Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby: Secrets of a Career Girl / For the Baby's Sake / A Very Special Delivery

That wasn’t what he’d come here for.

‘I’m going to go.’

He pulled up on his elbow and gave her a kiss, though it was a bit pointless to pretend it was a friendly one, given what they’d been like, and that they were lying on the bed, but Ethan did kiss her with no intention other than to say goodbye.

Except he’d forgotten just how much he liked kissing her till he was back there, and Penny was remembering all over again too. It was so nice to be lying down being kissed by him, nicer too when a little while later his hands crept to her breasts that clearly didn’t disappoint because she could feel him harden against her thigh as he stroked.

Only this time he did what he had wanted to that time, his mouth moving down, slipping down the fabric and licking around the areola and then taking her in his mouth.

She was on her back, his expert mouth suckling her hard, and Penny was gasping, wanting to turn to get to him, to explore him too, but loath to end the bliss of his mouth.

He turned her to him, gave her other breast the same attention. Ethan, who loved breasts, actually loved that she hardly had any. Penny was grappling to pull out his top, desperate to feel his skin as his mouth sucking her breast drove her to higher pleasures.

But Ethan moved her hands away, his intention to take his time, but as his hand slid down the jut of her hips, her nightdress had ridden up and he found his hand cupping her bare bottom. ‘Hell, Penny,’ he moaned, ‘have you been walking around all this time with no knickers on?’ He blew out a breath, remembered then the reason he was there, and when Kate had said to be ready for anything, he was quite sure she hadn’t meant that. ‘Sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘Taking things too far.’

‘You’ve never taken things too far,’ Penny said. ‘You haven’t taken things far enough.’

They were at each other again, a knot of arms and legs and deep kisses, her hands going to his buckle, but he halted her.

‘Penny.’ He took her face in his hands and he wrestled with indecision, not sure if it was Hot Mess Penny he was talking to, whom he completely adored and could deal with, or Baby Making Mode Penny, who terrified him, and she got that much.

‘I’m not asking you to get me pregnant.’

‘Isn’t it too soon?’ Ethan checked.

‘Nope.’ And she thought of sex for the sake of it, and how lovely he had been and how badly she wanted the rest of that chocolate bar out of the fridge now. And so too did Ethan. They were back to kissing, only pausing to strip the other off and pray for condoms in his wallet, which, hurrah, there were.

She buried her head in his chest and smelt and felt close-up and naked Ethan. He was stunning, muscled but not too much with a smooth tanned chest and flat brown nipples that shifted from view as his mouth slid down again, only this time not to her breasts. He licked down to her stomach and he did what he had wanted to do that first day he had given her her injection, and he kissed her till she was writhing.

Penny had felt like a pincushion these past weeks, a failed baby-making machine at times, but his mouth was slowly turning her back into a woman as he lingered at each step. Penny closed her eyes in bliss as his mouth moved lower still and with each measured stroke she lost a little more control but gained mounting pleasure. Her hands pulled tight on his hair as Ethan revelled in the taste of her. The scent that had been alluring him for weeks was now his to savour and he carried on kissing her deeply there as she throbbed to his mouth and he returned her to herself. A new self.

‘Ethan.’ Penny lay catching her breath, went to say something, she didn’t know what. She wanted to sit up and face him, wanted to go down on him. It took a moment to realise it wasn’t her decision to make. He was over her, sheathed and poised at her entrance.

‘Love-thirty,’ he said, sexy and smiling and not a moment too soon for Penny, through with being patient.

She moaned as he filled her. Ethan folded his arms behind her head so that her face was right up to him, and she had forgotten how lovely sex could be. Or rather, Penny amended as he moved deep inside her, she’d never really known just how lovely sex could be. Then, as Ethan shifted tempo she made one final amendment before she lost rational thought. She’d never known sex could be so hot.

She didn’t get poor-Penny sex; she got the full bull in Ethan. A surprise birthday present that had her as wild as him. One of his arms moved down to her hips and he practically lifted her off the bed each time he thrust into her. Had Penny ever had any doubt as to all those times she’d thought him aroused, they were gone, because every missed opportunity, every subdued thought Ethan had had seemed to be being banished now over and over deep in her centre.

His want, his desire, the absence of tentativeness had Penny flooded in warmth, her legs wrapping around him, her skin scalding, grinding into him as she tipped into climax.

‘Penny …’ Ethan was trying to hold on, but feeling her shatter, feeling her jolt as if she’d been stunned, by the time he felt her strong, rapid clenches Ethan was on the way to meeting them.

Almost dizzy, he collapsed on top of her and then moved to the side, pulling her with him, more than a bit bewildered about what had happened, because Ethan loved sex but had never had sex like that, and while going down on her his intention had been to be gentle.

‘Did we land on the beach?’ Ethan asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ Penny admitted. ‘I can’t actually see.’ She felt a gurgle of laughter swirl inside her, only it wasn’t laughter, she realised, just this glimpse of being free. ‘And it’s actually thirty-fifteen now,’ Penny said. ‘You forfeited the last game if I remember rightly.’

He’d had no idea what to expect when he’d arrived tonight at her door, but felt as if, in that small conversation, he’d met the real Penny, the one that he’d sometimes glimpsed. Or was it more that it was a different him? Usually Ethan was snoring his head off right about now, but instead it was Penny dozing as he went and dimmed the lights before climbing into bed beside her.

‘Happy birthday, Penny.’

And as she lay there, feeling his big body beside her, she thought that it really shouldn’t have been a happy birthday; it had had every ingredient for it not to be, except it had just turned into her most memorable, possibly favourite one.

‘Thank you,’ Penny said, and then turned over to him. ‘You were right—it wasn’t the drugs.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#u4745aace-ed9b-57fe-b4a0-9cab8ef91f28)

‘IT’S MY MUM.’

Unfortunately Penny hadn’t come into the bathroom to join him in the shower later the next morning. They were up to deuce after a much more tender lovemaking session and Penny was fixing some breakfast while Ethan showered when the intercom buzzed. ‘I know this sounds like I’m eighteen …’

‘You want me to hide?’ Ethan grinned as she pulled on her nightdress and then her dressing gown.

‘Not hide, just don’t come out of the bedroom,’ Penny said. ‘She’ll tell Jasmine and, honestly, by the time we get back to work they’ll all have us engaged or something.’

‘Mum!’ Penny opened the door and stood as her mum gave her a cuddle.

‘I’m so sorry, Penny, I wish I’d been here. I told you not to try till after my trip.’

And there were so many things she could have said to that, but Penny buttoned her lip and forced a smile.

‘How was the cruise?’

‘It was amazing!’ It must have been because Louise looked amazing! She was suntanned and relaxed-looking and wearing new clothes and jewellery, and her hair was a fabulous caramel colour and very well cut. ‘I had the best time, Penny. You’d love it!’

‘I think I might,’ Penny said, because till her mother had set off, she’d never even considered one, but she was seeing the benefits now.

‘All you do is eat and be pampered—I’ve got so much to tell you!’

And Ethan lay on the bed, reading magazines, listening as Penny did her best to limit his exposure to her mother’s love life, because Penny kept asking her to describe islands, but her mum just kept talking about a man she had met. ‘I go all the way to Greece and Bradley’s from Melbourne and he’s so romantic. One night—’

‘Hold on a minute, Mum,’ Penny interrupted. ‘I’m just going to get changed.’

She brought Ethan in a coffee, which she would pretend she’d left in her room, not that her mother would notice. She was way too busy discussing Bradley and comparing the differences with Penny’s father.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s interesting.’

It was, and it became more so because Penny could not stop her mother from talking, and Ethan heard how useless her father had been and that maybe Louise had been a bit harsh in her summing up of all men to her daughters, because Bradley was nothing like that at all.

They were serious, in fact, he heard her tell Penny.