Waking Up Pregnant(38)

                Cake.

                Followed by something even more shocking still.

                Hunger... Craving.

                Next thing, she’d been rifling through the pantry, nearly bursting into tears at the discovery of one single cardboard box in the very back, and the tub of fudge frosting beside it.

                Some forty minutes later she was staring down two eight-inch rounds, fresh from the oven, mentally calculating how long before they’d be cool enough to frost and eat. Too long.

                “God,” she half moaned, recognizing the near breathless desperation in her own voice. “I want you so bad.”

                The sound of a throat clearing behind her had her jumping back, one hand moving instinctively toward her belly, the other going to her chest.

                “Jeff,” she gasped at seeing him in the doorway, tie askew, suit jacket flipped over one arm, shirt a perfect cut for his broad shoulders, looking rugged and powerful and thoroughly entertained with an amused smile tilting his lips. “I thought you had a call. What are you doing here?”

                Rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, he nodded toward the counter. “Looking for some cake?”





                                      TWELVE

                Surrounded by the familiar dark wood cabinetry, heated stone floors and wide granite counters of the kitchen he’d spent a significant part of his youth hanging out in—it was with immense satisfaction that Jeff watched Darcy standing at the counter where she frosted the now-cooled cakes, her head tipped back as warm, full-bodied laugher bubbled past her lips.

                “Traitor?” She teased, catching her breath. “She’s your mother. And you were the one who finagled me into staying here and working with her. You had to know we’d find some middle ground.”

                “She sold out over a trip to some baby boutique? Come on.”

                He was crying foul, but seeing Darcy in person, his anxiety about her overdoing it was alleviated. Mostly anyway. And for all the noise he was making, he knew his mom wouldn’t have skipped out for the night if she’d had even a moment’s doubt about how Darcy was doing.

                Darcy slid a fat slice of yellow cake layered with some kind of thick fudgy frosting onto a waiting plate.

                Man, his mouth watered and he went to the counter, catching himself an instant before he leaned in to drop a kiss at her neck. Which was crazy, because it wasn’t like this sort of domesticity was a habit. But seeing her there, laughing, chatting with him, looking so comfortable in her bare feet—it was like the scene flipped a switch in him and he’d forgotten exactly what they were doing and how it was between them.

                Which was, not like that.

                He slanted another look at her neck. Bare and long, and hell, with a tiny speck of cake batter along the side to match the few decorating her thin cotton hoodie.

                She looked sweet. Tasty.

                Because she was. He remembered running his tongue from her collarbone up behind her ear, and how the silky length of her hair had felt in his fingers as he gathered it out of his way.

                “You okay?” Darcy asked, a wary look in her eyes.

                Except for the way his entire body had gone online in the span of a few seconds, yeah, perfect. “Hungry. For cake.”