John’s breath came in gasps as her fingers sank inside the tight passage he craved. The peak of her climax thrust her hips up toward her moving hand and the other fisted the sheet. That sound, that delicious, erotic sound of her orgasm, cried out.
Hidden in its depth was a single word.
His name.
Like a too-taut rope touched by a razor blade, his body shivered with fractured control and a mindless growl.
John buried himself inside her before the last quiver faded.
Unexpected and hard, his penetration jolted her, thrilled her. Livvy clung to him as he plunged inside, rocking over her engorged nub. Lust tinged his kisses with a savory bite. Rough hands forced hers above her head and his hips crashed into hers.
Primal instinct made her rise to meet his every thrust. Each powerful drive sent shockwaves of burning need through her.
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This was her fantasy—John, hungry, self-
restraint long gone, loving her with each punishing stroke. They pawed each other, scraped teeth on skin, growled and snarled, each wanting more. The violent raging appetite consumed them.
Livvy planted her heels and arched, needing him to fill the ache inside. John reared back, slammed his forearms under her legs and brought her splayed knees up, curving her hips into his deepest thrusts. Her screaming gasp was echoed by his grunted pleasure. Every stroke was fierce and not totally without pain but if he dared stop, she would go mad.
Far in the recesses of her body, an ancient drumbeat grew. It gripped her with an unruly power. Her body tightened around him and his spine jerked, his furious rhythm faltering. He buried himself deeper than ever inside her. Head thrown back, teeth clenched, he let loose a wordless cry. Wet heat filled her and a climax ripped from her soul with a ferocious quake. The primitive control exploded like a powder keg. She didn’t have the breath to spare to cry out, to scream in abandon, to even whimper in delight.
All she could do was soar.
Livvy had no idea how long they hung in the glow of descent. All she knew or cared about as she drifted back was she was in John’s embrace.
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He let her quivering legs fall and stroked her hair.
When her eyes fluttered open, he filled her gaze.
“Uh, wow.”
“Yeah, wow… Livvy, you…oh God, what you
did…if you knew… You amazed me, Livvy. That was…you were incredible.”
She knew why he’d looked so smug in the
shower. Making someone lose control so
completely made you feel invincible. But she would feel invincible later. Exhaustion had seeped into every quivering muscle and Livvy could barely find the strength to answer his gentle kiss with a tease. “Oh, you liked that, did you?”
“I loved it… I love you, Livvy.”
She frowned at him. “What?”
He brushed a soft kiss across her mouth. “I said I love you, Livvy.”
She pulled her mouth from his, staring to make sure she’d heard what she thought he’d said.
John fingered a long damp curl before looking at her. And then he smiled. “I do. I love you.”
Tears formed before she willed them away. A sob blended with a laugh and she kissed him. She lost count of how many times she said it as she kissed him, but each time he repeated it, imprinting it on her heart.
Do it now.
John knew it was the right time.
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his mouth and he hated to move away. But this moment was worth it. One last kiss and he started to pull from her embrace. She whimpered and he froze. The trembling of his thighs reminded him of how hard he’d taken her and panic gripped him.
“Liv, oh God, did I hurt you?”
Her head was shaking before he finished. “No.
Never. You loved me. Extremely well.”
John pressed one more kiss to her lips before easing from her body. He lunged across the bed.
The nightstand drawer handle slipped from his fingers on the first grab. He reached wider, outlining the words in his head. His fingers fell on the box…the condom box.
The box he hadn’t touched before sinking
inside Livvy.
Anything he’d planned to say got erased by a serpent’s hiss and replaced with one chanted curse.
Oh shit.
Livvy waited for John to return, as he always did.
He didn’t move. Stretched out on his stomach, propped on one arm, he was barely breathing.
“Murphy?”
The long line of his back twitched when her hand landed on his side. Her nails had left their mark, dozens of short red lines stood out. God, she loved the feel of him. Her fingers slid down 346
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over his ass and he pulled himself away, swinging his feet off the bed. “Liv…”
Something ominous in his voice rippled her calm. Deep in her belly, a scared tremor grew and she reached for the sheet. Whatever was wrong, she did not want to discuss it naked. She didn’t want to discuss anything, period. She wanted him to crawl back in her arms and cling tight to the moment.
Elbows on his thighs, forehead in his hands, he drew a huge noisy breath. “I didn’t use anything. I got so… Damn, Livvy, you made me crazy. I never even thought about a condom.”
She sighed. She’d thought something terrible had happened. In the grand scheme of life, this was a blip. They messed up. Not smart but not horrific either. Rolling to her side, she reached out to him and he didn’t shy away. “It’s okay.”
“No. It’s not.” He turned and crawled under the sheet with her. He folded one arm under his head and reached for her hand. It might not have been the traditional position of lovers after making love, but Livvy cherished these moments. In the sleepy afterglow, they would talk face to face, about private things, tender things.
The lines deepened around his mouth as his jaw shuffled. She laid her hand against his beard shadow. Tension vibrated through his body like a tuning fork struck against stone.
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“Talk. What’s going through your head?”
He removed her hand from his cheek but held it. “You’re not using any birth control, are you?”
“No. I’m allergic to most of the pills. You said you’d tak—”
“I screwed up.” Anger clipped his words and Livvy drew her hand away. He let her and would not meet her eyes. Her unease strengthened.
This is really freaking him out.
Rolling to her back, she stared up at the ceiling.
Why does it feel
like things are slipping through my fingers?
His hand slid across her stomach and she pushed the doubts away. He’d just told her he loved her.
Things would be fine.
“Livvy, tell me this is a safe time.” From her stomach, his hand moved lower, below her belly button, above her pubic bone. And there it stopped.
His meaning was obvious. “Livvy?”
Eyes closed, she swallowed. “Do you want me to lie to you, Murphy? I think so, but I don’t know for sure. I’ve never been exactly regular. It could be fine or it could not be.”
Blowing out a harsh exhale, he rolled to his back and covered his eyes with one arm. She laid her head on his chest. His arm circled around her but something was missing. It wasn’t the normal warmth she’d come to know, and beneath her cheek his heart raced. An ache formed in her chest.
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Cautiously, Livvy traced a circle through the thinning line of dark hair on his stomach. “Look, everything is probably fine. Stop worrying. We can—”
“Can you take that Plan B stuff?” His gruff interruption halted her finger.
He is so not
handling this well.
“I’m allergic, Murphy. No, I can’t.”
“So we just wait and pray?”
The incredulous volume in his tone shot steel into her spine. This wasn’t her fault. He wasn’t some horny teenager facing telling his parents he’d knocked up the prom queen. They were mature adults who had not two minutes ago professed their love. His attitude hurt her, made her feel tainted rather than loved.
“I can’t change the laws of human biology for you. What’s done is done.” Pulling the sheet tighter to her breasts, she rolled to her side, away from him. He didn’t move.
For long moments, Livvy listened to him
breathe. The creak of the mattress let her know he was moving but she didn’t know she’d been holding her breath until his arm crept around her waist. Like spoons in a cutlery drawer, his body molded into hers. His mouth pressed to her damp hair in a gentle kiss. Her back relaxed into him.
“I don’t want kids, Livvy…ever.”
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When dreams shatter, they make a sound.
Livvy’s sounded like a deep baritone whisper.
From the time she was a little girl playing house, her vision of the future included a mommy, a daddy and babies. Andrea teased her about wanting to be a soccer mom but it was the truth.
Hearing that the man she loved wanted no part of that scenario stung like a whip.
John was so good with his nephews. How
could he not want children of his own? The room shrank four sizes and the bed grew three times smaller. She felt closed in, confined, trapped in his embrace. John must have felt her stiffen because his hand moved from her waist to rub her arm.
Lying naked in his bed, legs shaky, pressed tight to him, she felt alone. No, she felt abandoned.
A hole formed in her stomach, sucking every emotion into a hard pit. The pit grew heavier until it was a physical pain. It was almost a relief when he turned away from her.
“I’m going to go write a while.”
Her eyes pinched closed. She couldn’t watch him walk away. There was the swish of cotton as he pulled on shorts and the flick of the lamp before the light died. Livvy’s heart beat it by one minute.
He’d made her cry.
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Back against the hallway wall, John sat in the shadows. Darkness surrounded him inside and out.
His hands fisted on his bent knees as he listened to Livvy weep. Fear slithered through his veins.
Somewhere in the night, hope laughed its
maniacal head off. A chorus of monsters joined in until he was nearly deaf to anything but the hiss of evil laughter and heartbroken tears.
He’d dared to dream. And made her cry.
An ache twisted in his chest, stuttering his breath. What was he thinking, buying a ring?
Livvy could never be his, not that way.
Somewhere along the line, he’d gotten lost and forgotten who she was, what she was. She was a good girl. First came love, then came marriage, then came Livvy with a baby carriage.
The first, he acknowledged bitterly, he
managed without much effort. How could he not love her? The second, being legally bound to Livvy, would have been no hardship. He’d made that mental leap already. Having her for every day of every year for the rest of his life would have made him the happiest man alive. But never could he handle the last.
Children. A child with an angel.
A child to inherit a curse.
The idea of children had skimmed his mind but he’d shoved it away. Kids weren’t required just because you got married. He didn’t want them and Inez Kelley
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Livvy’d never talked about a baby. Didn’t women in love talk about wanting kids if they planned to have them one day? Gina had talked nonstop about babies from the minute she and Pete got serious. Livvy’d never said a word but her silence, her stiffness in his arms, told him a different story.
Terror clogged his throat.
Livvy wanted a baby.
He couldn’t risk that.
Sweat dripped into his eyes and he didn’t bother to wipe it away. Flashes of his mom in her last days ripped through him with a screaming pain. He’d killed her just by being born. Giving Livvy his baby could be her death sentence. His body shook so hard his teeth chattered.
God,
please, no. Not my angel. Please let her be okay.
And what if he turned out like Alan, became the fucking monster that he hated? Fear gnawed a hole into his belly. When a younger PJ had spilled milk on his laptop and fried it halfway through the second book, he’d yelled at PJ, made him cry.
He’d left the house shaking with suppressed emotion.
What could he do to his own kid if he lost it and… It could only take one hit and…
Oh God
…
Having any child look at him with terror in their eyes would destroy him. That would never happen, he wouldn’t let it.
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Years ago, he’d considered taking surgical steps to prevent ever becoming a father. But the idea of someone coming near his crotch with a scalpel had scared him to death. Now he wished he had. Just the whisper-thin chance Livvy was already carrying his baby made him break out in a sweat. Nausea surged from his stomach. He couldn’t handle this.
Not since he was a stupid kid had he had sex without latex, not once. Before his arrest, it had been inexperience and immaturity that made his safety hit or miss. During lockup, he was too busy keeping his ass to the wall during shower time to worry about women. But he knew better once he was released. Until tonight. With Livvy.
She had been so beautiful, felt so perfect that even now, smelling her scent on his skin, his body craved hers. They fit so flawlessly together, all wet warmth and pulsing exhilaration. The closest thing to heaven he would ever know was making love to Livvy with nothing between them but skin.
But heaven came with a price. The most intense sexual experience of his life just cost him too high a penalty. Her.
He’d finally told her he loved her. He regretted those words more as each second ticked by. It was just another regret to add to the pile he had concerning Livvy. Why hadn’t he walked away before her heart got involved? When she
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whispered her second secret in the dark, he should have bolted like a scalded dog. But he hadn’t and now it was too late.
He had to escape. Quietly as he could, he slinked back in his room and got dressed. The keys rattled as he lifted them from the dresser and he froze, watching the bed. Livvy didn’t stir. Still on her side, the moonlight barely brushed her face.