Grady opened his mouth, but B.J. hurried to
add, “One thing was sure, I definitely wasn’t going to tell anyone
else
until you knew.”
She stopped suddenly as if just realizing
something. Then she scowled and pressed her hands to her hips, snapping, “Wait a second. What even makes you think this is
your
kid?”
She’d already given it away, but his answer was a quiet, heartfelt, “Because I’m not that lucky.”
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B.J. looked like she was going to cry, and he felt like a heel for saying such a thing. He wasn’t typically a rude man. But B.J. wasn’t the type to break down and bawl when her feelings were hurt either. So why did the two of them together seem to bring out the worst in each other?
God, he wanted to scrub his face with his hands and mutter, “What a disaster,” but he didn’t want to hurt her any further. She already looked like she was on the edge and might crumble any second. He sighed then and really did scrub his face with his hands.
“I guess we’ll need to get married,” he
announced, sounding none too pleased.
“What?” she yelped. “Oh, no. Hell, no. I’m not getting married. I’m not marrying
anyone
.”
Again, Grady sighed. “B.J., there’s a child to consider.”
“So?” she retorted, taking a good three steps in reverse and holding up her hands to ward him off.
“Single parents raise kids all the time. It’s not a big deal.”
“Well, I want
my
child to have two parents,” he said slowly, holding back his impatience. “Living in one house.”
“Hey, you can want all you like in one hand and shit in the other. See which one fills up faster, okay, Slim, because I’m
not
getting married.”
“Will you just be reasonable?”
“Reasonable?” she shouted. “You’re the one
losing it. Do you know how freaking disastrous it would be for us to get freaking married? God, Grady.
Do I look like June Cleaver to you? I’m telling you, it would not work.”
Grady studied her for a moment before he spoke with complete assuredness in his voice. “We’re getting married.”
****
The Trouble with Tomboys
B.J. couldn’t believe her ears. The man had lost his mind. He’d gone insane.
But marriage?
Could he mention anything crazier? Probably, but marriage was as far as her imagination could span at the moment. She was just too...befuddled to think much of anything. Befuddled and maybe a little scared, because the notion of tying herself to Grady Rawlings for the rest of eternity was...well, she couldn’t even allow her brain to go there. But the idea made her shiver from the inside out—and not because she was cold...or disgusted.
“I came over here,” he was saying, “prepared to cuss you up one wall and down the other—”
“Well, I really wish you’d get to that instead,”
she interrupted. “And quit blathering on about marriage.” The word caused her to shudder again.
Pretending he hadn’t heard her, he continued,
“But now that I’m thinking about it, it doesn’t seem so awful. I mean, Amy wanted me to be a father. She died trying to make that happen. What if this is her way of getting her wish?”
B.J. didn’t want to argue with such a hopeful statement. What she really wanted was to curl into a ball and weep. That was probably why she sounded so sympathetic when she said, “But what if I miscarry like she did?”
He went still at the question, and she bit her lip.
She almost couldn’t go on, as touchy a subject as this was, but she had a point to prove, and she meant to do it no matter how much it hurt him, though hurting him just might kill her.
“What then, huh, smart guy? Suddenly there’s no baby, and we’re still married. Think about
that
.
It’s the stupidest thing in the world to get married just because of a child. If you really want to be involved in this kid’s life, we’ll work out some custody issues. You can have as much daddy time as 109
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you want. But that’s it.”
He was shaking his head before she even
finished talking. “I want more.”
“There is no more. I mean...what...what about
love
?”
He sent her sharp look. “What about it?”
“We don’t love each other,” she blurted out
desperately. “How can you expect a marriage to last if the people getting hitched don’t even love each other? Jesus, it’s hard enough when they do.”
“Love isn’t any kind of guarantee. I loved Amy and we didn’t last, now did we?”
“But...she died.”
“What’s your point? Death, divorce, it doesn’t matter. I’m not with her anymore. Love doesn’t mean forever.”
B.J. didn’t have a comeback. She merely stared at him mutinously. She wasn’t going to give in, though, and realizing it, Grady sighed in irritation.
“To tell you the truth,” he said quietly, “I’d just as soon
not
be in love the next go-round.”
“Gee, thanks,” the words blurted out of her
before she could stop them. But really. Ouch. No matter how tough she acted, hearing him say he didn’t want to ever love her stung like a son of a bitch, and there was no way she could’ve hidden her knee-jerk reaction of wincing.
His lips parted with the realization he’d actually hurt her feelings, and the apology in his eyes made her humiliation complete. She looked away.
“I didn’t mean—” he started, but she lifted her hand to stop him.
“I know what you meant. Don’t sweat it.”
“No,” he said. “You don’t know. You don’t know at all. That’s just it. I can’t...I won’t ever let any woman...I mean, if I did, it could be Amy all over again. Don’t you see? If I left myself open, someone else could leave me, or die, or whatever, and there’d 110
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be one more huge, gaping hole split open right through the middle of me. So I’m just going to pass on the whole love thing from now on, because I could certainly do without that kind of heartbreak for the rest of my life.”
“Damn it,” B.J. muttered, scowling at him to hide the guilt of letting her own emotions take over when this was really about him and his misery.
“Don’t go saying sad crap like that when I’m trying to disagree with you. I’m not going to back down, Slim. You’re wrong about this, and you’re just making me feel like I kicked a sick dog. So cut it out.” “I’m not wrong,” he insisted.
“We’re not getting married, end of story. Will you wake up and face the new millennium?”
“I don’t care if it’s old fashioned. A child needs a sturdy foundation. There’s too many mixed families out there with too many messed up kids.”
She snorted. “Well, it’s going to have me for a mom, so I’d say it’s already screwed there. Sorry, bud.”
Grady blinked, looking surprised she could say such a thing. “I think you just might surprise yourself on that count.”
Her mouth fell open. “What? Are you on drugs?
What the hell makes you think I’m in any way
motherly
?”
Grady stepped suddenly closer to her. When he lifted his hand to set it on the side of her neck, she knew he had to feel her pulse leap under his fingers.
Her eyes widened and her lips parted, letting out a surprised puff of air.
“I want to marry you, B.J.,” he murmured, his face drawing closer to hers. “Why don’t you want to marry me?”
Though his achingly sweet tone melted
everything inside her like butter over hot pancakes, 111
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B.J. balled her hands into fists. She wished she could sneer something scathing like,
Gee, maybe
because this whole marriage idea has nothing to do
with me and everything to do with your own sense of
morality.
But she couldn’t utter the words.
Strange. She kept finding more and more she
was unable to say aloud lately, which was very unlike her. But the truth was, if he really cared about her or the baby, he’d—
Grady’s fingers curled, and he ran his knuckles over her jaw, watching his own hand caress her as if it was the most intriguing sight in the world.
B.J. stopped breathing even as she warned,
“Don’t crowd me, Slim,” and grabbed his hand, pulling it from her cheek. But, oh wow, that felt good. She didn’t remember to let go of him, and her fingers cradled his warm, thick wrist, wanting to pull it back to her and press his palm against her aching breasts. “You can’t sweet talk me into this.”
He had the gall to look amused. “I assure you, it never once crossed my mind I could sweet talk the ultimate hard-ass, B.J. Gilmore, into doing
anything.”
When he tilted his head as if he was going to kiss her, she swallowed and tightened her grip on his wrist like that would stop the procession of his lips. Meeting his gaze with a stony expression, she said, “You can’t seduce me into it either.”
He looked startled by the idea. But a moment later, his gaze settled on her lips. He sucked in a breath when she flicked out her tongue nervously to wet them. He was going to kiss her anyway, damn it.
This wasn’t good. If he got her on her back, she’d probably agree to anything he wanted, probably even let him coax her into his ridiculous idea of marriage.
B.J. braced herself, preparing to rebuff his 112
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advance and knowing she’d fail.
But he threw her off track when he quietly
admitted, “I can’t stop thinking about Houston.”
Her thighs trembled, and her nipples tightened.
God, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it either.
“We were good together,” he breathed, tilting his face even closer until their foreheads were
centimeters from touching. “And don’t try to disagree with me. I’ll know you’re lying. You liked it just as much as I did.”
“S-so?” she uttered in a suddenly shaky voice.
“Good sex does not—”
“It’d be a nice little side benefit, though, wouldn’t it?” His mouth was close enough it brushed hers with every few words he spoke.
“Just imagine it.” His warm breath caressed her face. “Any time you wanted it, there I’d be. You could wake up on a lazy Saturday morning, roll toward me, and take me any way you wanted.”
She swallowed, helpless but to imagine it.
“I miss that about being married,” he said,
tugging free of her hold on his wrist so he could bring his fingers back to her face. Tracing the bottom curve of her lip, he continued. “I miss knowing someone was beside me to touch and kiss whenever I wanted. But knowing it’d be you would be even more…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. Closing her eyes, B.J. lifted her face in surrender.
Grady took her offered lips greedily, drinking the taste of her, straight off her tongue. Groaning, he moved his fingers up into her hair, holding her head steady as he ate at her mouth.
It’d been over a month since they’d been
together. But she could still recall the exact texture of his fingers on her. His familiar smell invaded her nostrils, dragging her under and sweeping her into a quickly rising flood of passion. His hands were hot 113
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and sure as he stripped off her shirt in one swift move and cupped her breasts.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” she cried, going stiff in his arms, yet tightening her grip on him and holding on for dear life. “They’re tender.”
“Sorry,” he rasped.
She thought he’d leave the swollen members
alone. But telling him they were ultra sensitive only seemed to make him more interested. Gentling his touch, he pushed down the cups and gathered the twins in his hands, massaging with a skill that made her suck in a breath and arch against him.
“Oh, wow,” she breathed out. “Ahhhhhh.”
She closed her eyes as he kneaded and leaned down to suck one peak into his mouth. And she quickly learned tender breasts not only made them easily hurt but just as easily pleasured. Gritting her teeth, she belted out a stream of curses, thinking if he didn’t get inside her soon, she was going to go off without him.
Seeming to read her mind, Grady picked her up and carried her to the couch. In a frenzy to unbutton her jeans, he growled out a frustrated groan.
“I need more hands,” he muttered. “I want to touch you everywhere, all at once.”
As her pants came undone under his harried
ministrations, he paused to place a hot, scorching palm over her stomach, right over their baby. The move jolted her and zapped her back to reality, reminding her how sex would be a really bad idea right now. Too much was still unresolved.
“Stop,” she panted, covering his hands with her shaking fingers.
Grady lifted his face but kept his fingers on their unborn child. His eyes had dilated, and the heat she saw in them about made her forget their problems and drag him down to finish what he’d started. It was a little overwhelming to see just how 114
The Trouble with Tomboys
much he desired her. They weren’t in Houston now.
She hadn’t liquored him up first and coerced him into doing the unspeakable. This was pure, hot need in its rawest form, coming at her from a man she’d never thought would willingly want her. But…
“This isn’t going to resolve anything,” she said, taking a deep breath.
She wouldn’t stop him if he pressed the matter.
In fact, with the slightest cajoling, she’d probably beg him for more until they were both naked and sweaty and depleted from rippling orgasms. But he seemed to realize the timing was wrong too.
Blowing out a breath, he lifted his hands from her and scooted to the other end of the couch. After rearranging his zipper to relieve some of the pressure behind it, he slouched down into the cushions and cradled his head.
B.J. pushed her bra back into place, biting her lip when rough cloth abraded her pouting nipples.
Then she went and retrieved her shirt. She noticed he wouldn’t look at her until she slipped the top on and was smoothing it down over her hips.
“I won’t marry you,” she said.
His gaze was unreadable. He studied her a
moment and then nodded. “I think we should at least tell our families together.”