Darcy already had the skirt she’d been wearing unzipped and halfway down her hips, a blue streak he wouldn’t have credited her with flying from her lips.
Tread carefully.
He backed to the door and, catching the handle, swung it shut and locked it without ever taking his eyes off Darcy.
Yeah. The gentlemanly thing to do might have been to look away. But instinct was telling him hormones were like the sea. Something he didn’t want to turn his back on.
The skirt was balled up in her hands now, only to be thrown on the floor in spectacular tantrum fashion.
He shouldn’t be registering anything beyond compassion, he knew. But that his being there wasn’t incentive enough for her to shut it down, made him want to puff out his chest like he had something to crow about. Like after all the polite, and nice and thoughtful they had going on for the sake of the little life growing inside her...there was trust between them, too. Enough that she was willing to let him see what she was really feeling.
Which was enraged.
The buttons down the front of her blouse, which were definitely straining under each ragged breath, went next.
“I can’t stand it!” She cried her temper boiling over to next level proportions.
And yeah, he was ready for her.
His hands went to his tie, loosening the knot with a couple tugs. Then the buttons and links at his wrists.
SIXTEEN
Darcy fumbled the slim disk again and that was it. Her hands bunched into the fabric at either side of the row of delicate mother-of-pearl buttons she’d loved so much when she saw them in the store, ready to rip the damn shirt into rags before she’d tolerate one more prickly seam cutting into her chest and stomach.
Two big hands closed gently around her wrists, the warmth of them radiating down her arms as a soft “Shhh,” penetrated the fog of her harried mind.
Her eyes blinked open and—
Jeff was standing in front of her, his tie undone, shirt open to his waist.
“Jeff.” She swallowed past the humiliation-sized knot lodged in her throat and peered up at him. “This isn’t what I—I don’t even know what I was thinking.”
Those earthy hazel eyes met hers as he shrugged first one shoulder and then the other from his suit shirt, dropping it behind him. He tugged the soft cotton of his undershirt free at his waist before pulling it overhead, and Darcy was left staring at the broad bare expanse of Jeff’s hard-cut upper body.
And wow.
“You were thinking you were tired of being uncomfortable,” he started. “That the morning sickness isn’t something you can control but this—clothes rubbing too tight—is. After months of how you’ve been feeling, no one could blame you for having had enough. You’ve been pushed to the edge by circumstances beyond your control. You hit your limit and needed to blow off a bit of steam.”
Her throat tightened as emotion different from the frustration, the bitterness, the humiliation began to work its way to the surface. Blinking back a fresh rush of tears, she nodded unable to voice the gratitude for his simple understanding in any other way.
The seconds ticked past and Jeff stood holding her gaze with his own. Letting her see the compassion in his eyes. The lack of judgment over actions that would have had most men backing away slowly—hands in the air, eyes on the ceiling, too uncomfortable with the messy fallout of emotions gone off the chain to do anything more than leave. But not Jeff.
He was giving her all the time she needed. Letting her know he’d seen what she was going through. And it wasn’t running him off.
Drawing her balled hands from where they rested at her own chest, Jeff brushed his thumbs in circles over her clenched fists and the sensitive skin at her wrists. “Open up, honey. Let go and try to relax a minute.”
His touch was light, a graze, and yet the barely there quality of it drew her focus completely. It felt good, those slow, soft circles a balm to her battered soul.
Her fingers unfurled, leaving her palms open to his touch.
To the same slow, soft circling attention pulling the tension from the farthest reaches of her body. Her toes and calves, the backs of her knees, deep in her belly and down the length of her spine.
Then he was resting her palms against his chest, pressing his hands over hers for a single beat before moving on, following the line of her arms up to her shoulders and then—
Her lips parted on a stunned breath at the feel of his knuckles brushing the sensitive skin between her breasts, at the cool air spilling over the deepening V of skin exposed as his long fingers deftly worked each delicate disk free from its catch.
She shouldn’t be letting him do this, only she couldn’t find the words to tell him to stop. She didn’t want to.
His gaze skimmed slowly up her body and, meeting with hers, held as he helped her out of the shirt and gently set it aside.
It was so intimate. Standing there in nothing but a bra and panties, the only changes to her body since the last time Jeff had seen her bare were the ones he’d caused. Her breasts were swollen, her belly thickening in a soft and mushy way that wasn’t yet round enough to be beautiful for what it was.
While Jeff was everything he’d been from the very first. His body displaying the kind of clean chiseled perfection his too-rugged face lacked. Tall and broad, tapered and taut, it made her want to step closer and take shelter against him. From the solitude. The cool night air. The exposure of her changed body.
From being alone for so very long.
Because this man could make her feel good. Like no one else ever had.
Her gaze drifted to where her hands rested against the banded terrain of his abdomen and then slowly, it drifted up, her fingers following.
“Here, let’s get this on you,” Jeff said in a tight voice, holding up the white T-shirt he’d stripped off to pull over her head. The cotton was soft, still carrying his body heat, and once it billowed around her thighs like a dress, he took a step back to remove himself from the intimate little bubble of insanity that surrounded her.
What was she thinking? While she’d been eating up the expanse of his body with her eyes, he’d been offering a public service by helping her out of her shirt. He hadn’t even looked below her chin.
Because that’s not what it had been about for him.
Jeff had been rescuing her. Talking her down from the ledge and resolving the most immediate problem at hand. A scratchy stitch in her shirt.
And resolve it he had, because nothing in all her years had ever felt better against her skin than the T-shirt she was currently draped in.
But, holy cow, she was pathetic.
“Thank you for this,” she muttered, barely able to meet Jeff’s eyes.
“Welcome,” he answered, sweeping his discarded suit shirt up from the floor as he headed for the door. “See you in the morning, Darcy.”
* * *
Jeff stalked to his room, every muscle in his body working against him, kicking and screaming, and trying to drag him back the way he’d come. To the lush warm woman wrapped up in his T-shirt looking like the kind of Sunday morning fantasy he desperately wanted to get back in his bed.
It wasn’t supposed to be like that with her. She didn’t want it. Hell, he didn’t want it, either. Fine. He wanted it. But he knew there was a good reason he wasn’t supposed to. And still, he’d unwrapped her like the present he’d been waiting for all year.
Yeah, his intentions may have been pure when he’d started. At least as pure as they ever got around Darcy. She was suffering and he hated it. After months of persistent nausea, the complete upset to her life, her loss of autonomy and every other consequence she bore the burden of—the guilt was eating him alive. Because all of it, everything she was going through, could be laid at his feet.
So he’d see
n an opportunity to make something better—and he’d charged in like some nut job white-knight-wannabe with delusions of good intentions as he shucked his shirt and went to town on hers.
The only thing he had going for him was the fact that he hadn’t looked once he got her peeled out of a blouse that had definitely been snug in all the right places. The fabric pulling against the swell of her breasts, and fitted to perfection across a belly only just beginning to soften in the most temptingly touchable way.
Not that he’d gotten more than the barest taste of it.
He’d been trying to help, not cop a feel.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that, chump.
Truth, the intentions had started out good. But when he’d rested her delicate hands against his chest—those pure intentions had hopped the express freight straight to hell. The feel of her fingers brushing his bare skin had flipped every switch he had and it was nothing short of divine intervention he’d been able to keep that sudden and intense want from shining like a beacon. But he’d shut down the visual tells. Ruthlessly. With extreme prejudice. Because this was the mother of his child. And aside from the fact that he couldn’t afford to screw it up with her—she damn well deserved better from him.
* * *
Darcy stared out the long-vacated door to her room, a sinking, horrible feeling deep in the pit of her stomach as her actions flashed though her mind like a slideshow of shame.
She’d stripped in front of Jeff.
And then when he’d done the only thing he could think of to help her out—literally giving her the shirt off his back—she’d gone and eyed him like some freaking piece of man candy she couldn’t wait to wrap her lips around.
She wanted to tell herself it couldn’t get worse. But it was about to. Because there was no way they were going to be able to quietly ignore what just happened, chalk it up to hormones and sweep it under the rug to forget.
No way.
She had to apologize. And she had to make sure Jeff knew that brief disconnect with her sanity wasn’t a regular or long sustained thing.
Hands clasped at her chest, she forced one foot in front of the other until she’d made it to Jeff’s door—where she found him stretched out across his floor in a hard plank position, those powerful shoulders and arms working his body in one relentless cycle of up and down after another.
His eyes were closed. The muscles along his arms and back shifting and rolling, standing out in sharp relief as his skin incrementally darkened with each set.
“Don’t do it,” he muttered under his breath, dropping a savage expletive before shifting the position of his hands from flat against the wood to fists. “Don’t even think about going back in there.”
Back? To her room, or to something else?
“Jeff.” Her voice was hoarse, little more than a nervous whisper but enough that he heard her. Because suddenly, he stopped. All motion arrested, as though someone had hit Pause on the remote to his life, freezing him in place halfway between up and down.
Then slowly he straightened his arms and turned his head to look at her. Starting at her feet and moving up the length of her bare legs and over the expanse of his T-shirt before dropping his head back between his shoulders.
“Go back to your room, Darcy.”
He didn’t even want to look at her. This was so bad.
“I want to apologize for what happened. I—”
“I accept.” Jeff pushed slowly to his feet, still not meeting her eyes. “Darcy, I’ve been awake for somewhere around forty-eight hours, and as far as good judgment and restraint go, I’m about tapped out. The last of my reserves having gone toward walking out your door just a few minutes ago.”
Forty-eight hours? She’d known he was traveling, had been thrilled at the prospect of seeing him again, but by the time he’d arrived she’d been too far gone to register much of anything beyond her intense discomfort and frustration, and then the overwhelming and incredible relief the man before her had provided. But now as she looked closer, the evidence of fatigue cutting deep lines around his eyes, the shadows beneath and the weary stance were unmistakable.
He dealt with her the best he could and then used the last of his resources to drag himself out of her little circle of hell...only to have her follow him back to his room. Nice.
Only, something was off. If he was so exhausted...
“Why are you doing push-ups?”
“Damn it, Darcy, I don’t think you get how close I am to losing it here.” Letting out a harsh laugh, he shoved his big hands through his hair. “Do us both a favor and, before I do something we’ll both regret, go.”
“I won’t regret it. Whatever you have to say, just say it. I can take it.” They’d clear the air and tomorrow it would be a new day. “Jeff, please, would you look at me?”
A second passed and then another. Jeff’s shoulders and chest rose and fell with one ragged breath after another. And then he looked at her—and everything stopped.
The eyes that met hers weren’t the eyes of the amicable man Jeff had been these past two months. They weren’t harmless. They weren’t benign.
They were dark, intense and hungry. They were the eyes of a man who’d left restraint behind.
And then he was closing the distance between them, all signs of fatigue thrown off as he caught the back of her head in the cradle of one palm and her hip with the other. “Damn it, Darcy, I warned you.”
SEVENTEEN
He’d lied. Nothing could have warned Darcy or prepared her for the kiss Jeff delivered. Because this kiss was like no other. Like nothing she’d experienced before. Not even with him.
This kiss was a crushing, urgent demand. An almost angry claim. A brutal stamp against her mouth so searingly hot and unexpected it terminated all thought, all reason, all response beyond the most base, primal instinct within her.
To take more.
More of him. His kiss. The heat surging through her veins. The high charge current coursing over her skin in search of an outlet.
She needed it with a desperation she’d never known. And when her mouth fell open beneath his in welcoming surrender and his tongue drove between her parted lips it was as if the circuit closed and this hot, shared, sensual energy overtook them both.
Her fingers were in his hair, tight and pulling him closer into more demanding contact. Her body arching into a firm press of breasts, and belly, and thighs to meet the hard bow of his. Oh, God, it was good.
All that heat against her sensitive, so long neglected body.
All that contact and promise.
All that want.
She was drowning in it. Lost in the desire ratcheting higher with each thrust of Jeff’s tongue. Begging him with every needy gasp and tug to take her deeper. Give her more. Make it last.
And it did, until the dizzying need for air had them breaking away, but only to move on in their greedy exploration. Hands roaming a restless path across her back and bottom, into her hair and over her arms, Jeff devoured her neck—each wicked pull of his mouth, firm stroke of his tongue and gentle scrape of his teeth acting as the trigger to another sensual detonation within her.
“It’s got to be you, Darcy,” he growled between deft flicks of his tongue into the shallow behind her ear, the palm of one hand finding her heavy breast. “If this needs to stop...”
He pulled back, his eyes burning down the length of her body before meeting hers. “I can’t make myself do it.”
She shook her head, hating the scant inches between them and the cool air threatening to carry reason back into the mix. “Don’t stop. I don’t want to stop. Just this once. Tonight. I don’t want you to stop.”
“Just this once.” His thumb swept across the soft cotton at her breast, and again when it pebbled tight against the confines of her bra. “And then we put
it behind us.”
Nodding frantically, she asked, “Can you do that? Can we agree?”
“Right now I’d agree to anything.” His eyes dropped to the straining bud of her nipple. Went darker as he gently pinched it through the layers of fabric making her breath catch and stutter at the pleasure piercing her core, the molten heat spilling through her center. “But yes, I can do that.”
At the next decadent circle of this thumb, she moaned, pressing into his touch. “Jeff, please.”
His eyes blinked closed in an expression that bordered on pained. “You don’t know...Darcy, how many nights...I’ve replayed those two words in my head.”
This time, Darcy was the one to still. The sharp ache in her heart, clearing the sensual fog surrounding her in one stab. He’d admitted to thinking about them being together in the past. But always in the context of some emotionally barren, throwaway comment, underscoring the lack of meaning behind it. But this time, tonight, there was nothing throwaway in his tone. Only they’d just agreed—
Before she could think too much about it though, his hands were on the hem of her borrowed T-shirt and he was stripping it from her with the same efficiency he’d pulled it off himself.
And then his eyes were on her, reverent, filled with an awe that made her feel beautiful rather than self-conscious about the way her shape had changed.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he said in a voice so gruff, she felt the deep vibration of it down to her bones.
Catching her behind the knees and back, he carried her to the bed and followed her down, their mouths fused in a decadent, promising kiss that had Darcy’s hands coasting over the hard planes of Jeff’s chest, working down his abs, and then fumbling with his belt.
At her frustrated whimper, he brushed her fingers aside and backed off the bed. His skin was flushed with a combination of exertion, restraint and arousal. His defined musculature flexed with every motion.
Waking Up Pregnant Page 11
