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Hope took a careful step back, and then another. Using every ounce of willpower she had, she turned and picked up the test. Her breath left her lungs in an audible whoosh. “Shit.”
Pregnant.
Maybe that whole idea of building a time machine to go back to before she thought it was a brilliant idea to have sex with Daniel was a legitimate idea after all.
A big, tanned hand appeared in her line of vision and took the stick from her. “Well, hell.”
She looked up, the shock on Daniel’s face startling a laugh out of her. It was that or start sobbing and never stop. She’d always been a damn fool when it came to this man, but this was so above and beyond as to be laughable. She clutched her stomach, her giggle turning into a string of them, each one more hysterical than the one before. “Oh my God. I can’t. This is… Oh my God.”
“Darling? Damn, girl, breathe.”
She slumped against the wall. “This is so dumb. This kind of thing is supposed to happen to teenagers, not to adults who should know better. We’re fifteen years too late.” At least if they’d done it when they were teenagers, they would have had love on their side.
Love. And where did that get us?
She scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to get a hold of her emotional free fall. The wondering about what would have happened was pointless. It had happened. End of story. Now it was time to figure out a plan for moving forward.
A baby. What am I supposed to do with a baby?
Being a single mother had never been part of the vision she had for the future.
All at once, her determination to keep moving abandoned her, leaving her staring at the bathroom cabinet. It was like thousands of other bathroom cabinets out there, a light cedar color in a generic style. It was just so wrong—just like everything else about this situation. “How did this happen?”
“I’m sorry, darling. It’s my fault.” He crouched in front of her. “The condom…the sex…it was all me.”
That was just like Daniel to try to take all the responsibility—and the guilt—onto his shoulders alone. “You know, that determination to play the martyr and absolve me from guilt is really annoying.” She leaned her head against the wall. “Pretty sure I was there. Equally sure that I’d just switched birth controls and neither that nor the fact that you pulled a condom out of your wallet was enough to make me stop and use my common sense.”
“All the same—”
“No, Daniel. Not all the same. It took the two of us to get into this mess. I’m an adult, same as you, and I knew what the possible consequences were.” She just hadn’t cared, because being kissed by Daniel after all those years had been too good to stop. It had seemed like it was worth the risk at the time.
Now?
Now, she just didn’t know.
He offered her a hand. “We need to talk about this. Really talk.”
That’s what she was afraid of. She allowed him to pull her to her feet and shoved her hair out of her eyes. “We don’t need to talk. I already know how this conversation goes.”
“Do you now?”
“Yes.” She charged on, talking so fast her words spilled over each other. “I’m keeping the baby.”
He jerked back. “No shit. If anything else came out of your mouth, you were about to have a fight on your hands.”
She kept going, ignoring him. “You’re going to act all crazy and—”
“Here’s some crazy for you, darling.” He closed the distance between them, backing her against the wall. “That baby you’re carrying is mine.” He dropped his hand to her stomach, sliding beneath her shirt and splaying his fingers across her skin. “Mine. You made your choice when you came up here to take that test instead of doing it on your own in Dallas. You included me in this, so don’t go crying about how unfair it is that I have a fucking opinion. You’re having our baby, and you’re staying here in Devil’s Falls to do it.”
What the hell? “Staying—”
He kissed her, stealing her words and taking possession of her mouth as if every part of her really was his. It’s not. The token protest withered against the onslaught of sensation, the way his tongue stroked hers, igniting a need in her that she would have thought impossible considering the circumstances. He stroked her stomach, his thumb dipping beneath the waistband of her yoga pants to trail down her hip bone. She shivered, a moan slipping free.
Daniel twisted his wrist so he could slide his entire hand into her pants. He pushed a finger into her. The sensation made her moan again, and he ate the sound and then kissed around to her jaw. “You’re so fucking wet for me. You always were.” He pumped his finger in and out of her as much as he could. “Stay, darling. I’ll have you coming more times than you can count. On my hand. On my mouth. On my cock.”
