She obeys and I rip her panties down her legs, my cock threatening to rip a hole through the front of my pants when I see how wet she is. “Fuck, baby…” I tease my fingers through her slick folds, loving the way she arches into my touch, her lashes fluttering as I push two digits deep into her tight heat. “You’re so damned wet.”
“I want you so much,” she says, her eyes fluttering open again as she reaches for me. “I need you, Elliot. I need you inside me so bad.”
“What about us?” a plaintive voice chirps from the kitchen.
“Out!” I shout, rearing up to point an emphatic finger toward the door. I glare at all three cups in turn. “All of you, get the hell out. No one watches me fuck my wife.”
The cups do a bit of bellyaching, but eventually file out through the door and shut it behind them. When they’re gone, I turn back to Nancy, smoothing her hair from her forehead. “Now, where were we?”
“I think you were proposing,” she whispers with a shy smile. “You called me your wife, but…we’re not married, Elliot. Not yet anyway.”
“Tomorrow. You and me. City hall,” I say, shoving my pants and boxers down around my thighs, too eager to wait until I’m fully undressed to be inside her. I need her too much. I position myself at her entrance and sink into her sweetness, my heart doing cartwheels in my chest as I glide all the way to the end of her.
Finally. I’m here, where I’ve always wanted to be.
“I want my ring on your finger before the baby’s born,” I rumble against her lips.
“Yes, oh, yes,” she says, lifting her hips to greet me as I begin to move.
We come together like we were made to fit, to give each other pleasure, to make love and plans and babies.
Knowing we might be making a baby transforms already phenomenal sex into something even better. Some primal instinct inside of me can’t wait to come inside Nancy, to come bare inside a woman for the first time and fill her with my baby.
“Going to come,” I groan as I ride her harder, faster.
“Me, too. Oh God, me, too,” she says, fresh heat rushing over my cock as she whimpers. Then the whimper becomes a sexy cry, and her pussy tightens.
I come so hard I see stars and hearts and tiny dancing specimen cups swirling around my head and then…
And then I wake up in my bedroom in the mansion in Vermont to find my hand down my boxer briefs wrapped around a massive erection.
“Fuck,” I grumble, dragging my hand out of my briefs. My pillowcase smells of wood smoke lingering in my hair from the fire last night, which is probably why I dreamt of flames and Nancy and giant sperm cups.
“Yeah right.” I watch the ceiling fan spin, knowing better than to lie to myself.
The fire isn’t why I dreamt about coming while I was balls-deep in my best friend.
It was the baby talk, the sperm donor conversation we never finished last night.
Which means there’s only one thing left to do—get up, get dressed, and trot my ass down to Nancy’s to explain I can’t be her donor.
I can’t. Not ever.
Not even if a tiny part of me is starting to find the idea very fucking intriguing.
Chapter Three
NANCY
A woman who works far better
with a spreadsheet than a hangover…
The next morning, I wake with a pounding head to find my living room upside down.
I blink, then blink again, but the armchair remains on the ceiling and my head continues to throb. A second later, a worried puppy face appears in front of my bleary eyes—also upside down.
“Good morning, Thor,” I mumble, fighting to swallow though my throat is bone dry and my mouth full of sandpaper.
Thor whimpers low in his throat and his already weepy brown eyes begin to water more persistently. The internet assures me that dogs can’t cry, but Thor would beg to differ. He’s an emotional soul, especially for a black lab. They’re supposed to be goofy, happy-go-lucky dogs, but Thor has always been sensitive, especially when he’s embarrassed.
Embarrassed…
“Oh God,” I moan, remembering my shame.
So much shame. And so much failure.
Elliot didn’t give me an answer one way or another, but I’ve known the man since we were kids. He loves to make people happy and shuns conflict like a Vermonter shuns fake maple syrup. For him, the lack of an enthusiastic “Yes!” is all the answer I need.
The answer is no. He’s not going to do it.
He won’t be my baby’s father, and I’m back to scrolling through sperm donor websites, quickly becoming overwhelmed by all the choices and the responsibility and the certainty that no matter who I pick, he will have a latent psychopath gene, and my child will inherit it. And what do you do if you find yourself the mother of a psychopath? I’m sure you’d still love the child and want to do everything possible to give your kid a wonderful life, but there is no cure for psychopathy.
There is also no cure for my mortification.
Just thinking about all the things I said and did—dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight, anyone?—is enough to make my face burn and my headache threaten to go nuclear.
Thor whimpers again, as if to say, “Maybe your head would hurt less if you weren’t upside down, Mom. Why are you upside down? I find it troubling and embarrassing that you are currently upside down.”
“Right.” I scoot my head back onto the couch along with the rest of my body and prop up on the pillows. “Good thinking, buddy.” I reach out to scratch his sweet head and promise, “I’ll get your breakfast in a second. Gotta let the blood drain out of my stupid brain.”
But my brain isn’t stupid. If there’s one thing, I’ve always been able to count on in my life, it’s my brain. As a kid, my brain figured out that my parents were lovely people, but too flighty to remember to feed me, so I learned how to feed myself. By age eight, I could make three different casseroles and six crock pot dishes easy enough to put on to cook before I left for school.
As a teen, my brain assured me my time was better spent studying than hanging out with the other Jingle Bell Junction kids on the slopes. Skiing is fun, yes, but I was determined to get into a top tier financial program and help Gram take her business to the next level. I knew my brain could get us both where we wanted to go, as long as I invested the time and effort.
Sixteen years later, it has. Kathy’s Kountry Store now has five locations throughout New England, a line of kitchen and bath products on a home shopping network, and a deal with a major frozen food company to distribute three “Kathy’s Klassic Kountry” pie flavors starting next September.
My Gram’s legacy is secured, my flighty parents’ home is paid for, my even flightier cousins have an artists’ colony in upstate New York, courtesy of the investments I made for them, and I just finished renovating my gorgeous, two-hundred-year-old farmhouse into my dream home. I have my brain to thank for all of that.
Thor emits a sharp, single bark, as if to say, “Yeah, you did! So, quit moping and get thinking. It’s not too late to turn this around. But first, breakfast, woman, I’m starving.”