Daisy had no idea what had happened to Carter.

He was supposed to be this cool, bad-boy biker, and he’d somehow transformed into an obnoxious mother hen.

If he didn’t cool it soon, she was going to have to start actively avoiding him.

She didn’t want to do that.

Despite his controlling cluelessness, she liked him.

A lot.

She was stretched out on the couch, still fuming from having to slam the door on Carter’s face, when a loud knock resounded through her apartment.

“Go away!” she called out. “I don’t want to see you.”

The door opened, and Chloe stuck her head in. “Well, thanks a lot.”

“Oh, sorry!” Daisy chuckled with relief at the sight of her friend. “Come in. I thought you were Carter.”

Chloe strolled in wearing a long black top and purple leggings with tiaras all over them, her hair even wilder than normal. “I thought I heard an altercation in the hall there, so I came over to check.”

“It was Carter. He was being…”

“Still obsessively trying to be daddy?”

Daisy groaned. “He’s gone crazy! I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but I can’t take much more of it. It’s like he has to control everything, and he won’t stop researching pregnancy.”

Chloe’s mouth twitched visibly. She was obviously trying to hold back her amusement. “He’s probably just kind of worried and is going overboard, don’t you think?”

“This is way more than overboard. This is submerged in water without a ship in sight! I mean, surely he knows how ridiculous he’s being. He seems like such a… such an in-control guy. I don’t understand why he’s lost it this way. I wouldn’t have even thought he’d want a kid, much less get involved to this extent.”

“I guess you never know how guys will react in this kind of situation. What was his family like?”

“I don’t know. He has a brother who’s been in prison, but I don’t know what for or anything. I don’t know anything about his parents or how he was raised.”

“Maybe you should ask.”

“Why?”

“It might help to explain where he’s coming from. Guys don’t act like he does unless there’s a reason for it. If you understand him better, you might not want to wring his neck all the time.”

Daisy sniffed. She did want to know more about Carter, and she also didn’t want to be arrested for strangling the idiot. “Yeah. I guess maybe you’re right.”

“So other than Carter, did the appointment go okay?”

“Yes. Everything’s still good.”

“You need anything?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say no to those leggings.”

Chloe laughed. “They’d never fit you.”

“Thanks a lot.” Despite her dry tone, Daisy knew Chloe was obviously right. Even when not pregnant, Daisy was a lot shorter and curvier than Chloe.

Carter had seemed to like her body though.

Daisy wouldn’t mind if he’d like her body again.

***

The next day, Daisy came back from work exhausted. She had a headache, and her feet were killing her, and she didn’t feel like doing anything at all.

Her parents asked her over for dinner, and Chloe asked if she wanted to go out to get something to eat, but Daisy turned down both invitations in favor of a sandwich and a long soak in the tub. She felt a lot better when she got out and pulled on an oversized T-shirt and her favorite lavender pajama pants in an extra-soft fleece material.

She was trying to decide whether she wanted a milkshake now or later when there was a knock on her door.

She hadn’t been expecting anyone, but it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for either Chloe or her parents to stop by to see how she was doing.

When she opened the door, her smile froze on her face.

Carter.

Looking cool and gorgeous and just slightly sheepish, carrying a brown paper shopping bag.

“Please don’t slam the door on me,” he said with a little smile. “I promise I’ll be good.”

She gave him a suspicious little frown, but she didn’t feel nearly as annoyed as she had the day before. In fact, she was happy to see him. Her heart did a weird little jump.

“I come bearing gifts,” he said, holding up the shopping bag.

“If there are any more antacids in there,” she warned, “or air-filtering plants, I swear to God I’ll—”

“Nothing like that.” He reached in and pulled out a big, soft teddy bear.

“Oh, he’s lovely,” Daisy murmured.

Then Carter slid the bear back in the bag and pulled out a clear plastic container with two huge, beautiful chocolate cupcakes.

She gasped in pleasure at the sight of them.

“You can come in if you want,” she said, stepping back and out of the doorway.

Carter smiled, but his face reflected a flicker of relief as if he hadn’t known if she would relent or not.

After a few minutes, they were sitting on the couch together, and Daisy was feeling ridiculously happy. Still tired after her long day but with a strange kind of giddiness rising inside her.

To hide it, she reclined back against the armrest of the couch as Carter sat on the opposite side.

The cupcakes were on the coffee table. They hadn’t eaten them yet.

“I am sorry about yesterday,” Carter said. “I thought about it some, and I get how I was a little… a little…”

“Bossy and intrusive and infuriating.”

He gave a soft huff of amusement. “Yeah. That.”

“I guess neither one of us has ever done this before. We’re still getting used to it.”

Carter reached down and touched one of her feet, surprising her so much she gave a little squeal and jerked her leg away.

He frowned at her. “What was that for?”

“Sorry,” she said, feeling a little embarrassed by her reaction. “I didn’t know what you were doing. I thought you were going to tickle me or something.”

His eyebrows arched very high.

“Don’t give me that look. It was an automatic reaction. You were touching my foot.”

“I was going to give you a foot rub since you said you’d had a hard day and were on your feet for most of it.”

“I don’t have swollen ankles.”

“I’m not saying you do. Do you want a foot rub or not?” He looked slightly annoyed with her.

“Fine.” She stretched out more completely on the couch as he took her feet and put them in his lap. Fortunately, she’d put on clean socks after her bath.

Her mood changed completely as soon as he started massaging one of her feet. It felt so good that it sent pleasant waves of relaxation all through her body. She sighed and closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“You’re welcome.”

It was feeling so good that she started to feel a bit guilty about it. “You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“I know I don’t. I’m trying to be nice.”

“You are being nice. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah.”

They fell into silence as he rubbed her feet in turn, and soon she felt like a boneless heap of pleasure on the couch. She managed not to moan out loud, but she was doing a lot of it inside as he worked her feet over with a surprisingly skillful touch.

“You’re good at this,” she said at last.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Have you had a lot of practice?”

“Not really.”

She opened her eyes slightly so she could peek at his face. He’d been looking at her, but he glanced away when he saw her eyes were opened. “Did you read that this is a good thing to do for pregnant women?”

He shook his head. “I said I was sorry about that.”

“I know. I didn’t mean to sound like I was picking at you. I was really just wondering.” She remembered what Chloe had said about knowing more about him, and she suddenly had the overwhelming urge to know everything. “Were you the oldest in your family?”

Carter blinked as if he were surprised by the change in subject, but he answered easily enough. “No. My brother is two years older.”

“What were your parents like?”

“Why?”

“I was just curious. Should I… should I not ask about it?”

He sighed, his face relaxing from the momentary defensiveness. “I didn’t have a traumatic childhood or anything, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t.” She had been wondering. He was such a contradiction, an intriguing mix of toughness and sweetness. She couldn’t help but wonder where it had come from. “I wasn’t assuming anything. Just curious.”

“My folks were…” There was a strange note in his voice that made Chloe wonder if he was telling her the whole truth. “My dad worked in the shipyard.”

“In Norfolk?”

“Yeah. He worked really hard, and he never had much to show for it. I know it was hard for him, but he tried to be good to us. He went to our games and always did something for our birthdays and everything.”

“What about your mom?”

“She was… fine.” That statement didn’t sound nearly as convincing as his description of his mother. “I guess.”

Daisy swallowed, feeling a pull in her chest for Carter—of sympathy, understanding. “Why do you guess?”

“Because I never really knew her. She just took off. When I was six.”

Daisy’s eyelids had been fluttering down—not sleeping, just relaxing—but they popped back open at this. “She left you?”

“Yeah. Well, she left my dad, but basically she left us too.”

“Oh. I’m really sorry.”

He gave a little shrug.

Her voice was quiet, very careful, as she asked, “Do you know why she left?”

“I don’t know. She wasn’t happy being married to Dad, I guess.”

“But she could have left your dad without disappearing. Her own kids? She just took off on you?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Carter?”

“She just didn’t want that life.” The words seemed to be forced out of him. “It was hard, and she wanted something easier. She wanted something cleaner and prettier and more suburban, I think. My dad said that was what she was looking for, and he just couldn’t give it to her. It wasn’t who he was. She wanted a life… without us. So I guess she got one.”

Daisy had no idea what to say, but she had a clear picture now—as if this helped fill in the missing pieces of her understanding of Carter.

“Do you know where she is now?”

“No. My dad didn’t want anything to do with her afterward, and I never wanted to look. No good could come of that.”

Both of them were silent for a moment.

Then he continued, “My dad was good though. He stuck around. He… he tried. I always swore I’d never be a parent like my mom was.” Carter’s voice was so soft it was almost a whisper. He was staring at a blank spot in the air.

Daisy’s heart was aching, and she had to do something in response to it. Something. Anything. She sat up with a little difficulty, since her feet were still in Carter’s lap, and reached out to touch his chest.

She didn’t say anything. She just touched him.

He turned his head to meet her eyes, and her throat tightened at the deep vulnerability of them. Like he was momentarily completely revealed, completely naked.

“You’re not going to be a parent like her,” Daisy said at last, sliding her hand up to his shoulder.

“How do you know?”

“Because you already aren’t. You’re already trying to take care of me… of… us.”

He reached over to put a hand on her belly, cupping it over the slight curve.

It meant something to him—her saying that, his having a connection to his baby.

The air between them was silent and thick with emotion. They stared at each other for a long time, neither moving or saying a word.

Then Carter’s expression seemed to crack slightly. He gave a low groan and pulled her toward him, claiming her mouth in a hard, urgent kiss.

Her head spinning with excitement, with need, with satisfaction, Daisy grabbed on to his shoulders and opened to his kiss. He was rearranging her body so she was situated on his lap, her legs straddling his hips, and an arousal was already starting to pulse between her legs.

“Angel,” he murmured thickly, breaking his mouth away from hers at last. “Fuck, you are so…”

He didn’t finish his sentence. Just lowered his head again to kiss his way down her throat.

She gasped in pleasure when he reached a sensitive spot just over her pulse. “So what?”

“Hmm.” He slid his hands down her back so they were cupping her bottom. She loved how possessively he held it.

“So what?”

“Hmm?” His mouth was still busy at her throat, driving her crazy with the pleasure of it.

“I’m so what?” she managed to ask again. “You said I’m so…”

“So… everything.” He grabbed the fabric of her shirt and pulled it off over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and he stared down at her naked chest, her loose breasts, with a raw appreciation that took her breath way. “Fuck, angel, you’re so… everything.”

Nothing else he could have said would have made her feel this way, like her heart would explode with an overload of feeling.

She took his face in both her hands and leaned forward into another kiss. He took control of it almost immediately, and soon she was rocking against him, loving how hard he felt against her arousal.

He wanted her. So much. She could feel it all through his body, and it matched her own desperate need for him.

Then suddenly he turned his head out of the kiss with a low groan. “We should probably stop.”

She gasped, flushed and indignant. “Why?”

“Because I’m about to lose it.”

“Me too. So what?” She rubbed the back of his neck.

“But you’re…”

“Pregnant? So what? I can have sex when I’m pregnant. Didn’t your book tell you that?”

They stared at each other for a moment, and she was suddenly washed with a wave of embarrassment. Here she was, half-naked in his lap, begging him to have sex with her.

She wasn’t like this.

She’d never been like this.

She dropped her eyes and started to pull off him. “If you don’t want to…”

“Angel,” he murmured hoarsely, grabbing her before she could get up. “Don’t you dare go anywhere.”

“But—”

He kissed her hard again, this time laying her down onto the couch. Her body throbbed with the return of excitement and pleasure, and soon she had both her legs wrapped around him. She rocked up into him eagerly as they kissed.

Soon he was sliding one of his hands under the waistband of her pajama pants and into her panties. She tore her mouth away from his and groaned uninhibitedly as his fingers found her hot, wet arousal.

“How’s that?” he asked, bracing himself above her on one arm.

“G-good!” Her whole body arched as he slid two fingers inside her. “I’m already… already… close!”

She wasn’t close anymore. She was already coming hard around his fingers.

“That’s right,” he was saying in a low, husky voice as she shook and moaned through her orgasm. “That’s right, angel. Come for me just like that.”

She was still panting and tingling from a few delicious aftershocks when he dragged her up into another kiss. Then there was no stopping them. They were clumsily tearing off each other’s clothes and finding the condom Carter had in his pocket, just as he’d had last time.

She helped him roll it on, and then he was positioning himself between her legs. She cried out loudly as he slowly eased himself inside her.

“You okay?” He’d stopped halfway in, and he was so tense it felt like something was shuddering inside him.

“Yeah. Yeah. Please! I want you… I want you…” She could barely get the words out. She was completely overwhelmed with another ache inside only he could quench.

He groaned again and let himself go, starting to thrust into her with a fast, choppy rhythm that was exactly what she needed. She bucked up against him with shameless enthusiasm and was making a lot of silly helpless sounds as the pleasure tightened inside her again.

She was totally out of control, none of her normal inhibitions holding her back. She clawed at the bare skin of his back and urged him on with loud pleas for more.

He was grunting like an animal as he took her, but he seemed to still have an edge of control because he wasn’t pushing into her too hard. But it was fast and wild and perfect, and it wasn’t long before Daisy’s body was clamping down around another orgasm.

She was almost sobbing as it broke and the intense pleasure flooded her body again. Carter was right there with her, and he let out a long moan of release as his body let go.

When they started to come down, Daisy’s throat hurt. She couldn’t catch her breath, and she was slightly sore between her legs, and one of her thighs was starting to cramp up.

But she couldn’t remember ever being so completely sated in her life.

She smiled up at him like a fool as he straightened up and took care of the condom.

“Wow,” she managed to say.

“Yeah.”

“That was… wow.”

“Yeah.” His face was flushed, and the look in his eyes was warm and replete. He looked just as deeply satisfied as she was.

“I…” She trailed off as she took a look at his shoulders and saw raw, red scratches there. “I didn’t mean to scratch you so much.”

“I’m not complaining.”

“Maybe it was just the pregnancy hormones. I was totally out of control.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Must be the hormones.”

She frowned up at him. She was still naked on her couch, but she couldn’t seem to make herself move. “You were kind of out of control yourself. What’s your excuse?”

He leaned over to kiss her and stroke his palm up from her hip to one of her bare breasts. “My excuse is that you drive me wild.”

“Oh. That’s reasonable, I guess.”

He chuckled and kissed her again.

She tangled her fingers in his thick hair. “You want to stay the night? You can if you want.” She wasn’t sure where she’d found the courage to ask. She just didn’t want to say goodbye to him quite yet.

“O-okay.”

She took note of the slight hesitation but didn’t let it worry her. She wasn’t going to put pressure on him. She wasn’t going to assume they were together now or anything.

She didn’t know what was happening between the two of them, but something was definitely happening.

And she liked it.

She liked it a lot.