The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club, #1)(65)

He had no idea where she was going with this, but it felt important. “Why?”

“She’d gloat if she knew that you and I were having trouble.”

He stiffened. “Gloat?”

“When I got pregnant, she accused me of doing it on purpose. To, you know.”

Holy shit. “Trap me into marriage?”

“Yes.” It was one word, but it held a dictionary’s weight in hurt.

“Jesus, Thea.” Fiction and reality suddenly collided.

“She told me that I was definitely her daughter.” A sad laugh escaped. “Because she got pregnant with me on purpose.”

“She told you that?”

“I had always sort of suspected it, at least that I was not planned. My dad’s nickname for me was—” She stopped again. Gavin squeezed her gently with his arm until she started again. “He used to call me Shotgun.”

Gavin’s hand clenched the arm of the couch.

“I always thought when I was little that it was because I was kind of a little pistol as a kid. Then I learned that it had a specific meaning.”

“How old were you when you figured that out?”

“Nine.”

Gavin cracked a molar. “Thea, you have to let me call that sonuvabitch.” Or better yet, let him drive all the way to the asshole’s house and slam his fist in the man’s face.

“He’s not worth it.”

“You are.”

She studied his face again, looking for signs of deceit.

“What your mom said—is that why you avoided me after you found out you were pregnant? Because you were afraid I’d think you were trying to trap me?”

“Partly,” she said and shrugged. “And partly because I was just plain scared. I was young. We were young.”

Gavin slid his hand into her hair and cupped the back of her head. For once, he didn’t have to ask What would Lord Benedict do? to know what to say. “You getting pregnant was the best thing that ever happened to me. And not just because I can’t imagine my life without the girls, but because I can’t imagine my life without you.”

A battle played out on her face, and he knew exactly the war that was waging inside her. A pathetic desire to believe him versus the cynical realities life had taught her. Words were beautiful. Didn’t mean they could be trusted. She was scared to cross this broken bridge, because she knew what was on the other end. Uncertainty and passion and joy—the kind that goes away. The kind that hurts.

Love isn’t enough.

“Thea, if anyone trapped anyone, it was me. I trapped you.”

Thea’s lips parted again on a small breath. “What?”

“I proposed wh-when you were scared. When you were vulnerable. I should have just made sure you knew I was in it for the long haul and let you adjust to the news before I brought up marriage.”

A sarcastic eyebrow rose above her right eye. “I could have said no. I wasn’t helpless.”

“But you didn’t know what you were getting into. I knew what it would be like being married to a Major League baseball player, but you didn’t. You never had the time to get used to it, to adjust to this.”

Time stalled, and he noted every movement of her muscles. The way her jaw tightened as she swallowed. The way her eyes traced a path to his lips. The way she sucked in the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth.

And finally, thank God, finally, the way she reached out with one tentative hand and pressed it to his chest.

She raised her face to his. Her expression was every bit as raw as last night, but also different. Last night she’d been overwhelmed. Tonight, she looked at him with longing. Desire.

He dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers.



* * *



? ? ?

Thea leaned into him, mouth open and willing. He wrapped both arms around her and hauled her onto his lap. The rush of blood pounding in her veins drowned everything but the sound of her trembling breaths.

This was why she’d been hesitant to come out here with him. Why she’d needed space earlier in the day. This was what made him dangerous. She had no willpower in his arms, not after the beautiful things he’d just said.

Oh, why had they stopped kissing like this? When had they stopped? And why couldn’t she stop now? Every second it went on, it became harder to maintain the barriers she’d built between them, but who was she kidding? They’d been knocked into fine particles of useless dust the instant he removed that blindfold and she realized he’d taken her to buy art supplies for their date. She could barely remember why she needed the barriers in the first place when little zings of pleasure ping-ponged from one body part to the next.

“God, Thea,” he moaned, kissing a line down her jaw to her throat. She tilted her head and gave him access. His hand drifted up her waist into her shirt until his thumb brushed the underside of her breast. “Can I touch you?”

Thea shuddered with a yes. His fingers pushed aside the lace of her bra and caressed the hard tip of her nipple. She couldn’t stifle her reaction. She wrenched her lips from his and let her head fall backward with a groan. His lips found a new home on the sensitive pulse in her throat, while his fingers working magic against her swollen, aching breast. He flicked, rolled, tugged on the hard point of her nipple. All the while, his tongue plunged in and out of her mouth with an erotic rhythm.