accord, dancing to Zeke’s sensual, primal tune. His rumbles of approval thrumming through her sex, and making her cry out again and again, barely able to stifle the sounds.

  His strokes became deeper and more urgent, as if he couldn’t get enough of her, and then... Zeke did that thing to her that only he had ever known. A white-hot carnal heat seared through her in seconds, and it was all she could do to bite her lip from screaming out.

  Colours danced and exploded as her body shuddered uncontrollably, propelling her inexorably to the edge of the world. Or maybe it was the edge of nothing. And Zeke just kept up his relentless pace, driving her along faster and faster, his hands cupping her bottom all the tighter, to prevent her from backing away. His savage mouth an exquisite weapon against her. Possessing her. Finally finding her again after all these years.

  And then he drew the sensitive bud into his mouth and sucked. Hard.

  Tia came apart. Spinning and spiralling, going higher and higher, lost inside such an intense pleasure, which only Zeke could have brought her to.

  * * *

  By the time she came back to herself, hastily tugging her skirt back down and pulling the two sides of her now buttonless white shirt together, Zeke was standing halfway across the room. Triumph mingling with an odd black expression, which she couldn’t read. But it panicked her.

  Her head snapped up as reality crashed in.

  Seth!

  An image of her—their—son popped into her head. This wasn’t how she had intended to tell Zeke. Not after what had just happened. She needed time to think. To reorder her thoughts. To work out how she was supposed to tell him now.

  What had she just done?

  ‘Happy now?’ she threw at him, her mind still whirring. Racing to catch up. ‘Pleased with yourself?’

  ‘Very,’ he drawled.

  ‘Because you can still get me to...’

  ‘Orgasm?’ he supplied helpfully, but the hard smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  ‘Yes.’ She flushed, telling herself to take deep breaths. ‘That.’

  ‘No need to act coy now. Or are you simply aggrieved that I’ve proved wrong your claim that you no longer have residual feelings for me?’

  Zeke was going to be furious when he found out. And what did that say about her that she’d forgotten her son so comprehensively?

  ‘It’s..
.complicated,’ she faltered as Zeke frowned.

  ‘How disappointingly clichéd, Tia. I would have expected better from you.’

  Anger rolled unexpectedly over her. Possibly more at herself than at Zeke. After all, he didn’t know.

  ‘This isn’t a game,’ she snapped.

  His hard smile was more a baring of teeth than anything genuine.

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘No.’ She deliberately ignored the voice asking her whose fault that was. ‘I imagine that you don’t.’

  ‘Then elucidate.’

  ‘Not here.’ Tia stalled. ‘Especially not after...this. But it can’t go any further, Zeke. That can’t happen. I won’t allow it.’

  ‘You’re right, it shouldn’t have happened.’ His tone scratched deep inside her. Gouging at her.

  So matter-of-fact, so undaunted, that it made her feel dismissed and unwanted by him all over again. And it hurt more than it had any right to.

  As much as she wanted—needed—to tell him about Seth, she couldn’t. Not after this. Not now, anyway.

  She needed time to recompose herself. A night. A couple of days at most.

  ‘I have to go,’ she muttered, grabbing her purse and car keys and pushing past him.

  Both sick and relieved when he let her go.

  * * *

  Tia had no idea how she got home. One moment she was leaving the lifeboat station, shifting her car into gear and hurtling out of the car park. The next, she was pulling into her father’s driveway, blinking away the tears that threatened to spill out over her cheeks the entire eight-minute drive. And as she hurried up to the house her heart lifted at the sight of Seth’s face peering out of the window, and his elated grin as he blew her frantic kisses.

  She couldn’t get her key in the door fast enough as she heard him racing down the hallway, already babbling to her about his day with Grampy. What was it about the prospect of a squeezing hug from her son that promised to settle her churning stomach and the turmoil of the past few hours better than any antacid ever would?

  The door was barely open before Seth was dragging her inside, a finger painting in one hand and a sticky piece of toast in the other.

  ‘Look, Mummy, I drew you a tiger catopolly.’

  ‘Wow.’ Tia crouched down right there and scooped her son into her arms, inhaling deeply the comforting scent of his freshly washed hair. Right now, she couldn’t bear to look in those suddenly too familiar grey-blue eyes. Instead, she smiled brightly and took the picture.

  ‘A big cat tiger, huh?’

  ‘No,’ he chuckled. ‘A tiger catopolly. They’re really fuzzy and there are lots of them on Delburn Island.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right, Grampy was taking you on the beach walk today,’ she realised, making a great show of admiring the scribbled drawing. ‘So this must be a tiger moth caterpillar?’

  ‘Yes,’ Seth declared proudly, his eyes sparkling as much as ever, and making her heart constrict. ‘A tiger moth catopolly.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s marvellous,’ she declared, shoving any last thoughts of Zeke out of her head.

  Reaching out, she began to close the front door when a foot wedged itself in the way.

  A big, biker-booted foot.

  She almost tipped backwards in her haste to stand up. Instinct making her send her curious son to his grandfather and closing the living room door behind them.

  She hadn’t even noticed him following her, let alone heard his bike. Yet there it was, parked right on the driveway as though he had every right to be there.

  And Zeke, looming and furious, in the doorway. His eyes locked onto the closed door as she gripped the handle as though that could somehow delay the inevitable.

  ‘What the hell, Tia?’

  ‘Zeke...’

  She should have told him. Back there in the lifeboat station. It was why she’d come back to Delburn Bay the moment she’d discovered Zeke was in Westlake.

  Waiting for the right moment had been a mistake, because there was never going to be the perfect opportunity for giving a person that kind of news. And in delaying, she’d only made things ten times worse. A hundred times.

  ‘I have a son?’

  His shocked words were barely audible and still the torment in his tone lacerated her. She couldn’t even answer. Not that he needed her to. Anyone who saw father and son together would instantly see the resemblance. There was no denying the relationship.

  Not that she wanted to.

  Hadn’t she wanted to tell Zeke about his son five years ago, the moment she’d first discovered she was pregnant?

  And she would have, if not for that night.

  ‘Jesus, Tia. I have a son.’ He started forward. Determination and anger etched onto his face.

  She didn’t know how she found the strength but suddenly she was blocking his way, her hand pushing back against his shoulders.

  ‘Not here. Not like this. You can’t meet him when you’re like...this.’

  He turned an incredulous black gaze on her. Tia swallowed hard.

  ‘Zeke, I’m sorry. Sorrier than you can ever know. But please. Don’t go in there like this. Don’t do that to Seth.’

  Zeke didn’t answer. His eyes slid back to the closed door, to the happy, high-pitched voice inside, assuring her that her son was oblivious to what was going on out in the hallway. The silence spiralled around her, coiling and menacing. It felt like an eternity before anyone spoke again.

  ‘Seth,’ Zeke echoed quietly at last. As though he was rolling it around his head. Letting it sink in. Letting it take root.

  ‘Seth,’ she repeated quietly. ‘And you will meet him. I promise. But...not like this.’

  He turned to look at her again. As though he were seeing her for the first time. And it wasn’t a good experience. A shiver rippled over her body.

  ‘I have a child? I’m a father? And you kept him from me all this time?’

  ‘I... I can explain.’ It sounded so hollow. So inadequate. ‘If you give me a chance.’

  For another painstakingly long moment, neither of them moved or spoke. And then, abruptly, Zeke stumbled backwards, out of the front door and onto the drive. As if he didn’t know where he was going, but was afraid that if he didn’t leave now, he might barge her out of the way and walk into that room to see his son.

  ‘Now, Tia. You will explain it to me now.’

  Without thinking twice Tia released the door handle, snatched up her car keys and followed him out of the door.

  She had one chance to get this right. And so help her if she made a mess of it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HE HAD A CHILD.

  A son.

  Zeke had repeated it a hundred times. A thousand. Scarcely knowing what to make of this incredible revelation. Trying to understand what this...thing was that spiralled deep within him, as though it were slowly boring its way out of some pitch-black, fathomless pit he had long pretended didn’t still reside inside him.

  Yet he suspected he knew exactly what the thing was. It was a flicker of light, even just a spark, but potentially powerful enough to cast a glorious light over his life. Joy. And pride.

  He had a child.

  He, who had long since resigned himself to the fact that he would never be a father. What was the point? When five years ago he’d pushed away the only woman with whom he could ever have imagined himself being?

  He had believed he was doing the right thing, the honourable thing. Sparing her from the burden of being with a man so much less than the one she’d married. He’d been a soldier, strong and fit and whole. After the accident, he had barely been able to stand looking at himself in the mirror; he certainly hadn’t been able to bear seeing her look at him with that expression of...sympathy. As though he was less than.

  Pushing her away, sparing her from ha
ving to take responsibility for him, had been the one thing he could do back then to prove he was still strong. Still fiercely independent. But even so, realising he had succeeded, that his Tia had walked out of his life for good, had hurt beyond anything he could have believed.

  Until now.

  Had he really pushed her away? Or had she been only too relieved for the excuse to get him out of her life? To ensure his son never knew that he had a failed soldier as a father? The suspicion eroded in like the leaking battery acid on the engine of his very first motorbike.

  Had she been pretending all those times she’d visited in the first few months after the accident? Or had she secretly been looking for a way out with the son she’d never told him about?

  Because there was no doubt that Seth was his son.

  And she’d been a couple of months into her medical hearts-and-minds tour of duty when his black ops mission had gone wrong. Which meant the boy had to be around four and a half. Tia would have known she was pregnant. She had to have known.

  Surely?

  He didn’t even need to look across at her to know she was sitting, ramrod straight, in the passenger seat of her car. So typically Tia, at her most defensive. He had no idea what was going on inside her head but he was too angry to ask. A blistering, sizzling fury that tore through him and made it impossible to even speak.

  And so here he was, driving her to his house in Westlake because he’d left her with no alternative. Not after he’d seen Seth. He had barked orders at her, rapid and harsh, telling her that he had to be back in Westlake for his duty at the lifeboat station but that he wasn’t about to walk away without having a conversation about what he’d just discovered.

  When he’d ordered her to come with him—hitting low with the accusation that she owed him that much—he’d nevertheless been surprised when Tia had appeared to capitulate without a word of argument, handing him her car keys before ducking momentarily back inside to ask her father to look after her son—his own son—for the evening.

  He’d asked her what the keys were for and she’d simply jerked her head towards his bike.