The Day He Kissed Her (Bad Boys of Crystal Lake 3)

He looked away, and she knew they were done. She knew that he’d given up on them. “I don’t know, Lily. I want to make this work, but I don’t see how. I won’t stay here and up until yesterday I thought…” His voice drifted off and for a few moments there was nothing.

“You thought?” she prompted.

He still wouldn’t look at her. “I thought of asking you to come to New York City with me, but I don’t…I just think I’m better off alone for now.”

But what about me? What about what I think?

“I’m pregnant.”

Oh God. The words slipped out before she could snatch them back, and for what seemed like minutes, time stood still.

Lily watched Mac closely, breath squeezed so tight inside her chest that for a moment she was dizzy. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and the nausea that had settled in her stomach since early morning threatened to turn into something a hell of a lot more.

She would not be sick in front of him. She wouldn’t.

“What did you say?”

His voice snapped her out of her funk, and she wrapped her arms around herself, shivering and trying like hell to hold it together.

“I’m pregnant.”

Mac’s face was like granite. Smooth. Dark. Intense. And so lovely it made her ache. She saw so much in his eyes, but it was their brutal honestly that killed her.

He didn’t want them.

Lily…or their baby.

He stared at her for so long, his expression growing darker, that she finally turned away, unable to hold his gaze because the anger that sat in his eyes made her sick. She knew he would react this way. She’d prepared herself for it and yet…

And yet it still stung. And it hurt so much more worse than she’d thought it would or even could.

Several long moments passed as Lily gazed across the grass and watched Raine’s dog chase something on the wind. A leaf? A bug?

Did it really matter?

When Mac spoke, she jumped, though his voice was low. He didn’t raise it or infuse it with any of the anger she’d glimpsed in his eyes. It was as if nothing colored his words…they were just words—a means for more information.

“How can you be pregnant?”

A heartbeat passed as she continued to watch the dog.

And then another.

When she knew she could speak without losing her mind, she moistened her lips. “I’m assuming you had the birds and the bees talk at some point in your life?”

“Don’t be flippant with me. Don’t you dare. Not now. Not after everything.”

His voice was closer, and she knew he’d climbed the stairs and had joined her on the porch. She felt him, there at her back, so close that her skin was seared from his heat. So close that his scent washed over her. And yet she was cold.

Her teeth chattered. She was freezing cold.

Gibson jumped straight up into the air, his paws swinging at something, and with a yelp, he rolled over on the ground, his tail wagging madly as whatever it was he’d been hunting was finally within his grasp.

“Lily.”

Again with the monotone. Christ, she hated that flat sound. She would rather hear his anger, feel the wrath of it…feel something, anything, that would show her she meant something more than the mistake inside her.

“The shower,” she said softly as she closed her eyes. If she tried real hard, she was sure she could feel the warm water on her skin, his hard, wet body against hers.