IMPACT: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (18 page)

Chapter 35

Olivia

We flew across the ice as one, the wind in my face. I heard a wild, manic sound and realized it was coming from my own mouth. I sounded like a crazy person, but I didn't care, because this was crazy. Every instinct in my body said to stop, to dig in my toes and clomp my way back to the solid ground where I wasn't certain to fall and smash my face in, but I didn't because of the way Brad was holding me.

He was holding me so close, so confident. He wasn't going to let anything bad happen to me. He was protecting me, and he looked like he was really enjoying it too. He wanted me to share in this thing that he loved, which gave him so much joy. The biggest part of his life was right here on this ice and he wanted me here with him, to know what it was like to feel what he felt and if I wasn't going to do it on my own, well then he was just going to haul my stubborn ass out and force me to try something that I was certain I was going to fail at and then just go ahead and not let me fail at all.

He wasn't going to let me fail. He wasn't going to leave. And he wasn't going to let me go.

Breathless, we slid to a stop, Brad braking for both of us. Momentum whirled me around in a circle until Brad caught me up in his arms. I looked up at him, this man who held me and kept me from falling down. I trusted him.

"I'm pregnant," I told him.

I will always swear that his face
shimmered.
Disbelief dissolved into wild happiness and he made a choking sound. No words came out, and now I knew why, and I just hugged him back as hard as he was now hugging me.

"Really?" he finally managed. "We're having a baby?"

"Do you want to have a baby with me, Brad?" I twisted my fingers up in my hands. "I'll tell you, I can't imagine myself as a mom" I looked up and traced the line of his jaw, my fingers scratching through his beard. His face looked like it might break he was smiling so hard. "But I saw you just now, with Candace's kid? And it kind of made me realize something I knew already. But I think you'd be a fucking incredible Dad.” "A total DILF, honestly," I smiled. "And our kid is going to be awesome."

"The coolest," Brad echoed. "And he definitely will be getting that from me."

"He?" I demanded. "We're totally having a girl."

"Want to bet?"

"Yeah, what are you wagering?"

"If it's a boy, you owe me a month of blow-jobs," Brad smiled wickedly. "And if it's a girl, I'll owe you a month of oral."

"Make it foot rubs instead of oral," I complained. "I'm already swelling, I swear. I'm going to need surgery to get these skates off."

"You're choosing foot rubs over oral? Man motherhood is changing you already."

"I know. I'm going soft." I reached up and kissed him. "Just make sure you never do."

He burst out laughing and pulled me close. Pretty soon I was just going to be just like Candace, all moony and romantic, blissed out on love and endorphins. I was changing. And that was fine.

No regrets.

Epilogue

Olivia

I heaved myself out of my desk chair. "All right gentlemen, I'm done for the day," I called. "Don't blow the place up while I'm gone."

Kyle merely snorted at his desk, but Marcus actually had the good grace to poke his head out from his office. "Good luck today, Liv!" he called. "Say hi to my nephew for me!"

"Niece," I corrected tiredly. "The bet is still on."

Marcus chuckled. "I hope you're right, actually. You should have made it two months of foot rubs."

"There's still time," I said packing my bags. "Speaking of time, don't forget to put me in for a half day today."

"I got you," Marc agreed at the same time that Kyle spoke up, "don't worry about it."

"I'm not gonna dock you for getting an ultrasound, Bryant," Kyle sighed. "What kind of asshole do you think I am?"

"You're my asshole," I chirped, blowing him a kiss. "Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have to start waddling now in order to make it there in time."

As fast as I waddled, Brad still beat me to the OB's office. He was already in the waiting room, slumped into one of the chairs that were way too small for his frame. His long legs stretched out practically into the next county.

"Hey Daddy," I sang out.

He jumped to his feet and rushed to my side. "How are you?" he asked, a worried crease in his brow.

"I'm the same as when I saw you this morning," I chided him. "Still knocked up, still kind of grumpy about it."

"Ah," he chuckled, kissing my forehead. "I wouldn't have you any other way."

The technician called us in. I lifted my shirt and let her spread the warm goo all over my stomach. Then she slid her wand across it and dug in.

The static on the screen formed into a perfect little face.

"Oh!" I gasped.

"Hey there little one!" Brad said softly. "So good to see you!" Then he smiled. "Watch out for your mom." He reached out and took my hand.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but I couldn't find the words. I could only stare at the little scrunched up face on the screen.

"He's got your chin," Brad murmured.

"She," I corrected.

"Everything looks great," the technician said. "Are we finding out the sex today?"

I looked at Brad who raised an eyebrow. "The bet?" he wondered.

I exhaled. "Does it matter?"

"Not really, no," he said. "I was going to rub your feet anyway."

"And you know I'm always down for going down."

He smiled and squeezed my hand. "I think we'll wait," he told the tech.

I nodded. "Okay little one, don't go anywhere. Mommy and Daddy will see you soon."

THE END

THE END

Thank you so much for reading IMPACT! As a special bonus, I've included FORCE, Ian and Candace's story, and my rockstar book RANE. And all you have to do to read them is keep turning the pages!

BOOKS BY VIVIAN LUX:

Sons of Steel Motorcycle Club:

Steel My Heart

Steel Me Away

Steel My Love

Steel My Soul

Rockstar Romance

JAX: A Rockstar Stepbrother Romance

RANE: A Rockstar Stepbrother Romance

WILDER: A Rockstar Romance

Sports Romance

FORCE: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vivian Lux loves bad boys who are good men. She lives in Upstate New York with her model-hot husband and  adorable twin boys. When she's not writing, she's reading. When she's not reading, she'd really love to be hiking, but is more likely dealing with the mountain of laundry that piled up while she was writing and reading.

To find more of Vivian's books, head over to her

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I love to hear from my readers. 

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FORCE:

A Bad Boy Sports Romance

Vivian Lux

Copyright 2016

All Rights Reserved

FORCE: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

About this book:

I'm not a nice guy.
And so far, that's working out really well for me.
In hockey, the enforcer is a not an officially sanctioned position. But everyone knows what he does. And everyone knows what I do. I'm Ian Carter after all. I'm a big, bad bully both on and off the rink. My fans know it, and I know it too.
Until I meet 
her.
Candace Hunter. My sweet piece of Candy. She's the got the face of an angel and a body made for sin, but more than that, she sees something in me. Something that makes me wonder if I'm more than my reputation. She forces me to be a better man.
But there are other forces out there too. People who want to hurt us, people who want to drive us apart.
I'm not going to let them win.
Nice guys finish last. 
Ian Carter
 comes in first.

Chapter One

Candace

The text message alert on my phone went off the second the waitress brought out our appetizers. I smiled apologetically across the table.

But my date was too occupied with his onion rings to notice.

I slid my phone under the table and glanced at notification on the screen.

Olivia: How’s it going?

I pressed my lips together and snuck a glance at the man across the table from me. Dennis hadn’t noticed I was looking at my phone. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure he really noticed I was even in the same room as him. His eyes were fixed over my shoulder, keeping a close watch on the hockey game that blared on the screen behind us.

Yes, we were in a sports bar. A loud, boisterous sports bar. For our first date.

And they say romance is dead.

Feeling guilty, even though I had no reason to, I covertly typed my reply.

Me: Okay, I gues
s
…

Then I slid my phone behind my back and smiled winningly across the table. “So—Olivia tells me your parents are veterinarians. How wonderful to grow up with animals like that!”

He nodded, chomping loudly on his onion rings. I could smell them from across the table, and involuntarily wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, it was cool, I suppose…” The momentary eye contact he made with me drifted away, and his attention was once again rooted on the game behind me.

I felt my phone vibrate against my back.

I sighed, shifted, and slipped my phone back to my hand. My thighs were sticking to the vinyl booth. I regretted wasting my favorite blue dress on this date. It wasn’t worth it.

I looked down at my screen.

Olivia: Have you used one of my lines?

I pressed my lips together again, this time to hide the smile that desperately wanted to turn into laughter. Olivia Bryant, my best friend and fellow cubicle dweller at
Cupid’s Arrow Dating Service
, was a self-professed ‘female chauvinist pig.’ The kind of girl who watched
Sex and the City
and took Samantha as her own personal role model.

Her current obsession was what she called, ‘pickup line equity.’

“If men get to use corny, sleazy pickup lines, well then so do we!” she had crowed to me three nights ago as we shared a bottle of Pinot Grigio in my tiny kitchen. “From now on, I’m a female pickup artist. It’s the war of the sexes, baby, and sometimes you need to adopt enemy tactics to win.”

Me: No!

I typed back, not even bothering to hide my phone anymore.

Me: I am not going to ask him if he has any wood for my beaver.

Just typing those words made me blush like a mad woman.

Three little dots that indicated she was typing hovered on the screen. I took a quick glance at my date to see if he noticed that I was paying him no attention at all.

Olivia: That was my best one!

She wrote back, with a string of frowny-faced emojis.

Olivia: Okay, how about this. Tell him...

Olivia: ‘I wish I was your car so you could fill me up.’

I hid my laughter behind a cough, and reached for my wineglass. The only wine this sports bar had was a cheap white Zinfandel, but I wasn’t above downing half my glass at once.

This blind date was officially a disaster, and we hadn’t even gotten our entrées yet.

“Another glass of the Zin, hon?” Our waitress couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old, and she smacked her gum loudly as she talked.

Dennis finally tore his eyes from the screen, and latched them firmly on her high, padded breasts.

“I’ll take more of whatever
you
got,” he leered.

We had barely started drinking, but his eyes already had a drunken sheen to them. I wonder how long he was here, pre-gaming, before I had showed up. A little tiny warning bell went off in the back of my head.

The waitress rolled her eyes, but at the same time she jutted her chest out a little further. “I got whatever you want,” she flirted back clumsily.

“Excuse me,” I interjected. This was getting gross. “Could you check on our meals?” I was debating leaving, but our orders had already been put in, and I had skipped lunch in an effort to fit into this blue dress.

“Gonna be a sec,” the waitress snapped, popping her gum again. “Kitchen’s backed up. Can I get you more drinks?”

I shook my head. This was ridiculous. “Excuse me,” I said, smiling apologetically. “I’m just going to run to the ladies’ room.”

“Chicks and their small bladders,” Dennis grumbled for no reason.

The waitress just laughed and leaned all the way over our table to collect the two empty pint glasses in front of him. He practically buried his face in her tits.

I grabbed my phone and headed to the bathroom. At the corner of the bar, a small knot of men were watching the same game Dennis couldn't keep his eyes off of.  My blood pressure was already spiking from Dennis’s jackass behavior, so I didn’t feel like us enduring another round of male chauvinist pigs. I decided to give them a wide berth.

“What’s up, Blue?” one of the guys called out. “Come over here and say hello!”

They were practically blocking the ladies’ room. “Excuse me!” I called out in my best no-nonsense voice. “I need to get by.”

“What’s the hurry?” the blond one asked.

“Don’t be a dick,” the third guy interjected.

He swiveled around in his barstool and gave the first guy a shove. “Go ahead,” he told me. “My friends left their manners at home tonight.”