“I told you, Jenna. I was looking for you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that sooner, then?” I stop walking and whip around to face him.
He stops too, inches away from me. “I told you I wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you, Jenna.”
He did say something to that effect, our night together. But still. “You could’ve explained when that was.”
“How, because I’d psychically know someone was about to be murdered and I’d need an alibi?” he snaps.
“It just feels dishonest,” I protest.
“You’re one to talk,” he says, and my eyebrows shoot skyward at that. He moves closer, closes the gap between us, bends over me until all I can smell, see, sense is him. “How long have you been keeping this secret?”
My heart skips. “Wh-what secret?”
His hand lifts up. Skims across my stomach, and sets every nerve ending in my body on fire. “Were you planning on telling me you were pregnant, Jenna? Or were you just going to skip town without a word?”
My heart beats in my throat. My lips part, but no sound comes out. I can’t find my voice to answer him.
“Is it my baby inside you?” he asks, voice so low I strain to hear him.
My tongue darts across my lips. His eyes track it, which reminds me all over again of our chemistry that night, the way his mouth felt on mine, when he kissed me, claimed me. “How did you know I was pregnant?” I finally manage to whisper.
“Jenna.” His voice comes out guttural, a growl. There’s naked desperation on his face like I’ve never seen before. “Is it my baby?”
I can guess what he’s thinking. I still remember what he told me, that morning after. He doesn’t do kids, or the whole wife and family thing. He must be panicking now. I wish I were a better liar. I’d bluff now, tell him whatever he wants to hear. But there’s no way I could pull off a lie that big believably. And anyway, he does deserve to know the truth, at least.
I lower my eyes from his. “It is.”
There’s a long silence. A deafening one. I force myself to step back, away from him, away from that comforting warmth, his familiar scent. “But so what?” I say, pouring as much anger into it as I can. I open my eyes, look ahead.
Up the path, Stacey has stopped, watching us both. I start to walk toward her. “We never dated,” I tell Gil over my shoulder. “It was just a hookup; we had no commitment to one another. It doesn’t matter.” My heart aches to say those words, but it’s true.
The words he said the morning after our hookup flash through my mind. Kids are too much work. Casual is my speed. The last thing I want is to make myself or this baby a burden on anyone.
But Gil grabs my arm, and I stumble to a halt. When I turn to look at him, his expression makes my eyes go wide in surprise. He looks wrecked, wild, his eyes white hot as he tugs me to him, cups my cheek and tilts my head back, keeping my gaze locked on him. “You’re insane if you think I’ll just let you walk away from me with my baby inside you.” With that, he bends to kiss me, and the fire is back, hotter than ever between us.
I wrap my arms around his neck, part my lips under his, let his tongue slip into my mouth and claim me. He kisses me like he’s desperate, a drowning man starving for oxygen. I kiss him just as hard, just as desperately. I lift one leg, wrap it around his waist, and he grabs under my thigh, tugs my body flush against his, until I can feel his hips digging into mine, and the hard press of his cock against my belly.
It’s like nothing has changed. It’s our first night all over again, fire and desire.
Gil’s hands drop down to my waist, slide over my hips to grab my ass, pull me up against him, and I want nothing more than for him to tear my clothes off right here and take me again.
But then I remember Detective Hartman standing half a forest away, blatantly worried Gil was about to attack me or something insane. With a gasp, I pull out of our kiss and spin around.
Stacey’s facing the other direction now, but even from here, I can see her crossed arms, her tapping foot. She’s trying to give us privacy, though she clearly still doesn’t trust Gil either.
“What’s wrong?” Gil asks, until he follows my gaze. Then a surprised burst of laughter erupts from him. “I see.” He releases my waist. Slides one hand down until he’s holding mine chastely, and starts to walk alongside me again. “You’re not big on audiences, are you, Jenna?”
My cheeks flush. “No,” I admit.
“Good,” he says, grinning. He leans down to kiss the side of my neck, just hard enough that I feel the press of his teeth behind his closed lips. He nips my neck lightly, then straightens once more, starts to walk down the path. “Because I hate sharing.”
12
Jenna
Stacey trails us all the way to Gil’s house, where I give her a cheerful grin and a wave. She fixes me with a Be careful stare, and then marches back into town.
We wait until the door slams behind us. Then Gil is on me again, his mouth colliding with mine, his hands tugging at my shirt. He pulls it up and off, then pauses, and his hand drifts to my stomach. Presses flat against my skin. I can’t read the expression on his face. Fear? Awe? Something else?
I don’t have time to think, because the next second, he’s pulling me into the bedroom. He undoes my bra, lets it fall, and I grab at his shirt, pull it over his head. In record time, we’re both stark naked, face to face. Then he drops to his knees before me and starts to kiss my throat, my chest, my belly. He lingers there, kisses and touches the flat plane, despite the fact that this early in, you obviously can’t see any signs yet.
Then, gently, he eases me backward, until I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, my ass out over thin air. He kneels in front and presses his head between my legs.
When his tongue slides along my slit again, between my lips, it’s all I can do not to cry out at once.
He is too fucking good at this. Like, dangerously good. And when he adds his fingers into the mix, slowly pressing one finger inside me, then a second, I’m already speeding toward a climax. My hips buck up off the bed toward him, and I can’t help the faint cry that escapes my lips, as he circles his tongue over my clit, again and again.
The orgasm hits me hard, going straight to my head, as my body trembles beneath his. But he doesn’t stop. He keeps licking at me, keeps his fingers curling inside me, and I realize he’s going to do this all over again—steal all the fun.
It takes a monumental effort, because everything in me wants to just lie here and let him pleasure me for as long as he wants. But it’s my turn now, damn it. So I catch his wrist and gently draw his hand out of me. He stops lapping at my pussy and looks up, just as I slide off the bed in front of him and pull him into a hard, deep kiss. When we break apart, his eyes have gone dark.
“It’s not a good idea to interrupt a man when he’s pleasuring his woman,” Gil says, his voice low and serious. “It only makes me want to hear you scream my name more.”
“Plenty of time for that,” I counter, with a single eyebrow lifted. “Right now, I want my turn.” I hold his gaze steady. “I want to suck your cock.”
Heat flares in his eyes. But there’s a small smile at the edges of him mouth. He reaches up to trace my lips with one finger, a finger he just had inside me. My tongue darts out to lick his finger, and his smile widens. “You want my cock in your mouth, bad girl?”
“Yes, hard man.” I catch his wrist. Keep licking his finger, cleaning my juices off him. The combined taste of me and the salty tinge of his skin is driving me wild already. “I want you to fuck my mouth. I want to feel you in my fucking throat.”
That heat builds until it’s practically a bonfire now. “God you’re sexy when you use that dirty mouth of yours,” he murmurs. And then he stands, already naked, and harder than a rock, waiting for me. I kneel in front of him and reach up with both hands to marvel at him all over again.
I’ve never seen a cock like his. It’s not just the length—it’s how fucking fat his coc
k is. It takes both my hands together to wrap around him, and when I pump my hands up and down his shaft, I savor the velvety softness of his skin, compared to the hard rod of steel beneath.
As I slide my hands over him, I lean in to lap at the bead of precum gathered at his spongy tip. He shivers, mouth parted, and I peer up at him as I continue to lick my way around the edges of his tip, then down beneath his shaft, following the crease there, until I reach his balls. I let his cock skim against my cheek as I do it, making sure to be sloppy as I trail my tongue along one side of his shaft and then the next, getting him wet, and enjoying the way his eyes glaze over with lust as he watches me.
He reaches down to run his hands through my hair, then grips hard, his teeth gritted, as I reach between his legs to cup his balls. I toy with them, lean between his thighs to run my tongue along them, and suck them into my mouth, one at a time. His hands tighten in my hair.
“Fuck, Jenna.”
I take my time, enjoying myself, loving the taste of him. I lick my way back up to his tip, and position him between my lips. I gaze up at him again, savoring the view across the washboard plane of his abs and up over his bulging pecs, as he gazes right back at me. Our eyes lock, and slowly, I press forward, letting his cock push through my lips, which I keep clamped tight around him. As he slides into my mouth, I lift my tongue along his underside, twining back and forth across him as I begin to lean forward on my knees, reaching up to grip his ass hard with both hands, nails digging in, and taking him farther and farther into my mouth.
“God you have such a dirty fucking mouth,” he groans. I hum in response, and my mouth vibrates around him with the sound.
He inhales sharply through his nose, watching me the whole time. When I hesitate, swallowing around him, just as his cock reaches the back of my tongue, he fists my hair in his hands and draws me forward again.
“Relax,” he murmurs, and I let my jaw go, let him take control. He pulls me toward him until the spongy tip of his cock hits the back of my throat. A gag threatens to well up, and I tense, but he just keeps me moving, thrusts his hips forward so his tip inches down my throat, just a hair, until my lips touch the base of his cock. Then he pulls back, and I breathe in again, recovering as he draws himself out to the tight purse of my lips.
“You like that, dirty girl?” he murmurs. When he rocks forward again, it’s faster now, and I move with him, moaning around his shaft in assent. “You like it when I fuck your sexy little mouth?”
I moan again, and open my mouth wider to grant him easier access. He rocks back and forth faster now, each time reaching the back of my throat with the tip of his cock.
“You want it harder, dirty girl?”
Yes, I try to gasp around him, the word just another long groan with his cock stuffing my mouth full. He grips my hair and draws me forward, into a faster rhythm now. He fucks my face, my lips hitting the base of him every time, and I close my eyes and lose myself in his scent, his flavor, the way he manhandles me the rough way I like it.
“Fuck, Jenna, you are so fucking incredible at this.”
I steal peeks at him from under my lashes too, enjoying the way his teeth are gritted, his head tilting back as he starts to lose himself too. I press my tongue up against him, swirl it around him while he fucks my mouth, and reach between his legs with one hand to toy with his balls, my other hand still gripping his ass hard.
A groan escapes him, deep and throaty, and I can tell he’s being driven wild. I love that I do this to him; that I’m the reason he loses control.
“That’s right, suck me with that sexy mouth of yours,” he hisses between gritted teeth. “Grab my balls, Jenna.”
I obey, reaching up to roll his balls between my thumb and forefinger, and shift my tongue around him in slow circles, digging my tip in along the sides of his shaft, and flicking it across his sensitive tip whenever he draws back out of my mouth to slide between my lips again. I feel him tense, his muscles tightening in anticipation.
“I’m gonna come in your mouth, dirty girl. Swallow my cum.”
I clamp my lips around him harder, rock against him so his cock slides all the way down into my throat with each thrust, ignoring the occasional gag that escapes me—he seems to like that anyway, his cock jumping between my lips every time I nearly choke.
“That’s right, take it, Jenna.”
I moan around him, letting my lips vibrate around his shaft, and that does it. He pulls me against him for one last deep thrust and groans aloud, a sound that’s practically a growl, as he comes in my mouth. I swallow around him, drinking him in, savoring the hot wet taste of him.
“Fuck,” he sighs. He moves to draw back, his fists relaxing around my hair, but I keep going. I lick the whole length of him clean, from base to tip. I’m still going when he starts to soften a little. Then he reaches down and cups me under the chin. Tilts my head up to face him. His thumb brushes gently across my cheekbone, protective. “God you’re fucking amazing,” he whispers.
I stand then, and he bends to kiss me, our tongues entwining as he tastes himself on my lips, all throughout my mouth.
When we pull apart again to breathe, he’s gazing at me like he’s never seen anything like me before. “Jenna.” His hand slides down my body to my stomach. He traces his hand across the plane of my belly, and only then do I remember what brought us here. What a mess this has all become.
But he’s not looking at me like he’s angry, or even sad. He looks like he’s… happy.
“What are you thinking?” I murmur, studying his expression, confused.
He smiles, answering the question already. It’s a genuine, huge smile, one I’ve seen before—the last time we got together. I didn’t know if I would ever see this look from him again. “I’m thinking I’m the luckiest fucking man on the planet right now.” His hand remains pressed flat against my stomach, as he pulls me closer to him, into his arms. “And I’m thinking I never want to let you out of my sight again,” he murmurs against my hair, before he kisses the top of my head.
Everything I didn’t expect out of this encounter. I tilt my head back to study him, and I know there’s confusion written all over my face.
“What about you?” he asks then, with a little frown of concern. “What are you thinking?"
13
Gil
“What are you thinking?” I ask her, and already I’m bracing myself. Because I remember the cold act she put on earlier today. The way she pushed me away.
The way she clearly hadn’t planned to ever tell me about the baby—our baby. When we’re together, I feel like there’s nobody else in the world, like nothing else matters. But does she feel that way too? Our chemistry is clearly off the charts, but why is she looking at me like this now, her brows drawn together in a deep frown?
“I’m just wondering how you can be this way,” Jenna finally murmurs.
I blink in surprise. “What do you mean?”
She breaks from my arms to step away, across the room. She crosses her own arms over her belly. “I mean, given everything you found out today—aren’t you mad at me? Don’t you resent me for all of this?”
“Well, I wish you’d told me sooner.” I take a step toward her. “But Jenna, why would I be mad?”
Tears glitter at the corner of her eyes. My heart beats faster at the sight. I would do anything to stop those tears. I want to sweep her off her feet, wrap her tight in a blanket and curl her up in my bedroom, where nothing will ever be able to hurt her again. Because I won’t let anything bad happen to her. Not ever.
“Well, I just…” She wipes at her cheek, angrily—though that anger is directed toward herself, I think. She clears her throat once, hard. “After what you said a month ago, Gil, I just don’t understand how you could be happy about this. About me being… I mean, about a baby.”
“Our baby,” I correct her. Then I step toward her, closing the gap she’s put between us. “And Jenna, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is unexpected, yes
, but how could I not be happy about having a family?”
She purses her lips. “Maybe because you told me you wouldn’t be? I believe your exact words were ‘Kids are too much work.’” She puts a hand on her hip, and I wince, suddenly remembering what she’s talking about.
Of course. Our conversation the morning after our night together. “Look, kids are a lot of work. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to run away from this—”
Jenna speaks over me. “You also said casual is your speed. Which I took to mean you weren’t interested in anything serious. Which is why I didn’t jump on the train to come track you down and inform you when I realized I was pregnant, Gil. The last thing I want to be is a burden, to anyone.”
“Jenna, listen to me, you could never be a burden.” I step closer, and when she tries to dodge me again, I catch her hands and pull them to my chest, pinning her in place. “I said that stuff after we hooked up because I thought it was what you wanted to hear from me.” I gaze into her eyes, deadly serious. “You aren’t from here, you said you were just passing through. And, I’ll admit, at the time, I was just having fun. But it was a fucking lot of fun, Jenna, more than I’d had with anyone else in a long time.”
She relents, just a little, and I use the slackening in her arms to pull her to me until we’re chest-to-chest, my nose inches from hers.
“I wasn’t looking for a family because I’d never met anyone I could picture myself with. Not because I hate the idea of kids or because I don’t want to eventually marry. But look at me.” I wave one arm around the cabin. “You said it right, that morning. I live like a complete bachelor out here in the woods. There’s nothing in this village but trees and now a bunch of people who suspect me of murder.” I snort at that, and despite herself, a faint grin touches the corners of her mouth, too. “What could I possibly offer a child? That’s what was running through my head that morning in the kitchen, Jenna. I thought a kid would be more work than I can handle.” I hesitate. “Probably because… I’d never met the right person to handle that work with.” I cup her cheek. Trace my thumb over her cheekbone, as she gazes up at me with those big, sexy, easy-to-lose-myself-in eyes of hers. “But now?” I glance from her face down to her belly, where our future awaits. “You and this baby are my everything now, Jenna.”