Her fingers gently stroked his hair as her hot tears fell against his cheek. “I do love you, Erik,” she said in a choked voice. “I never stopped. I can never stop.”
Just then the baby in her womb kicked. Once. Twice. Three times.
Erik slowly raised his head and gazed deeply into the turbulent depth of Michelle’s eyes. He held her hands in his. “That’s my baby in there. Tell me it’s my baby, Michelle. I want to hear you say it.”
“Yes, Erik. It’s your baby.” Her eyes were dark and stormy, sparkling in the light from the lamp. All the love and hunger she had suppressed for months spilled from their warm depths.
“Our son seems happy that his parents are back together,” he said with a wide grin.
She gave him a relaxed, happy smile. “You’re so sure it’s a boy.”
“Of course. We already have a daughter.”
The gentle motion of the pads of his thumbs stroking the insides of her wrists caused Michelle to catch her breath.
We.
He’d said
we
. She put her hands around his neck and drew him close to her. “How’s Precious?”
“Missing you, dreadfully. I have to apologize to her for keeping you apart.”
“Yes, you do.”
“How are you, Michelle?” he asked, filial concern hanging on the edge of his husky voice. “Have you been eating right, taking care of yourself?”
“From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I’ve been doing all the right things to make sure I deliver a strong and healthy baby.”
Erik smiled and stretched his arms around her as far as it would go. He caressed the curve of her back. He pressed his head into her chest, between her swollen breasts from which their child would be suckling soon. He inhaled deeply, drinking up her sweetness. “I almost forgot how good you smell,” he whispered, raising his head. “I used to go into your bedroom and close my eyes, and let your
Moonlight
creep through my skin. I missed you so much. I need you. I want our son to feel me loving his mother. I want to show you how much I love you.”
“What’s stopping you?” she whispered, bending her head.
Their lips locked in a kiss that was as slow, drugging, and sedate as it was exciting. The strong smoothness of Erik’s tongue flickered lightly, tantalizingly, across the softness of Michelle’s lips. He teased the curved corners of her mouth, exploring the fleshy, velvety inside as if it were a luscious ripe fruit, bursting with warm honey and sweet nectar. He wanted to savor her, love her, cherish her, forever. Finally, his tongue slid into the warm, dark recesses of her mouth and he swirled it around, stroking the sensitive ceiling and inner cheeks of her sweet cavern, slowly, seductively.
Michelle moaned deeply and gave him full license to her sweetness. She tangled her tongue with his, twirling it around in a primitive, provocative dance before drawing back from him. Her eyes were laced with passion as they blazed into the murky depth of his. “Stand up,” she commanded softly, pushing on his arms.
He pushed to his feet, frowning in confusion.
Slowly, Michelle’s hands reached for his belt and unbuckled it. She unbuttoned his trousers then unzipped them carefully. As she pushed them off his hips, her lips came eagerly toward his groin. She kissed the rigid outline of his manhood through his black silk briefs.
Erik’s breath caught in his throat at the intimate contact. He cupped her face in his hands. “Michelle, you don’t have to do this.”
Her smile was the epitome of eroticism. “I want to.”
Michelle struggled off the couch and knelt on the floor in front of him. She drew his trousers very slowly down his thighs and legs, her lips pressing hot kisses against his hairy limbs as they became visible. She went as low as her fat stomach would allow her. She would have sucked each of his toes if she could. She unlaced his shoes and patiently held his legs, one at a time, as he stepped out of his shoes and trousers. She remembered the day in his bedroom in Granite Falls when he’d paid her the same service before lying down with her. She would lay down with him later. Right now, she wanted to give him something special. Something she knew Cassie had never given him.
Michelle’s eyes scanned down his body, clad in nothing but a pink shirt, striped tie, black briefs, and brown knee-high socks. He looked beautiful, virile, and very masculine. She trailed her finger along the outline of his erection, starting from the solid base all the way to the throbbing head.
Erik quivered and closed his eyes.
Bringing her face close, Michelle placed her mouth to the throbbing head and gently and slowly nipped and licked her way down the outline of his brief-sheathed shaft, then back up again. She repeated the tantalizing acts of love until he groaned and shivered above her.
Erik opened his eyes and gazed down at a very pregnant Michelle on her knees in front of him, her face bathed in rapture. The sight of her beautiful lips moving back and forth over his shaft was so erotic it sent bolts of fire surging from his toes to his fingertips. He should stop her. He didn’t want an embarrassing repeat of his honeymoon with Cassie. But Michelle had other ideas, he realized when she hooked her fingers in the waist of his briefs and pulled them down to his knees.
“Oh, Goodness. I don’t believe this is happening,” he exclaimed in a ragged voice as his erection jumped out and smacked her in the face.
Michelle gazed up at him, not believing it either. “You’ve never been loved this way?”
An embarrassed light flickered in his eyes. “Just once, on my honeymoon with Cassie. She gagged, bit me a couple times then threw up all over me. Doubtless to say, it’s been a turn-off since then.”
“Oh, baby.” Michelle pouted. “No wonder you stopped me every time I tried to pleasure you this way. I’ve never done this before, either. But I promise not to bite you or throw up on you.”
He gasped in pleasure as her fingers, warm and slender, closed around his flesh, pumping it lightly. His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her closer. Michelle pushed the foreskin back and touched her tongue to the broad head. A drop of moisture, tangy and musky, washed over her tongue. She licked at it, enjoying the arousing masculine odor rising from his body.
How could Cassie, any woman not enjoy pleasuring the man she loved in such an intimate way? She’d never done it with Ryan because she was not in love with him. But Erik, she would pleasure him this way, any way, any time he wanted.
Erik bit into his lips and closed his eyes. “Michelle.” He moved his hips suggestively as her tongue flicked sensually over him. A long moan erupted from his throat when her hot wet mouth closed completely around the head of his shaft, and she began sucking him with a delicious sensuous rhythm that erased all purpose, but the one of completeness.
She worked her mouth over him, trying to take as much of him as she possibly could. It was pure rapture to watch her. He held her head steady and thrust into her hot mouth as she worshiped and loved him like no other woman had ever done, or ever would. Back and forth, up and down, she teased and caressed and tortured with her mouth and hands.
Erik felt his lungs constrict, cutting off vital air to his brain. His body tensed as divine pleasure exploded through him. “Michelle... I’m com...ing...”
His breath came in hard cutting gasps. He tried to push her head away and disengage from her mouth, but Michelle held him by his tight buns and locked her jaws around him. She sucked him urgently and vigorously until the volcano inside him erupted in a violent explosion.
Erik expelled a long, rumbling, animal sound that started way down in his belly then he emptied himself into her mouth. She glued her lips to him, milking him for all he was worth.
Some moments later, when all was quiet again, Michelle looked up at him and licked her lips with the satisfaction of a cat that had just eaten the unsuspecting canary.
Erik pulled her to her feet. “You greedy little minx. If I’d known you were so good, I would have let you go down on me a long time ago.”
Michelle smiled, kissed his lips, then her eyes opened in surprise when she felt him, still hard, pressing against her fat stomach. She had almost forgotten about his insatiable appetite. He was a multiple orgasmic man. One in a million. And he was all hers. She was the luckiest girl to ever walk the face of the earth. And to think she had almost lost him.
“Where’s the bedroom?” he asked in a strained voice.
“But you just—”
“I’ve just begun, my love. I plan to make love to you all night, Michelle Carter. We have a lot of lost time to make up. He bent and picked her up.
“I’m too heavy, Erik.”
“Never.”
Giggling against his shoulders, Michelle pointed the way.
In the bedroom, he stripped off the rest of his clothes then slowly helped her out of her dress, bra, and panties. He stared at her naked body. “You’re so beautiful.” He reached out and palmed her swollen, tender breasts, kneading them gently, twirling the hard peaks between his fingers.
“I’m fat and ugly.” She suddenly felt awkward and timid.
He placed a finger under her chin and raised her face to his. “You are more gorgeous than ever. And it’s because you carry a new life inside you.” His hand came down to caress her stomach. “This is the most precious gift a woman could give a man. To carry his seed inside her, to nourish it, love it, protect it with her life.” He sighed. “I’m so sorry I missed out on—”
Michelle placed a finger on his lips. “All that matters is that you’re here now, with me and our child. I have carried him, but you will bring him into the world. Yours will be the first face he sees. Yours will be the first hands that hold him. That will make up for anything you think you have missed out on.”
“I love you so much.” Gently, he lowered her to the bed and worshiped her body as she’d worshiped his. Only after he had taken her to the gates of paradise and back a few times, only after she clawed at him and begged him to take her, did Erik turn her on her side, position himself behind her, then slowly and carefully, entered her, one delicious, rigid inch at a time.
Their loving was slow, sweet, drawn-out, and intense. And when the waves of passion swelled beyond their control, they held each other tightly and rode the blissful currents to an awesome shuddering euphoric release.
A long time afterwards, while Michelle lay in Erik’s arms, she felt the need to have some questions answered. “Erik?”
“Yes, baby.” His voice was groggy, sleepy, his heart beating in a slow steady rhythm against the curve of her back.
“Were you sleeping with Bridget?”
“No. Never.” His arms tightened possessively and reassuringly about her.
“Then what was she doing at your house—”
“At midnight, five and a half months ago?”
“You knew?”
“Bridget just told me tonight. She recognized Yasmine’s number on Caller I.D.”
“I still don’t understand.”
His chest rose and fell behind her. “Mrs. Smith had come down with the flu. Mrs. Hayes was off visiting a friend in Florida. Mother was somewhere in the South of France. I had to go to Chicago for a conference. I was hard-pressed for someone to watch Precious. When Bridget offered to stay with her, I took her up on it.”
“You could have called me.”
“Michelle, I honestly thought of doing just that. It would have given me a reason to see you, talk with you, try to win you back.”
“Why didn’t you?” She rubbed her hands over his arms, loving the protection and security he offered her.
“Stupid pride and arrogance. Then when you didn’t answer my letter—”
Michelle tensed. “What letter?”
“The one where I poured my heart out and begged your forgiveness. I told you how much I loved you and wanted you back. I didn’t know if your feelings for me changed as time passed. So I wrote that if I didn’t hear from you, I would assume you couldn’t forgive me, that it was over between us.”
Michelle took a quick sharp breath. “I never got that letter, Erik.”
“You didn’t? I know I mailed it, and it wasn’t returned.”
“When did you send it?”
“After Christmas. The holidays were so lonely. Plus my parents were on my case about letting you go. I just wanted you back in my life. When I didn’t hear back, I just—”
“Jessica,” Michelle grounded out after a long silence had passed.
“Who’s Jessica?”
“Your rival. She lives next door to Yasmine and used to get my mail when I was still living there. She must have thrown it out when she saw the return address. She has a thing with rich people. Her wealthy father never acknowledged her. And she’s jealous of my love for Precious.”
Erik stroked his hands down her body, calming her. “Don’t be too harsh on her. She was competing for your love just as I was. It’s in the past now. We’re back together. That’s all that matters.” He paused for a long moment then said, “I heard about your father’s death. How are you handling that?”
Michelle took a deep unemotional breath. “That man wasn’t my father.”
“You’re right. A father takes care of his children. I don’t blame you for disowning him for treating you the way he did.”
Michelle struggled to turn around to face Erik. She smiled as she placed her hand on his cheek. “He wasn’t my father,” she said again. “Robert and I are not related to him.”
His forehead crinkled. “What do you mean?”
Michelle eagerly filled him in on the story about Timmy Gleason, and how he’d killed the real Dwight Carter, stolen his identity, and kidnapped her mother and Robert and brought them to New Hampshire.
“You mean to tell me that all this time your real father has been dead, and this man has been impersonating him?”
Michelle nodded.
“Why didn’t your mother say something? Turn him in?”
“Come on, Erik, think.”
“You’re right. He must have threatened Robert an—” His eyes narrowed. “You said Robert was born in Virginia, but you were born in New Hampshire. How can you be sure you’re not this terrible man’s child?”
“Mrs. Hayes told me that my mother was already pregnant with me when she moved to Manchester. But when I began this investigation, I wasn’t sure how long my mother had been his hostage, so when we found out that Timmy was an impostor, Robert went to see him in jail and came back with a couple strands of his hair.”