How could she answer it?
How could she not?
He tasted chocolatey-sweet and delicious and male and perfect. She hadn’t been kissed for a year. She hadn’t been pleasurably kissed for two, because the year-ago man had been a total disaster and had lasted just one date, and Claudia Nelson did not do second dates when the first one hadn’t worked. It was inefficient, a waste of time.
She’d never been kissed like this, so slowly and dreamily and blindly.
She leaned deeper into the soft edge of the couch seat, and the only place to rest her arm was on his shoulder. She felt the baby move and settle, as if she … he? … felt at home inside her body, with all this give and relaxation. She felt a fullness deep inside her, an aching of muscles she hadn’t known were there.
Oh, his mouth! How could it make such a connection with the rest of her body? How could she feel so full and yet so deeply throbbing with need? Her body had changed so much. She felt ripe down to her bones and to the tips of her newly filled breasts. She was a prisoner in her own skin—a prisoner who never wanted to leave.
She leaned in closer, parted her lips and touched him with her tongue then went deeper. Her body was boneless and helpless. He groaned. He stroked the back of her neck, ran his fingers up into her hair, found the knot on top of her head and suddenly the fingers went still.
Totally still.
But only for a moment.
“Claudia,” he said, in a voice that was sleepy and gravelly and only very slightly surprised.
And then he went right on kissing her.
Chapter Four
Man.
You couldn’t think in such a situation. It took Andy several seconds of groping thought, while his whole body clamored with one very simple feeling, even to realize where he was, what time it must be, what he was doing here.
Claudia. Hot chocolate. Middle of the night. Deep asleep.
He’d been dreaming. Not about Laura, or some fantasy woman, or anyone in particular. Just about femaleness and all the things a man loved. Silky hair and skin, sweet musky scent, softness and warmth, curves and weight beneath his hands, the touch of caressing fingers.
Man!
He was sure that it was a dream, that this delicious kissing feeling wasn’t really happening, that it was all part of the cocoon of warmth that wrapped around him, the sense of peace and a good job done.
But when his dream hand reached up to run through dream hair that might have been blond or chestnut or black and he found that tight little bird’s-nest knot with hairpins in it, his dream self had suddenly jolted into knowing that this wasn’t a dream, after all.
This was Claudia.
But he still wasn’t really awake …
Okay, so it was Claudia, sexy Claudia.
Wonderful.
She tasted delicious and she felt even better and she seemed as happy to stay in the dream as he was. He pulled her closer, found her peachy butt beneath his hand and levered her onto the couch beside him. There was just enough room.
They kissed long and deep and lazily. Her lips were like sun-ripened plums against his mouth. Sweet. Juicy. Warm. She burrowed against him like an animal needing warmth and contact, and she was so soft and relaxed.
Mmm, those breasts! Their fullness squished against his chest. The round bump below the breasts almost went unnoticed, the way she lay. Her robe had come apart and he could feel the graze of her big, hardened nipples. He wanted to touch them, cover them with his mouth.
But first the hair. Must do something about the hair. He found the cool metal bend of a pin and pulled, and the whole thing came apart and fell around his hand in a scented caress.
And then he thought, no, stop.
Because of the hair.
Because it felt so good like this, and yet this wasn’t the way she chose to wear it. She kept it scraped back to signal her efficiency, or to convince herself that she was in control. She was his pregnant tenant, choosing single parenthood for he could only guess what reason. Something had turned her off men. Or she’d been cruelly hurt. Or she was too rigid and controlling and competent for any man to stand.
None of those were good reasons for him to get involved like this, not a short-term fling, definitely not a one-night stand, when a month from now there’d be a baby in the picture.
“Claudia …”
She picked up on his changed intent just from the way he said her name. Too fat and too clumsy, she scrambled off the couch and made a pained sound as if she’d hurt her back with the twisting movement.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. Shoot, his vision still felt heavy and fuzzy from sleep, and so did his brain. She’d dimmed the lighting, and the fire was almost out. How long had he been here? “I didn’t mean for you to—”
“No, it’s fine. I’m fine.” She had hurt her back. She was moving like an old woman, straightening with extreme care and moving to grip the back of the adjacent armchair. “It does this. It’s the ligaments loosening, the doctor said.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m not apologizing for the back.” He swore. “That came out wrong. I am apologizing for the back, and for—”
“No, it’s fine,” she said again. “I know what you’re saying. What you’re apologizing for.” He blinked and focused and saw her flushed cheeks. “But it wasn’t your fault. I—I didn’t wake you up when I could have. We were both— This was a moment. Tired. Not thinking.”
“Yes.” He should have stopped there, but instead said, “It was nice.”
Shoot!
“It was,” she agreed, sounding thin. “But it’s not what I’m looking for right now.”
“No. Me, either …” Stop, Andy! “But it was really, really nice.”
How many ways were there to not cross paths with the person who lived under your own roof?
Going out the side door in the mornings. Taking a peek from the window to make sure there were no stretchy, sexy, pregnancy yoga exercises taking place in the backyard. Listening for the sound of her car backing out of the driveway and checking which way it turned into the street—toward the store or away?
Claudia was as adept at the avoidance strategies as he was. Andy would see her climb off the porch swing as he arrived home after office hours or a stint at the hospital. One day, there was a note from her in his mailbox, saying that the bathroom faucet had begun to leak, and if he wanted to come change the washer, “any time Wednesday evening would be convenient,” and she would leave her key under the mat, because she “wouldn’t be at home.”
He guessed she’d made deliberate plans to go out. Where? Dinner on her own? A movie, eating a carton of popcorn by herself in the cinema in the dark? It sounded lonely.
It wasn’t his concern.
They were avoiding each other, and that was just what he wanted. Neither of them could afford to think about that long, breathtaking kiss during Monday’s early hours, and neither wanted any risk whatsoever that it might be repeated.
They’d said to each other very clearly that it wouldn’t be repeated, that it wasn’t what either of them wanted, and, with his head, Andy knew this was true. They’d be crazy. It would be a disaster. And there was an unborn child involved.
But every now and then …
Man, it had been so good! It haunted his dreams.
His