Calling Me Home (12 page)

“I found out yesterday. I realized something was off during dinner the night before, but I took the test at work. I know the timing isn’t ideal, but—”

“The timing is perfect. I know you have business school starting, but you’ll be through the first year before you have the baby.”

I started to giggle. “I may have to defer.”

“No, we’ll make it work. I think it would be good to be pregnant in all those lectures. They say you should play Mozart to babies in the womb to make kids more intelligent. Imagine what lectures on game theory might do. We’re going to raise a superhero.”

I started to laugh. “Well, as long as we’re not creating impossibly high expectations for the kid.”

He kissed my belly. “I’m so excited. The baby, you marrying me, it’s all so perfect.” He looked at me. “But we’re going to have to move. And I’ll need to get a car. Shall we find a place in the country?”

Apparently, Luke had gone from being scared of change to welcoming it. “Let’s just take one step at a time, hey?”

He slouched back on the bed.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you okay?”

I propped myself up on my elbow and stroked his chest.

“If you ever left me, it would break me.” He stared up at the ceiling as he spoke.

I reached across and dropped a kiss on his jaw. “I’m not going anywhere. I said yes when you proposed, silly.” What had gotten in his head?

“You were going to go. Before. You were just going to disappear without any explanation. I can’t ask you to marry me again if we’re already married when you next freak out. What happens if you try to leave again?”

My earlier nausea returned, but I doubted it had anything to do with the pregnancy this time. “I thought that was what you wanted. Or what you would want when you found out about the baby. I didn’t want to guilt you into sticking by me. I didn’t want you to think you were trapped.”

“Why would being with you ever be a trap? I love you, Ashleigh, and I have to know that you’re never going to leave me. That you’re never going to try and do what’s best for me without asking me.”

“Never? Like, not pick up your favorite beer or coconut water while I’m shopping? Or start giving you a blow job while you’re sleeping?” I grinned at him and let my hand drift down his chest and circle his cock.

“I’m serious, Ashleigh. You have to promise to talk to me, or I’m going to drive myself crazy waiting for you to leave me again.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, my heart aching at his hurt.

“Don’t do it again.”

“I promise.”

I trailed my fingers over his chest, then lower and began to unzip his jeans. I wanted him to feel the promise in my touch. He expanded beneath my hand. “I want you so much it scares me,” I whispered.

“Do you get that I feel it just as much as you?” he asked. The effort he put into keeping his voice steady showed in his tight jaw.

“I think I do. Now.”

He snapped his eyes shut and groaned, pulsing his hips toward my fist.

I’d been too busy with my own feelings to understand what Luke loving me meant. I wanted to make him feel good, safe—like I would never leave. But he was right; I’d assumed the worst—that he wouldn’t need me as much as I needed him. I’d skipped past the bit where we told each other how we were feeling. I hadn’t trusted him that things were different between us now, that this wasn’t an unrequited love affair anymore.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should never have seen leaving as an option.”

He sat up, took off my jeans with lightning speed and pulled me across him so I sat facing him, straddling his hips, our bodies brushing against each other.

“No, you shouldn’t have.” He smoothed his hands across my lower back and down over my ass, urging me closer. I slid over his cock, feeling the hardness rub through my underwear against my clit. Nobody could make me feel this way. He cracked me open and seeped inside every part of me.

“I’m learning. This adjustment . . . between us, I had to get used to it too. I guess I’m still adjusting.” I dipped my head forward and placed a small kiss on the edge of his mouth.

“Let’s learn together, baby. Don’t shut me out. Don’t be doing pregnancy tests without me. I want to share all that shit with you.”

“I promise.”

He twisted a strand of my hair and tucked it behind my ear. “Good.” His face broke out into his most mischievous grin as he gripped my hips and pressed his thumbs under my hips. “And you’re not saying that because you want me to make you come?”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, my nipples grazing his hard chest. “Mostly no.”

“Incorrigible.” He grunted as he pushed me over his cock. I needed my underwear off in a hurry.

Suddenly, he paused. “Shit, are we okay to have sex?”

I frowned. “You going to go nine months without? Of course we’re okay.”

“I’ll be gentle,” he whispered.

“You better not be.”

He flipped me to my back and trailed his lips down my body, taking my panties as he went. I stripped off my top and bra.

He grinned against my thigh then pushed his tongue down into my slit. I sank into the mattress, his breath wiping away any last flickers of anxiety. He hummed against my sensitive flesh as his tongue stroked and circled, my skin sending tiny vibrations of pleasure to dance outward along my thighs. My back arched, the intensity taking over my body.

I rocked against his mouth, and he slid two fingers into me as his tongue concentrated on my clit. “You taste like love,” he murmured.

“You are so good at this.”

“We are so good at this.” Did he mean sex, or did he mean us? Both, perhaps.

I needed to touch him, and he knew it. His thumb replaced his mouth, and he crawled up my body, allowing me to reach around him and press my palms against his hard, muscular back.

He watched me as I writhed against his touch, almost studying the reaction I had as he slowed his fingers and then sped up; he rubbed his thumb one way and then the other. “So, good, yes.”

“Tell me,”

“Like that,” I said. The pressure against my clit was perfect, and his fingers twisted inside me.

“Like this?” He repeated the movement.

“Oh God, Luke, yes.” He loved to hear me when he touched me, when he was inside me—as if there could be the slightest doubt of the effect his body had on mine.

Luke

I wasn’t sure what it was that was sending jolts of pleasure right to my cock. It was difficult to separate the sensation of Ashleigh’s pussy clamped around my dick from the sight of her tits bobbing in front of me, tantalizing, begging to be touched. Perhaps it was her hair wrapped around my hand, as I tipped her head back and licked her neck, eliciting a gasp. It was all of those things, but most of all it was the fact that she finally got how I felt about her. Somehow, that truth had been only half revealed to her . . . until today. Before, she’d never let herself open her eyes to the reality that whatever life had in store for us, we would be together. It had always been good between us, but it was as if a final, unseen veil between us had been lifted, and I felt closer to her than ever.

She sank back down onto me and flicked her hips. Fuck, she could be wicked.

She watched me as she gathered her breasts in her hands, pushing them up and together. Jesus, the sight of her tight pink nipples, and the knowledge of how they felt in my mouth made my spine fizz. I had to get myself together, or she was going to make me come too soon. I clasped my hands across her back and flipped her over so I was over her, still inside her.

“You’re driving me crazy.”

“Because I love your cock so much?”

I groaned, pulling away from her. There was nothing better than knowing that your wife-to-be worshipped your cock.

“It loves you back, baby,” I said as I stabbed back inside her. She tightened in response.

“Yes,” she moaned.

“Tell me.”

I focused on her words, the so good, so deep, right there, as the booming of my orgasm echoed in the distance, getting louder and louder.

She pressed her fingers into my shoulders, her nails biting into the skin. How could she know exactly how my body worked? That I needed the sharp to spark the pleasure? I dipped my head and licked sloppily over her lips, desperate for a taste of her. Fuck. Her hips tilted up to meet mine as she whispered, “So deep, I need you, don’t be gentle.”

I pulled back and lifted her leg over my shoulder, going in deeper as if I were chasing something.

“Fuck, baby.”

She reached over her head, grabbing at the pillows as I watched her flat stomach ripple and her mouth form a perfect “O”.

There was nothing better than giving your wife-to-be an orgasm that showed across her whole body.

Her pussy undulated around my cock, tearing my climax from me.

She was my world.

One Week Later—Luke

“The District Line? I didn’t even know it was open at the weekend. We have to be at Sunday dinner by two. This isn’t just a ruse so you don’t have to tell Haven you’re pregnant and engaged, is it?” I squeezed her hand.

“I can’t wait to tell Haven. In fact, I want to tell everyone. I can’t believe I’ve kept it a secret for a week,” she said.

She’d told me we should be prepared for the cold, so as well as looking like we were wintering in Moscow, Ashleigh had insisted we bring an overnight bag full of blankets. My girl was losing it.

“Isn’t the cold bad for the baby?”

“How can I be cold when I have you to keep me warm?”

I shook my head and pulled on the sides of her woolen hat, bringing it down over her eyes.

As the tube came to the next stop, she squeezed my arm and stood. I followed her, picking up our overnight bag. I felt a complete tool. Kew Gardens? This was where she wanted to go?

She insisted on paying our entrance fee and seemed to know where she was going. Hand in hand, we passed the palm house and headed toward some trees. The open, grassy spaces were almost deserted, everyone else sensible enough to stay home on a day like today. But despite the cold, the sun was shining, and the sky was a beautiful, bright blue. After what seemed like forever, she stopped abruptly under a leafless tree and reached for the bag, getting out all the blankets and laying two on the ground before sitting and beckoning me to do the same. I huddled down behind her, pulling her close to me as she pulled the remaining blanket around us. She was bat-shit crazy. What I wouldn’t do to make this woman happy.

I rested against the trunk of the tree we were under, and Ashleigh turned her head to look at me. The cold had made her cheeks pink. She looked so young, so fresh.

“Luke, I fell in love with you one summer under a magnolia tree, and I’ve been in love with you ever since. But despite my heart having been yours for so long, I’ve given you reason to doubt me. I’ve pushed you away and not trusted you, not thought it was possible that what you felt for me could be anything close to what I feel for you. Well, I wanted to bring you back to where it all began for me. And say, winter or summer, rain or shine, whether the magnolia trees are in bloom or not, I will love you for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?”

My heart was pounding, and I raised my head to study the branches of the tree we were sitting under.

This was why she’d brought me here?

To propose to me under a magnolia tree?

My throat was tight with a thousand things I wanted to say to her.

She pulled out a green velvet pouch from under the blanket and opened the drawstrings that held it together. She dipped inside and brought out a small circle of wood. “It’s magnolia.” Her eyes darted to mine, checking for a reaction. “Do you like it?”

“I love it.” It was perfect, a symbol of our past that would be with us into our future.

“I measured your finger with cotton while you were asleep. It should fit, but I understand if you don’t want to wear it.” She was babbling, and it was adorable.

“Of course I want to wear it. And of course I will marry you. I love you so much.”

She pushed the ring onto my left ring finger and clasped her hand over mine, her sparkling sapphire nestling against the sturdy wood of the magnolia.