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Then Kitty stood, her eyes red, but dry.
No tears. Thank God.
She crossed to stand before him, her posture stiff with anger. “What’s the matter?”
She got right in his face, stopping mere inches from him. “I’ll tell you what’s the matter.”
She shoved a hand against his shoulder. Surprise bumped him back a step. “You are the matter.”
She bopped him on the shoulder again. This time he was ready, but she was stomping forward, so he backed up a step anyway. “You come here and push your way into my company. Into my life. Into my apartment. You push and you push and you push.”
With each push she shoved against his chest and with each shove he stepped back, trying to give her the room she needed. But she followed him step for step.
“Maybe it’s time someone pushed back.”
By now he was—literally—up against a wall. With his back pressed to the living room wall, he had nowhere else to go. She stopped mere centimeters away from him, her hands pressed to his chest, her eyes blazing with anger.
“I’m—” he began.
But she didn’t let him finish. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. Sorry won’t cut it. Sorry doesn’t even begin to cut it.”
“I—”
“Well?” she prodded.
He gripped her shoulders, resisting the urge to shake her. “Stop. Interrupting. Me.”
Her chin bumped up and she glared at him through stormy eyes. “Well?” she demanded again.
“I—” What?
Suddenly, he couldn’t remember what it was he’d been about to say. All he could think was that this was what he’d wanted for the past two months. He wanted to see her again. To sleep with her. To strip her clothes off her, lay her bare before him in a proper bed and spend hours worshipping her body.
“‘I—I—I—’” she copied, mocking his stammer. “Is that the best you can do?”
Man, she was annoying sometimes.
“No,” he said. “This is.”
Cupping her jaw in his hands, he shut her up the best way he knew how. He kissed her.
Five
What exactly did she have to do to insult this man? She’d sneered at him. She’d acted like a tease. She’d ditched him in the middle of their date. She’d insulted him and made fun of him. And now he was kissing her?
What was wrong with him?
Worse still, what was wrong with her?
A hot and heavy make out session with Ford was the last thing she needed right now. She wanted peace and quiet to process the events of the night. She wanted to kick Ford out of her apartment. She wanted him out of her life. She wanted to go on kissing him forever.
After months of living on memories, he was actually kissing her. Months of pretending she’d forgotten him, of believing she’d never see him again, of shoving him out of her mind during the day, but then dreaming of him when she slept. After months of waking in the middle of the night, panting, heart racing, body moist and heavy with need. After months of that, he was here. In her apartment. Kissing her.
His tongue nudged into her mouth, tracing the sensitive skin behind her lip. She shuddered, opening herself fully to him. He tasted of smoky Scotch and heat, of neediness and lust. So familiar, even though she’d only been with him once. Her body sparked to life beneath his touch.
Suddenly it didn’t matter that he’d sneaked back into her life uninvited. It didn’t matter that he’d deceived her. That he pushed too hard. That she couldn’t intimidate or control him. All that mattered was that he just keep kissing her.
Her body remembered his touch as if it were yesterday. No matter what lies she’d told him earlier, she remembered. She remembered every second of their time together. As if for those few hours they’d been together she’d been more alive than at any other time in her life. As if she’d been more herself than she was in real life. The way he’d kissed her then. The cool night air on her skin when he’d kissed her in the parking lot of that god-awful bar. The heat of his hands against her flesh. The cold metal of his truck door pressed against her back.
His fingers had fumbled as he pulled her shirt over her head. She’d lost an earring. Yet when he’d touched her breasts, he hadn’t been clumsy. His touch was deft. Gentle. His fingertips rough as they’d pinched her nipples, sending fissures of pleasure through her body.
He’d shoved her skirt up to her waist and his jeans had been rough against the insides of her thighs. He’d shoved her panties aside, touched her there. A slow, rhythmic rasping of his thumb that had driven her quietly wild. By the time he’d plunged into her, she was already on the brink of climax. The feel of him pumping inside of her combined with the chafing of his fingers had sent her over the edge.
Now, kissing him in her living room, with memories flooding her, his touch was so achingly familiar. Her body trembled with need. Moisture seeped between her legs as desire pulsed through her. She was ready for him already.
His arm snaked around her back, holding her body to his as he walked her backward, one step, then two, still kissing her. His mouth nibbled hers as if he would devour her one tiny bite at a time. And she felt powerless to stop him.
The backs of her knees bumped against the arm of the sofa just as his hand cupped her breast through the bodice of her robe. The silk provided little protection against his roaming hands, not that she wanted any. She felt her nipple tighten, hardening to his touch. Heard a groan stir in his chest.
He pulled his mouth from hers. “This isn’t how I wanted this to happen.”
But he poured kisses along her neck as he said it. Proof that he was as powerless against her as she was against him.
Her hands clutched the lapels of his jacket. Pulling back, she tried to glare at him. Which was hard to do through the fog of her desire.
“How you wanted it to happen? What about what I want?”
He grinned wickedly, his hand flicking open the folds of her robe. Brushing the outside of her panties, he said, “I think I know what you want.”
Her panties were damp with her need for him. She knew it. Maybe it should embarrass her, this desperate lust for him, the way he only had to kiss her and she went wet for him, but it didn’t. Not when she knew he felt the same way. She may be wet, but he was hard. Panting. Pulsing against her hand when she ran it down the front his pants.
“You do, don’t you?” Her voice came out husky. “Know what I want, I mean.”
“I do.”
His gaze was disconcertingly serious as he muttered the words. For an unsettling second, she considered the possibility that maybe this was about more than just sex for him. For both of them. But she shoved the concern aside.
Sex was all they had. All she wanted.
Because she couldn’t think about anything else. Anything beyond this minute. This very second. She couldn’t think about the mistake she might be making. Or the mistake she’d already made.
She couldn’t think about the pair of pregnancy tests she’d hastily thrown out when the doorbell rang. Couldn’t think about the twin pink lines on those pregnancy tests. She couldn’t think about the baby already growing in her belly.
Logic told him to slow down, but she didn’t let him. One minute he was merely kissing her, the next she was tumbling over the arm of the sofa, pulling him on top of her. He barely caught himself in time to keep from squashing her. He braced one hand on the back of the sofa and the other right beside her head.
For all her height, she felt tiny beneath him. He didn’t want the weight of his body to pummel her. “That was close,” he muttered.
“Not nearly close enough,” she purred, bucking against him. Her hips rocked against his. Not in a light and playful way, but frantically, as if she were seconds from losing all control. One of her legs crept up the outside of his thigh, hooking around to anchor her hips to his.
Then she bucked against him one last time, rolling him off the sofa altogether, following him down onto the floor. Thank God for plush carpet, though even that hadn’t been able to keep the breath from being knocked out of him.
Or maybe it was just her that took his breath away. Kitty. Demanding. Arrogant. Unapologetic. And sexy as hell.
She walked her hands down his chest, slowly pushing herself into a seated position astride his hips. Her robe gaped open, barely covering her breasts as it caught on her nipples. The sash was still tied at the waist, but the robe revealed enough for him to see she was naked except for her underwear. A little scrap of fabric that felt silky and damp beneath his touch. Just kissing him had made her wet. His erection leaped at the very idea, straining against the front placket of his pants.
Head thrown back, she shifted her hips forward, grinding herself against him. She groaned low in her throat, a sound both erotic and unbearably tempting. How could he resist her? Why would he even try?
He slipped his thumb under the hem of her panties and found the nub of her desire. He stroked her there and the moan turned into a chorus of yeses. The steady chant echoed through his blood, pounding against the last of his restraint.
When she reached for his zipper, it didn’t even occur to him to stop her. With a few quick movements, she’d freed him. He lifted his hips as she pulled at his pants, not even bothering to take them all the way off.
She nudged the fabric of her underwear out of the way, then lowered herself onto him. With one smooth movement, he was inside of her. Hot, tight, and unbearably sweet. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed, trying to reign in his pure lust. Sucking a breath in through his teeth, he narrowed his focus. Pleasure rocked through his body, but he stayed just ahead of it. He didn’t want to come too quickly. He wanted her right there with him.
He moved his thumb in slow, steady circles, matching the rhythm of her rocking hips. With his eyes still closed, he focused on the sound of her breath, the quick gasps and low moans. The yeses had dissolved to a series of meaningless guttural sounds.
He felt her muscles clenching around him. Then he made the mistake of opening his eyes. He looked up to see her poised above him, her back arched, her breasts thrusting forward as her hands clutched her heels. With her neck arched her hair fell down her back in wild disarray. He’d never seen anything more primitive, more primal, more gut-wrenchingly erotic.
And then she focused her groans into a single word that sent him spiraling beyond control.
“Ford!”
Sleeping with Ford just about topped the list of stupid things she could have done. Ford had said she’d had a hard day and he didn’t know the half of it.
And as if sleeping with him wasn’t bad enough, she’d slept with him. When he’d picked her up and carried her to her bedroom, she’d actually tugged him down onto the bed with her, draped her body over his and promptly fallen asleep. She’d snuggled with him, for cripes sake.
When she’d peeled herself off him in the morning to sneak away for a shower, she prayed he’d at least have the common courtesy to disappear. But no. Not Ford. He made coffee.
How the hell was she supposed to defend herself against a man who’d made her coffee?
“Oh,” she said joylessly. “You’re still here.”
“We have to talk.”
“So you keep saying.” She crossed the narrow kitchen to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup. “Maybe you think we’re ready for couples’ therapy.”
He cut to the chase. “We didn’t use a condom last night.”
Ah. So that was why he’d stuck around.
Hoping to antagonize him into storming out, she said, “I suppose you blame me for that.”
“I didn’t say that. I just wanted to let you know you don’t have to worry about your health. I get tested annually for anything that—”
“I know,” she interrupted him. “When I got back from Texas I had myself tested. Yes, we were pretty safe, but as we both know condoms aren’t one hundred percent effective at anything.”
She broke off sharply. Please don’t do something stupid. Like cry. Or tell him the truth. “So,” she continued. “I knew that wasn’t a concern.”
Just keep sipping your coffee. He’ll leave soon and you can do all the stupid things you want.
He pinned her with a heavy stare. “Do I need to worry you’ll get pregnant?”
It took all her willpower not to spew coffee all over the kitchen. Instead she equivocated. “Do I look worried?”
“That’s hardly the point. You never look worried.” Well, at least she still had someone fooled. With a self-effacing shrug, she said, “When you’re raised the way I was, you learn to keep your emotions to yourself.”
“Well, you learned well, then.” There was a hint of something dark in his voice. Bitterness maybe, but she didn’t want to consider what he might mean by that. She couldn’t let herself think too much about his emotions just now.
She ignored his comment. “You don’t have to worry about last night.”
“You’re certain?”
“Let’s just say that if I got pregnant from last night, it would be a medical miracle.”
Thank God he didn’t press her for a more precise answer. Still, she didn’t breathe deeply until he’d left and she’d thrown the dead bolt behind him.
Maybe doing something stupid like this was inevitable.
She stood in her kitchen for a long time, sipping her coffee, making excuses for her behavior. What she wanted most was to simply crawl back into bed with her sketch pad and MP3 player. To spend the whole day pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist. Of course, she didn’t have that luxury.
Come Monday, Ford would start pressuring her to cement the deal with FMJ. Whatever else happened, she couldn’t afford to sleep with him again. There was too much at stake, for Biedermann’s and for her. After all, she was going to be.
Kitty broke off her train of thought to stare down at her nearly empty coffee mug. Could pregnant women even drink coffee? Shaking her head, she dumped the last splash of coffee in the sink and washed out the mug. She’d have Casey look that up on Monday.
She paused in the act of drying the mug. Yeah, that’d be subtle. No one would ever guess she was pregnant, between puking every few minutes and having her assistant research the effects of caffeine on pregnancy.
At some point, she’d have to tell Ford about the pregnancy, but she wasn’t ready for that just yet. She needed more time to process it. To figure how she felt about the tiny life growing inside of her and what it meant for her life.
She had no idea how Ford might respond to the news he was about to be a father. But she knew that whatever his reaction was going to be, she’d need to have her own emotional defenses in place before she dealt with him.
How long could she justify not telling him? A couple of days maybe. But she had to tell him and she had to do it soon.
The very thought made bile rise in her throat. She dashed for the bathroom, only to have her nausea fade, leaving her feeling queasy. The minty zing of her toothpaste helped. When she put away the toothpaste, she saw the two pregnancy tests she’d taken the previous evening.
She’d stopped to pick them up at a drugstore on the way home from the fundraiser. Her heart had pounded the whole time, sure she’d see someone she recognized. Or that at the very least someone would comment on the absurdity of a woman in formal wear buying pregnancy tests late at night. She hadn’t cared. She’d needed to know.
She had still been reeling from the shock when Ford had shown up on her doorstep. He’d caught her at her most vulnerable. Again.
But it wouldn’t happen a third time. From now on, she’d be prepared to deal with him. But first, she had to deal with other issues. She pressed a hand to her belly.
Logically, she should still be freaking out about being pregnant. But for some strange reason, she wasn’t. Maybe some weird pregnancy hormone had been working its magic on her subconscious for the past two months. Whatever the reason, she felt strangely at peace.
Why did being pregnant have to be such a bad thing? All her life she’d dreamed of being part of a bigger family. She’d longed for sisters and brothers. How many times had she made her grandmother read Little Women to her? Dozens.
The only thing she’d wanted more than siblings was a real mother. Her grandmother had done her best. She’d loved her and cared for her, sure. But she hadn’t done the things other mothers had done—or rather the things Kitty had imagined other mothers did. She’d never climbed onto the jungle gym at the park. She’d never built forts out of old sheets draped over the furniture. She’d never crawled into Kitty’s bed to cuddle her and chase away the monsters.
Those were things Kitty’s childhood had lacked. But they were experiences she could give to her child. She could lavish this child with love. She could become the kind of mother she’d always wanted for herself. She could create the family she’d craved for so long.
What about Ford? What kind of father would he be? She bet he’d be the kind of dad who coached Little League and charmed all the teachers into rounding up his kids’ grades. He’d spend too much on birthday presents, and …
