Ashton had absolutely no interest in the man standing in front of her. Her feet hurt, her stomach was just this side of roiling and she needed to pee.

Again.

He was feverishly writing his name and number on a napkin, with zero clue that the second he walked out of her bar, she'd be throwing it in the trash can. And probably throwing up on top of it seconds later, to boot.

Come on, dude, be a little original, she thought. A napkin? Really?

All night long, he'd been offering cheesy one-liners and leering smiles, completely oblivious to the fact that Ashton wasn't reciprocating. Sure, she was giving him limp smiles and happily accepting his money for the beers he was downing one right after the other, but otherwise, her lack of interest should have slapped him in the face, it was so clear.

But not to him.

“Here you go, love,” he slurred, unsuccessfully sliding the napkin across the bar top. It snagged on a wet spot—which made Ashton snicker gleefully—and separated from itself. “Ah, shit.”

“Don't worry about it,” she replied, scooping up the flimsy paper and turning her back. It's not like she enjoyed being rude to patrons, but her bullshit-slash-asshole radar was beeping all kinds of craziness when it came to this guy.

Not to mention, now she really needed to pee.

“You'll call me, yeah?” His voice was slightly whiny and definitely thick from the alcohol coursing through his veins, and he seemed happy enough with a flaccid hand gesture, which could have been a wave or even the middle finger, from Ashton before he drunkenly walked from the bar.

“You definitely have to call him.” Ashton turned at the deep voice that, she saw as she swung around, belonged to a dark-haired man sliding into the drunk's former seat. She couldn’t really see his face, the lighting in the bar low and her attention mostly on her overfull bladder, but she definitely heard the humor in his tone. “He looks like a winner to me.”

She offered him a smile as she walked the three steps back to where he sat, looking half over her shoulder to gesture to Odette to come take over for her. “Well, if you really think so, I can give you his number,” she replied, withdrawing the wet napkin from her apron pocket and offering it to him. The brush of his fingers against hers as he reached for it startled her, but as she turned to face him, Odie’s arrival diverted her attention.

“Kitten.”

The nickname echoed in her ears and made her feel strangely like she was in a wind tunnel, air whizzing past her, pushing her to do something, pushing her to turn and take him in. The man sitting at her bar.

Not just any man.

Duncan.

“We're at last call, I'm afraid, so don't get too comfortable,” she heard Odette say, as she tried to decide between her need to run to the bathroom and her desire to see him—look properly at him now she knew who it was.

She heard his response, “Good thing I'm not here for a drink then,” which earned an acerbic kind of snicker from Odie.

It wasn’t the first time a patron had used that kind of line in The Avenue.

But somehow, Ashton believed Duncan truly wasn’t there for a drink.

After all, who flew in from New York City to have a beer in a bar not unlike hundreds, even thousands of others, across the country?

Ashton finally turned, so intense was her need to see if the man who’d been on her mind so much lately was really, truly there.

And when she did, making eye contact with him for the first time in a decade and a half, he didn’t disappoint.

“I'm here for you.”

She blinked her cornflower blue eyes at him, the question clearly on her face. But instead of “What are you doing here?” the question he’d expected, Ashton surprised him. “And you are?”

“Andrew.” He offered his name and a smile, knowing that the dimples forming on either side of his mouth were akin to catnip when it came to his Kitten.

Granted, she wasn’t his and never really had been, but he sure did like the way it sounded in his head.

“Really?” Her voice held enough skepticism to prove that Aaron never had filled her in on his name. He briefly wondered why before nodding, offering his full name for her enjoyment. “Andrew William Duncan the Third, actually.”

“The third? Really?” she asked again, clearly having a hard time processing what was happening.

Duncan knew her last name was Andrews, and both he and Aaron had had a little laugh at the matching names when they’d first met. But the novelty had long since worn off, at least for him.

But apparently not for Ashton, who was just now finally learning it. She smiled, a sparkle in her eye that had been absent as he’d watched her tend bar all night, dealing with dickheads and idiots.

Like the one who’d left his number on a napkin. Smooth. Not.

“Andrew. Your name is Andrew. My name is Andrews—my last name.” She looked straight at him, as if daring him to disagree with her.

“I know.”

“We can’t get married then,” she informed him, startling a laugh from him at her jump in logic. “I’d expect you to take my name, and well, Andrew Andrews would never work.”

He nodded sagely—at least, that’s how it felt to him—and pretended to consider her words. “Or,” he said, leaning over the bar top as if he was about to share a secret with her, “you could take my name, and we wouldn’t have that problem.”

He watched as she lifted a hand to her pretty mouth, trying to hide her giggle before rearranging her face back into a mask of indifference. “No, no can do. Pity that, since you’re so handsome, Andrew.”

He snapped his fingers, trying to pretend at disappointment even as that same emotion coursed through him. Why, he didn’t know. It wasn’t like he was seriously contemplating joining with her in holy matrimony—though he thought joining with her in other ways might be fun.

And didn’t hinge on his apparently unacceptable given name.

“So, what do I call you, then?”

Her question snapped him out of his increasingly dirty thoughts, and he shrugged. “You can call me whatever you want, Ash.”

“What do most people call you?”

“Everyone except my sister calls me Duncan.” The mention of Kennedy slid off his tongue before he could think better of it, and he found himself wondering if Ashton knew what had happened.

Knew that he’d lost her.

Lost her, like she was a pair of glasses or a slip of paper with an appointment time.

Her next words confirmed that she did. “Aaron told me she passed away. That that’s why you couldn’t be at the wedding.” She reached over the bar to lay a hand over the top of his forearm and squeezed gently. “Duncan, I’m so sorry.”

He couldn’t form words—the way she spoke to him, the look in her eye, was so genuine he felt a wave of grief crash over him—so he opted for a small lift of the corner of his mouth. Just enough to acknowledge and accept her words; not enough to betray how close to tears he suddenly was.

Andrew.

Andrew.

Andrew.

Ashton couldn’t quite wrap her head around the fact that Duncan was in her bar and that his name was Andrew. Her last name was practically his first name and she was reeling. Clearly, pregnancy hormones were making a bigger deal of it than it should be, but still . . .

She had waited fifteen years to discover his name and after all this time, he just tossed it at her across a bar. Her bar. And it was so familiar.

She stared at him, hard. Took in the small but significant changes in him that had occurred over the years. Slight greying of his hair at his temples. Crinkles bracketing his eyes that told of laughter and sadness alike. And a heaviness that seemed to be settled on his shoulders, one which only became heavier when he’d mentioned his sister.

Kennedy. She hadn’t known that name either and with a pang in her chest, Ashton realized she would never know the woman herself.

She cleared her throat, the tears that she suspected Duncan was just barely holding back threatening her, too. Instead, she concentrated on changing the subject. Which she did, in typical rambling-Ashton fashion.

“I have to pee so badly, you have no idea. I mean, how could you? You’re just sitting in a bar talking to a woman you haven’t seen in years, and I’m sure your first thought was not ‘I wonder when she went to the bathroom last’ and let me tell you, it actually wasn’t that long ago but I swear fluid just moves right on through me these days and it’s crazy inconvenient. So I’m just gonna go . . .”

She trailed off, watching Duncan’s face morph from grief to surprise to amusement as the words spilled from her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she mumbled, spinning on her heel and walking with purpose away from the scene of the crime.

He called after her, which she suspected he might, but she didn’t let that stop her. Moving faster than she had in hours, a second wind generated by her windmill mouth, she pushed through the staff doors at the back of The Avenue and turned to the stairs that led up to her apartment.

Escape. It was the only option.

She’d been thinking about the man on and off for days and when he suddenly appeared in front of her, what did she do?

Talk. About. Pee.

“Oh, my God,” she said again, louder now that she was alone. “I can’t believe I—”

“I can believe it, Kitten. That mouth of yours was one of the things I’ve missed most about you.”

Ashton turned slowly, almost hoping that he was nothing but an illusion conjured up by her emotional mind and out-of-control hormones. But no, there was no such reprieve in sight, just a tall, handsome man who brought with him memories of eight days of flirtations and high hopes that were bracketed by the disappointment of family life.

“I was just going to—”

“Pee, yeah, I got that. I thought I’d wait so we could talk after.”

“Right, but I, ah, have to close the bar, so I can’t,” she protested, adding, “Maybe another time?” Like say, in another fifteen years, when this embarrassment has faded?

“The woman you work with said she’d handle it,” he countered flawlessly, clearly prepared for her argument.

“I’m just so tired, though.” She blinked, wondering if her cheeks looked as red as they felt and assuming that, yes, they did. They had to. She was fairly sure that she could cook an egg with how much heat they were giving off.

“Okay.” He smiled, accepting that excuse, confusing her.

She wanted him to leave her alone, but now that he was capitulating so easily she was . . . annoyed? That wasn’t the right response, and yet, it was definitely the one she was having.

She smiled tightly, knowing that she was being petulant but apparently unable to curb the compulsion to snark back. “Okay,” she said with way too much sarcasm.

“Okay, I’ll just crash at your place, since I haven’t seen Aaron yet and don’t have a hotel room sorted out.”

“Okay. Wait, no, what?” She shook her head, trying to decide if she was hearing things. Did he just invite himself into my apartment? “You’re staying here? With me? Here, in my apartment, with me?”

“In your apartment, with you, yes. If you don’t mind. I’m tired too, from the traveling, and since we’re not going to get to catch up tonight, I figured tomorrow is as good a time as any.” He shrugged like he wasn’t suggesting a sleepover.

Which, she supposed, wasn’t that big of a deal, except . . .

The dreams she’d been having lately—they were all about him. Since the first one, they ranged from weird, abstract strolls through their past interactions, to terrifying glimpses of being with him and losing him, to downright dirty, dirty dreams about petting. Lots of petting.

Lots of heavy petting.

She groaned, a particularly vivid flash of the Duncan who existed only in her dreams doing what he did best—give her endless orgasms—popping into her head.

“Oh, come on, Kitten. My company can’t be that bad, can it?”

She sighed out in relief that he assumed her groan was because she didn’t want him to come in to her apartment, as opposed to because he came in her in her dreams. “No, it’s—it’s not a problem. Just, ah, give me a few minutes before you come upstairs, please?”

He nodded, not questioning why she needed alone time, perhaps assuming, correctly, that her need to pee was becoming ever more desperate. Or that her place was a mess and she didn’t want him to see it. Whatever he was thinking though, she was fairly certain he wasn’t on the same wavelength as she was.

Which was too bad, because the wavelength she was currently surfing was one hell of a ride . . .

“So, ah, you said you were here for me—and here I am.”

Duncan followed her hands as Ashton gestured up and down her body, taking advantage of the fact that she was basically giving him permission to check her out. “Yes. I am.”

“Well?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and leveling him with a stare. Her eyes were even bluer than he recalled, her hair brighter, somehow. The golden hue practically shone around her head like a halo—or it did, until she took a step closer and he realized she’d been backlit by the lights in her kitchen.

Still fucking gorgeous, though.

“Well,” he began, crossing his own arms and offering a mischievous smile, “we can talk in the morning. You said you were tired.”

“Suddenly, not so much.”

“All that mad-dash cleaning that took place while I waited downstairs?”

“Yes, making sure all my sex toys were stashed away gave me my second wind.”

Duncan just about choked at her casual reference to sex toys, but bounced back quickly. “In that case, maybe we can pull those toys back out and put them to good use?”

He expected a laugh. Or a frown. Hell, he’d have assumed a slap to the face would have been more likely than her actual response. Not that he was complaining.

She launched herself at him, her movement quick but not so quick that he couldn’t catch her in his arms. Her lips landed on his and pressed down—an aggressive but welcome meeting of mouths. Anchoring her to his body, Duncan rested one hand on her ass and slid the other up her spine to cup her neck, using just enough pressure to angle her head so he could get a better taste.

Just as sweet as I remember, he thought fleetingly, before Ashton’s hips rolled, making his brain short-circuit. Except— “I didn’t come here for this, Kitten,” he mumbled, pulling back from the kiss to make sure she knew. “I’m not complaining, and I wanna keep going, but I didn’t come here for this . . .”

She shook her head, then nodded, a mixed message he didn’t care to decipher once their kiss resumed—hotter and somehow harder than before.

It was a sensual fight; their tongues battling against each other as if the winner was the one who gave the most pleasure, instead of received it.

Though, with rules like that, Duncan knew there were no losers.

When she shifted and rolled again, locking her legs tighter around his waist, making him realize she’d been clinging to him the whole time, he groaned. Her pussy was taunting him, the heat and wetness of it—and yes, he knew she was wet for him, damn it—hidden beneath layers of material that really, really had to go.

But first, a flat surface.

He navigated around the furniture in her living-slash-kitchen area, and headed for the one closed door he could see—the one he assumed was hiding the bedroom. Impressed by his own skill at carrying her and kissing her while traversing unfamiliar territory, he had to fight back the urge to lift her up higher and fling her over his shoulder.

Having her ass that close to his face? Perfection.

“Kitten?” he asked, pulling back from the kiss once more, and moving the hand from her neck to reach for the doorknob. He was giving her the chance to confirm that, yes, she wanted this as much as he did, because if she didn’t he had to stop.

It would hurt him, but he’d live and he’d rather figure it out now than later.

“Yes, Dunk,” she replied, nodding eagerly, her blue eyes on fire. “Yes, Andrew.”

He smiled at her use of his first name. What had started as a joke had finally reached its punchline a decade and a half later, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care. Not when she was finally back in his arms and he was only moments away from petting her like he’d wanted to, so badly, all those years ago.

He turned the knob and stepped into her room, noting the neatly made bed, the blue walls punctuated with photo frames, and the dresser cluttered with all manner of things. The lamp beside the bed cast a glow that gave the room an added layer of warmth and Duncan couldn’t help but compare it to his own bedroom—the sparseness of it even more apparent when faced with a room that was so lived in, so comfortable.

“God, Ash—” he began, only to be cut off once more by her mouth on his. She bounced ever so slightly in his arms, giving him the distinct impression she was getting impatient and she was ready for him to move to the next step. So, he did.

He crossed the room and took a moment to lay her gently on the bed, her body causing just the slightest wrinkle in the covers. Then, he looked at her.

Really looked.

The time that had passed had been kind to her—more than. She’d been beautiful at nineteen and now, at thirty-four, she was something else. Her lips were moist from their kisses and redder than they had been when she’d been trying to avoid having him in her apartment. Her eyes were wide, her pupils so blown from desire that the blue was nothing more than a ring around dilated black.

And her chest—her perfect tits—rising and falling rapidly, her breathing hard and getting harder, much like his cock, which was straining behind his zipper. He wanted to ask her again if she was okay, if this was what she wanted. He needed to know that yes, she was as all-in in this moment as he was, especially since she’d been reticent at first about having him here, in her space.

But the words wouldn’t come. All he could do was stare at her, all the reasons he’d wanted her once flooding back in a rush. He had never forgotten her, not ever. But life had moved on and, in the aftermath of her father’s heart attack, so had she.

He, on the other hand, tried to be the best friend he could to Aaron—and part of doing that was forgetting all about the girl he’d called Kitten and had so ached to pet.

“Duncan?” Her voice was low, deepened by need, and quiet, as if speaking louder might break what they had going on.

Unable to speak, still, he raised his eyebrows, silently telling her he was still there, still with her. And then, he waited for her words. For whatever she wanted or needed to say in this moment they were sharing.

“Please.” She bit her lip as the plea slipped out, her face telling him it wasn’t what she’d expected to say but hadn’t been able to control. She cleared her throat, her voice louder, steadier, as she continued, “I know we need to talk and catch up or . . . I mean, there are things to say, but right now, I just want—I just—I want you. Please.”

Please. There was no way he’d be able to deny her, or himself. I want you.

He wanted her, too. Come morning they’d have plenty to say to one another, he had no doubt. He had no idea what would come after this—except both of them, he thought wryly—and he didn’t care to think on it too hard.

Thinking could wait.

Needy Ashton couldn’t.

I have to tell him, she thought fleetingly, his hands landing on her hips as he climbed onto the bed to straddle her. He needs to know before we—he leaned down to lay another kiss on her, making her brain flicker out for a moment.

He needs . . . I need . . .

Need.

I need.

I need him.

And she did. For days, weeks—since the moment her pregnancy was confirmed—he’d been on her mind, and now he was on her body. Literally. He’d stripped his shirt off, the brown material flying through her peripheral vision and landing somewhere out of sight.

Oh God. His body was lean and strong, muscles clearly delineated under the skin, flexing and moving with him as he lowered his hands to her pants and began the job of removing them from her body.

I should stop him, she thought, her mind finally coming back to the matter at hand—which was surprisingly not his hand that had travelled below her waistline and into her panties. She’d seen him standing in her living room, in the center of her personal space, and him, after all this time, was more than her overworked emotions could handle.

She’d wanted to kiss him.

She’d had to kiss him. To know if it was as good as she remembered.

It wasn’t. It was better, and once that realization had hit, she’d lost all control.

She’d rolled her hips and given him all the encouragement he needed to bring them here, to this point. To her laid out on her bed, her pants and panties gone, and Duncan’s broad shoulders pushing her legs apart to stare at her—

“Fucking perfect pussy,” he whispered, the warmth of his breath on her center making a shudder run the length of her body. “Ash?”

She looked down at him as he used her name to request permission to taste her and she gulped. I have to tell him.

But her brain didn’t get the message to her libido in time. Some kind of mutiny was happening within her, her head nodding in approval, her hands reaching out to grip the dark strands of his hair—her fingers taking a moment to touch on the silver that peppered his temples—and her hips raising ever so slightly in invitation.

Taste me.

And he did. It was like an electric shock to her entire nervous system—the feel of his tongue on her most sensitive area, finding and flicking at her clit, his fingers taking no time at all to find her entrance and circle it, a tickling tease that made her moan.

Ashton had never been one to be vocal, not about sex. With Nathan, she’d let him do his thing, because his thing worked for her—mostly—even though the fact he’d found someone else told her his thing no longer even worked for him. But as Duncan’s fingers teasingly entered her then slid back, leaving her empty, she couldn’t stop the words. “I need it harder, Duncan, please. Please, just—please.”

She could feel the smile as it formed on his face, his lips never leaving her body as he thrust his fingers deep, his tongue working that little bundle of nerves that made her want to scream.

And scream she did, while gripping and pulling at his hair. The word “more” escaped her lips several times, a chant and a request and a need that would continue to tear at her until it was met. “Please, please.”

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to, not with his fingers fucking her and his mouth sucking her. Goddammit, she thought, her orgasm taunting her on the horizon, close but just out of reach.

She still needed more.

With a strength she didn’t know she possessed until that very moment, Ashton pulled him away from her wetness—all the more wet, thanks to his skilled ministrations—and yanked on his shoulder until he was over her.

It was as she was running her hands over his bare back and down to grip his ass, wanting to jerk him forward so he had no choice but to fill her, that she realized he was still wearing his pants. “What the hell?” It was a raspy, angry kind of disbelief—the kind that comes after dangling over the edge of release, but never fully falling into it.

She released his ass cheeks to cup the cheeks on his face, holding his head steady so he didn’t miss the urgency of the moment. “Pants, off. You, in me. Now. Got it?”

He nodded, and if he’d saluted, she wouldn’t have been surprised. She watched impatiently as he slid from atop her, off the bed, and dropped his jeans and boxer briefs to the floor. She waited restlessly as he ducked back down to the discarded clothing and stood holding a small foil square. She wiggled side to side in a vain attempt to lessen her aches as he rolled the protection down his length, stroking his hard, heavy cock in a way that . . . Oh God, she thought a second time, the sight of his big hand working his straining erection increasing her already runaway arousal.

She thought she had anticipated his every move—the scenes playing out in her head dirty and filthy and perfect—but the moment he covered her body with his own once again, he changed the game with one hushed whisper, one word that told her that she wasn’t the only one who had thought about this more than once.

“Finally.”

Using one hand to guide himself to her entrance, the other by her head fisting the sheet, he paused just long enough for her to grab his nape and bring his mouth to back to hers. Then, with one thrust, he was inside her, moving their bodies together with frantic movements, controlling the pace and setting her everything on fire.

Slow it down.

Slow it down.

Slow it down.

It was a refrain from the part of her mind that knew she wasn’t acting herself but she couldn’t heed it. She couldn’t slow it down, not when Duncan—Andrew—had moved from kissing her lips to nibbling at her sensitive neck and was sliding in and out of her body over and over.

Not when he was so clearly in charge.

Not when it felt so goddamn good; so much better than anything that had come before it.

A riot of goosebumps broke out on her skin, and it wasn’t until his name passed her lips on a moan that she realized the breathy sounds, the needful whimpers, the wanton noises that had surrounded them were coming from her.

Oh God. She was close, oh, so close again.

And when he reached between them, finding her clit, slick and swollen, she exploded, her body tightening around his cock.

I’m going to die.

It was the only clear thought in Duncan’s head—both of them—as he felt the walls of Ashton’s pussy clench and tense around him.

What a way to go.

He needed to come—her body and his demanded it. Close wasn’t enough to describe the feeling of being on the precipice, ready and waiting for it to happen.

Fuck waiting. He was going for it; he’d made her come even though, for a brief period early on, he’d thought there was a strong possibility that he’d leave her behind. And now he was going to use her body to find his own satisfaction.

Not that it was hard. Or, actually, it was hard. His dick was diamond-hard, sensitive and . . . and . . .

“Yes, fuck, fuck, yes.” He threw his head back as cum began to fill the condom, the tightening of his lower back and balls coupling with the intense pleasure to make words impossible.

Until he lifted his head, their eyes meeting. Something passed between them, something nameless but right, something that replaced all the words in his vocabulary with one.

“Ashton.”

“I’m pregnant.”