Who's Your Daddy? (8 page)

They both stopped, and neither moved for a long moment. Finally, he pushed himself up on shaking arms and pulled out. As he sat up, our eyes met.

“She’s all yours,” he said with a grin.

I kissed him lightly. “Why, thank you.”

He laughed and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

I shifted my attention to Carmen and moved on top of her.

“Got any left for me?” I asked, letting our lips brush.

“You better believe it.” She hooked her leg around my waist. “Question is, can you keep up?”

I snorted. “Oh, now you’re gonna talk shit? Let’s see if
you
can keep up with
me
.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but I thrust into her, and the trash-talking fell to a pair of helpless moans.

“Oh, God…” I closed my eyes. “Fuck…”

Carmen rocked her hips back just enough to coax mine into motion, and I withdrew, then thrust in again. Again, harder this time. Her nails dug into my shoulders, and there was no more shit-talking. Just desperate, feverish fucking.

This was hot in its own right, but even more so knowing that Isaac was watching and that he’d been inside her. He’d felt her just like this, felt the way her hips moved, felt her fingers digging into aching muscles. He knew how hot and wet and
tight
she was inside. Her breath had cooled his sweaty skin like it did mine. His back had burned under her nails like mine did now, and he’d tasted her mouth just like this. He’d felt her. He knew.

The bed squeaked and protested beneath us, the sound disappearing in her crescendoing moans. I groaned and fucked her harder. Carmen whimpered, clawing my back and rolling her hips in time with my thrusts. She grabbed my hair and pulled me down to kiss her.

I broke the kiss with a roar that faded to something barely louder than a sigh. Letting my head fall beside hers, I fought to keep it together. This couldn’t be over. Not yet. Not yet.
Please, God, not yet. Just let me feel her…a little more…a little…

“Just like that,” she moaned, panting against my neck. “Keep…just like…just…”

I closed my eyes, trying to hold back just a
little
longer.

“Jesus Christ,” Isaac whispered. “That is fucking
amazing
.” The lust in his voice sent goose bumps prickling down my spine, and I drove myself deeper into Carmen.

“Oh…
God
…” She clawed my back and released a single, ragged breath against my shoulder. In the instant she let go, so did I. Slamming my cock as deep inside her as I could, I shuddered and surrendered. My orgasm forced the air out of my lungs and almost knocked my arms out from under me.

“Fuck…” My eyes watered from the sheer intensity of it all.

I pulled out and collapsed on my back beside her. Once we’d cooled off a little, Isaac drew the sheet up over all of us. With Carmen in the middle, all three of us lay there for a few minutes, letting the world shift slowly back into motion. After a while, Carmen broke the silence.

“I don’t know what I was expecting when I came over tonight,” she said. “But, it wasn’t this.”

Isaac turned onto his side and smiled down at her. “Come on, it’s not like we’d leave you hanging.”

“Well, no.” She smirked. “But I didn’t expect you to drag me to bed, either.”

“Drag you?” Isaac and I said in unison.

“Woman, please.” I shifted onto my side, mirroring Isaac. I trailed a fingertip over her breast. “I seem to recall
you
kissed me first.”

“After you started feeling me up,” she said.

“I wasn’t feeling you up.”

“Oh, you were too,” Isaac said.

I rolled my eyes. “If I was feeling her up, I wouldn’t have had my hand on her
leg
.”

“Hmm, he’s got a point,” Isaac said. “Don isn’t exactly known for subtlety when it comes to these things.”

“Don?” She put her hand to her chest in a theatrical gesture. “Not subtle? Oh, I’m stunned.”

“Wonders never cease,” I said.

Isaac rolled his eyes. “Christ, this kid is going to be raised by the Trifecta of Sarcasm. The world is
fucked
.”

All three of us laughed, but the sound quickly faded to an uncomfortable quiet. There it was. Reality. The kid. The baby. The reason Carmen was here tonight, the result of her being here a few weeks ago.

No one spoke. I didn’t have to ask or read their minds to know we were all on the same page. For a brief, passionate moment, we’d locked the rest of the world out of the room and reconnected. But when we unlocked that door, the world would be waiting, and facing reality as a united front didn’t negate the fact that we had to face it.

She chewed her lip. His brow furrowed. My own gut tightened with that unmistakable “what now?” feeling.

I put my hand over Carmen’s lower abdomen. “Okay, without making myself look like a total sap, here…”

They both raised their eyebrows and exchanged smirks before looking at me again.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway…” I hesitated. “Look, this whole situation is going to be stressful, and it’s going to be an adjustment for everyone, but there’s no reason we can’t be happy about this either.”

Carmen blinked. So did Isaac.

“Come again?” Isaac said.

“Think about it. It’s a shock right now, it’s downright terrifying, but…” I shrugged. “Jesus, you guys. This doesn’t have to be a crisis. Nobody’s dying. We’re having a baby, for God’s sake.”

Carmen put her hand to her lips to mask a grin. “Aww, Isaac, did you hear that?” She wiped away an imaginary tear. “I think he’s gone soft on us.”

I laughed. “Oh, shut up.”

“I didn’t think you had it in you, Don.” Sniffing theatrically, she wiped another tear. “You’re almost—” She looked at her hand. “What the hell?” She wiped her eyes again.

Isaac snorted. “Did you actually make yourself cry?”

“Damn it, I think I did.” She stared at her fingers and her eyes widened with horror. “Oh my God, I did. What the fuck?”

“And it looks like the Hormone Fairy has arrived,” I said.

Carmen smacked my arm. “Fuck you.”

I chuckled. “Just wait until you start crying during a diaper commercial.”

Her eyebrows jumped. “Tell me you’re joking.”

I shook my head. She groaned and put a hand over her eyes.

Isaac laughed. Then he turned more serious. “He does have a point.”

“What?” she said. “That I’m turning into a hormonal psycho already?”

“Well, that, yes.” He ducked the hand that had already hit me. “I meant about the baby. This isn’t going to be an easy thing to adjust to, but it isn’t exactly the end of the world.”

She scowled. “Says the man who doesn’t have to break the news to
my
mother.”

“Or my dad,” I said. “But really, even if other people get their noses out of joint over it, we can make this work.”

“True,” she whispered. After a moment, she sighed and said, “Damn it, I think those hormones are kicking in again.”

I pretended—sort of—to cringe. “So are you about to break down crying or smack one of us?”

“Neither.” She grabbed Isaac. “I’m horny.”

Chapter Six

Carmen

“Are you going to tell her?” Rose asked as she pulled into the parking lot below our parents’ condo.

“Not yet.” I swallowed the nausea that tried to rise in my throat. “I’m sort of keeping a lid on it with almost everyone until that twelve-week mark, anyway.”

“I suppose that’s a good idea,” she said softly. “If you need someone there when you go to tell her, just let me know.”

“Thanks,” I said with the closest thing to a smile I could manage. Then I allowed myself a quiet laugh. “She and Dad will probably go through the roof if they find out exactly how I got into this.”

Steering the car into one of the guest parking spots, Rose laughed. “I’m thinking you might want to ease them into all of that, if you tell them at all.”

“You think?”

“Uh, yeah.”

We exchanged glances, and both laughed, this time with some feeling.

She shifted into park, then reached across the console and patted my leg. “Things will work out with them. They might be upset when they hear about it, but something tells me they’ll get over it.”

“We’ll see,” I said dryly. “I thought they’d get over me divorcing Paul, but Mom is still giving me hell for that.”

Rose shrugged and turned off the engine. As she tucked her keys into her purse, she said, “This is different, though. There’s a baby on the way. Mom is so desperate for more grandkids, she’s probably willing to forgive a lot.” She reached for the door but paused. “In fact, that’s probably why she’s still so bent out of shape over you splitting from Paul.”

“What do you mean?”

“As long as you had a ring on your finger, there was the possibility of a grandchild.”

I laughed aloud. “Oh God, no. No, no, no.”

Rose snickered. “I’m just telling you how Mom probably saw it.”

“Ugh.” I rolled my eyes. “I think that was the first sign that I needed to get the hell away from Paul, when the thought of having his baby made me want to heave.”

“That was
not
the first sign,” Rose said. “Unless you were in a world of denial.”

“Well, I did spend eleven years with him.”

“True.”

“So I’m a slow learner?” I shrugged and reached for my door handle. “At least I finally did get out of there.”

“Thank the Lord.”

“Pity Mom and Dad don’t agree,” I muttered.

As we got out of the car, Rose said, “You know them, though. They don’t like anything that shakes things up. Mom was practically breathing into a paper bag when I moved across town the year before last.”

“You’d think they’d be objective about—” I stopped when she shot me a smirk. Then I laughed. “Okay, this
is
Mom and Dad we’re talking about, but still.”

“Yeah, I know.” She sighed and pulled her purse up onto her shoulder as we walked across the parking lot. “They’ll get over it, but it’s not like you need that kind of stress right now.”

“Tell me about it.”

She gave me a sympathetic look, and we continued into the lobby of our parents’ condominium. The elevator was already on the ground floor, so we didn’t have to wait for it for once, and in mere seconds, we were on our way up.

As soon as the elevator doors opened on our parents’ floor, I had to fight to keep from gagging. My sense of smell was stronger lately anyway, but I could almost always smell my mother’s cooking from a block away. Walking down the hall now from the elevator to her front door, my eyes watered and my stomach lurched from the unmistakable odor of salmon and about thirteen more spices than any recipe could have called for. Part of my queasiness was hormones; part of it was just from dreading being in the same room with my parents while I carried this little secret, but the smell? Oh, dear Lord, the smell was a factor.

“Ugh.” Rose wrinkled her nose. “I feel sorry for whatever creature died for this.”

My stomach tried to leap up into my throat. Stopping in my tracks, I put a hand to my mouth and closed my eyes, fighting to keep from throwing up or passing out.

She touched my shoulder. “Sorry, sorry. You okay?”

After two very slow, deep breaths, I nodded. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Her eyebrows knitted together. “You know you can always just tell Mom you’re not feeling well. We don’t have to do this.”

I waved my hand. “No. If I say I’m sick, she’ll ask questions.”

“And she won’t ask questions if you walk into her house when you’re that pale?”

“Good point.” I gritted my teeth. “I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll just play the ‘I’ve been working too much and haven’t been sleeping’ card.”

Rose snorted. “Oh, sure, that always goes over well.”

“Yeah, but it’s a perfect smokescreen, don’t you think?”

“Good point.”

We arrived at our parents’ door. My sister raised a loose fist, but paused, closing her eyes and taking a breath. I thought she whispered a soft prayer—undoubtedly to the effect of
God, grant me the serenity…—
as she knocked.

A moment later, the door opened, and our sister Eileen greeted us. Our brother had wisely moved out of state a few years ago, so he only endured these dinners during vacations and holidays, but Eileen was stuck with twice-or-more-monthly dinners just like we were.

After she let us in, we took off our shoes and hung up our coats and purses.

“Thank God you two are here,” she said quietly. “Another hour holding down the fort by myself, and I was going to lose it.”

I laughed. “You’ve never heard of being fashionably late?”

She threw me a playful glare.

Rose looked around. “Just you tonight?” she asked Eileen.

“Yes,” Eileen said. “I needed a break, so Tim and the kids stayed home.”