The Cowboy's Baby: A BWWM Billionaire Cowboy Pregnancy Romance (13 page)

Esme could do little else, with the way the man was currently manipulating it. As he eased her onto her side on the blanket, spooning her against his renewed erection, the dark-haired woman reached back to wrap an arm around his neck and hold him closer.

Closing her eyes for an indulgent moment, she pretended that he loved her – that she’d cook new meals for him every day for the rest of their lives and the baby growing inside her belly would be theirs instead of his.

It was a lovely dream; and though it couldn’t last forever, in that moment, in the clearing by the pond, with Daniel sliding deep within her for the second time, she was content to pretend.

***

Chapter Seven: Entangled

She was pissed.

Even five months after she had walked out on the sorry son of a bitch, Alyssa was still angry as a hornet. She had given Daniel Hartsford everything. Her heart, her soul, and all of her patience. And then, what did he want of her? A complete and total commandeering of her independence. He wanted to be with her all the time. She couldn’t go a single place by herself. He wanted outings and a pretty little bauble for his arm, so she gave it to him.

At his expense of course.

Then he wanted all of the things she’d pretended to be at first but couldn’t maintain.

Men were such ridiculous creatures. Everyone knew that the first stages of a relationship didn’t show anyone’s true self. It was all about being who the other person wanted you to be. The challenge was staying in love after everything was said and done – after the true colors came out.

By this point, Daniel knew who she was. He knew what she needed.

And still, he asked the world of her. He wanted romance when he wanted it, and when she offered it up – when she needed something, he was always exasperated. Didn’t he understand how difficult it was for her to keep her looks up at her age? Hair, nails, facials, massages, waxes, mani-pedis – it was all necessary to maintain her image.

He wanted a gorgeous girlfriend? Well he had to pay for it. It was a given when someone worked as hard as her to be the perfect piece of arm candy. The designer clothes, bags, shoes and expensive jewelry – even the car she drove – he had no idea how well these things contributed to
his
image.

He was a successful billionaire who
had
been with the perfect woman. And honestly, in Alyssa’s mind, the price of being that woman had been extraordinarily low where he was concerned.

But then, he’d had to ruin everything.

When the man had first started babbling about the damn baby, she’d ignored it. She’d never really wanted any children of her own, though she was willing to be a kept stepmother for the right price. She’d thought it was just a passing fancy, and so she hadn’t paid Daniel’s pleas any mind.

But then he’d become incessant. Bugging her every day, every hour, about wanting a kid – about defiling her body for his own impending sense of doom. Christ, wasn’t it enough that the man wanted to fuck every time she turned around? While it had been thrilling at first, she’d quickly tired of his wanting to have his way with her at his whim. She had a life too, which he had a tendency to forget.

Ultimately, she’d agreed to his request – if for nothing more than to get him to shut up. She supposed that as long as she didn’t have to ruin her body for the sake of the brat, it wouldn’t be a big deal. She’d just hand it over to him the moment it was born anyway – wasn’t that what he wanted?

Maybe if it was a girl, she’d have the opportunity to dress the kid up and show it off to her friends, but that was pretty much the level of involvement she wanted. After all, the child would be Daniel’s, not hers. He was the one who wanted it.

And everything would have been fine if he hadn’t picked the wrong goddam surrogate.

From the moment Alyssa had caught sight of the picture, she’d been suspicious. Daniel attested that he’d chosen her for her impeccable
health
record, because she was unattached and independent…

She knew why he had chosen the bitch. Because she was a pretty face and supposedly had a relatively high IQ. She didn’t know what he saw in the woman, but the moment they’d met, Alyssa knew he wanted to plant his seed in a more carnal way.

She’d caught him looking before, and thank God she’d always been there to steer him back in the right direction. Now, he thought he could get smart with her. He thought he could be alone with the woman, claiming it was only for the brat’s sake, and let the fucking surrogate supplant her?

Well, Alyssa had sure showed him exactly how she’d felt about that notion.

The problem was, upon walking out, she realized just how much she’d come to depend on the man. Used to a certain standard of living, she’d run out of the money she’d saved in just a few short weeks and now had few places left to turn. She didn’t dare tell her mother that she was broke now – in the elder woman’s mind, Alyssa was the future Mrs. Daniel Hartford – even though Alyssa herself didn’t ever plan on marrying the man.

Just keeping him wrapped around her little finger.

But now, as loathe as she was to admit it, she needed him. It had been a couple of months, and God knew what he’d been up to with the little piece he’d been trying to run off with, but Alyssa wasn’t
too
worried.

If there was one thing she’d always been good at, it was manipulating the man into anything she wanted him to do.

And now, she wanted him back.

He was
hers
, after all. What would a man as emotional – as vulnerable – as Daniel do without her?

**

Daniel tried his damndest to suppress a smile as Esme frowned at the printed image in her hands. It was an enlarging of the latest ultrasound image of the child within her – now six months along – and every time she looked at it, she seemed to be trying to find some unknown object.

He himself was humbled every time he looked at the thing.

He and Esme either went to the clinic or had Amos visit the house every two weeks, and frankly, even though he’d known what to expect, he still found himself in awe of the life developing within her. He watched her stomach slowly swell as the weeks went by, growing until it seemed to dwarf her slender frame.

Of course, there were other parts of her that filled out as well. Her breasts had gone from pert handfuls to spilling out of the confines of most of her undergarments – a fact that she despised but he adored. Her hips rounded out ever so slightly, her thighs softening from their lean musculature as her body gained curves that flattered her figure more, even, than he’d ever imagined they might.

And unlike any woman he’d ever come across, Esme had sexual appetite that rivaled even his own. She had mentioned to him upon several occasions that she believed hormones from her pregnancy had put her libido into overdrive, but he certainly wasn’t complaining. One had to wonder what she’d been like before – because now the woman was like a tiger on the prowl.

The meek figure who’d been hesitant during their afternoon dalliance had completely disappeared and Daniel didn’t think there had been a time since then that she had even begun to play coy. The moment he touched her, she was all over him – and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Furthermore, she said nothing about the intensity of his loving. It was something Alyssa had complained about all the time – at least, after the first few months together. He was too rough – too persistent, and she had never wanted to be with him because she was tired of dealing with it. Esme, however, only encouraged the heights of his passion.

Daniel knew that things couldn’t be this way forever –that the further along the young woman progressed in her pregnancy, the more gentle he’d have to be – but at this particular juncture, she
wanted
him to toss her onto the bed. To bend her over and cleave deep, clutching her to him as he lost his mind in her clenching depths. He, on the other hand, was always concerned that he might have hurt her – or the baby – but Esme had assured him that her moans, her sighs and her
screams
came from divine pleasure.

It was absolute bliss – to be able to lose himself in her without fearing reproach, or worrying about the argument to come. Once the sexual tension between them had dissipated, he found himself engaged in conversation with her almost constantly – and not once did they ever have an argument. Esme, it seemed, was fairly unconfrontational.

Unless it came to one thing: she wouldn’t sleep with him. When it came to the literal act of lying in bed with him in the wake of their physical intimacy, Esme always made soft but firm excuses, slipping back to her own bed.

It left him feeling bereft – just when he thought he’d begun to get used to sleeping on his own. It wasn’t, Daniel told himself, for any emotional attachment. Rather, he craved the feel of her soft skin against his as he slept. To him, it seemed only natural that she should rest nestled against his side in the wake of their loving – but Esme had her own ideas.

What those ideas were, he had no clue.

All he could do was hide his disappointment when she slipped from his arms every night before lying in the dark, trying to let sleep find him. The rancher was lucky there was enough residual excitement over the development of his child to distract him when the situation called for it.

Every time they spoke with doctors, something had changed. The eyes were visible, they could see limbs, and recently, the baby had begun to move to the point where Esme marveled at its tiny tantrums in her belly. She cited that the baby must be unusually active, tracing her fingertips over the ridge of her stomach throughout the day in observation.

She was beginning to reach the point in her pregnancy when things started to be acutely uncomfortable with women. The amount of weight they’d gained, their efforts to move around when their bodies seemed against them, sleepless nights exacerbated by tiny movements within them; but Esme endured it all with aplomb.

She never complained about her weird cravings or the intense change her body was undergoing. On the contrary, at times, she seemed more concerned for the baby’s safety than for her own. Though she had confided in him that she hated substitutions more than anything when it came to her work in the kitchen, she had cut out several specific ingredients from her cooking because of the potential harm they might cause an unborn child.

She listened carefully whenever the doctor gave her instructions and swallowed ungodly amounts of vitamins and supplements, even though some of them made her cringe at their taste. She poured over the lists of information that had been provided for her by the clinic, careful to make sure that, in everything she did, she committed to the baby’s health first.

While Daniel had never doubted his commitment to his own child, it continually amazed him exactly how dedicated Esme was to her position as surrogate – far more, funnily enough, than the baby’s mother had ever been. She constantly asked questions about different stages of the baby’s growth, if there was anything more she could do to ensure its healthiness.

He caught her sometimes – staring at the ultrasound monitor, looking over her own belly almost fondly as she stroked it. She was caring, kind, and involved – and whether it was out of necessity or a facet of her character, she knew exactly what was needed as a protective parent- whether she knew it or not.

The fondness he found in her expression – when she gazed over her body or beamed at the doctor when he conveyed that she and the baby were healthy – it warmed his heart in a way he’d once wondered if he’d ever feel again.

When Alyssa had left him, Daniel had been ready to accept that he’d never be attached to another woman again. His child would be the first and foremost important person in his life, and he hadn’t the slightest reservation about it.

Now, however, he could feel things beginning to change. Esme was the kind of woman that made a man reconsider his values – everything he thought he knew about his feelings. And she did it completely effortlessly. She didn’t try to curry his favor, to suck up to him or ingratiate herself. She didn’t try to hold anything above his head, to suggest that she was integral to his life or hold him hostage by his gonads.

She simply
was.

She puttered around the house jotting down ideas for her most recent recipe. She fooled around in the kitchen mixing, stirring and tasting – lost in her own little word. As summer segued into fall, she enjoyed hours by the pool, her face buried in various volumes - and all the while, she provided for him without even realizing it. When she made her meals, she always made sure to cook enough for even his gargantuan appetite. She asked what kinds of things he liked so that she could incorporate them into her creations. Whenever he ventured out onto the ranch to work with his cattle, she packed a lunch for him – delicious fare that made his staff jealous every time they caught a whiff. When he asked her to join him on a picnic, an outing, or even just to sit with him as he unwound for the day, she never denied him.

She was there when he needed her to be – with a soft smile, a reassuring word, and some of the most delicious food he had ever tasted. For he, who had never since his mother experienced a relationship with a woman who truly cared for him, it was like she had opened his eyes to things he’d never known existed.