Something tells me he’s still not sharing a lot, but the fact that he didn’t shut down on me gives me hope that maybe he’s starting to let his guard down. Perhaps he considers me more than just his responsibility and the woman carrying his child.
He returns and lifts Claire from my arms, and I get up to follow him down the hall into my bedroom. He tucks Claire in next to Lennon like he’s done this a million times before. I can’t help but stare, slack-jawed.
Josh is normally so composed and stoic, almost like a statue version of himself. Even tonight when he helped me babysit, he never really tried to connect with the girls. He just remained his normal, reserved self. The kind of man who rarely shows any loving emotion.
But when he brushes a strand of hair out of Claire’s face with all the tenderness of a loving father, hope blooms inside me. It’s possible that his heart is in there, after all. And the sexy dad vibes he’s putting off are making my hormones scream for attention.
He backs away from the bed and grabs my hand, pulling me behind him and out of the room as he closes the door. Before I can tell him how hot that scene was, I’m pressed against the wall, and his mouth is on mine in a desperate, hungry kiss.
I whimper my surprise as he silently commands my lips to part. His tongue plunges in, tasting, consuming, and devouring me. I know this man’s body by now. I know what drives him wild, what turns him on.
But this kiss.
This kiss is something I don’t know.
It’s intense and frantic. So much so that I can barely catch my breath.
My core throbs for the release he’s stirring inside me with his lips while my mind races with confusion from this obvious change in him. A change I don’t want to stop.
His dark eyes rove hungrily over my face. “I need you, Lynsey. I need to be inside you.”
His tone is guttural and full of so much longing that it sends shivers over my breasts. I yank him down and kiss him again. Our tongues swirl into each other as we fumble our way down the hall.
It’s always like this with him. Instant lightning bolts of desire that strike out of nowhere, catching us completely off guard. Since I’ve now experienced this kind of passion, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to live without it. Especially this. This mix of lust and devotion is something I could easily get used to.
“We have to be quiet,” I croak, my voice thick with desire as he pulls me into his bedroom. The place where we have sex and sleep next to each other afterward, but never cuddle. I’ve told myself all these weeks that Josh just isn’t an affectionate kind of guy and the fact he wasn’t kicking me out of his bed after we made love was a good sign.
But do we actually make love?
Not really.
We screw.
We fuck.
We have wonderfully dirty sex that sometimes involves spanking.
But we never make love.
And he never looks at me the way he’s looking at me right now as he locks the door and stalks toward me.
I swallow the knot in my throat as Josh’s dark green eyes blaze into mine with longing and urgency and something deeper. Something similar to the night he tended to my burned hand. Something that feels important and impossible to tear my gaze away from because I don’t want to miss it.
When he reaches me, he silently bends to peel off my cotton dress before divesting me of my bra and panties. My arousal dampens with anticipation.
With a low growl, he dips his head to my chest and worships my breasts with his lips and tongue, palming me in a way that hurts so good, I could orgasm on the spot. My breasts have been so sore lately, but the delicious agony of his touch on my tender flesh causes my clit to throb with the rhythm of my heart, stoking my embers of desire into a roaring flame of combustible need.
He pulls away from me to remove his own clothing, and deep inside me, the sting of loss echoes. When he stands before me, gloriously naked, his hard cock bobbing between us, I move to drop to my knees and suck him deep into my throat. Unfortunately, Josh has other plans.
He turns me on my heel so I’m facing away from him as his hands roam over my hips and groin. He squeezes me against him so his silky hardness presses against my soft backside, the sensation causing goose bumps to ripple over my entire body.
I cry out loudly as his fingers find my clit in desperate need of a release. His hand stills as he touches his lips to the shell of my ear. “Quiet, baby. You need to be quiet.”
Baby? He’s never called me that before.
He settles me onto the bed, spooning behind me as he holds my leg up, and positions his cock at my center.
“You ready, baby?” he whispers, his voice deep and soothing as his lips trail along my shoulder, causing shivers over my entire body.
“I’m ready,” I moan, my voice soft as I fight to keep my noises quiet. “God, Josh, I want you.”
“I need you,” he replies sharply as if correcting me.
He cups my jaw and turns my head so I’m looking over my shoulder at him. The warmth in his eyes, the vulnerability he’s no longer hiding is everything I’ve wanted from him. This man here, this is the real Josh. The un-broken, un-secretive, all-in kind of man.
Which is a relief because well…
I’m falling in love with him.
Dammit all to hell.
In one faint breath, his hand slides down my body and spreads my thighs as he presses deep inside me, stilling there for a moment while my body reacts to the tight intrusion. When I cry out, he seals his mouth over mine and assaults me with deep, drugging kisses all while frozen inside me. Unmoving, unrelenting. He kisses me lazily as if he has all the time in the world. The entire act stirs me into a state of delirium where I contemplate if it’s possible to orgasm from kisses alone.
But then.
Then he pumps his hips, his hard cock moving inside me, over and over and over again. So deep. So slow. So rhythmic and utterly intentional. I grip the sheets as he strokes the spot he’s memorized for the past several weeks, the spot that he’s tended to and serviced all in the name of sex.
But this. What we’re doing here and now—it’s more than sex.
Josh stops kissing me and stares into my eyes as he says, “I want to watch you come, baby.”
“Yes,” I whisper, my body trembling in his arms as my hoarse voice gasps for air.
His eyes move down my body. “You’re beautiful like this.”
“Yes,” I moan, my climb building from his words and eyes on me.
“Your body, your mind, your heart. All of it is so fucking beautiful.”
My tummy flips at his guttural words of devotion, my entire body spasming into shock as his eyes redden around the edges. He gazes down the front of me. At my belly.
Tears spring to my eyes. “Josh?”
What’s going on? Where’s his head? What’s he thinking?
I need to hear his full heart and for him to say the words I’ve longed to hear him say. “Josh, what is it?”
“Nothing,” he murmurs, biting his lip. His hand tightens on my leg as he stares at my belly longer, almost like he’s seeing it for the first time. “I just…I want to feel…”
His voice trails off, and I hold my breath when his hand moves to my stomach. He strokes the bump, his hand warm and large on my well-established pregnancy. His fingers run over the smooth, taut skin like he’s reading Braille. Like he’s committing every bump to memory. My heart could burst at the sensation. The emotions spill out of me as I waffle my fingers over his, and our two hands embrace this baby together for the first time. A staggered breath expels from my lips, and Josh’s breathing picks up as he rocks inside me and runs his hands over me, all of me.