Indecent Arrangements: Tabloid Affair, Secretly Pregnant!

Nate stopped her by running his hands up her splayed legs, still wrapped around him, and issuing a gruff, “Not yet.”

He had a point to make and then, once she got it, he’d take her to the privacy of his apartment and spend the next twelve hours making her scream. But first, he took her hands and then brought them up to the handlebars at either side of her head. “Hold on.”

Her eyes went wide and he waited for it, tasting the satisfaction of a success sure to come. This was where she told him “no”. Where common sense and self-preservation prevailed and she realized she needed to slow down. Be more careful. Only her knees didn’t pull closed, she didn’t put a hand out to stop him.

She did as he’d commanded. She held on.

A part of him let out a cheer at the opportunity to take this fantasy come to life a step further. She’d break soon enough, but for now…

Backing down the seat to make his intent perfectly clear, he fingered a bit of her skirt and then flipped it back to expose her panties.

Turquoise. Lace.

Damp.

“Nate,” she gasped.

Oh, yeah. Here it comes. “We should stop.” Only then, nothing but the anxious shifting of her thighs, the soft musk of her arousal driving him past sanity.

Fine. Desperate times called for desperate measures. “Don’t worry,” he growled. “There isn’t much traffic up here. I doubt anyone will catch us.”

No way he could meet her eyes after that one—no one came up to his private garage level, ever—but he was all about pressing the advantage, so, eyes on those racy panties that should have come with a warning, he slid his arms beneath her legs.

This would do it.

He draped first one supple leg and then the other over his shoulders until he had her so erotically laid out he didn’t know if he could last. But it wouldn’t take much more. It couldn’t.

He was taking back control. Showing her who was in charge—Except then he felt it, the slight dig of those killer-heeled boots at his back. Pulling him in.

Payton, Payton.

His hands tightened around her thighs and, slipping the damp scrap of her panties aside, he sank into her sweetness, tasted her cry and the pulse of her body’s ready desire. It was insane and irrational, and yet—those stunned breathy gasps of pleasure, the widening of those deep brown eyes he couldn’t stop watching—suddenly, he didn’t want her to do anything but go with it.

She was desire mixed with an eager curiosity and sense of adventure that left him panting, straining, and demanded he step up to the challenge and make every damn minute they had before this ended the most exciting she’d ever experienced. He wanted her to let him take her as far as he possibly could.

He licked and kissed, circling outward until he felt her writhe beneath him and then working back in until he earned it again. Plumbing with deep thrusts of his tongue and nibbling with the softest graze of his teeth. He closed his mouth over that little bead and drew against her, tasting her cry on his tongue, increasing the strength of his pull with her escalating pleasure until her voice broke, her body quaked and spasmed and she came apart for him with the gift of her total abandon.

When she’d finished, he gathered her close. Ignoring the strain of his erection, he wound his fingers in the back of her hair. The hair that completely betrayed the wild woman inside. Hair that defied conformity, rebelling against every method of restraint imposed upon it. Escaping every bind. Sexy, beautiful, vibrant hair.

He unclasped the barrette she’d secured it with at the nape of her neck, releasing all that wild, soft rebellion into his hands. Sifting through the curls with his fingers as his tongue delved into the wet haven of her mouth.

So he couldn’t control everything.

So what. Maybe he didn’t want to. Maybe giving into Payton for a while was just what he needed. Holding back only made him want her more, and at the rate they were going, it would be years before he got her out of his system enough to give her up.

Chapter Sixteen

NATE pulled a suit from his closet and laid it over the end of the bed where Payton lazed beneath the blankets. “I’ll be back Wednesday evening. We can have a late dinner.”

A pair of shorts, track pants, tee shirts and socks were stacked haphazardly within his case. Straightening the lot, he caught the languid stretch of a pale arm by the headboard, the shifting of a slender leg. Considered shoving the whole packing mess to the floor and using the bed for the purpose it was intended.

“How is it I’ve gotten spoiled on you in only one month?” came the quiet purr from amid the sheets. “Five days is so long.”

Nate chuckled, taking her pout for the stroke to his ego it was. She’d miss him. They’d fallen into a habit of seeing each other every other day or so and this would be the longest they’d gone apart since their first night together. In all honesty, the break was probably overdue.

As good as being with Payton felt, something about all that rightness—the ease with which she fit into too many areas of his life—was making his skin itch. Making him tug at his tie and rebel against a confine without physical properties. He needed some space. As she’d said, it had been over a month.

His motions slowed and he stood, frozen, holding a boxed shirt suspended above his case.

More than twenty-eight days.

He shot a glance at Payton, searching for an answer to a question he didn’t like.

He’d have known if she started her period.

No. No. He was being paranoid. She wasn’t pregnant. Couldn’t be. How many times had he heard some television or radio commercial touting on about each woman’s body being different. They just hadn’t been together long enough for him to know what kind of different to expect from hers.

Only suddenly he wanted to pilfer through her diary in search of those little circled numbers. Figure out exactly where she kept that critical information and make a note of it. Reassure himself he hadn’t somehow made the most monumental mistake of his life and then play a quiet game of keep away during those most fertile times of the month.

There was no way. A matter of days would confirm it. Only he’d be gone for the next five.

“Nate?” Payton pushed to her elbows and the sheet slipped low across the swell of her breast.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, balled his fists and tried for casual. “Why don’t you come with me?”

He’d wanted the space, and at that moment was nearly gasping for breathing room, but the idea of not knowing, not being sure—it was intolerable. He’d set up another trip in a week or two.

She sat straighter. “What?”

“I’m going to be busy with work. Meetings. Drinks and dinners. But eventually I’ll have to sleep. And if I have a woman back in my room, they won’t try taking me out to some seedy strip club this time. Besides, the shopping is supposed to be top-notch.”

Silence rang through the room, bouncing around the slate walls, allowing his agitation to grow.

“Um, that’s nice, and I wish I could,” she offered at last, “but I take vacations over school breaks.”

His jaw set, his focus narrowed. “Call in sick.”

She began smoothing one corner of the sheet between her fingers. “I’ve got plans with my family.”

“You could see them anytime.”

Her gaze slid away, the turn of her head shutting him out. She looked uncomfortable. As if whatever she was thinking wasn’t something she wanted to share. And he was hanging every hope on it being some neurotic hang-up about discussing her menstrual cycle.

“I—well—”

This was ridiculous. He was railroading her into a trip he didn’t want her to come on rather than just asking. Man up. “Your period?”

“What?”