Driving to You (H1.5) (3 page)

Chapter Four

April eyed Finn as he held a bag of frozen peas on his cheek.
A very, very tiny part of her felt bad for hurting him, while a very, very large part of her thought it served him right.

Wrapping her robe tighter around her, she sailed past him and
into the kitchen. Damp strands of hair slapped her in the face. The shower she’d taken had made her feel a million times better. So had the saltine crackers and ginger ale she’d sneaked into the bathroom while he wasn’t looking.

“I’ll take a steak-medium; a potato-baked
; and a glass of your finest in lieu of your apology,” Finn called out from her living room. “And a twenty for the gas I spent getting you home safely.”

“Dream on,” she snapped, then stopped short, spun around and stomped to the living room. “How did you know where I lived?”

His oh so very handsome face paled a little under his tan. “You told me, right before you passed out.”

Crossing her arms, she lifted her chin. “I don’t think so.”

“You talk in your sleep, don’t you know,” he said with a wink. “Although, this time there were considerably less ‘more, Finn, more’ coming from that sweet mouth.”

Of all the nerve.
She tossed her head and lifted her chin. “I’m glad the sex was memorable for one of us. Sorry,
Fred
, but I’ve moved on to bigger things.
Huge
.” Her gaze flicked down to his crotch and back up again, a smirk fixed on her
sweet
mouth. Just leave me be, she thought, until another voice in her head spoke up, Don’t let him go. “Maybe you should try to do the same.”

His face turned dark. “Dammit, April. You can’t keep running away
from me.”

Uncrossing her arms, she shoved a finger into his chest. “
Maybe I could, if your buddy hadn’t pulled me over for a false traffic violation.”

“False? You were s
peeding,” he yelled, his hands swiping through the air. Automatically, she flinched and used her hands to shield her face. “What the hell? I would never hit a woman.”

Humiliation washed over her, turning her body hot, then cold and then back to hot. Slowly lowering her arms, she narrowed her eyes. “
How would I know that?”

Slowly, he took a step towards her, then another, his blue eyes serious. “I would never hurt you. Ever.”

Not physically, that she believed. However, her poor heart was still trying to recover from the bruises he’d left on it, with his lies and false promises.

“I’m sorry you’ve gone to all this trouble to help me home, but I think it’s best if you go.” She side-stepped him, heading to the door and opening it.

He moved to the door and her heart plummeted. Stay, please stay. Pausing he looked her straight in the eye and shut the door. “I’m staying.”

Yay, her heart cheered. S
he frowned. “Don’t you have cop stuff to do, like eat donuts?” Although if he ate donuts, then he must do a thousand sit-ups afterwards, because the man was more than cut.

As if reading her thought
s, he slid his hand up his black t-shirt, exposing those washboard abs and her weakness for them. She whimpered and he grinned. “These aren’t the abs of a desk jockey.”

Of their own accord, her fingers stretched toward him and she licked her lips.

“Go on. Touch them,” he said, voice all low and husky. He met her halfway, encircling her wrist with his large hand and placing her palm right on his stomach. The muscles contracted beneath it.

“Oh God,” she whimpered again. What was wrong w
ith her? Finn was just a man, with red hair for goodness’ sake. Okay, so it was a dark auburn and his blue eyes were sexy as anything. He was sexy as anything.

“Knew you’d love it.” He smiled, wicked and full of promised.

And so smug that she snatched her hand away.  “Better keep working out,
Felix
. There was a little pudge.”

His brows shot up to his hairline and his smile fell off his face. “My what?” Then that smile returned. “I’ve got you all figured out,
Miss Billingsworth
.”

She
backed away from that smile. “The only thing you’ve figured out about me is that I happen to like men with nice physiques.” Stopping a couple feet of away from him, she pretended to consider her next words. “Like my ex-fiance, for instance, has abs that make grandmothers sigh.”

“Is that where you’ve been?” he asked.

Was Finn jealous?
“I missed Carter.”

“If he’s so great, then why aren’t you with the arse
. Oh, sorry, Mr. Wonderful?”

Because
she didn’t want Carter. She wanted Finn, the man who had lied to her, who’d made her laugh and feel so loved that it physically hurt to be without him. And he was the father of her unborn child. Eventually, she would have to tell him about the pregnancy, but the other…probably never.

So she resorted to what she did best, annoy the hell out of Finn.
“Who says he’s not on his way here right now?”

Finn could barely contain the eye roll over her bald-faced lie. “As sick as you were, I’d sure as hell wouldn’t be letting you out of my sight.” He strode to the kitchen and opened her fridge. There was barely anything on the shelves worth eating or drinking, unless one liked crackers and soda water. “Where’s your beer?”

“Right where you left your manners,” April said from the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.

He straightened, taking in her tiny tank top and stripped pajama bottoms that her open robe had revealed. Her breasts looked huge and there was a softness to her curves that hadn’t been there before. “Did you get your tits done?”

“Why?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, making them stand out even more. “Did you miss my hot tits?”

He would never live that text down. “I’m a man, aren’t I?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

Damn, but he loved teasing her. “
Gain some weight, then?”

Jaw working, she whirled around and stom
ped down the hall. He followed, “C’mon, April. I was only joking.”

“Go away.” She stopped at a door, he
r head bowed. Hair the color of caramel fell forward, exposing the soft nape of her neck.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. You look gorgeous.” He moved closer, placing his hands on her hips and dipped his head. “I’m an arse.”

“Finn,” she said, her hands joining his, then bringing one around front. His palm coasting over the firm swell of her stomach. “I’m pregnant.”

Chapter Five

“I see,” Finn said, although he could barely see anything at all, much less breath
e. He blinked at the back of her head, saw double, then blinked again.

She sighed. “It’s y
ours. The first time we had sex…we didn’t use protection, remember?”

But he had pulled out at the last minute. Guess he mucked that up. “I see,” he said again. Damn, but he was utterly brilliant at this moment. He was going to be a father. Responsible for someone else’s life. Responsible for screwing them u
p in a way that only parents could. “Jesus.”

“I
f you’d like to have visitation with the baby after it’s born, I’m sure my lawyer can work something out with yours,” she said, in voice calm, like she was discussing her plans for the weekend. “If you can’t afford one, then—”

“I can bloody well afford my own lawyer,” he growled, applying pressure to the one hip still in his hand. She turned, her chin tipping up. Pretty blue eyes met his, head on and tear free. “
But I won’t need one.”

This time she was the one to say, “I see.”

“You and I will work things out before the baby is born,” he said and her eyes fractionally widened. “As it happens, I’m in need of a flatmate and –”

She crossed her arms. “I’m not moving in with you in some pest-infested apartment.”

His “pest-infested” apartment was located in Charlotte’s swankiest Uptown address. “Wasn’t asking you to.” He cupped her cheek and her eyes closed, lashes falling. “Besides, your place has a yard and sidewalks. Good schools.”

“So you’ll be moving nearby?” A shuddering breath left her as she leaned into his touch. “That’ll be nice.”

“For the baby,” she added quickly, her pink lips oh so close to his.

“Glad you think so,” he murmured.

“Me, too.” Rising on the balls of her feet, she kissed him. A quick meeting of lips that had him pressing her against him as he went in for more.

He kissed her again, nipping at her bottom lip. “Not done.”

She slid her hands up his chest, to his arms, gripping his biceps. “We should stop,” she said between kisses.

“We should,” he agreed
.

“I’
m still mad at you, Finn.”

“As you should be, but lay into me tomorrow,” he said
, then sealed his mouth over hers. Damn, he’d missed kissing her. He’d missed the way she would surrender to herself and let him explore her mouth with his tongue. Like he was doing now. He growled low in his throat when her tongue touched his.

Sweeping her off of her feet, he bumped open the door with his hip and walked inside. Without breaking their kiss, he kept one eye open and made his way to her
bed, carefully placing her in the center.

She looked up
at him, breathless and all shiny-mouthed. He pulled his shirt over his head, then his holster and placed it on the dresser. When he came back to bed, she lay there nude but for her panties.

Placing
a knee on the mattress, he unfastened the top button of his black pants. “Take those off.”

“You do it…please
.”

After shucking off his pants, boxers, socks and shoes, he climbed on the bed and dipped his head to her hip. Using only his teeth, he tugged off her silk panties, then gently pushed her thighs apart. A thin strip of blonde curls and pink flesh greeted him.

“Now that’s a sight,” he said with a wiggle of his brows.

She giggled, then slapped a hand over her mouth, like she’d just revealed her most shocking secret to him.

“Don’t hide from me,” he ordered, pulling her hand away from her face. “And don’t be afraid to be you with me.”

“I’m not like other women—you know, nice and sweet,” she said. The vulnerability on her face was nearly his undoing.

“Not much of a sweet tooth.” He lowered himself between her thighs and parted her delicate sex, giving her a lick. “I prefer tart.” Another lick and her hips rolled. “A little tangy.” This time he found her clit and sucked, until she beat at his shoulders and called out his name. “Full of vim and vinegar.”

Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she blinked at him. “I taste like vinegar down there?”

“No,” he said with a low laugh, then crawled up her body, mindful of what lay between them. “Care to taste for yourself?”

She turned her head and he kissed her ear instead. “Maybe another time.”

He worried a lobe, pleased when her nipples hardened. Working his way down the long column of her throat, he traced a path to her breasts and palmed one. He placed an open mouth over the top of one hard nipple, then peered at her from beneath his lashes. She watched him intently, her cheeks pink as she panted. He felt her fingers curl around his dick, tightening. He groaned, then began to suck on her.

“In me, Finn. I need you in me,” she said
on a wail. “Please…put your cock inside of me.”

His dick grew as hard as the Kevlar in his vest. He let her nipple pop out of his mouth. “I’ll fuck you, love.”  Brushing her hand out of the way, he
guided his cock to where she was wet, slick and hot, and gave a hard pump of his hips. She jolted beneath him, her inner muscles clamping down on him.

“Yes,” she hissed.

His eyes rolled at the pleasure of it, then he rolled her on top of him.”Don’t want to hurt you,” he said softly.

She placed her hands on his chest and worked herself up and down his cock, until finally he slid all the way inside of her. This time, they both groaned.

“Oh God,” she said, her head falling back and her luscious breast bouncing as she rode him. Leaning forward, he bit a nipple and she spasmed around him.

“Son of a bitch,” he said and her head snapped up.

“What?”

“
Protection.”

Ti
lting her head to one side, she made a face. “Little late for that, don’t you think?”

“Worse things than a baby.”

She frowned. “Don’t have those, remember?”

He grinned, memories of a similar conversation taking place the first time he stripped her out of her d
ress.“Neither do I, remember?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped, then a hard thrust made her moan.

Cupping each hip, he helped her ride him, urging her faster and harder until she let him take completely over. “That’s right. Forget that you hate me, that you always need to be in control.”

“I don’
t need to be in control.” But he noticed she didn’t say a word about hating him, which could only mean that she didn’t hate him and couldn’t bring herself to admit it.

He sucked a hard neglected nipple into his mouth, then let it pop out.
Something he knew she loved for him to do, because she had told him in explicit details how she liked to be touched and stroked.

Most perfect woman ever created
, he thought.

“Let me take care of you
.” He brushed his thumb across the outer edge of her clit again and again, until she shoved his hand away and began to rub herself.

“More, Finn,
more,” she gasped.

Her arm came down across the front of her body, cupping a breast and playing with a hard nipple.
“You’re killing me, woman,” he said, then sat up. He held her close, pumping into her hard and sucking at a spot on her neck.

She shuddered around him, calling out his name.

His head fell back as his own orgasm claimed him, pouring out of his body into hers. Deeper and deeper he thrust, his arms tightening around her curvaceous body.

Finally, he rolled his head to one side then the other. “Almost forgot what a hot piece you are.”

Big blue eyes, slumberous with satisfaction and some other emotion regarded him. She yawned and stretched, her legs uncurling from around his waist. “I’m sleepy.”

“I’ve been told in the past that I’m hard to keep up with,” he said with a smug smile.

She yawned again. “Stop believing the lies.” Then she lay her head on his shoulder, relaxing in slow degrees until her breath evened out.

Easing down on the
mattress, he lay there with her, long after he’d gone soft and slipped out of her warmth. He ran his hands up and down her back, until she shivered and goosebumps appeared. Then he somehow managed to draw the covers up and over them both.

“’Night, babe
,” he said, as the sun set.

She mumbled something in her sleep, then snuggled up to him.

Wonder what she would think when she woke up next to him tomorrow morning? If her reaction to what had just happened between them was any indication, she’d be putty in his hands. He grinned.