The Millionaire Affair (Love in the Balance 3)

“Take a deep breath for me.”

She lowered her arms and sucked in a lungful of air. He shouldn’t, but couldn’t keep from admiring her pert pink nipples and the water streaming off of them. It took everything in him not to put his tongue on one for a taste.

A bottle of body wash stood on a shelf over her head. He poured some on his hands and rubbed them together. “One more breath.” She inhaled again, and he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around, rubbing the stress from her back and from her arms, kneading the tension from the muscles in her lower back. Her shoulders fell and she relaxed into his slow, gentle massage, his touch meant to soothe and pull her out of her panic.

Caught up in his task, he didn’t register at first that she’d spun around until he was palming her breasts. His hands stilled. She tilted her chin, asking for a kiss. So he kissed her, stroking her tongue with his as they stood under the pounding water. Then he slid his hands from her breasts to her bottom and massaged there, too.

When the kiss ended, she sent him a smile. “I don’t think even that accident made me want to stop having sex with you.”

“That’s a relief.” He wasn’t done having sex with her, either.

“Is it?” The worry returned, a line forming between her frowning brows. Rather than answer, he made quick work of rinsing her off. They toweled dry and he steered her from bathroom to bedroom.

The sheets were fresh and cool against his overheated body as he slid in next to her. She scooted closer, draping a leg over his. “What’s number nine?”

He’d created a monster. Which made him kind of proud. But more sex wasn’t what she needed right now, and they both knew it. He pushed a wet strand of hair off her forehead. “Nine is talking in bed after a hot shower.”

Her gaze clouded. “I don’t want to talk.”

“Sure you do.” He trailed his fingers down her face and thumbed her bottom lip. “You’re a woman and women love to talk. Let’s have it. What’s on your mind?”

The clouds cleared from her vision. She watched him with her crystal-clear gaze. “What if we just made a baby?”

A jolt of anxiety lit his bloodstream. He caged it. If he let the beast free, he’d stumble down the pained and brambly trail of what-ifs and yeah-buts. That was the last thing either of them needed.

“We’ll deal with that if it happens.” The intentional calm in his voice even reassured him. He forced the next question out of his lips, unsure how he’d managed to ask it without bursting into hives. “Have you ever been pregnant before?”

She shook her head, her hair brushing against the pillowcase. He lifted his eyebrows. “There you go.”

Sure. Like that is the end of this discussion.

She didn’t buy it, either. As evidenced when she asked the question he should’ve seen coming. The last question he wanted to answer. “Have you ever gotten anyone pregnant?”

The query busted him open like a piñata. And he wasn’t sure if he should spill the truth to her or keep his secrets to himself.

* * *

The answer was yes.

She could see it on his face, the way his mouth tightened at the corners, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, the subtle tensing of his shoulder muscles.

Then his expression eased into a controlled mask, and he forced a calmer-than-you smile onto his face. “You have nothing to worry about, Kimber. Either way.” He leaned in and kissed her and she let him. But it bothered her that he hadn’t told her the truth she so clearly read in his eyes. Against the white pillowcase, his eyes appeared their natural green-mixed-with-gold hazel. They had no color to blend with or fade into. He was naked before her. In every sense of the word. It occurred to her that his eyes were a representation of who he truly was. Hiding, blending in to his environment, and rarely showing his true self.

Only, she thought he’d shown her his true self. Had she been wrong? The urge to point that out, to call him on his lie, was strong. She resisted. She didn’t want to lay skin to skin on potentially their last evening together, and lob accusations in his direction. She didn’t want to fight with him.

It didn’t stop her imagination from concocting scenarios of what the truth might be. Was it Lissa who’d been pregnant? Did she miscarry? Terminate? Was a secret baby the real reason behind their relationship’s demise? Kimber shut her eyes.

Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t make yourself crazy.

Landon’s low voice cut into her thoughts. “My girlfriend from college.”