Legend (Arizona Vengeance #3)(11)

What the future holds, I’m not sure, but I know a few things right now.

I am a single father and I have a baby girl named Charlie.

I am as prepared as I can possibly be to receive her tomorrow morning.

I am terrified.

I am sad that life as I know it is over. This is a new journey I’m on and I’m even a little resentful of it because I didn’t aspire to it. The weight of responsibility is pressing down hard on me right now, but I can only imagine it will get better.

Pepper finishes tucking in the edges of the sheet and then unfolds a pink blanket with fluffy white sheep on them. She had insisted on washing all the linens while I put the crib together, and as I just discovered on a trip down to the kitchen for a bottle of water, she put away everything else that we had bought on today’s shopping trip.

“There,” she says in satisfaction as she steps back and looks at the setup. She talked me into a white crib with a matching dresser and I also let her pick out the linens. She started getting excited and suggested we paint the room pink, but I put a halt to that ridiculous notion. “It looks perfect.”

    She turns to face me with a bright smile on her face, but there’s no mistaking the fatigue that’s there too. It’s almost midnight and we’ve been hard at work all day with hours of shopping and more hours of getting the house set up.

“I can’t thank you enough,” I tell her as I lean against the doorjamb, crossing one ankle over the other. “I would have never been able to do this on my own.”

“Sure you would have,” she says with a humble wave of her hand. “You just would still be going at it and probably not finished until morning.”

She punctuates that with a not so subtle yawn.

“Come on,” I say as I straighten and wave my hand. “Let’s get you to bed.”

The minute the words are out of my mouth, my body tightens and a hundred lewd thoughts run through my head of Pepper in my bed. The things we could do to each other and—

Pepper yawns again, and it snaps me out of it. She glances at her watch. “Yeah…I didn’t realize it was so late.”

She walks toward me and I turn slightly for her to precede me out the door. It brings our bodies dangerously close.

She stops and looks up at me, and fuck…I didn’t know eyelashes could be that long and thick.

“Thank you,” I say slowly and with what I hope comes across as utter gratitude. “Again, just…thank you.”

    “You’re welcome.” Pepper smiles and moves to give me a hug.

Or so I think.

It’s one of those one-handed things, and my arm goes awkwardly around her waist. I bend to accept the half-embrace, and she goes to her tip-toes.

To kiss me, I think.

So I turn my face to accept, except she turns her face too and it’s clear she’s going for just a kiss to my cheek. My mouth lands gracelessly against the side of her nose and she ends up kissing my ear.

Despite the blunder, she still has an arm curled over one shoulder and I’ve got an arm around her waist, and we’re very, very close. We both go still for a moment, and then maneuver our heads ever so slightly so we can look into each other’s eyes. Mere inches separate us and I can feel her breath on me.

“Did you just kiss my nose?” she asks, her lips quirking up into a smile.

“It’s your fault you moved your mouth,” I mutter back to her.

“So you wanted to kiss me?”

Fuck, why does she have to sound so expectant? Why do her eyes seem to sparkle with almost a daring quality?

I tighten my arm around her waist, pulling her into full body contact with me. The tension that’s been building inside of me at the fact that I’m going to be a father starting tomorrow begins to boil. I lean down so I’m almost nose to nose with her. “It would not be a good idea for me to kiss you.”

“Why is that?”

    Again, fucking breathy sounding as if I’m robbing her of air.

“Because there’s a whole lot more I’d like to do to you, Pepper, and they’re probably really fucking inappropriate.”

She gives a shake of her head. “Not inappropriate.”

“You don’t know what I’m envisioning,” I warn her.

“It would be interesting to find out,” she teases me. “You’re not the most creative or artistically inclined person, so I wonder—”

I shut her up with my mouth on hers. Immediately both her arms are around my neck and the kiss goes nuclear and deep. My hand drops to her ass, and I pull her into me, so she has no misconception about what those dirty thoughts have already done to my body.

Pepper moans and rubs herself against me, and I see stars behind my eyes.

My need for her…for release…for something…becomes overwhelming and I push her away from me.

We’re both panting and she looks at me with question in her eyes.

“I…I’m not sure this is a good idea,” I manage to say as my hands ache with the need to gather her back in close to me.

“Because we hardly know each other?” she asks.

My voice goes low and gravely. “Because I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done for me, and because I’m stressed and scared about tomorrow, and I’m tense, and my mood inside is a little bit dark. And, well…I’d probably fuck you hard and fast and that’s all this is…is a fuck, you know? I don’t want to do that to you.”