Waking Up Pregnant(42)

                The muscles of Jeff’s throat worked up and down...and then before she realized what was happening, the man had her scooped into his arms.

                “Jeff!” she squeaked, gripping his shirt as he shouldered his way in through the terrace door.

                “I’ll get you into bed and call Grant to come over.”

                “Jeff, no,” she started and he stopped midstride to look down at her.

                “Is it bad?” But before she could answer his attention seemed to have shifted inward and then he turned around, ready to carry her back out the door they’d just come through. “We’ll go straight to the hospital.”

                Oh, hell.

                “Jeff, no. Stop a second. Jeff. Jeff.” She squirmed in his arms, trying to get a leg down, but the man wasn’t having any of it, at least until she grabbed his collar in her fist and gave it a solid shake, demanding, “Set me down this minute, damn it.”

                And then her feet were on the ground but he was still holding her far too close for comfort, especially because it had become painfully clear, she was going to have to own up to her crimes, or take a ride to the E.R.

                “Darcy, if something’s wrong—”

                “Listen.” She squared her shoulders, and dug up a bit of the no-nonsense steel she used to find so readily on hand. “I lied.”





                                      THIRTEEN

                “You what?” Jeff’s chin pulled back, his brows crashing down. “Are you telling me—all night? Has this been going on, all night, with the— Damn it, Darcy, this is serious. What the hell am I going to have to do to get you to take it easy, tie you to the bed?”

                Her lips parted, but before the words she’d had ready mere seconds before could get out, her mind short-circuited and her eyes locked with his.

                He raked a hand through the dark shock of his hair, and took a step back. “The chair.”

                Then he took another step back and swore under his breath. “I’m not going to tie you up at all. But—”

                This so wasn’t getting any better.

                “Jeff. I lied about being worn-out and light-headed. I—I—” She took a deep breath and let the truth spill out in one huge gush. “You were standing so close—and this supersensitive smell thing that’s part of the pregnancy, kind of got the better of me for one minute before I realized what I was doing, and then I tried to back up, but I tripped, and you asked if I was okay, and I thought it would be better to avoid any misunderstandings about me wanting to smell you if I just lied and blamed the baby, which sounds really terrible when I say it, but now that I’m thinking about it, is pretty much the truth. Your baby is making me crazy. There.”

                She sucked a great lungful of air and then covered her cheeks with her hands, knowing they had to be burning crimson.

                Jeff’s jaw cocked to one side, his eyes focused down around his shoes. “So...you were...smelling me.”

                She crossed her arms and stared at the ceiling. “You smell...really good. It was like with the cake.”

                His head snapped up. “Like the cake? I mean, what you did to that cake.”