The Bachelor's Baby (Bachelor Auction Book 3)(35)

Her heart crept into her throat as he spoke, hammering in hopefulness. “You’re not just saying that?”

“I didn’t think I’d see you again. Not this soon. Sure as hell not like this. I wanted to quit thinking about you, but I couldn’t.”

“I kept looking for another email from you, after the one about losing your roof. When you didn’t send anything else, I figured I should try to move on, but…”

“I sent you a picture of the barn. Asked you what color tin I should put on. Is that why you didn’t answer? You didn’t get it?”

“Really? No,” she said, reassured and not only accepting the closeness as he moved in, but pressing herself into him and sliding hands around his waist, anxious to let him know she hadn’t ignored him on purpose. “No, I would have said red. You did good.”

He breathed a sigh of relief against her mouth. They kissed softly and it was apology and greeting and tenderness that moved easily into a more carnal expression. A need for real closeness to cement what was happening between them. She moaned. He shifted a hand to her butt and drew her in, strong and sure.

Her heart leapt and the sexual chemistry caught. They tangled tongues and stroked and rubbed and groaned into each other’s mouths. When he pulled back and looked at her, a question in his eyes, her whole being trembled in anticipation.

She moved past him, catching at his hand to bring him to the bed. They undressed together, natural and oddly comfortable, then he followed her into the rumpled sheets and reached to draw her under him.

With a little gasp and a catch at his hand before he took a firm hold of her breast, she said, “Can you, um, be gentle?”

“Meg.” Horror shadowed the gaze he snapped to hers and he lifted his hand away. “We don’t have to do this—”

“No, I want to Linc, I really do. They’re just swollen and sore…”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured, tracing light fingers against the sensitive swells, stroking her nipples ever so gently with the seam of his lips. “It’s like torture, asking me to go slow when I want you this bad.”

She could feel. He was hard against her thigh, so hard and hot and insistent. Her bones felt weak, her legs needing the stroke and kindle of twining with his.

“You don’t have to wear anything,” she reminded.

“Are you serious?” The green in his eyes intensified to the emerald gleam found in the very hottest fire.

“Unless…”

“No, I’m good. I had a physical before I bought this place, wanting to be sure I could do the work.” He smiled, slow and pained. “But I am never going to last if we start like that.” He slid down to kiss between her breasts. “You know what I think about when I’m in the shower, Meg? How you practically screamed that first time. Like no man had ever got you off by going down. Do you have any idea how much it turns me on to know I did?”

She strangled out a protest, catching at him and pulling him back up to her.

“Trust me,” she said against his mouth. “I won’t last either. I think about that, too. Everything. That last time when you were naked inside me…”

He made a feral noise and slid between her legs like a missile with a homing device. She was wet and needy and he was sharp and hard and they slid and locked together with cries of mingled relief and craven hunger. Trembling, they held each other close and tight.

“You feel incredible,” he groaned, moving carefully, gritting out, “I’m trying to be gentle.”

His fist knotted under her shoulder. Her nails dug into his back and she arched to take him as deeply as possible with each slow stroke. They kissed and broke away for gasps and mutters of encouragement, delicately tormenting each other into such acute need the world fell away.

When the tension became too much, when tingles danced across her skin, teasing her toward release, she jerkily urged him to quicken his pace.

“Meg,” he protested, abbreviated thrusts growing tighter and harder.

“Yes, Linc. Like that. Don’t stop, please don’t stop.” She basked in his lovemaking, released herself utterly into his possession and when climax hit, she fell through the middle of the earth.

He came with her, hard body clenched, a yell of pleasured triumph leaving his lips as he poured himself into her.





Chapter Nine




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Linc woke in their new master bedroom five weeks later and wondered how the hell this had all happened.

Meg slept beside him, her nose under the edge of the blanket, only her red-gold brows visible along with a few ribbons of her wavy ginger hair. She’d called Blake late that afternoon when Linc had taken her into town to see the apartment and brought her back here. Meg had told Blake she was staying the night and she’d been in this bed every night since.

Linc liked it. A lot more than he’d anticipated for a man who’d been such a confirmed bachelor. In fact, he was a man who liked to be in control. He was the type to set goals and achieve them. He didn’t go with the flow and leave things up to chance, but here he was, living with a woman he barely knew, anticipating a baby with her and feeling genuine excitement at the prospect.

And he liked Meg a lot more than he’d expected, even though they bickered sometimes. Last night was a perfect example. He’d thought this was a dumb place for the bed. He was paying people to finish his house, which annoyed him, and she’d had a lot of strong opinions about the bedroom. He knew she deserved to weigh in on the decision-making, this was her home, too, but it wasn’t like him to give up final say on something so personal. The bed had been the last detail after so many rounds of debate he’d been sick of it.