No Fair Lady

by Snow, Nicole

  Every scenario we wargamed in our heads winds up with someone dead.

  Still, I’m in favor of burning it all to the ground, consequences be damned.

  He wants to go the more legal route, using the reams of evidence he has access to in his position.

  As if the Feds will do a damned thing when they’re the ones paying for this crap.

  When I’d first seduced him on that quiet sunny evening a long time ago, I was a dreamer.

  I’d somehow thought that, together, we’d be unstoppable.

  We could do so much more joining forces than we ever could apart.

  The problem was, we could never agree on what to do.

  Or maybe we were afraid to actually take action.

  Talk is cheap when you’re staring at a fire-breathing dragon with nearly a trillion dollars in assets, an international footprint, and legions of deadly agents.

  Who could blame us for being afraid to face the music?

  But even so, Oliver always promised to sort things out.

  Always promised he’d make things right, somehow.

  Always promised he’d keep me safe, even though we both knew I didn’t need it.

  I never came to him looking for a hero or protector. It was the principle of the thing.

  And he always did the same thing.

  Just asked me to give him time.

  I wish I still had time to give.

  But I don’t now. The clock’s running out.

  Not with the ultrasound in my purse, and the words on my lips, and the knowledge that once I tell him I plan to keep the baby...

  Nothing will ever be the same.

  I’m afraid of losing him, I realize.

  That’s new for me.

  Caring at all.

  People come and go, flitting in and out of my life, without leaving an impression. Just like my parents and any other family I had. Just grey placeholders, names and shapes that don’t mean anything to me, and if I ever meant anything to them, I’ll never know it.

  I’ve never cared about anyone enough to want to hold on to them.

  Until now.

  Goddammit, Fuchsia Delaney may be a lot of things, but she isn’t a coward.

  And I’m going to do this head-on, one way or another.

  Lifting my chin, I stride forward and knock on his door.

  It’s a habit I can’t break.

  He gave me a key.

  I tell myself I’ll use it every time I deposit myself on his doorstep like a stray cat, after a deployment. I never even go to my dingy little Galentron-owned apartment, preferring the sleek, modernist style of Oliver’s place, the fine linen furniture, the tasteful wooden artwork.

  But I think it’s part of reminding myself this isn’t a defined thing, and I don’t live here, but that might be about to change, one way or the other.

  Oliver answers in seconds, pulling the door open, preoccupied as he pulls off oven mitts from those big bulky hands that have choked out insurgents. Yet he uses them to bake now, instead of hiring a chef like any other man of his wealth and stature.

  Screw it, I smile. It’s the little things like that keeping him humble.

  Human.

  Endearing.

  And he’s so very human then as he starts to reach for me—then stops.

  He’s got this freaky perception, this way of knowing me that I find so disconcerting, telling him without a word off my tongue that something’s wrong.

  Or is it actually very, very right?

  I don’t know yet.

  I’ll tell you when this conversation’s over.

  His hands fall to his sides, slowly turning into fists.

  “Fuchsia...what happened?” Then his brows draw together. “Did Durham—”

  It’s just a testament to our line of work that he immediately assumes Durham hurt me somehow, and there’s a decent chance he wouldn’t be wrong.

  But before he can work himself up into a ragey lather with nowhere for that anger to go, I bite the bullet.

  “I’m pregnant,” I blurt out. “And I’m keeping it.”

  Right there. Boom.

  No bones about it. No deflections. No preamble.

  It’s practically an ultimatum.

  No coincidence I’m frozen on the threshold to his place, that weird barrier between in and out separating us from each other. Threatening to define what this thing we’ve shared forever is or isn’t.

  Because I can’t stand to be in his space if that info means he’s going to shut me right back out.

  I wait for the inevitable Are you sure it’s mine? then denial, resignation, fatalism.

  Instead, he smiles.

  I blink. Several times just to make sure I’m not hallucinating.

  Oliver Major gives me the biggest, goofiest lopsided grin I’ve ever seen, and this man is twelve years older than I am and has no right to be smiling like that with the news I just dropped on his head.

  What. Is. Going. On?

  He’s still wearing it. Like a little boy who just got everything he wants for Christmas, his eyes light up as he stares at me breathlessly.

  “You—you are? You—we are?”

  It’s his we that almost breaks me.

  I’m trying to be stoic and cold, but when he says that...

  My eyes burn, my lips tremble, my throat closes, and I just nod, biting back a whimper in the back of my throat.

  And he comes sweeping out into the hallway to wrap me up in the safe harbor of those large, strong, deliciously inked arms, throwing me against him and dragging me back into the light-filled spaces of his condo.

  Dragging me into his world, with a firmness that says he wants to keep me there no matter how I might try to banish myself to the shadows.

  “God, Fuchsia,” he growls out, burying his face in my shoulder. “We’re...we’re gonna have a baby. A kid.”

  I try to hide, pressing my face into his chest so no one has to see the wet tracks running down my cheeks in warm trails.

  “Yeah,” I whisper. “Seems like we are.”

  “Shit. I never thought I could ask you for anything like that, never, I...are you upset, woman? We weren’t careful enough, we weren’t—”

  “No.” I shake my head firmly, laying my hand on his chest, just over his heart. “I never even thought I could do something like this, but now? I want it. I want it, I want this, I want...”

  My eyes pinch shut. Here comes my last bit of bravery.

  “Oliver, I want us.”

  And I want a chance to have normal things.

  A life with a man I love where we get to raise our children, and maybe the scariest thing to worry over is what school they go to.

  I want a chance to be more than a brutal asset owned by a ruthless corporation with no heart of my own.

  Oliver grips my shoulders then, drawing back to look down at me with his heart in his eyes, so bright there might be stars swirling in his honey-brown hue.

  “You can have us, wildcat,” he says hoarsely, so much emotion in his thick voice. “If you want me, I’m yours. Both of you—I belong to you and that little baby in you. And I promise you we’ll find a way out of this where our family can be safe. Fuck Galentron.”

  The last two words come out so fierce they make me shudder.

  Still, I smile at his bold, stupid rush of bravery.

  And that other word?

  Family.

  It hits me on the head like a grand piano dropping out of the sky.

  Holy crap. I’m...we’re about to have a family.

  And I’ve never known what that word even means.

  I feel like my heart is breaking, and I don’t know how that can feel good. I’ve spent so long repressing my emotions, but suddenly they’re all erupting on the surface, and I’m crumpling, sagging in Oliver’s arms.

  And he’s there for me.

  Catching me, just like he always does, sweeping me in close.

  If I can ever find the courage to be a human being instead of
a machine with anyone, it’s with this beautiful, sexy, always-encouraging man.

  Only with him do I feel like I’m able to create life.

  Instead of taking it.

  He kisses me, then—deep, hot, possessive.

  His mouth takes over mine, and for once I’m soft, giving, needy.

  Because if there’s anything to be vulnerable about, it’s this sticky sweet insanity. This wild idea that there’s really, truly an us.

  We forget dinner.

  Forget Durham, forget Galentron, forget the nine million things that need to happen between now and the day I deliver our whole future.

  We intentionally forget everything but us.

  And what we could be together, now that everything has changed.

  * * *

  I always thought he was a whirlwind in bed.

  The hands, the lips, the tongue, the ink-crossed muscle, the bright, grizzly-brown eyes glowing like embers every time he tears off my clothes, fights me down against the nearest surface, and takes me over.

  But today? Tonight?

  I question if Oliver Major is even human as he fucks my soul out of my body and slams it back into my bones with soft, airy Prince Charming kisses that could jolt Sleeping Beauty out of the deepest coma.

  He doesn’t celebrate the big news with words.

  Honestly, that’s never been our strong point, and what can words offer when lips and teeth and slashing hips can do it infinitely better?

  Why not speak the language of love and flesh and feral things?

  What he says to me, what he growls in every full body stroke of his weight on mine, comes loud and growling clear.

  “Oliver!” I hiss his name for the hundredth time as he pulls my legs around him, pins them against his rock-hard waist.

  He keeps me slanted at this devilish angle as he drives every inch down deep.

  If the friction didn’t make me come in under sixty seconds, I think it’d kill me.

  I’m definitely reborn as the bed shakes with the walls, plus every bone in our bodies. As Oliver flings me against him, breaks me again and again on his muscle, uses me for his guttural, grunting pleasure and makes me scream like his willing slave.

  His pubic bone adds this wild friction to my clit, making me burn, making me tense and claw at his thighs with my nails, making me cream on his cock.

  And I hate that fucking word, too.

  Cream.

  I hate it, but I’m doing it, helplessly crashing against this mountain of a man, this unlikely love, because that’s what I’m made for.

  I’m made to become wildly undone on every seething inch of him, especially as he fucks himself into me so much sweeter and deeper, so much wilder halfway through my O. And I feel him groan, every muscle in his body tensing, adding his fiery heat to my depths.

  I almost can’t.

  Can’t handle the mad, heated infusion of his passion, but I do.

  I take it with the same wild grace that’s become our thing.

  Everything I never thought I’d have with any man, much less one who accepts me with the sweetness, the power, the love of Oliver Major.

  “Up, wildcat. Need your tongue,” he growls, pulling out and helping me to my knees.

  Somehow, even after spilling himself into my chaos, he’s still harder than stone.

  His dick juts out in front of him, rigid and throbbing and perfect. I sigh softly, wrapping my fist around his base.

  I give him slow, languid strokes, loving the angry heat that flares in his eyes when I edge my lips close to his swollen tip—only to pull back at the last second.

  “What? This baby business makes you that greedy?” I tease.

  “Woman, let me show you fucking greedy,” he snarls, shoving his fingers through my hair.

  I jerk my head to one side, mock-fighting back. But of course I love, love, love the tension of my hair pulling with just the right sizzle against his fist.

  He doesn’t ask again, and I don’t fight.

  When he pushes my mouth onto his swollen shaft, when he drags me down his length, when he finds his rhythm with a growl and does everything he wants with my mouth, I’m drawn in.

  And I suck Oliver Major off in the hottest way any woman has ever worshiped her man’s body.

  He gets my fingers. He gets my lips. He gets my tongue.

  He gets every last bit of my teeth, every soft moan as I push my hand between my legs.

  I get the fire in his eyes back, plus an approving, downright wicked grin. Sweet hell, I even get to blush when I realize he’s watching me get off again while I suck him to heaven and back.

  His hips move against my lips, slowly at first, then fierce strokes that glide him across my tongue and down my throat.

  I’m almost choking and breathless when I bring myself off, just as he tenses, his hardness ballooning in my mouth and melting down in sticky, fiery, utterly masculine heat.

  God, he tastes good.

  I’ve never been a stranger to swallowing him, but I almost don’t want to tonight.

  Not when I have a strange, surreal, tender second where I’m marveling at how this hot seed just changed our lives in ways I’m only beginning to fathom.

  But when I pull away, clean every inch of him, and then my own lips, there’s no doubt whatsoever in his eyes.

  I’ve found my protector—the one I didn’t even know I ever asked for.

  The king who pulled the sword from the stone in my heart.

  The only man I’d ever let master every inch of me.

  The last human being I’ll ever truly trust to make me happy.

  And the only man worthy of sharing my life, my family, my everything.

  * * *

  Later that night, we lie in bed together, and I can’t miss the protective way his hand rests over my stomach.

  He was just so rough with me, so passionate, so needy, so hungry it’s like he was trying to break me for anyone else.

  Or maybe just get a head start on making another baby before the first one’s even born.

  Now he’s looking at me like I’m everything in the world.

  I almost can’t stand it.

  My life has always been a curtain of moving shadows. A cascade of subterfuge and fluid identities. No matter how bright and bold I say I am, that life hasn’t had much room for pesky feelings in the ever-shifting darkness.

  It’s almost painful to see someone watching me with so much light in his heart, in his eyes.

  If he’s not careful, Oliver Major will ruin me with his love—assuming he already hasn’t.

  “They won’t have her,” he says fiercely. “They won’t put their paws on our kid. We’ll get out of here, and I’ll dismember that entire company to make sure they can never touch her or us again.”

  I can’t help but slip a shaky laugh. “You’ve already decided we’re having a daughter? Um, it’s just a clump of cells right now.”

  His gaze flicks past me to the ultrasound on the nightstand.

  “I know,” he says softly. “You’re too strong to give me anything but strong-willed baby girls who are just as wild as you.”

  A weak smile pulls at my lips. His fantasies should make me happier.

  “I don’t feel wild right now,” I admit. “I’m worried. We talk about taking them down, nothing new there...but we’ve only gotten in deeper over the years, Oliver. How do we have a child, and tell her the things we’ve done? The things we’ve enabled them to do? If there’s a hell, we’ve pretty much got express passes...”

  So, this is new. Another emotion I’m not used to.

  Regret.

  But he captures my hand with a rough swipe, holding it against his heart.

  It beats so strong under my palm, so fierce, so firm.

  “We tell her life has a lot of fucking grey, Fuchsia,” he says, holding my hand so tight it hurts. But it’s the kind of good hurt I need.

  My eyes flash as he licks his lips and continues.

  “We tell her that he
r mother was pushed into a life that wasn’t hers for the choosing when she was too damn young to make a choice, and boxed in without any easy, safe way out. That her father went in blind. Not knowing what this situation would become, and he wanted to try to stay close where he could do real damage from the inside, even if it meant playing a dangerous waiting game. If we handle it any other way, we die, wildcat. And then we can’t be there for her at all.”

  I swallow hard.

  There’s no question he’s right.

  “Do we tell her how scared we are, then?” I ask, searching his eyes, that devastating mocha-brown expanse, and I wonder if a man as calm and steady as he is can even feel fear at all. “That some of it’s just that we’re cowardly and weak and afraid to die?”

  “That’s not cowardly or weak.” He presses his lips to my knuckles with a smile full of so much warmth, and that’s when I realize this man really loves me.

  “Oliver...”

  “It’s human to fear death. And it’s human to want to run from facing it for a little while longer,” he growls, then tugs me closer. “Come here, wildcat.”

  I go into his arms, then, and let him wrap himself around me—around us.

  Us.

  God.

  There’s two of us, right now, plus another one inside me.

  With a shaky sound, I burrow myself against him.

  He presses his lips into my hair.

  “We’re not going to die,” he promises. “We just have to be smart so we get to decide how we choose to live. There’s a life after Galentron, beautiful. We put our heads together, we’ll find it.”

  I don’t say anything. I can’t.

  But I believe him.

  I believe in him.

  I won’t lose Oliver. Not over this. Not after the promises he’s made and the pact we just sealed with the most frenzied, heartfelt kiss of my life.

  Except I realize too late that I’ve already lost him.

  When I come back the next day after debriefing, when I knock on his door, already filling my head with visions of picking out designer cradles, renovating part of his penthouse into a nursery, baby-proofing all of the ridiculously expensive things he keeps around...

  There’s nothing.