“Pregnant?” I dropped to the tile floor next to her. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah, holy shit.” She heaved into the toilet bowl a second time, and I held her hair.

When she was finished, she stood and walked to the sink. I stared at her while she brushed her teeth.

“I haven’t taken a test yet, but I’m late. I’m never late. And I’ve been nauseated. And then there’s the vomiting.”

I nodded as if I knew the pregnancy symptoms. What I knew was pregnancy threats. Women who showed up at my door, wanting money. But there were never any babies. Just money-hungry whores.

“So what do we do?” I crossed my arms.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t going to tell you like this. Not until after the game. But it feels like everything is so screwed up already, so why not? Right?”

God, I looked at her. Her cute nose, and those hips that had me on my knees. The woman who had taken the control from my grasp. And she was carrying my child. My baby. Our baby.

I walked toward her. “You’re so beautiful to me. Sexy and smart. And to know that we made a baby together…” I felt a lump in my chest. An overwhelming need to protect her and our new family. “You’re fucking incredible, you know that, Doc?”

“You’re not mad?”

“Mad? Hell no. You know how hot you’ll be when your tits swell up. And when your belly grows with my baby.”

“Our baby,” she corrected me.

“Right. Our baby.” I pulled her against my chest. “Everything is working out. This day started out like shit and now it’s perfect. All I need now is that Super Bowl ring, and I’ll have everything.”

She looked up at me. “How exactly are you getting out of the investigation?”

I scooped her up in my arms and carried her toward the bedroom. “Let’s talk about that over breakfast.”

“Wes, tell me.” She whacked me on the chest, but I wasn’t letting her go, and I wasn’t going to ruin the night with a bunch of legal jargon about the players’ union and lawsuits.

“I promised you one hell of a night when you got here, Doc. So shut up and let me give it to you.” I positioned her on the bed and started undressing her.

“You still want me? Like this?” she asked, with hurt in her voice.

I lowered to kiss her. “I’ve never wanted you more.” I dropped her clothes on the floor. I thought she was sexy before. But nothing was hotter than fucking the woman I had given a baby. We weren’t careful. I knew that, but it didn’t seem to matter. I wanted to be buried in her. I wanted my seed in her, and this was why. She was carrying my child now.

Her legs wrapped around me as I pushed inside her.

“Fuck me, Wes,” she moaned. “Like the first night.”

I slid into her. “Oh, this’ll be better than that.” I sucked hard on her nipple. “Because now I don’t just love fucking you. I love you.”

* * *

We both paced in front of the bathroom counter. Lennon sat on the edge of the tub and then was up again. We couldn’t be still. She walked over to the stick lying next to the sink.

“This is the longest three minutes of my life,” she sighed.

“No shit.” I was horrified and excited.

I had a messenger deliver a pregnancy test to the suite first thing this morning. Neither one of us needed the press spotting us in a drug store with one of these things.

“I think it’s time,” she announced.

I held my breath while she read the test. In an instant, I was terrified it would be negative. Getting her pregnant wasn’t the plan, but with the possibility this was a false alarm, I realized how much I wanted her to have my baby. How much I wanted this together.

I tried to read her expression. “God, you’re killing me, Doc. What does it say?”

She lowered the stick. Her blue eyes were clear and certain. “I’m pregnant.”

I grinned. “I knew it.”

She laughed. “I knew it too.”

I wrapped her in my arms and kissed her on the forehead.

She looked up at me. “Can we go back to bed now just for a little nap? It’s not even 6am.”

I nodded. “Yeah, let’s get some more sleep.”

* * *

With enough money, anyone can be bought off. I learned that when I made my first million. My agent had learned it too. Jenny Nichols took her money and changed her story before the next morning’s headlines. She reported that her source was a phony and she had x-rays to prove that Wes Blakefield’s injury had in fact been a sprain all along.

Lennon and I read the headlines in bed.

“I can’t believe this.” She scrolled through her tablet. “There’s not a single mention of an AFA investigation. Why aren’t they looking into it?”

I smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “I told you we had nothing to worry about.”

“Not really the point.”

“Can’t you be happy we’re not being interrogated? It’s going to be old news.”

I knew she was still mad I hadn’t done the honorable thing. And now that I was going to be a father, that would have to change. I wasn’t going to let my son or daughter grow up the way I did.

I wouldn’t be the kind of father who pushed them regardless of the rules. That meant I was going to have to start following them.

My hand snaked under the covers to Lennon’s flat belly. In a few months, her body would be different. I was going to love every second of it. The ice cream runs. The trips to the doctor. All of it. Normal dad stuff that other guys did.

“You know you could still come forward. You don’t have to wait to get caught.”

“I know that’s what you want me to do, but I’m not putting you through that stress. And before you say anything, that’s not just an excuse.” I stared at her hard. “You’d be interviewed. They’ll check all your previous prescriptions. Investigate your case histories. It could go on for months. You don’t deserve that. You did everything right, Doc.

And you’re carrying our baby. So I need to know… can you live with this lie? Can you be with me, knowing what I did?”

She closed her eyes. “I don’t want to say yes, but I can’t say no to you. But I have a condition.”

“Name it.”

“If you ever get hurt again. Ever. You heal like a man. You let your body work and heal for you. No substances. No broken rules. No lies to me or the AFA.”

“See, this is why I need you.” I cupped my palm over her navel, feeling her quickly inhale at my touch.

“What do you mean?”

“To help me be a better man. To be a good father.”

I saw the softness sweep over her. “Wes, you’re going to be an amazing father. I know it.”

“You know, this baby is going to be here at the beginning of the season.” I eyed her.

“Don’t look at me. You’re the one who knocked me up.”

“True.” I rolled her on top of me and she giggled. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Not sick yet.” She smiled.

“Don’t move,” I ordered. I scooted to the end of the bed until I was between her legs. My favorite place to be. She spread her thighs for me and tilted so my tongue could slide inside her.

“Oh God, Wes.” She buried her face in the pillow while I sucked and lapped at her. I could make her come all day. As the vibrations slowed, I rolled out from under her, tilted her hips up, and eased myself into her wet heat. I loved taking her like this. Looking down at the roundness of her ass, while her tits rubbed against the sheets.

“Tell me,” I commanded.

“Fuck me until I’m yours,” she whimpered.

“You are mine, Lennon. God, you’re mine.”

She panted and wiggled as I pumped in and out of her. We both knew things were different. The sex was still fucking hot. But there was love between us now. And that love had made a baby.

I didn’t know what was going to happen in two days at the Super Bowl, but I realized Lennon’s one mission had finally been accomplished. As I held her in my arms, I realized there was more to life than winning a game. There was more than adding points to the scoreboard. There was more than being carried off the field as a hero. Because in my arms, I already knew I had won everything.