Читать книгу Christmas Brides And Babies Collection - Rebecca Winters - Страница 33

Resting after lunch

MAEVE HAD GOT as far as slipping her shoes off, she’d been stupid, telling him to follow her, and she’d better learn from her mistakes pretty damn quick if she didn’t want to drive him away.

She stewed on that thought for a minute until she heard Rayne’s quiet footsteps coming down the hall and she didn’t know whether to sit on the bed, stand at the window, looking decorative, or just freeze where she was looking at the closed door like a rabbit in headlights.

Time took care of that because Rayne knocked, paused and then opened the door and put his head around. She didn’t get time to do anything except feel her heart thumping like a bass drum.

It was the Rayne from nine months ago. Black brows slightly raised, eyes dark and dangerous, a tiny amused tilt to those wicked lips. ‘Louisa said you needed a hand to get your feet up?’

She licked dry lips. ‘You can come in.’ But when he did push open the door and shut it again the room shrank to the size of a shoebox and they were two very close-together shoes. ‘Um. I am a bit tired.’

He glanced at the queen-sized bed then back at her. Looked her over thoroughly. ‘Want a hand getting your dress off?’

‘Thanks.’ She turned her back and once he’d worked out there was no zip and she only wanted him to help her lift it over her head, the task was accomplished in no time.

No real seduction in that swift removal. She tried not to sigh. While he was draping the dress carefully over the chair she was thinking as she sat on the bed, Thank goodness I changed my stretchy granny undies for the cute lace pair.

He seemed to be staring at her chest. ‘Nice cleavage.’ Well, at least he appreciated something.

He was so big and broad standing over her and she patted the quilt she was sitting on. She wished he’d take off his shirt. ‘Are you staying?’

‘Staying? As in coming to bed with you?’

‘You did say everyone lies down after Christmas lunch?’

He sat on the bed beside her. Then he turned his head and looked her full in the face. ‘I’m not going to have sex with you but I’m happy to lie beside you while you rest.’

She pulled a face at him. Her own desire to snuggle up to him was withering like a dehydrating leaf. ‘I wouldn’t want to force you to do anything you didn’t want to.’

He grinned at her but there was a definite flare in his dark eyes that left her in no doubt she was wrong. A flare that made all the saggy disappointment feelings sit up and take notice again. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to get closer.’ He was telling the truth and at least that made her feel a little bit better. ‘But I think we need to talk a whole lot more before we fall into …’ he hesitated, didn’t even offer a word for what they were both thinking about ‘… first.’

Talk? When she was sitting here in her lacy bra and panties—admittedly with a huge shiny belly out in front—behind a closed door with all those pregnancy hormones saying ooh-ah. ‘Talk?’ She fought back another sigh. ‘That sounds more like a girl thing than a guy thing.’

He shrugged, stood up again and then leaned down, slipped an arm behind her knees and the other under her shoulders and placed her in the middle of the bed. Oh, my, she loved the way he did that.

Then he bent, unlaced his shoes and removed them, loosened his belt and then sat back down on the bed in his jeans. Reached for the folded light sheet at the bottom of the bed she’d been resting under in the afternoons, swung his legs up and draped the sheet over both of them.

Then he slipped his arm around her shoulders so her head was resting on his chest and settled back.

She was still smarting from the ‘not having sex with you’ comment. ‘Is this the pillow talk I missed out on last time?’

He didn’t seem perturbed. ‘You do have a nasty little bite when you don’t get your own way, don’t you?’

She hunched her shoulders. ‘It comes with not knowing where I stand.’

‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘I see that. But I can’t tell you what I don’t know. And if you want me to make something up then you’re resting your head on the wrong chest.’

It was not what she wanted to hear and yet it was. And this particular chest felt so good to lean on. She relaxed and snuggled in a little closer. ‘So you’re saying you won’t lie to me.’

The sound of his heart beating in a slow, steady rhythm reverberated under her ear. God, she’d missed this. ‘I won’t lie to you.’

She lifted her other hand slowly and ran her fingertip down the strong bulge of his bicep. An unfairly sexy bicep. Her girl parts squirmed in remembered ecstasy. Conversation. Remember conversation. ‘Not lying to me is a good start.’

‘You’re supposed to say you won’t lie to me either.’ She could tell he was dead serious. Fair enough.

She wriggled awkwardly, trying to shift her weight until she’d managed to roll and could see his whole face. Said just as seriously, ‘I will not lie to you.’

She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes but his mouth was firm. ‘So if you want me to go, you tell me. Not telling me is a lie too.’

She frowned at him. ‘I’m not sure I want to hear about it if you want to go.’ Then she sighed and lay back down again. ‘But I guess that’s fair.’

He was shaking his head. ‘You don’t understand and you need to get where I’m coming from. I may not be good at this whole father thing, Maeve. I’ll try but I don’t have a lot of family experience, and no paternal role model, to draw on.’ She could hear the slight thread of panic in his voice. Had to remind herself that a few hours ago this guy had had no idea he would be having a child some time in the next few days.

She thought about his ‘no family experience’ statement. Well, she guessed he’d never had a father to learn from or even subconsciously copy. Maybe he was finding that pretty daunting. ‘Did you know your father at all?’

‘Nope. I asked. All my mother said was he was dead and didn’t offer any clues. Not even his name. And my mum wasn’t into men staying over so no “special” uncles. If she spent the night with a man, she usually stayed out.’

Maeve thought about that. ‘So when you were young you stayed home alone? At night?’

Maeve squeezed his arm in sympathy and Rayne could feel himself begin to freeze her out. Had to force himself to let her offer comfort because if he was going to try to make this work he had to at least attempt to learn to do these things too. Apparently it was what families did and he needed to at least give it a shot.

He dispelled the myth that he had been alone. ‘We lived in a dingy block of flats. You were never alone. You could always hear people in the other units.’

She nodded against him. ‘So you never got scared on your own at night?’

He nearly said no. But he’d said he wouldn’t lie. ‘When I was younger I got scared. Especially if someone was shouting or I could hear someone yelling on the footpath. The worst was if a woman screamed down on the street. I always worried it was my mum and I wasn’t doing anything to help her.’

He’d never told anyone that. Didn’t know why he’d told Maeve. He moved on and hoped she would forget he’d said it. ‘Guess I’d make sure my kid was never left alone until they wanted to be left.’

She squeezed him again. ‘Perhaps your mum thought the people she was with were more disturbing than the idea of you being alone.’

His mum had actually said something like that. He hadn’t believed her. Had there been a grain of truth in it after all? And Maeve had picked up on it all these years later. ‘You don’t judge her, do you? My mother?’

Maeve shrugged on his chest. ‘Who am I to judge? I know nothing about her. I just know I’ve always admired you and she must have had a part in that. She was your mother.’

That heavy carpenter’s rasp was back down his throat. Sawing up and down and ripping the skin off his tonsils. Or at least that’s what it felt like as his throat closed. He searched for some moisture in his mouth. ‘Even when I said I’d been in prison because of her, you were sad for me that she was dead.’

He’d been thinking about that a lot. Couldn’t get his head around the fact that Maeve saw the part of him he hadn’t shown to many people. Except Simon. But he doubted her brother would have discussed it with his little sister.

She snuggled harder and his arm protested and began to cramp. He told it to shut up.

Then she said, ‘Even though you didn’t meet your father, I think you’ll be a good dad. And you certainly tried to look after your mum from a very young age. You’re probably better father material than many men who had dads.’

He grimaced at the fact that maybe he had become a little parental with his mum, but that didn’t change the fact he hadn’t been able to save her.

Maeve was like a dog with a bone. ‘You’ll be fine. You’re a paediatrician so at least you’re good with kids.’ She settled back. The law according to Maeve.

‘At least I’m that,’ he said dryly. ‘I’m good with sick kids.’ And especially the ones who were left alone and needed company.

She went on, ‘I was too young to understand about how you grew up. You always looked tough and capable when I saw you.’

Rayne listened to her voice, the husky tigress lilt tamed a little now, and thought about what she’d said. So he’d appeared tough and capable. He guessed he had been. By the time she’d been in her early teens he’d almost grown out of his, and his mum had begun to need a bit more care taken of her. A couple of dangerous overdoses. A problem with her supplier that had left her badly bruised. The way she’d forgotten to eat. She’d had two close shaves with the law and had told him if she ever got convicted she would die if she went to prison.

The last years had been a downward spiral and he’d tried most things to halt it. The number of rehab centres, fresh towns, health kicks they’d tried. Things would go well for a few months and he’d get tied up at work. Miss a couple of days dropping in then she’d start to use again.

The best she’d been had been in Santa Monica. She’d looked young for the first time in years. Had got a job as a doctor’s receptionist at one of the clinics he worked from in the poorer area, a place where kids who needed care they normally couldn’t afford could access a range of different doctors. And she’d been good at it.

She had connected well with the people who didn’t need anyone to look down on them. He’d valued the once a week he’d donated his time there, away from the upmarket private hospital he’d worked in the rest of the time. And he’d cheered to see her making a life for herself. Fool.

Until the day she’d worked and gone home early. It had been his day as well and he’d finished late. Locked up. The investigation had been well in progress by the time he’d found out all the drugs had been stolen. Had known immediately who it had been. He hadn’t been able to track her down anywhere until finally she’d rung him. Pleading. Promising she would never, ever, touch anything ever again, if he would say it was him. That this was her chance to go clean for life.

He’d hoped maybe it was true and that she would stop using. Then had begun to realise the fingers had been pointing to him anyway. So he’d made a conscious decision to try a last attempt at saving her.

He’d tried ringing Simon so he wouldn’t find out from someone else that he would probably be going to prison. Hadn’t been able to give the explanation on the phone and had had that ridiculous idea to fly out, explain and then fly back in twenty-four hours. He’d thought he should have just about that much time before it all came crashing down. Before the police came for him!

‘Hey,’ Maeve whispered, but she wasn’t talking to him. The belly beside him rolled and shifted and his eyes fixed on the movement, mesmerised. He glanced quickly at Maeve, who was watching him with a gentle smile on her face, lifted his hand and put his palm on the satin skin. And the creature below poked him with something bony.

Geez. He looked back at Maeve.

‘Cool, isn’t it?’ she said softly. And put her hand over his. And he realised with a big shift of emotion that the three of them were together for the first time. ‘He likes you.’

His eyes jerked to her face. ‘It’s a he?’

She laughed. ‘I really don’t know. Just find myself calling him he. Maybe because you weren’t here.’ He winced at that.

‘Might be a girl.’ She shrugged. ‘I really don’t care which.’

‘I hope she looks like you.’

She looked at him as if she were peering over a pair of glasses at him. ‘Why on earth would you want your son to look like me?’

‘Okay. A boy could be like me but it would be very sweet to have a little girl who looks like you.’ Then he spoilt it all by unexpectedly yawning.

She laughed. ‘You need a nap more than I do. Why don’t you take your jeans off? We can talk more later. Then you can roll over and I’ll cuddle you.’

‘Bossy little thing.’ But suddenly he felt morbidly tired and he did what he was told, not least because his arm had gone totally to sleep now and his jeans were digging into him.

When he climbed back onto the bed and rolled to face the door, she snuggled up to him as close as her big tummy would allow. It actually felt amazing when his child wriggled against him. Geez.

Maeve listened to Rayne’s breathing change and she lay there, staring at his dark T-shirt plastered against his strong shoulders as he went to sleep.

She tried to imagine Rayne as a little boy, from a time when his first memories had begun to stick. Dark, silky hair, strong little legs and arms, big, dark eyes wondering when Mummy would be home.

It hurt her heart. She wanted to hug that little boy and tell him she’d never leave him scared again. How old had he been when his mother had begun to leave him? She had a vague recollection of hearing Simon say to her parents that Rayne’s mum hadn’t started using drugs until after something bad had happened when Rayne had gone to school.

She wondered what had happened to Rayne’s poor mum. Something that bad? It couldn’t have been easy, bringing up a child alone with very little money.

Her childhood had been so blessed. Always her hero brother Simon and three older sisters to look after her, as well as both well-adjusted parents, although her mum was pretty definite on social niceties.

Her dad was a fair bit older than her mum, but he’d always been quietly there, and her mother had come from a wealthy family and always been a determined woman. She’d been spoilt by her dad, but had sometimes felt as if she wasn’t quite enough of a star for her mother. Hence the try-hard attitude she really needed to lose.

She would be thankful for all her blessings of family and now having this gorgeous, damaged man appear just when she needed him. He hadn’t run. He’d promised to stay at least until after the birth. Had tried to fit into a strange family’s Christmas Day, which must be pretty damn hard when he was still reeling from being in prison and adjusting to society again, and he’d just found out he’d fathered a child.

She stared again at the powerful neck and short hair in front of her eyes and the way the thick strands clung to his skull like heavy silk. Resisted the urge to move her hand from around his chest to touch it as she didn’t want to wake him, but her fingers curled.

She could imagine her baby having hair just that colour, though, of course, hers was black like her dad’s as well, so the kid didn’t have much choice. But she would think of it as his father’s hair. Would he have Rayne’s eyes and mouth too?

Imagine.

A long slow pulling sensation surged in her belly from under her breasts down to her pubic bone, growing tighter and then after a while easing off. Just one.

Braxton-Hicks. Practice contractions. Not painful. Just weird, as if the baby was stretching out straight. But she knew it wasn’t. Soon they would come more frequently. Maybe for a couple of hours at a time and then stop. For a few days probably. She’d told other women this so many times, but it was strange when it was yourself you were reassuring.

This time she’d welcomed it without the accompanying flare of nervousness she’d been fighting for weeks. Giving birth was a job that needed to be done and now that Rayne was here the time was right. Whatever happened, whatever her birth journey was meant to be, Rayne would be there to share it all. The best Christmas present of all.

Rayne woke an hour later, straight from dreaming about Maeve. Like he’d woken nearly every day for the last nine months. Except this time he really had her in his arms, his hands really were cupping her glorious breasts, her taut backside really was snuggled into his erection, which was growing exponentially with confirmation of the contact.

They must have rolled in their sleep.

She murmured drowsily, not yet awake, and languidly backed into him a little more. Unconsciously, his hands slid over her belly, pulling her closer.

The little person inside that belly nudged him and he recoiled in startled appreciation of where his actions were leading. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured, and slid his hands down to the sides of Maeve’s abdomen, but Maeve was having none of it. Took his hands and placed them back on her breasts. Wriggled into him.

‘Have mercy, Maeve,’ he whispered in her ear, but he couldn’t help the smile that grew on his face. She wriggled against him again and he groaned. Slid his rear end across the bed to make room for her to shift and turned her to face him. ‘You are a menace.’

‘And you feel so good against me,’ she whispered back drowsily. Then tilted her face for a kiss, and there was no way he could resist those lips, that mouth, or keep it to one kiss. And the gentle salute turned into a banquet of sliding salutations and memories that resurfaced from all those months ago. How they matched each other for movements, timing, a connection between them that had him pulling her closer, but the big belly in the middle made everything awkward, yet erotic, and he must be the most debauched man on earth to want to make love to this woman who was so close to giving birth.

As if she’d read his mind, she said, ‘If we don’t make love now, you’ll have to wait for ages.’

He really hadn’t thought of that. ‘Maybe we should wait.’ But he seriously didn’t want to. And she obviously didn’t. Nine months of fantasy and the woman of his dreams was demanding he make love to her.

No-brainer really.

In the Maeve fog that was clouding his mind he wasn’t really sure what he’d been thinking to knock her back before.

Still in the fog, he slid from the bed, ripped his T-shirt off his head in one movement and kicked off his briefs. Knelt back down and dropped a big kiss right between Maeve’s awesome assets. Geez, he loved her breasts.

He slid his hands around her back and unclasped her bra. Sighed as the two gorgeous spheres eased out of the restraining material like big, soft plump peaches. The circular areolas surrounding her nipples were dark peach, highlighted for a tiny baby to find easily, and he skimmed his fingers across in awe while she watched him with a womanly smile as old as the ages.

He swallowed to ease the dryness in his throat. ‘They say pregnant women in the third trimester of pregnancy have erotic dreams and surges of erotic desires.’

‘That’s very true,’ she whispered, pulling him closer and tilting her mouth for him to kiss again. When they paused for breath there was no concept of stopping. But he was doing this right, and gently, and he wanted to show her just how beautiful she was in his mind and in his heart. ‘Then we’d better take our time.’