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