“Slow down, baby.”
“I don’t want to go slow.” She wanted fast and furious, a sensation overload to crowd out thoughts, doubts and fears that this could be a mistake. Sex with Flynn felt so good, so perfect and so right it scared her. They were so instantly in tune it could have been yesterday, instead of a lifetime ago, that they’d made love in this exact spot. In this kitchen. On this table. While some meal grew cold.
She hooked a hand behind his nape, yanked him close and kissed him, pulling him with her as she lay back on the cool wooden surface.
Flynn’s body blanketed her with heat. His thighs pressed hers apart and his fingers found her exposed center, then he took a nipple into his mouth, laved, sucked and nipped it while he manipulated her until a knot of tension twisted so tightly in her tummy that she thought she’d snap. He must know how close she was to the edge. He’d always been able to read her body language.
He worked his way down her torso, over her ribs, across her waist to her hipbone, then he circled her navel, alternately teasing and arousing her with soft lips and hot tongue and bristly chin. Renee’s muscles wound tighter with each inch he covered. Then he found her center, sucked her into his mouth and flicked his tongue over her. She gasped at the intensity of sensation arcing through her. Release hovered just out of reach.
“Flynn, I want you inside me,” she whispered and tried to guide him.
He lifted his head from her curls. “Not yet.”
His chin rasped her tender flesh, making her toes tingle. And then he pushed her over the edge. Orgasm crashed over her.
His gaze locked with hers as she tried to catch her breath, then he captured her hands and carried them over her head, rising above her and pinning her to the tabletop. He stroked his penis against her, his silky hard flesh gliding over her slick crevice as he sawed back and forth. Each smooth advance and slow retreat moved her closer and closer to a second release until she teetered on the brink. Her muscles tensed and her back arched in anticipation. He paused with his thick tip at her entrance.
“Don’t you dare stop now,” she ordered hoarsely. Squeezing her legs around him, she lifted her hips.
“And if I do?” She felt him smile against her temple.
“I’ll make you pay.”
His chest shuddered against hers on a rumble of laughter, then he plunged forward, thrusting deep into her body and pushing the air from her lungs. He drove in again and again, and she lost command of her body. Orgasm fractured her, emptied her lungs and seized control of her muscles, making them jerk and spasm involuntarily.
Flynn buried his face in her neck. “I…can’t…hold…on.”
“Don’t even try.” She pulled her hands free, raked her nails down his back and nipped his earlobe in the way she knew would break his restraint. His groan filled her ear as he bucked against her and emptied into her.
An urge to hold him close and cuddle descended on her. But there was no place for lovey-dovey this time around. As her skin cooled and her respiratory rate returned to something approaching normal, the gravity of the situation descended upon her. They could very well have made a baby tonight, and if they had there was no turning back.
Fear made her heart pound. She’d been sure she could do this earlier. But that was before they’d made love and she’d lost sight of her goal. Get pregnant. Get out. Instead, she wanted nothing more than to make love with Flynn again. And again. She couldn’t afford to let him become an addiction she couldn’t live without. An addiction that could ultimately destroy her.
She pushed against his shoulders. “Let me up.”
Chest heaving, Flynn slowly levered himself off her. His eyelids were heavy, his face relaxed and his hair…well, she’d wrecked it. The strands stood in dark, irregular spikes.
“Going somewhere?” A smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and the tenderness in his eyes made her tummy swoop alarmingly.
She couldn’t care about him. She had to remember this was a simple case of supply and demand. A business transaction. She wanted a baby. He’d promised to provide one. But the warmth and wetness of their joined bodies felt better than any business transaction she’d ever conducted and far more personal than insemination at a clinic would have been.
She squirmed to get out from under him and snatched her clothing from the floor. This wasn’t more than sex, was it? Of course not. She’d have to be a total idiot to risk loving him again. She needed space and time to get her head together. “I’m going to shower before dinner.”
“Sounds good.” He pulled up and refastened his pants as if he planned to join her—the way he once would have.
“Alone,” she insisted and fled.
Six
H e’d miscalculated, Flynn realized as he watched his nak*d wife exit the kitchen, her round behind jiggling and her bare feet slapping the hardwood floors as she hustled down the center hall and up the stairs.
Hit-and-run encounters were nothing new to him. He’d had several over the past four or five years while he’d believed himself to be single, but having one with Renee left a void in his chest.
He scooped up his shirt and stuffed his arms in the sleeves. His theory that reminding Renee of how good they used to be would lead to a happy reunion had missed its mark. Now what?
He grasped the back of his neck and scanned the kitchen. Dinner. After she had her shower she’d come back down and they’d discuss the situation over bacon-wrapped, medium-rare filet mignon, buttered asparagus and the ciabatta bread he’d picked up at the local bakery on the way home.
When he gathered new facts, he’d recalculate his strategy, because apparently it was going to take more than great sex and good food to make her forgive and forget six months of neglect.
He turned to the stove, flicked on the grill to finish the steaks and the burner to steam the asparagus. The old adage “two steps forward and one back” seemed to apply. Today she’d signed contracts and bought baby furniture, committing to spend time with him. And they’d had unprotected sex. That realization hit him with a fresh rush of adrenaline. Could their cells be on a collision course already?
So where had the reconciliation train derailed? At what point had he lost her? He could have sworn she’d been with him right up until he’d made like a geyser and blown. He knew the sex had been good. Fast, but good. He’d felt her contracting around him as she cli**xed.
He tried to correlate the data and couldn’t make sense of the way she blew hot and cold. Fear of pregnancy wasn’t the issue, since the baby had been her idea. And she planned to divorce him. That meant she couldn’t be concerned about him abandoning her again. Not that he intended to let that happen.
He didn’t like her holding back even though he was doing the same. But he had to be careful. He wasn’t sure he could handle loving her as deeply as he had before and then losing her again. If he hadn’t been able to lose himself in Madd Comm, he might not have survived. But that was the catch-22. Renee claimed his obsession with Madd Comm had killed their marriage.
By the time he finished grilling the meat, he had a rough idea of how to move forward. Identify the problem. Own the problem. Solve the problem.
He plated the food, but there was still no sign of Renee. Did she plan to hide in her room for the rest of the night? He wouldn’t let that happen. He loaded the plates on a tray and carried the meal upstairs. The strategy had gained him ground this morning. Why not try it again? Renee had once told him that her family equated food with love, and this time around he’d decided to show his commitment to her by feeding her—the way she’d once done for him. It was a language he knew she’d understand.
He knocked on her door. No answer. She could still be in the shower. He turned the knob and pushed. His gaze ran over her neatly made empty bed and on to the bathroom’s open door. Empty. The shift of a window sheer caught his eye. One French door to the balcony stood ajar. Renee leaned against the outside railing facing the sunset. She had a quilted throw wrapped around her shoulders against the cool evening air.
He crossed the room and toed open the door. She startled and turned. He ignored the lack of welcome on her face and set the tray on the small bistro table. “Dinner’s ready.”
She didn’t move away from the rail. “Flynn, I’m ovulating. I thought I might be…so I checked.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “How do you check?”
“I did a test strip after my shower.”
“They make tests for that?”
“Yes, and since it might already be too late to change our minds I need to know you’ll respect the boundaries I’ve laid out.”
He’d respect them—right up until he mowed them down. He wanted his wife back, and he didn’t intend to settle for less than a normal marriage. “Renee, I would never force you to do something you didn’t want to do, nor would I ever use a child as a weapon against you.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“If you’re ovulating now, how long is our window of opportunity open?”
Her gaze bounced around the room then back to his. “About three days.”
That meant he had three days to let the magic between them soften her up. But each month she failed to conceive meant one more he’d get to keep her around and additional time to convince her to throw away her idea of a temporary relationship.
He pointed to the chair and waited until she sat. “I owe you an apology.”
Her expression turned wary. “For what?”
“During the last six months of our marriage I used our home like a hotel room, only dropping in when I needed to shower or crash before my head exploded. And I treated you no better than a hotel maid. I took what you did for me and our home for granted, and I even left cash like a tip on the table for you.”
Her brow pleated. “Flynn—”
He held up a hand. “Let me finish. My only defense is that I was afraid of failing my mother, brother and the entire staff of Madd Comm. In the end I failed you, someone much more important to me than any of them. I take full responsibility for the failure of our marriage.”
Her lips parted on a gasp and then she quickly ducked her head and focused on the fingers she’d knotted in her lap.
What had caused her shoulders to hunch? Why had she flinched?
She exhaled slowly. A moment later she lifted her gaze to his again, looking at him through worried eyes under long, dense lashes. “Apology accepted. But that doesn’t change our current situation. We’ll have this baby and then we’ll go our separate ways. I’m not looking for forever, Flynn.”
Not what he wanted to hear, but he would change her mind.
“We’ll take it one day at a time.” He studied her face, her eyes and the tense way she perched on the chair. Renee was hiding something. But what?
He wouldn’t rest until he found out what.
Making love with Flynn had been neither clinical nor emotionless—the way Renee had hoped and expected it would be. The thoughtful, romantic meal of her favorites that he’d prepared only exacerbated the situation.