Raging Heart On_ Friends to Lovers Romance(28)

"I'm not worried about your soldiers being able to swim, White. With as many brothers and sisters as you have, genetics has to win out. I'm pretty sure you could knock up a sand flea buried in the Sahara.”

“I could… what?”

“Then again, you have slept with a million women and none of those have produced little crayons.”

“I wouldn’t say a million, and of course they haven’t. I’ve made sure—”

“I just… White, I'm not sure about all of this. If we get tested and they ask you how many partners you’ve been with? There’s no way you can remember them all.”

“I haven’t slept with a million women," he says, and he hasn't. I'm obviously exaggerating, but it hasn't exactly been a small number either.

"Still, maybe it'd be best to call this off, White. No harm, no foul." I try to figure out how I can just get out of this. No matter how much I want a child, it is not worth losing White over.

"We'll go get tested. End of discussion."

"White."

"Rest now, Buttercup. I need you to get feeling better. It's all going to work out just fine," he says, leaning down to kiss the side of my neck.

I don't respond. He may sound convinced about all of this, but I'm far from it.





CHAPTER 18


WHITE





She’s trying to back out.

I’m finding myself in a strange position here. I’m fighting to hold Kayla to the deal and she’s fighting to get out of it. We’ve got an appointment in two days to go to her doctor and get tested. She’s been trying ever since I forced her to make the appointment to get out of it. I’ve been spending my time ignoring her. It hasn’t helped a lot. She’s getting more insistent about it. Tonight I have plans to stop that completely. It’s not playing fair, but I don’t necessarily feel like playing fair. I’m not about to let Kayla go to a different name on her list. Especially any of my brothers. She’s wants a baby, then by God she’ll have mine and no one else’s.

I think the problem here is she’s worried about the chemistry between us. Which is what tonight is about. I look up at the clock. Almost seven. Kayla had a parent-teacher conference after school. She doesn’t expect to see me tonight. I had other plans. I check the steaks and pull them out of the oven to let them rest. I did most of the cooking on top, and just stuck them in there to finish. They should be perfect now. I’m throwing the last of the salad together when Kayla walks through the door. She stops and does a double take before grinning sheepishly.

“You really are giving your key to my apartment a work out lately, aren’t you?”

“Are you hungry?”

“It depends. Is that steak I smell?”

“Medium-well with roasted garlic potatoes and a salad.”

“Then I’m starved,” she sighs, putting her coat down on the chair by the door and walking towards me with a huge smile. She’s wearing a turquoise dress with a V neckline that hangs on her loosely. Except for the color, it doesn’t do a thing for her, but to me right now she looks beautiful.

“Did you have a good day?”

“It wasn’t horrible, and considering I had twenty kindergarten children finger-painting it could have been.”

“Sounds like a colorful day.”

“Cute. Do I have time to shower before this meal?”

“Can you shower in twenty minutes?”

“Ten if there’s dessert involved.”

“Go shower, Buttercup. I think I got you covered.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she says before heading down the hall to her bedroom.

I get the plates together and dish everything up and then stop. The house is quiet. I never noticed it before Kayla got home, but now it’s weighing down on me. I hear every tick of the clock on the wall and the hum of the refrigerator. Even the air pump to her fish tank sounds twice as loud as normal. What is the loudest of all, however, is the sound of the shower turning on. I don’t know how it’s possible to hear it all the way in here, yet I do. I should ignore it. Tonight was about moving slowly and not scaring her away.

I go over every reason I shouldn’t do this in my head. It doesn’t help. I find myself walking down the hall to her room.

Anticipation runs through my body the closer I get. My fists clench and unclench as I make it to her bathroom. Through the clouded glass of her shower, I can see her body’s silhouette. It is misshaped and peach in hue, moving fluidly. Nothing is recognizable and still it turns me on like nothing else has in my life. I’m transfixed, glued to her muddled image, but nothing could have prepared me for the view when her body turns toward me. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I can see her clearer. Clear enough that I can see her hands move over her breasts. I grieve that I can’t see them better. I need to—more than my next breath. That’s the only reason I can fathom for doing what I shouldn’t.