Vicki Thompson - That's My Baby!

Fortunately she’d only baptized the side of the cab and the sleeve of her coat. In the hullabaloo following her hurling incident, she’d been too embarrassed to be able to gauge whether or not Nat was happy to see her. It would have been difficult to factor out the vomit in that calculation, anyway. Not many men would be happy to see a woman whose first move was to spew all over the place.

Once in the shower, she gave in to the urge to wash her hair with the luxurious hotel shampoo. Much as it pained her to admit it, she missed the five-star treatment. In the years since she’d left Franklin Hall, she’d tried not to dip into her trust fund at all, but once she quit her job and went on the lam, so to speak, she’d had to draw some money out. She begrudged every penny she spent, because it was her father’s money.

Consequently, she could hardly describe her accommodations in the past few months as first-class. Maybe fifth-or sixth-class.

Knowing Nat and his lack of pretense, she’d expected him to opt for a low-to-medium-priced hotel while he was in New York, but for reasons she couldn’t fathom, he’d directed the cabdriver to the Waldorf. From the reaction of the clerk at check-in, she’d figured out Nat hadn’t made an advance reservation, so it was a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Maybe he’d done it for her, although she’d died a million deaths standing there in the glittering lobby in her bag-lady clothes decorated with barf. Now, however, as she rinsed her hair under the most excellent showerhead she’d enjoyed in months, she blessed him for his choice.

Ah, the thick towels. Oh, the rich scent of the body lotion. She wanted to be a good girl and not care about such superficial things, but she’d been raised with them, and the sense of deprivation had been more acute than she’d planned on.

She smoothed at least half the tiny bottle of lotion over herself, both because it felt so good and because, once she was finished, she had to face putting on something wrinkled and musty from her backpack. She was sick to death of wrinkled and musty.

From years of experience with luxurious accommodations, she knew that in the room’s closet a thick terry robe would be hanging ready for just this moment. Technically it was there for the use of the person who’d rented the room. That person would be Nat.

She pictured herself coming out to talk to him in the wrinkled and baggy jumper and turtleneck she had stuffed in her backpack. Then she pictured herself having the same conversation wearing that thick white robe. The discussion would be difficult enough without looking bad while she had it.

Wrapping a towel around her, she went to the door and opened it a crack. “Nat?”

“Yes?” Instantly footsteps hurried in her direction. “Are you feeling okay? Should I call a doctor?”

“I’m feeling better than I have in ages,” she said. “But I have a big favor to ask. Would you mind if I put on the hotel bathrobe that’s hanging in the closet? My clothes are…well, they don’t look very…the thing is, I—”

“Here.” A wad of white terry poked through the crack in the door. “Enjoy.”

“Thanks.” She opened the door enough to pull the robe through. Oh, yes. Egyptian cotton. It felt like heaven as she pulled it on and belted it around her waist. In the steamy mirror she fluffed her still-damp hair. For the first time in months, she looked and felt like herself.

And now she had to face Nat.

She fluffed her hair again. Then she ran a quick comb through it. She wasn’t happy with the last cut, which she’d got done at a beauty school to save money. It took an exceptional stylist to deal with her thick, naturally curly hair. This one had left it too bulky around her shoulders. She tried to tame it with her fingers, but it was no use.

Maybe a little lipstick.

While she’d been on the run, she’d pared down her cosmetics needs to lipstick, mascara and blush. She had the tube of lipstick halfway to her mouth when she stopped to stare at herself in the mirror. What was she doing? Trying to come on to him?

She rolled the lipstick back down, capped it and tucked it into her backpack. She’d take him the herbal supplements she’d brought, though. Fishing them out, she started toward the door. On the way she happened to look down at her feet.

Now, there was a sorry sight. She paused to consider her unpainted toes, clipped with a toenail clipper. Not buffed, not filed, not pampered. Her last pedicure had been before she’d had Elizabeth. Nat had always loved her feet.

Stop it, she lectured herself. He probably didn’t love any part of her anymore. What she looked like didn’t matter. Elizabeth was the only person who mattered in this whole mess.

“Jess?” Nat rapped on the door. “Are you sure you’re okay in there?”

“I’m okay.”

“Then what’s taking so long?”

“I was, um, thinking.”

“Well, could you do that out here? We need to talk.”

“Yes, we do. We most certainly do.” Drawing in a bracing lungful of air, she opened the bathroom door. She found herself staring at his shirtfront. He stood right outside the door, crowding her, invading her space. She would have to walk around him to move any farther into the room.

His masculine scent surrounded her, making her quicken in all sorts of strategic places. She gathered her courage and looked up into his eyes. Her heart stuttered at the fire burning there. “Nat?”

“What’s that?” He glanced down at the two bottles of supplements.

“Herbal stuff for you.”

His gaze lifted. “Why?”

“Because…” Because I love you and worry about you. She didn’t dare say it.

He made an impatient noise deep in his throat. “Jess, I have to ask you something.”

“Okay.” Her heart hammered.

His words were as intense as his gaze. “Is there anyone else?”

Joy rushed through her. Hallelujah. He still wanted her. “No. No one else.”

With a gusty sigh he took the vitamin bottles and tossed them on the floor. Then he pulled her into his arms. “Excuse the beard,” he murmured. Then his lips crushed hers.

Overjoyed as she was to know that he still cared, she was distracted at first by the beard. Kissing him was like smooching a stuffed animal. But then…then he coaxed her mouth open. She forgot all about the beard as she rediscovered why kissing Nat had been one of her all-time thrills. He could pack more sensuality into a kiss than other men could manage in an hour of whole-body sex.

A few moments of kissing Nat beat a day at the spa for making her tingle all over. One kiss from him and she was so awake, from the tips of her curling toes to the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck. His fingers stroked there, and she turned to melted butter in his arms.

Boiling butter might be more like it. She wriggled against him, trying to get closer.

He shifted the angle of his mouth and tugged at the bathrobe’s sash while he muttered something that sounded like have to.

Oh, so did she. Had to. She started on the buttons of his shirt. But wait. She hadn’t planned on this.

“Need you so,” he breathed, backing her toward the bed as he continued to kiss her senseless.

“Wait,” she said, gasping.

“Can’t.” He pushed open the terry cloth and closed his hand over her breast with a groan.

“Nat—” She tried to tell him she wasn’t on the Pill. He kept coming, thrusting his tongue in her mouth, making her crazy with wanting him. The back of her knees hit the edge of the bed. She fell against the quilted spread and he came right with her.

Panting, she tried again. “I’m not—”

His mouth silenced her once more.

Oh, God. How many times had she fantasized about his weight pressing her into the mattress, his hand between her thighs, his mouth at her breast? Both of them going wild. If this was a dream, she’d kill whoever or whatever woke her up.

Even his beard was wonderful, brushing her skin like the pelt of some exotic animal. She’d never realized kissing a bearded man could be so erotic. She pulled him closer, arched into his caress, moaned his name.

“God, I need you,” he groaned.

“I need you, too.” But one unplanned baby was enough. She forced herself to choke out the words. “But I’m not on the Pill anymore. We can’t—”

“Yes, we can.” He nuzzled his way back to her mouth.

At first she thought he meant that he wouldn’t care if she got pregnant. “We can?”

“Yes.” He covered her face with a million kisses. “We can. I want to be inside you, Jess.”

Could he really be telling her that he’d changed his mind about children? Her heart expanded with the possibility. “Why can we?” she asked breathlessly.

“I had room service bring up condoms. Don’t worry.” He kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose. “I won’t get you pregnant.”

She went still. “Would that be so terrible?”

He paused and lifted his head to gaze into her eyes. Although it seemed to take some effort, he gained control of his runaway desire. Then he took a deep breath. “I don’t want to start out with a fight, Jess.”

A pulse hammered in her throat. “Neither do I. But I need to know. Would it be so terrible if you got me pregnant?”

“You mean right now, at this very moment?” Without giving her a chance to answer, he barreled on. “Yeah, it would. We have a lot of talking to do, and that’s one of the things we need to talk about, but I wouldn’t want to make a move like that without taking all kinds of things into consideration. I am willing to give it some thought, much more so than when I left. Maybe…I’m not saying positively, but maybe…someday. But not right now.”

The hope swelling in her heart died. Damn, but he was a pain in the butt. She’d meant to find a gentle way to tell him, but suddenly she didn’t want to be gentle with this incredibly sexy but frustratingly stubborn man. She wanted to hit him between the eyes.

“It’s too late to talk about it, Nat,” she said. “Eight months ago I gave birth to our daughter.”

NAT STARED down at her as a sick feeling worked its way through his gut. “No,” he whispered.

“Yes. I’m sorry to spring it on you like this. I hadn’t planned on that, but I’ve carried this secret for so long that I—”

“No!” He scrambled from the bed, as if eliminating all contact with her would change the message she was trying to deliver. He jabbed an accusing finger at her. “You were on the Pill!”

Jess sat up, drew her robe around her with great dignity and retied the sash. Sometimes, at moments like this when she adopted an almost royal air, he realized that some of her upbringing had stuck with her, whether she wanted it to or not.

“Yes, I was, but—”

“You stopped?” The fear boiling in his stomach erupted into accusations. “You stopped without telling me, didn’t you? You thought if you couldn’t hook me one way, you’d try something else!”

“How dare you!” She leaped from the bed, rigid with anger.

“What else am I supposed to think?” Oh, God, he remembered how she’d pleaded with him to commit. Her pleas could have come from the desperate knowledge that she might be carrying his baby.

Clenching her fists, she faced him, her eyes dark with betrayal. “You could try thinking that it was an accident.” Her voice quivered. “I had a cold that weekend, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” She’d suggested their not seeing each other because she hadn’t wanted to infect him. But he’d talked her into it by saying he had a great immune system. He’d told her they’d spend the weekend in bed. Which they had. Her cold had made their final argument that much more miserable, because she’d been crying and coughing and sneezing through it all. He’d felt like the worst kind of heel, but she’d been the one pressing the point, not him. And he’d run.