Love You, Baby (Must Love Diamonds 3)

She stilled. “No.”

He eased back a few inches. “Seriously?”

“What do you mean, seriously?” She pulled her hands out of his pants and leaned back on the counter to frown at him. “I’m a single mother of a six year old boy, and I don’t date. I have absolutely no reason to have condoms in my house.”

“Until now.”

“Well, clearly this wasn’t planned.” Her brows remained pinched together as she dropped her gaze to his chest, then even lower. “Don’t you have any? I would have expected you to be prepared for anytime, anywhere.”

That last bit sounded a little like an accusation, and he was surprised by an instant surge of anger. A loud boom of thunder underscored the emotion.

He braced his hands on the edge of the counter and leaned in nice and close. “Contrary to popular belief, Mae, I don’t have sex anytime, anywhere. In fact, other than the night of the wedding, I haven’t been with anyone since two days before Honor’s bakery opening in January.”

He heard her gulp as her gaze rose to meet his. “That’s very specific.”

“Yep.” Probably too specific, but what the hell.

“Why?”

“Why haven’t I been with anyone, or why so specific?”

She seemed to consider which one she’d like him to answer. “Both. Either.”

A brief smile broke free before he went serious again. “The answer’s the same for either question. The day of the bakery opening is when I found out the sexiest woman I’d ever met had a son, not a boyfriend.”

She stared at him for a long second before she scoffed and averted her gaze. At the same time, she crossed her arms to cover her bare breasts as if suddenly embarrassed to be naked with him. “Yeah, right. What about that girl from the coffee shop?”

“That was a mistake,” he insisted, his voice gruff. “Nothing happened.”

“But it would have.”

He shook his head. “You showed up about ten minutes before her. I thought you were her, and you want to know what my first reaction was?”

“To strip half-naked.”

“I took my shirt off because I was about to take a shower after working out,” he explained. Working out to get her the hell off his mind. “When the doorbell rang, and I thought Lyssa was early, I was annoyed. I knew then it had been a mistake to call her, and if it had been her instead of you, I’d have told her I changed my mind.”

Her lashes lifted, her gaze searching his.

“I swear, that’s the truth, though I can’t prove it.”

“No. I guess you can’t.” After a long moment, she reached out one hand to hook a finger in the waistband of his briefs. “You told me you didn’t need proof to believe the baby is yours.”

“I don’t.”

“Then I believe you, too.”

The truth of her words shone in the clear blue of her eyes and the unexpectedly shy smile tugging at her lips. He reached up to cup the back of her neck while leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers, a hard lump in his throat.

“If you still want to do this, I will run and grab some condoms.”

“Okay,” she whispered at the same time she reached her other hand up to the back of his neck and lifted her chin to kiss him. Her mouth opened beneath his, and she sought his tongue with hers.

Thrilled he could go back to touching, Merit slid his hands to her waist, then up along her spine as he wrapped his arms around her to crush her close, bare chest to bare chest. Renewed heat surged through him, making his erection throb against the juncture of her thighs.

He blindly groped for his T-shirt, and the moment his fingers clenched in the wet material, he muttered against her lips, “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

He stepped back and wrestled to put his shirt on.