AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A little giggle passed Janey’s lips. Alex opened one eye and stared down at her as she pushed herself up against his chest.
“I felt that. ” There was the slightest satisfied curl to her lips.
“I’d be worried if you didn’t,” he told her, then sighed heavily. “Come on. You’re exhausted. ”
He felt her yawn, felt her leaning against him again. Hell, it hadn’t been a good day for her. He’d tell her about the condom tomorrow morning. That was soon enough.
He slid from the bed as he lifted her from him. She burrowed under the blankets and snagged the pillow he had been leaning against before curling up and closing her eyes.
She wasn’t running to the shower or running to clean the scent or feel of their sex from her body.
Alex shook his head, unrolled the destroyed condom from his erection, and padded into the bathroom.
He used the toilet, washed up, and dried before flipping off the light and moving back to the bedroom.
He turned off the little low light on the night table before reaching for the blankets.
“Turn the light back on,” she mumbled from beneath the blankets. “I don’t like being alone in the dark. ”
He slid into the bed and pulled her into his arms, her back against his chest. “You’re not alone. ”
She froze, as though she hadn’t expected him to stay. Alex wrapped himself around her. Her head pillowed on his arm, his larger body framing hers. His erection pressed against the cleft of her rear.
A few seconds later she relaxed against him, though, and burrowed closer. He knew the moment she went to sleep. The wariness left her, slowly. Her breathing deepened, and Alex was left to stare into the dark, his arms around her, wondering what the hell he was going to do. Because holding her as she slept felt as natural as breathing.
Hell, he’d fucked up here. He should have gotten her on birth control before he let things go this far. He should have thought to ask her before tonight if she was on birth control. But he’d known. A part of him had already known she wasn’t protected. And he was damned if he could find a moment’s regret inside him.
He hadn’t wanted to be tied to any woman, but he was also a man who well understood fate and destiny.
Sometimes shit just happened, but it happened for a reason.
He brushed her hair back from her forehead, his lips pressing against her hair as he closed his eyes against whatever the hell it was raging inside him.
He’d never imagined he would be a father. A husband. He’d sworn it would never happen. There were too many things in the world that a man couldn’t control. Acts of God a man didn’t have a chance of avoiding.
He let his hand slide over her hip, his palm flattening on her stomach. She hadn’t even washed. Maybe he should have told her. There were ways of attempting to stop a pregnancy. He could have had her try it.
So why hadn’t he?
Because he knew fate when it kicked his ass. In his entire sexual lifetime, he’d never had a condom break. Not once. But it had with Janey. With this one tiny, fiery woman-child, all his ideas about his future had been shot to hell.
He didn’t have a choice. He’d have to marry her. He’d take the six months’ active reserve duty and
resign from the Special Forces. He’d had enough of blood and death anyway. He’d had a bellyful of it.
He’d take care of Janey, and their child.
He was a damned good father. Hell, he’d raised Crista. She’d survived, even turned out to be a hell of a woman. He could do it again with his own. He was a man now, not a kid himself.
And he was rationalizing something that had a slow, steady burn building inside him. He wanted to jerk her closer, wanted to lean down and kiss her stomach, whisper to the life that could be growing there. He was going crazy and he hadn’t even hit middle age yet.
And Natches would kill him. He almost grinned at the thought of that. Natches Mackay. They’d called him the ice man once. Now he was like an active volcano ready to blow at any moment. His wife and Janey were his trip wires.
“Hmmm. ” A little moan slipped from the woman he was holding as she moved against him again. Her ass wiggled against his cock and Alex ground his teeth together at the sweet pleasure that rocked through him.
He could have this, every night. Every day. Once they caught the bastard tormenting her, he’d show this county that Janey wasn’t to be messed with. She had paid for being Dayle Mackay’s daughter in ways that should have broken her years before. Should have turned her cold, heartless. Instead, the core of the girl she had once been had hidden behind an unemotional façade and cool green eyes. A façade that was slowly easing around him. Tonight, she’d gotten angry. Flushed cheeks, blazing eyes. Tomorrow, she’d likely scratch as deep as that damned cat of hers, once she realized he wasn’t letting her go.
Try to run off to California on him, would she? His smile was less than amused. Like hell. His woman.
