Chapter Thirteen
“You’re not going to join the family business after your rugby career ends, are you?”
Bodie was startled out of his reverie by the question. They were driving home from his parents’ house, the conversation with his father still playing heavily on his mind. He maintained a relationship with his father for his mother’s sake, but it was getting harder and harder to stay civil.
Hell, if he hadn’t wanted to knock his father’s flashy white veneers down his neck as he’d tried to cast doubt on the paternity of his baby.
“Not even if I was penniless.”
She visibly relaxed, and so did he. She’d been quiet—more so than usual—during the meal and had practically dragged him to the car when he’d suggested it was time to leave.
“I’m sorry about my father.” He gave a dismissive shrug. It was what it was. If it had been up to Bodie, he’d have kept Eleanor away from him for much, much longer. But with their marriage hopefully imminent, it was inevitable that it would be sooner rather than later.
“Has he always been so…full on?”
Bodie almost laughed out loud at her polite euphemism for overbearing. “Yes.” It pained Bodie to admit it but it was true. “He comes from old money. Generations of private schools breeding ruthless businessmen. Everything is an acquisition or a merger to him. He doesn’t know anything else.”
“I’d have thought old money would be into the whole rugby scene, though?” The sport was, after all, firmly entrenched in the private school culture.
Bodie snorted. “No. He had a particular career path in mind for his son and heir and it didn’t involve being sidetracked by something as frivolous as sport.”
“Yes, but…you were obviously really good at it?”
There was an incredulity in her voice that only someone who has come from a large, loving extended family could affect.
The kind of family he wanted for his baby.
“It didn’t matter. He always discouraged it. He never came and saw me play as a kid. In fact, he’s rarely seen me play with the Smoke, unless he has some clients he wants to impress with free entry to his corporate box.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her voice trembled with empathy. If he wasn’t driving he’d lean right over and kiss that troubled little V between her brows. He was used to his old man’s crap but it had clearly shaken Eleanor.
“I do have a lot to thank him for,” Bodie admitted. “I get my drive to win, my competitive streak from him. Getting ahead in this sport, getting to an elite level, requires a killer instinct, and I learned it from the best.”
She nodded and he knew she understood. Her brother might be all laid-back-cowboy on the surface, but under it all he was as focused on his career as the rest of the team.
“I’m my father’s son.” Frankly that scared the bejesus out of him.
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “You’re not like him, you know why? Because you play on a team. You’ve learned the people around you make you stronger, and you need to trust them to have your back just as you have theirs. Business is a solo sport, and your father’s learned not to trust anyone. That doesn’t make him strong. It makes him foolish.”
Bodie blinked. She really hadn’t liked his father.
“I don’t want to…” He’d spoken before the thought had fully formed, and he stumbled over it now as he realised he was about to express his deepest fear.
“What?”
He glanced at her briefly, at the unhappy set of her mouth. It seemed their visit with his parents had unsettled her as much as it had unsettled him. “I don’t want to be the kind of father he was.”
Bodie hadn’t thought too much about it before today, but he was now. Standing in his father’s office, the walls closing in on him, he’d known he didn’t want anything like this for his kid.
“So don’t be.”
His forehead furrowed at her slightly terse reply. She was more tense than he’d realised. “You’re right…it’s just rugby season is intense. It takes over my life. It requires all my focus.”
“There’s a difference between focused and blinkered, Bodie.”
“What if I can’t tell the difference?” A cramp knotted just under his sternum. That was his biggest worry, unintentionally turning into his dad.
She smiled but it seemed forced. “That’s what I’m for.”
Man, he liked the sound of that. But a couple of hours in his father’s company had really messed with his head. And hers, too, if her demeanour was anything to go by. He opened his mouth to ask her if she was okay, but she leaned forward to turn the radio up as Ed Sheeran crooned Perfect and the unease that something was wrong faded away as she hummed along to the lyrics.
Eleanor was standing in front of the open fridge sucking out of a can of whipped cream when Bodie found her.
“Here you are.”
He’d stripped off to all but his underwear and smooshed the front of his body up against the back of hers, his dick already semi hard. Sliding a hand onto her jaw, he turned her face and kissed her, stealing some of the sweet, fluffy goodness from her mouth as Eleanor tried to laugh, breathe, swallow, and kiss him back at the same time.
She wished like hell they could stay here forever in his apartment and never have to face the world and its judgement again. Everything felt like it was going to be okay inside these four walls.
“Mmm.” He licked his lips as he broke off the kiss. “I thought you were coming straight up.”
“I barely ate at your parents’. I’m starving.” She’d been too nervous to start with, then too bloody sick to her stomach after that overheard conversation.
“It’s okay.” His hands dropped to her waist, pulling her blouse out of her skirt. “I can help you with that.”
He grabbed the bottom of her shirt on either side of the row of central buttons and ripped upward. The hard plastic discs pinged off the fridge, half landing inside the fridge, the other half scattered on the floor at their feet.
“Bodie,” Eleanor half protested, half laughed. “How is that helping?” But he was already onto the second part of his plan, whipping the can out of her hands, shoving the nozzle between her cleavage and depressing the pump.
She yelped as cold cream filled the V between her breasts. Then he was turning her in his arms and dipping his head to lick off every last morsel, groaning at the taste. His cock pressed into the juncture of her thighs and Eleanor arched her back, fully gone on the way he made her body feel.
At least they had this, right? He might not love her but they had a physical compatibility that was off the charts. And they liked each other and had fun. Marriages had been based on worse, right?
He finally lifted his head from her cleavage. “That’ll teach you for not being naked already.”
Eleanor eased back, glancing at his underwear. His rock hard cock stretched the fabric, busting to get out. “You’re not naked.”
“That’s because I was too impatient to get my hands on you.”
“That looks painful.” She plucked at the band of his underwear, pulling it out, very satisfied at what she found. “Think it could do with something to soothe it.”
Bodie nodded, barely suppressing a smile. “I think you’re right.”
She smiled at him as she grabbed the can of cream out of his hands, shoved the nozzle in his pants and squirted.
“Fuck that’s freezing.”
He snatched for the can but Eleanor was faster this time, dropping it on the floor and kicking it across the polished concrete. She quirked an eyebrow at him. “That’ll teach you not to be naked already.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You better be prepared to clean that up, woman.”
“Absolutely.”
Eleanor salivated at the thought as she sunk to her knees, one hand pushing the fridge door shut, the other easing his underwear off his hips. His cock sprang from the confines of his clothes and even covered in whipped cream it was impressively masculine.
She shut her eyes as her tongue swiped at the sweet, fluffy confection coating his dick, licking it off then sucking him clean, revelling in the deep timbre of his groans and the way his hands slid into her hair. But it wasn’t enough. She needed him inside her. Part of her. Bodie’s father had asked him today if he loved her and he’d deflected and that had hurt, so what she needed right now was to be as close to him as she could, to negate the things his father had said, to know this was more than Bodie being trapped or doing the honourable thing.
He seemed to be thinking the same thing, reaching for her as she slid her mouth from him.
“I want to be inside you,” he said and it couldn’t have been more perfect.
Eleanor went willingly, wrapping her legs around his waist, moaning against his mouth as she kissed him and murmuring her approval as he slid her onto the kitchen bench and claimed the space between her legs, spreading them wide with his hips. He pushed up her skirt, one hand skimming the fine linen of her pantaloons, the other guiding his cock to the open seam.
She moaned, her heart skipping crazily as his cock slipped through the easy access and slid through the slick folds of her sex, finding the hot, wet heart of her. And then she titled her pelvis just right as he pushed in and he was deep inside her, sunk to the hilt.
He followed that with a slow, sexy grind. Easy, deep glides. So deep, pressing in and holding before a long, lazy withdrawal. And a lot of hot, wet kissing as his fingers found the swollen knot of nerves between her legs, inching Eleanor closer and closer, inching him closer and closer. Heat building, sweat building, trembles building until she cried out, clamping around him tight, undulating along the length of him, milking him with the rigors of her orgasm, yanking him into the rigors of his, twisting through the rapture, holding one another through the chaos.
Holding one another through the rise and the fall and the slow, hazy drift back to earth.
“Christ.” He panted into her neck. “I think we just keep getting better and better.”
Yes. He knew how to love her with his body and that was better than a lot of people got. A satisfied kind of laugh rumbled in her throat. “Amen to that.”
He smiled and pulled back slightly to study her. “Sorry, we seem to make a habit out of not making it to the bed.”
Eleanor opened her eyes, her head lolling a little. “It’s fine.” Here, like this, with him, she didn’t need anything else. A bed included. “But you might have to carry me up the stairs because the only thing I can feel at the moment is my vagina, and I don’t think it’s up to the job.”
He laughed this time. “Never underestimate your vagina. That thing is fucking amazing.”
She deliberately tightened around him, still hard inside her, and he growled low in his throat, kissing her quick. “Hold on.”
Bodie grabbed her ass as he slid her off the counter, his dick still rammed to the hilt. Eleanor protested to be put down, but he just kept walking and she held on tight, locking her ankles around his waist. “I was only joking. You can’t carry me up the stairs. I’m too heavy.”
He snorted. “You’re a lightweight compared to what I can handle.”
“You could fall and break something. Your leg. Or your penis.” She met his gaze. “That’s a thing, you know. I read about it. ”
He laughed. “Yeah, well, in that case I expect you to give it mouth to mouth resuscitation.”
He hit the stairs and powered up them like he was Rocky. “I think I just swooned,” she whispered in his ear as he stepped into the bedroom. He kissed her then and things got a little hazy as her libido roared back to life.
“Hold that thought.” She broke off and squirmed to be let down. “Need the bathroom.”
“Of course you do.” He shook his head, grinning at her as he eased her down, playfully swatting her ass. “Hurry.”
She did hurry but what she discovered when she sat on the toilet brought everything to a screeching halt. Oh God.
“Bodie.”
There must have been something in her voice because he was in the bathroom doorway within seconds. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m bleeding.”
…
Eleanor held her breath as the doctor lubed up her abdomen. Bodie, tense beside her, tightened his grip on her hand.
“Okay, let see what we got.”
The female doctor smiled at them sympathetically. She was young, maybe thirty, and had been enormously supportive and encouraging. Eleanor had only had some spotting and nothing further. It was apparently quite common and with the absence of any cramping or abdominal pain the doctor was confident it would be okay.
Bodie had been amazing. They’d been at the hospital in twenty minutes, and he hadn’t left her side, telling her it was going to be okay. But he was worried, and she could tell he was still blaming himself.
He’d castigated himself out loud multiple times on their trip to the hospital. For the bench top, for the angle of his thrust, for going so deep and staying there so long.
For generally being a horny douchebag.
The doctor had assured him that cervixes were much stronger than that, built to take a real pounding she’d joked, but Eleanor could tell Bodie wasn’t convinced.
The ultrasound probe slid through the gel and the picture on the screen was fuzzy and indistinct as she moved it around to position it correctly. A wave of nausea flashed through Eleanor’s abdomen.
When she’d first done those tests, she’d entertained the notion of something like this happening—miscarriage was common, after all. She certainly hadn’t been adverse to it as a solution to her predicament, and it had seemed a far easier option than actively doing something about it.
And it would be an easy out for Bodie—if he wanted it—if there was no heartbeat.
I’m not discussing this with you.
The cryptic words he’d spoken to his father earlier today brewed like a batch of off prawns in her gut. There’d be no obligation if this was to end tonight. He could put this behind him and get on with his life.
They both could.
But there was a connection to the fragile little life inside her she couldn’t deny. She wasn’t sure when it had grown so strong but Eleanor felt it acutely now as the baby flickered on the screen. She wanted it whether he did or not. Whether he loved her or not.
It was as much a part of her as her own heartbeat, as the breath in her lungs. And she couldn’t bear the thought that the baby might have ceased to exist.
But there it was on the screen, safe inside the amniotic sac. A human-looking jelly bean, a pulsing blip blinking away like the mothership at the centre. The doctor tapped a button and the cubicle filled with the rapid whop whop whop of a tiny heartbeat.
She smiled at them. “Isn’t that a beautiful sound?”
Relief poured like cool water through Eleanor’s veins as Bodie stood and leaned in closer to the screen.
“It’s fine?” His voice was a strained mix of hope and desperation.
“It’s fine,” the doctor confirmed. “Heart rate one hundred and forty-three. Perfect.”
He sat then, or maybe collapsed was a better word for it, pressing his forehead to her hand, his shoulders heaving as he breathed in and out, slow and deep. “The baby’s fine,” Bodie said, lifting his head and capturing her gaze.
“Yes.” Eleanor’s heart squeezed hard as Bodie turned to stare at the screen again. He seemed as relieved as she did, and a flood of emotion rushed in.
Oh Lordy…
Eleanor shut her eyes against the sure and sudden knowledge pushing its way into existence. She didn’t just love this tiny life blinking away inside her, she loved the man who had given it to her.
She was in love with Bodie Webb.
She hadn’t let herself think in those terms these past four weeks—past few months, actually. In fact, she’d resolutely pushed away anything that had resembled an examination of her feelings. She was pregnant—to Bodie—how could she trust the veracity of her emotions?
She’d had to make this about the baby. Not the baby’s father.
Because she knew herself too well. She knew she was prone to flights of fancy. That it would be easy to get swept away in the romance of their situation—a forced marriage to legitimize a pregnancy. How very Victorian. It was like rain to her parched romantic soul.
So she’d been ruthless in her plan to get to know Bodie without falling in love with him. To ignore the temptation of his marriage proposal and think and act logically over the situation.
But who had she been kidding? She’d fallen in love with him the night he’d taken her virginity and it was as clear to her now as the tiny blinking heartbeat on the screen.
So much for logic.
Her heart cracked wide open and she could no more have denied her feelings than denied her next breath. She’d absolutely marry him—whatever his feelings—and make him so damn happy and satisfied he couldn’t help but fall in love with her, too.
They’d be a family. Bodie, her, and the baby.
Unshed tears shone in Bodie’s eyes as he tore them off the screen and looked at her. “That’s our baby.”
A lump lodged in her throat. “Yes.”
“He’s beautiful.”
Eleanor laughed. She had no idea what the sex was. Maybe the doctor could tell? It wasn’t important. She loved him, that’s what was important, and the baby could be whatever the hell sex he wanted in this moment. “He is.”
…
It was seven by the time they arrived home again and Bodie insisted she go to bed. “To Netflix and chill. And no that is not code for sex. We’re not having sex until after the baby is born.”
Eleanor laughed as she stripped off to just the pair of plain, white boy leg undies she’d worn to the hospital. “Yeah, right.” She crawled under the sheets and sighed at the bliss of a familiar bed. It had been a long day—lunch with his parents seemed like a very long time ago.
“I mean it,” he insisted, also stripping down to his underwear.
“The doctor said the sex had nothing to do with it.”
“Maybe.” He slid in beside her. “But tonight scared the bejesus out of me. I’m not going through that again.”
“Not even if I get some more vagazzling?” The last jewels had fallen off a week ago.
“Not even.”
Eleanor shrugged nonchalantly. “Okay. Whatever you want.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m not kidding around.”
“I know.” But she grinned. God, he was so earnest, and her heart just about burst out of her chest.
It was going to be so much fun dissuading him.
“Seriously.”
She kissed his shoulder as she snuggled into him, sliding her hand over the steady thump in the centre of his chest. “Have you forgotten my powers are on the rise?”
He groaned and Eleanor could feel it reverberate through her palm. “You’re going to make it difficult, aren’t you?”
She laughed as she slid her hand down his abdomen. “Count on it.”
He muttered something under his breath as he caught her hand and plonked it firmly back where it had come from, his big hand on top to keep it there. She laughed some more and they settled down to watch a couple of episodes of the latest series.
…
She wasn’t sure what time it was when she woke or what had woken her but something had. Something wasn’t right. The luminous digits on the bedside clock told her it was almost two. Bodie’s big warm body was spooning her from behind, his hand heavy where it rested low on her abdomen.
But it wasn’t the weight that was causing the heaviness, she realised. It was internal, not external. A churning sensation, a low dragging sensation in her belly like a period pain.
A really bad period pain.
And there was more. She felt wet and despite her woolly brain, Eleanor automatically reached down, her pulse an unsteady thump in her ears. It was wet alright, and even in the dark of the room, she could see the blood on her hand as she pulled it from between her legs.
It was a lot of blood.
A sob escaped her throat as she stared at it, the terrible realization hitting her. “Bodie.”