All of him belonged only to her. Forever.
Rolling her under him, he drove himself inside of her and she gasped his name. The initial clasp of her inner muscles as she tried to accommodate his size was nearly his undoing. She was so damned hot, tight, and wet he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t tell her how bloody good she felt. How perfect she was in his arms. How he was falling in love with her even more.
It should have scared the hell out of him.
But it didn’t. It spurred him on, the sound of her sexy moans filling his ears. Her hands gripping him to her, fusing their bodies and sending him closer to the edge.
* * *
Daisy wrapped her legs around his lean hips. She couldn’t get past the sensation of Sebastian inside of her, thick, long, and pierced. She couldn’t get past the sensation that it felt like nothing was between them. Flames of desire licked at every nerve ending, burning her. Sebastian’s hips rolled, the muscles of his back gathering and flexing under her palms.
“Oh,” she moaned. Her back arched, and he was there, tongue licking a hot path up her throat.
“Christ … I’ve never felt anything so good.” He drove into her hard, unrelenting, as he laced their fingers together. Stretching her arms above her head, he moved in firm, hard strokes. Not sex, not making love … more than that, and yet all of that.
She shivered, desire and unadulterated lust twining.
Suddenly, he pulled out of her, kneeled between her legs and gave her sex a long, luscious lick, his tongue firm against her sensitized clit. “I could eat you for hours,” he murmured and she flushed hot. “Make you come on my tongue and my fingers, over and over until you couldn’t take it. Then I’d thrust inside of you, make you come on my cock. I’d come inside you, yeah? Fill you up, until it ran down your thighs. You’d be mine.”
“No.”
He tilted his head to the side, mouth thinning like he wanted to argue. “No?”
“You’d belong to me … and I’d belong to you.”
“All yours.” His handsome face turned harsh, his eyes glittering as he crawled up her body. “All mine.”
Large hands parted her thighs and he thrust deep, jolting her. He set a hard pace, one that she strained to keep up with, until he cupped her bottom and lifted her to meet him. She flung her arms out, hands searching for purchase and finding the headboard. Her fingers curved around the largest of the spindles.
Rain poured, hitting the windowpanes. Thunder rumbled. The elements outside mirrored their lovemaking.
For long moments he kept her on knife’s edge, her orgasm at his fingertips. Their bodies became slick, their breathing harsh, and kisses sweetly fierce. His thumb passed over her clit, a sweeping caress that made her hips jerk and her nipples tighten to hard, needy points.
“Like that?”
Another caress, and then firm, circular motions that made stars spark behind her closed lids. “Yes.” He thrust deep and her eyes opened. “Ung … More.”
“Whatever my lady wants,” he murmured, and then did something with his fingers that made her sob his name. So close. She was so close that she wanted to scream.
“Please,” she whispered, desperate for this sweet torture to end. Desperate for her climax that only he could give her. He was ruining her. Ruining her for any man that wasn’t him. “Please.”
He ground his palm against her and her body bucked, pleasure tearing through her and carving out a path that only Sebastian could ever travel.
It was too much.
It wasn’t enough.
A low growl left him. His fingers dug painfully into her left hip as he surged deep, emptying himself inside of her as her sex clenched around him. His sky blue eyes widened as her name seemed to be ripped from his throat.
He slumped over her, keeping most of his weight on his arms and off her. She pressed kisses to his face and throat, lightly tracing the tattoos on his shoulders with the tips of her fingers.
His head lifted and he smiled at her, blond hair all mussed just the way she liked it. “About work tomorrow.”
She wrinkled her nose and drew her brows together. After that, he was thinking of work? “What about it?” she asked warily.
“I’m taking a holiday,” he said and kissed the tip of her nose. “For a fortnight at least. You can extend your holiday here for a few extra days, yeah?”
“Fortnight? Translation, please.”
That sexy smile of his widened. “My little American. Two weeks.”
“Thank you, my earl of the enormous cock.”
He grinned. “Now that’s better than all the other ignoble titles you’ve given me.”
“You like all the titles I’ve given you. No one else dares.”
“Daring women are very sexy.”
“So are the men who dare to be with those daring women.”
“Quite. In any event …was I too rough?” The concern lacing his voice made her heart flip. There he went being all protective on her.
“You were perfect.” She’d be sore as all get out in a couple of hours.
He pulled out of her, rolling to the side and propping his head up with his hand. “There is a guest room, but I’d rather you sleep with me. The choice, however, is yours.”
Shifting to hug him, she winced and froze in place as evidence of what they’d done slipped down her inner thighs. “Sebastian?” Her voice sounded odd to her ears.
He smiled at her, running his free hand down her side. “Yes?”
“We forgot to use protection.” She gulped and his smile fell. “But you don’t have to worry about getting anything from me.”
“You’re perfectly safe with me,” he said, but it didn’t make her feel that much better at all. “Why do you still look so upset? Crisis averted.”
“I’m not on the pill,” she whispered, feeling about as smart as a stump.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sebastian couldn’t speak for a moment. He’d never done anything so spectacularly stupid in his life.
“Oh,” came his brilliant answer. “Are you joking?”
“No,” she whispered, her face pale. “I stopped taking birth control pills when I was twenty, after I was hospitalized with several blood clots in my legs. I’d been having severe pain in them for days, like I could barely walk, and my ankles were swollen twice their normal size.
“The doctor diagnosed me with Venous Thromboembolism. It’s a rare—yay me—side effect of the pill. Glen and I weren’t willing to risk a blood clot forming in my heart, or lungs, or brain. We used condoms from then on,” she added.
“What do you want to do?” he asked. The room spun and he blinked. Dear God, he felt dizzy. “I can take you to a clinic and get the morning after pill.”
“I can’t.” She visibly swallowed. “It’s a concentrated dose of what’s in birth control pills. I’m sorry.”
“What about later … once you found out?” He told himself he would support her decision, whatever it may be, but he’d never been faced with this before, so … who really knew how’d he react?
“I wouldn’t choose to have an abortion, Sebastian.” She gave him a tentative smile, but it didn’t reach her pretty eyes. “It’s … okay if you don’t want to be a dad. My momma raised me without one, so I’d be fine … I think.”
That little I think was telling. Daisy no more wanted to raise a child alone than any other woman did, given the choice. And by God he would give her the choice of having him in their lives, should it come to that.
He cupped the side of her face. “If you are, then I’d want to be involved. I’d be there for the two of you. You wouldn’t be alone.”
The tears came then, hard and ugly. This was the last thing she needed. He knew that. She’d been under so much stress and pressure from trying to do it all that she’d finally reached her breaking point.
She curled into a little ball, crying harder, until he simply gathered her up in his arms and walked to the bathroom. He turned on the hot water in the shower a
nd stepped inside, sinking to the floor and holding her until she stopped.
“We’ll get through this.” Tightening his arms around her, he exhaled. “Together.
“Promise?” she sniffed.
“I swear it.”
She relaxed in his arms, his words calming her more than the heat and steam ever could. He only hoped he could live up to her expectations.
* * *
Daisy was late.
She placed her hand over her stomach, and then smoothed the material of her long-sleeved shirt down. Then she did it again. And again.
Sebastian hadn’t touched her sexually in days, but she wasn’t so sure that was a bad thing. In the meantime, he’d taken her everywhere, showing her the sights and keeping her going non-stop until she’d pass out his bed when they would finally get home.
She knew, like her, he was waiting for when she could take a pregnancy test. Even though she was as regular as rain, she’d given herself a week to account for stress.
Today was day eight.
“If you don’t want people speculating on why you’re doing that, then you might want to stop,” Sebastian murmured, his head dipping as he smiled.
They stood in the family planning aisle of the drugstore. Condoms, lube, and every other contraceptive device known to man and woman were in the same aisle as pregnancy tests and ovulations kits.
“Don’t you think when we buy—” she jerked her head in the direction of the pregnancy tests, “—people will figure it out on their own?
His lips flattened for a brief moment. “True, but it doesn’t mean we have to help them along.”
Edging closer to him, she chewed on the inside of her cheek. “How long would you want this to be a secret?”
Frosty blue eyes met hers. “For as long as possible.”
Her blood turned to ice and her hand shook as she reached for the first brand she recognized. “I thought … you promised you’d—”
His big hand fit over hers and squeezed lightly. The ice in her veins thawed. Slowly, like a glacier melting in the spring. “Despite our rather public engagement, I value my privacy, and I’d rather you not be stressed by the extra attention you’d receive if … you needn’t be.”
“I’m scared,” she admitted.
“That you are … um…?”
Good grief. Neither of them could actually say the word ‘pregnant’. Maybe neither of them wanted the situation to be real, or maybe neither of them could handle if it became real.
Nodding, she chewed on the inside of her cheek. “And how I’ll feel if I’m not.”
He grabbed a second test and they began to walk down the aisle. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
After paying for their purchases, they walked next door to the village’s grocery store. Every so often, she’d hear the distinct click of a camera.
“Do you have your list?” Sebastian asked casually. Cheerfully. As if their entire future wasn’t in her purse and possibly her uterus.
Perplexed by his sudden mood swing, she asked, “Why are you so happy now?”
He raised his brows and inclined his head slightly to the right. Another click. The doors to the grocery store opened as a woman, pushing a buggy with a small child in the front, darted through. The little boy babbled about something and the mother, replied with a, “Wait ’til we get home, Oliver, and then we’ll play.”
Daisy’s heart rate kicked up. That could be her. Shopping. Alone and talking to her child, without actually understanding anything he was saying. She broke out in a cold sweat and her knees went all wobbly.
Somehow, she made it inside without falling flat on her face. The cool air and Sebastian’s breezy attitude were actually calming her down. By the time they were done and headed back outside to his car, she was smiling and joking with him.
“Just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean I am,” she reminded him, taking the little pot of African Violets from the buggy. “I still have your brother’s wedding to cater, which means more recipes to try out while I’m here.”
He maneuvered the buggy to the cart return. “There is a God.”
“Of course there is. Which reminds me, you made me forget to say my prayers last night, because I was too exhausted to even remember my name.” They’d climbed eleventy-billion steps at the ruins of an old keep built on the edge of a cliff. Sebastian had held her hand or arm the entire time, cautioning her against slipping.
“I’m not helpless,” she had joked.
Sliding his gaze to her stomach, and then back at her face, he had replied, “But I am.”
Don’t think about that. Be in this moment.
He gave her a funny look. “Seriously?”
She placed a hand on her hip. “My best friend is the daughter of a preacher. What do you think?”
“That she need never to meet mine.”
She blinked. “Why?”
The corner of Sebastian’s mouth lifted. “In his spare time, Liam travels the world, challenging theists on their beliefs.”
Isabella’s spare time consisted of mission trips to third world countries, running faith-based food pantries, and volunteering at women’s shelters. “Ye-ah, I think you’re right.”
“I think this is a topic best left to professionals,” he said with a wink. “Religion’s not really my thing either.”
“Whatever.” Frowning, she got in the car, watching as he jogged to the other side. “I wasn’t planning on converting you,” she muttered to the interior as he joined her. “Except to putting the steering wheel on the right side.”
He closed the door, fastened his seatbelt and started the engine. “It is on the right side.”
“Not for me.” She gripped the door as he merged into traffic. “I feel all discombobulated.”
“Hold on to your knickers.” Laughing, he raced the car through the streets, making her stomach drop. She glared at him, but it was short-lived.
Sebastian’s house was a short drive from the center of town, or rather the village. It was a beautiful place, all charming shops and sidewalks lined with trees. They even had to drive over a bridge that crossed a river with large rocks and a mill with a water wheel that was still in use. In short, so far, her trip had lived up to every fantasy and Internet image she’d ever seen.
She sighed as they went through the opening in the tall brick wall surrounding his property and pulled onto the semi-circle gravel drive. The newly installed iron gates closed behind them, leaving behind the outside world and prying eyes.
Three stories of brick with ivy creeping up the sides, back and front, greeted them, with lots of big windows. There was a kitchen garden in the backyard, filled with every herb imaginable. Flowers beds were everywhere. Bees, butterflies, and a hummingbird flitted and buzzed from flower to flower. Trees, ancient and graceful, bent toward the house, with shady bases perfect for reading.
It was charming.
Sebastian parked the car beside the old stable-turned-garage, and then raised her hand to his lips. “You look exhausted. Let me take care of the groceries.”
“Do all earls bring in their own groceries?”
He smiled, devilishly handsome. “This earl does.”
Another sigh.
He was charming.
She was in love, and possibly pregnant.
Oh God. She was in trouble.
Glancing down at the boxes in her purse, she took a depth breath. In about three minutes, she’d find out just how much trouble.
* * *
Sebastian finished putting up the groceries in record time. Unfortunately.
He needed to find something else for them to do, because if he didn’t, he’d end up making love to her again.
And he couldn’t do that right now, not until they knew.
“I’m going to, uh … I’m—” Her face turned as red as the roses that bloomed in the garden. “I’ll be back.”
One look at her retreating form and he sagged against the door to his art studio. He
was terrified, not only of possibly becoming a father, but of the lie that was still between them. The lie he still hadn’t fessed up to.
After today, he told himself. Let them get through today and he would reveal all. He would confess, move Heaven and Earth, and if he had to, walk five hundred miles on his knees to beg her forgiveness.
He heard the toilet flush, the sound of water running, and the door swinging open. His stomach knotted tight, like a hangman’s noose. He lurched toward the stairs and she met him halfway, her cheeks still bright flags of color.
“Do you mind if we have a movie marathon today, instead of going everywhere?” Daisy asked. “I’d like to finish your grand tour of the house, too.” She’d changed into her signature swingy skirt and form-fitting cardigan. The ring he’d given her caught his eye. Today, her chopsticks were the exact color of the pink diamond in the middle. He knew this, because he’d had that pair made to match it.
“As long as you don’t mind if I watch whatever you pick through my eyelids,” he said lightly. God, he would need to be at home if the results were positive.
He followed her up the stairs to the third floor. She entered the theater first.
“I think I could live in your kitchen forever,” Daisy said as he sat down beside her on a large sofa big enough for two grown men to stretch out on together. She curled her legs to the side and picked up his iPad.
“You only want me for my bun warmers?” He thumped his chest and let out a mock groan of pain, deciding that humor was the only way he could calm them down. “That hurts, darling.”
“Bless your heart.” She glanced down at his iPad, pressed the home button, and frowned. “Speaking of buns.”
“Sorry?”
Handing him his iPad, she narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t you read this, your royal ogleness?”
“My what?” He glanced at the screen to find a recent image of the two of them, only he’d been captured checking out her ass. The article was filled with questions and quasi-facts. Apparently, the two of them were playing house, and a close friend of Sebastian’s told the Internet magazine—in complete anonymity, of course—that Daisy was set on having the new heir of Spenserfield.
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