Catching Preeya (Paradise South Book 3) (32 page)

“She’s an unbelievable woman,” he said to himself under his breath as he relaxed into the sofa and grabbed his
how-to
-dad book from the coffee table. “And she’ll be an incredible mother.”

“And wife.” Preeya’s voice came from behind. She placed her hands on his shoulders and squeezed.

He tilted his head back. “Give me.”

She leaned down and kissed him.

“Yes,
and wife
.
Not-soon
-enough wife.” They were just waiting out the marriage license process. “Unbelievably sexy, stealthy, and eavesdropping
soon-to
-be wife
.” He laughed.

“
You’re
the one talking to yourself in here.”

He rolled his eyes then reached for her. “Get over here.”

She made her way around the sofa and surrendered back into his chest.

He slid his hand over her belly. “Hello, my loves.”

Preeya purred into relaxation. “Good to be home. Being out with Gigi can be exhausting. Then follow that with Doctor Pelum’s lecture. And,” she said, looking down at her belly, “I’m five months—”

“Pregnant, yes.” He kissed her cheek. “You”—he angled her chin with his index finger to see her face—“are.” He caressed her lips with his, drifting over them only to touch and tease. “With
my
baby.” His finger slid from her chin and she relaxed into the crook of his neck. He stroked her hair back and sighed. “And I am already in love with…it. Speaking of
it
, did Gigi keep her mouth shut about the sex?”

“Yes. But she screwed with me pretty bad. Hey”—she reached for his book—“what’s this?”

He hesitated, then caught himself and handed her the book with a crooked grin and heated cheeks. “I’m a pediatric surgeon who’s scared shitless about being a dad.” He took her free hand and played with her soft fingers for distraction. His admission felt good and seemed to lighten her entire being.

And although it relieved his soul to tell her his fear, and he was tempted to tell her another
two-ton
anchor in his soul—no. Just, no. There was absolutely no need to bring up the miscarriage. That stayed locked away, far from his current life,
their
current lives. His second chance at love with Preeya and their child should and would be untouched, untainted by his past. Done.

He’d focus on them, sharing with Preeya his current apprehension about
daddy-hood
because that was necessary for the conquering of Preeya’s demons. And yes, for his own demons, too.

He swept his gaze from her hand to her
near-violet
eyes. “Pretty sad, huh?”

She cocked her head, pulled her hand from his, and slid it up to his cheek. “You have no idea how sad and perfectly comforting that is to me.” She smiled and gave him a slow, sweet blink. “And needless to say, Doctor. Trainer, you’re gonna make an amazing father. Utterly amazing.”

He smiled. “You’ll be a far greater mother than I will be a father.”

“A wager in the making, is it?” she teased.

Wow, isn’t this something.
His heart
triple-timed
. Maybe her outpouring to Gigi had opened her up, helped her unbury the doubt and start to really work through her worst fears.

Or was she just wearing an outer shield to hide behind?

Either way, he’d been honest about his fears and the dialogue had begun. “Sure, babe. I’ll take your bet.” He cocked his head and curled his lip. “The greatest part is that I know I’ve already won.”

She shifted her body so they were
face-to
-face. “How do you know that?” she asked with a skeptic’s eye.

He grinned at her. “The core of a mother, the true selfless core of a nurturer, babe…I’ve already seen it in you. Not just with my sister’s kids and kids on your flights, but I got to see you with Prana—on a video chat, no less. Preeya, you’ve already been a mother, in a sense. A wonderful, loving mother. And it wasn’t even your job to be, but you took the role and you became that child’s angel. Yes, you were Prana’s living angel, Pree. And you’re our baby’s angel, too.”

She didn’t hide her tears or her face. She didn’t tuck her head in his shoulder or cover her eyes with her hands. She just kept his gaze and wept. No shame, no sorrow, even. She almost held a glint of pride in her glistening eyes.

He kissed her forehead. “I can’t
wait
to see you with our baby, Pree. I just
cannot
wait.”

*

She had to be connected with him.
Now
.

Her lips found his mouth within a heartbeat.

Fueled by the freedom flooding her, she kissed him hard, with force. By his words, his voice, his deep insight into her, she’d been energized and liberated. His clarity, his love, had turned a key inside her. And the key rotated faster and faster in her chest, in her core as their mouths spoke to each other without words. Only passion. An impassioned tango she didn’t know they knew.

Their tongues tangled as she climbed onto his lap. He was hard, so perfectly hard for her. She hummed as his hands slid down her back to her bottom, supporting her weight and offering balance. Through their kiss, she laughed, then with spliced and mangled words she asked, “Am I killing you with my extra…bulk?”

He lifted his hips into her, grinding, groaning. Then he took a handful of her ass and pulled his mouth away. “You’re perfect, babe. You can’t know how fucking”—he took her by the nape of the neck and pressed his mouth to hers again, then pulled back, panting—“perfect your body is to me—
you
are to me.”

They read each other that instant. She worked the buttons of her top while he worked the zipper of his pants. God, she was so hot and wet for him. A few shared giggles, breaths, then grunts of laborious
body-shifting
later, Ben filled her with his endlessness. He rocked her gently into swirls of sweet ecstasy. As he did, he slid one hand over her belly, circling, caressing, then down to her mound, then her delicate clit, his thumb twirling her senseless. Bliss leading to bliss.

And when his eyes rolled back behind fluttering lids, she cried out, screamed out, her own release rolling up her body in burning tides of joy. Once the heat reached her chest then her face, tears—new tears—filled her eyes. Through her blurred vision she watched his eyelids lift; gorgeous golden warmth captured her in his gaze. She’d caught her dream. Her wildest dream. The one she’d never been able to picture. She couldn’t have. Such pure bliss proved impossible to construct by her mind’s eye. Her heart had to wait, search and wait and cling to faith that it would eventually find her, catch her. And it had. Ben had caught her, and she prayed that he’d never, ever let her go.

CHAPTER 51

A
lmost a week
had passed in a blink.

The ease and flow between them, in their
ever-expanding
conversations and in every touch, look, kiss—he’d never known such floating freedom. And Preeya was his cloud—light and soft and laughing and giggling all the time. Manic, angelic,
his
.

She even slept better since the other day’s breakthrough—well, relatively speaking, anyway. She still tossed and turned and shifted, seeking the perfect yet unattainable position, but she hadn’t spoken, shrieked, shouted in her sleep since the Gigi outpouring, and their day on the couch.

And, oh God, their hunger for each other…as intense as it had been, now it skyrocketed to a new stratosphere of intimate. A new level of
indescribable
.

But he found as much pure joy tending to her while foregoing his own release. He’d just build up to the next time she’d attack him, which seemed to be no less than a day’s wait. Anyway, a ritual, so to speak, had been formed. Before bed each night he’d set up a slew of body pillows at certain angles and levels and he’d massage her from head to toe. She’d reach a state that could only be described as tranquil elation.

And, God, it drove him wild. To give her such pleasure. All day every day he’d crave the sensation of her silken mocha skin at the mercy of his fingertips. He rushed them to bed every night just to work out her tensions and infuse her with pleasure.

“Is this good, the long one here?”

She gave him the sexiest coy smile he’d ever seen and nodded.

“Okay.” Starting at her long middle toe, he pulled and cracked each one, then pressed and rubbed the balls and arches of each foot simultaneously. Up next to her heels, he rolled and rotated her feet to loosen her ankles. He worked his way up her calves, running his thumbs deep into her muscle fibers. Then to her knees. God, her skin was so soft. Next her quads; he rubbed and kneaded her muscles, pinching and knuckling to unlock the trapped energy.

She moaned her satisfaction. It made him raging hard, that moan of hers.

Continuing up her body, he arrived at her core—his glorious,
all-loving
slice of heaven. Admittedly his favorite part. That and her earlobes—well, and her round breasts and round belly. Oh, and her voluptuous ass, now more fully fucking fantastic at six months pregnant. So, he guessed he couldn’t settle on a favorite part of her. She blew his mind, all parts combined.

Anyway, he set the fingers of both his surgically precise hands to work. And as usual, she was ready for him—wet and hot and so goddamn needy. She clenched her core, lifted her hips, and her bud was engorged and pulsating for him. He kept all his targeted focus on her sex, his fingers twirling and sliding and dipping her into peak pleasure. He sensed her watching him. And as she got close to her edge, she demanded his eyes. With a little whimper and the whisper of his name, she met his gaze.
Gladly.
He glanced up at her, watched her reach her release, swim in that heaven. He’d watch her there forever.

“Ben,” she breathed.

“I’m here, babe. I see you, I have you.” As she arched into her climax, he slid one hand under her to support her lower back and lay back with her while pulling her writhing body gently toward him. While her body wrung itself out, he felt surges of joy bolt up his spine. As if he was coming, too. A virtual, essential release by proxy. Just watching her come, supporting and holding her thrashing body. Pure empathetic bliss.

She collapsed back into his arms and dozed off immediately. He listened to her breath deepen and slow, lulling him off to sleep as well. Another night of
perfect
with his Preeya.

*

Sleep had come quickly to him, but it didn’t stay for long. He was afraid to move or he’d wake her. After weeks of endless shifting and twisting, it seemed she’d finally found her position. Her spot. And though his knees and shoulders ached, his neck pinched, his bottom arm lay numb, he refused to move an inch with her body sleeping so fully against his.

So at dawn when his phone buzzed him out of his
half-slumber
paralysis, he swung then slammed his arm down on his nightstand and grabbed the device like it meant to kill him—or he meant to kill it—all without moving the rest of his body somehow. He hit Accept with his thumb just to end the buzzing—he’d worked too hard to have Preeya wake up before the sun. And in answering the call, he wouldn’t mind giving the idiot a raking for knowing how to tell the goddamn time.

Before he could even utter his
harsh-whispered
hello, a
too-awake
and cheerful voice met his ears. “Ben? Ben, hey, it’s me.”

Jesus
. “Gigi? It’s, like”—he squinted at his nightstand clock—“six in the morning.”
Breathe, Ben
. He had to remind himself that she, too, was pregnant, and now Gigi was on her own. Preeya, and so Ben, were Gigi’s only support. “Gigi, what is it…are you okay?”

“Sorry, sorry, I just had to call. I have this idea and it’s been nagging at me all night long. Got no sleep.”
You and me both.
“I couldn’t wait another—”

“I get it, I get it. It’s fine, Gigi. Let me get to a place I can talk.” He slid out of bed like a ninja.

He adjusted his eyes to the kitchen light so he could make an early pot of coffee for himself while Gigi began her explanation.

“There’s been this idea just clawing at the back of my mind…”

“Go ahead,” Ben urged as he added the
extra-bold
dark roast grounds to the brew bin.

“It’s something I stopped myself from bringing up to Preeya a thousand times now because I didn’t want to hear her say no. It’s just too important—vital, really. And then you told me about her nightmares. That was the final confirmation. I think this idea is the answer, the key.”

“The key?”

“Yes, to closing her circle of pain and giving her the ability to open her rightful circle of happiness.”

“Gigi—there’s not enough coffee in Seattle to keep me awake through your stalling.”
Ranting.
“Tell me, what’s your idea?”

“Okay, well, I strongly believe that if we help her find—and face—the missing piece to her ‘puzzle of pain,’ I call it, Preeya would be able to finally and officially move on. No more doubts, no more anger poisoning her baby, poisoning her confidence….”

“Gigi!” he yelled, then checked himself the next instant. He whispered, “Gigi, please…get to your point…in human terms.”

“Her mom, Ben.”

All of that garbled gibberish reduced to those few words?
Her mom, Ben.

Okay, Ben, digest.
Sans coffee?
Yes, Ben, sans
coffee.

Gigi’s
fast-and
-furious, floral crap means…?
“Wait…are you suggesting we find her deadbeat mom?”

“Exactly.”

“Behind her back?”

“How cathartic would it be for Preeya to face the woman who left her and Prana? To confront her not just in her nightmares, but in real life.”

Ben leaned against the kitchen island, stunned speechless.

“Listen, I’ve gone online to start a search a few times now, but had to quit. Just kept hitting dead ends. I don’t have enough information on the woman. And again, if I ask Preeya directly, she’ll say no, you know she will—”

“Possibly, probably! Because, Gigi, it’s her prerogative. Something this…this…huge has got to be her
choice
. And don’t you think she’d take up the search on her own if she wanted to meet the woman?”

“That’s the point, Ben. She doesn’t want to. But she
needs
to. To heal.”

“Your third eye sees this, huh?”

Silence buzzed in his ear.

He didn’t mean to be smug or mean,
but Jesus
. She was talking about his pregnant wife. Going behind Preeya’s back to find, and then, what…reunite her and her mother? Where would that lead to but more stress, more pain? “Sorry for that snide remark, Gigi.”

“No, it’s cool. I’m very used to it by now. But, Ben, I do sense and intuit things. With Preeya, the vibe is so intense…because we’re so close.” Gigi paused then sighed. “She’s in pain, she’s scared, and it kills me.”

It occurred to him that beyond Gigi’s true love for Preeya—again, he was so thankful for the role she’d played in Preeya’s life up to that point—it was clear to him that
Gigi
was scared shitless. Projecting her own anxieties, rightful worries about having and raising a kid on her own. It was natural, expected, inevitable. He had to tread lightly, knowing Gigi as little as he did, but knowing how much Gigi meant to Preeya.

He cleared his throat. “Gigi, listen. The other night after she came home from her time with you, she seemed different. Open, and light. A drastic change. More relaxed than I’ve seen her since…since our time in Vallarta. And we even talked, for the first time I might add, about our fears, our goddamn trepidations, about being parents. Thanks to her outpouring to you, her comfort and confidence in you, I’ve already seen a shift in her. You helped open her heart, Gigi.” He paused, almost unsure if Gigi was still on the call—all he could hear was his percolating and
much-needed
coffee.

“Gigi? Are you—”

“She buries things, Ben. Always has.”

“Maybe, but things are coming to the surface now, and they’re coming up…naturally, Gigi. Organically. In their own time. I really don’t think we need
to do
anything but be here for her.”

“Look, I just called to ask if you had or could get a little more information for me on her mom. I don’t need anything else but—”

“Gigi. You aren’t hearing me. We do not need to force things. In fact, I’m telling you
not
to.”

“You’re telling me….”

“Yes. You can’t do this. Not without Preeya’s knowledge or permission, and to tell you the truth, I don’t even want you to bring it up right now.” His throat got thick and dry. “Not after the baby arrives, either. Not until Preeya’s at least done nursing, if at all.”

This time there was no buzzing silence. Gigi’s huffing fury filled his ear. Then she sniffled, like she’d begun to cry. “I wasn’t asking permission, Ben.” Voice quick and quivering. “I need to do this for her. To find her mom, give Preeya the chance to—”

“To what? To scream and yell at the woman who abandoned her so Pree could spike up her and the baby’s blood pressure? All to look into the woman’s eyes, the eyes, by the way, that mirror her own? Will that help bolster Preeya’s confidence, clear her doubts, heal her broken heart? For an intuitive person, Gigi, you’re pretty damn clueless.”

“Forget it. Sorry I called.”

He heaved a sigh, trying to temper his frustration.
Remember, this woman’s as pregnant as Preeya is—and seemingly way more emotional
. Irrational, really. “Gigi, please. Just tell me you’ll drop this. For the health of Preeya and the baby,
our
baby—mine and Preeya’s—you will drop this.”

“You know what? Screw you, Ben. Get my best friend knocked up and now
you
know her better than I do? I’ve been her
family
for nearly twenty years.”

“Are we really going there? Jesus.” He counted to ten in his head—in three seconds’ time. “You’re tired, hormonal, and you’re not thinking straight, Gigi.”

“No,
you’re
not thinking straight, and you’re not really thinking about Preeya’s
well-being
, either. You’re too
scared
to think or see clearly about anything, asshole! Just because you lost one kid, doesn’t mean—”

“Whoa, wait.” He shook his head and inhaled a roomful of
coffee-scented
air. “What the fuck did you say?”

“Pregnancies and deaths, Ben. That’s what
I
see clearly, clear as crystal. Past and present. And as for future, I
sense
, I
intuit
. If Preeya doesn’t face her mother before the baby comes, she’ll be miserable. Energetically and physically miserable…and so will my godbaby.”

Her slew of nonsense mangled his brain. Where to even start? “
Energetically, physically
? What in the hell are you talking about, Gigi?”

“Ben, I know you’re nursing your own wounds, but what I’m saying is that I won’t let your
past
hurt Preeya’s
future
—her chances for true, essential happiness.”

Old wounds. Scared. Life and death. Godbaby? Past, present…future?

This stunning and impossible hoax Gigi had played, it needed to end—
now
.

Because…but…wait…
what the fuck
? No one but his sister knew about Jamie’s miscarriage.

No one.

Chills sprinted up his spine and his hands shook. He felt so out of control, out of the realm of reality, he thought he’d vomit and suffocate at the same time.

Get it together.
Preeya needed him.

And today and always, he’d be there for her. Fuck yes he would.

And fuck Gigi. Her concern for Preeya’s future? No goddamn need.
Preeya’s future is with me.
With him and their baby. He made her happy, would always make her happy.

Who the hell was Gigi, anyway? She was the danger, the one he needed to protect Preeya from. Because what horse shit!
Not
meeting her mother will lead Preeya to misery? Again,
what
? Energy and vibes and clairvoyance and the rest of Gigi’s psychodrama had no place in his world, or Preeya’s.

“You
are
nuts, Gigi Donlow. And by the way, Miss
All-Knowing
-Psychic who so declares to have my wife’s—”

“
Soon-to
-be
wife.”

“
Preeya’s
best interest at heart—you just said you
intuit
the future?”

“Preeya’s future. Yes, Ben, I do. Always have. Always will.”

Right.
“Well, perfect. That leaves me in a better position than you to judge what’s best for her future. Basing my argument not on goddamn intuition but on medical fact, none of what you’re proposing is good for her blood pressure, her nerves, her or the baby’s
well-being
—my
old wounds
aside. If you care about your best friend—for the record,
my
fiancée, my love and life—and, again, our child’s safety, his or her future will not be threatened because of some ‘strong
gut
inkling’ of yours.”