Waking Up Pregnant(56)

                His eyes were closed. The muscles along his arms and back shifting and rolling, standing out in sharp relief as his skin incrementally darkened with each set.

                “Don’t do it,” he muttered under his breath, dropping a savage expletive before shifting the position of his hands from flat against the wood to fists. “Don’t even think about going back in there.”

                Back? To her room, or to something else?

                “Jeff.” Her voice was hoarse, little more than a nervous whisper but enough that he heard her. Because suddenly, he stopped. All motion arrested, as though someone had hit Pause on the remote to his life, freezing him in place halfway between up and down.

                Then slowly he straightened his arms and turned his head to look at her. Starting at her feet and moving up the length of her bare legs and over the expanse of his T-shirt before dropping his head back between his shoulders.

                “Go back to your room, Darcy.”

                He didn’t even want to look at her. This was so bad.

                “I want to apologize for what happened. I—”

                “I accept.” Jeff pushed slowly to his feet, still not meeting her eyes. “Darcy, I’ve been awake for somewhere around forty-eight hours, and as far as good judgment and restraint go, I’m about tapped out. The last of my reserves having gone toward walking out your door just a few minutes ago.”

                Forty-eight hours? She’d known he was traveling, had been thrilled at the prospect of seeing him again, but by the time he’d arrived she’d been too far gone to register much of anything beyond her intense discomfort and frustration, and then the overwhelming and incredible relief the man before her had provided. But now as she looked closer, the evidence of fatigue cutting deep lines around his eyes, the shadows beneath and the weary stance were unmistakable.

                He dealt with her the best he could and then used the last of his resources to drag himself out of her little circle of hell...only to have her follow him back to his room. Nice.

                Only, something was off. If he was so exhausted...

                “Why are you doing push-ups?”

                “Damn it, Darcy, I don’t think you get how close I am to losing it here.” Letting out a harsh laugh, he shoved his big hands through his hair. “Do us both a favor and, before I do something we’ll both regret, go.”

                “I won’t regret it. Whatever you have to say, just say it. I can take it.” They’d clear the air and tomorrow it would be a new day. “Jeff, please, would you look at me?”

                A second passed and then another. Jeff’s shoulders and chest rose and fell with one ragged breath after another. And then he looked at her—and everything stopped.

                The eyes that met hers weren’t the eyes of the amicable man Jeff had been these past two months. They weren’t harmless. They weren’t benign.

                They were dark, intense and hungry. They were the eyes of a man who’d left restraint behind.

                And then he was closing the distance between them, all signs of fatigue thrown off as he caught the back of her head in the cradle of one palm and her hip with the other. “Damn it, Darcy, I warned you.”





                                      SEVENTEEN

                He’d lied. Nothing could have warned Darcy or prepared her for the kiss Jeff delivered. Because this kiss was like no other. Like nothing she’d experienced before. Not even with him.