THREE

JAMES DROVE THE BALING hooks deep into the hay, deeper than they needed to be. He was working out his frustration on the dry grass with little success. It had been three days since he’d seen Susan at the hospital and with each day that passed, he grew concerned. He’d called the hospital and found out she was off, but that’s all they would tell him. He’d considered running a check on her background information to find out where her parents lived, but he wanted to earn her trust, not push her away by digging into her past without permission.

“Fuckin’ gossip,” he bit out, as he dropped the hay into a horse stall. He had a pretty good idea who had started the gossip, too. He knew one of the nurses at the hospital, had seen her when he’d visited Shaun Jones the day before.

Pulling a rag from his back pocket, he wiped the sweat from his brow and surveyed his small farm. He’d bought the two-story home from his parents when they’d retired, so he could raise his own family on the land he grew up on. His memories of chasing fireflies and toads were some of the best of his life thus far. He couldn’t wait to fill the house with his own kids, to make memories with them so they could look back on their childhood like he had, with a smile.

He just needed a family to fill it, first.

The sun was beginning to set, casting a warm glow on the land, as his radio crackled to life in his truck. It was his day off, but he was never off duty. Not since he helped organize the Rutherford County S.W.A.T. team.

James turned his ear toward his truck and listened, wondering why they hadn’t paged him if there was a situation brewing.

“63-7 this is headquarters.” Nettie Smith was on duty again. He’d seen her the day before, and she’d teased him about using her to find out Susan’s address. He didn’t let slip it was for personal reasons, but the wink he gave her had confirmed what she suspected.

James threw the baling hooks on the ground and moved to his truck, grabbing his handheld.

“This is Mayson. Over.”

“We’ve got a 187 off Dixie Highway and Hurricane Creek.”

Murder victim. Christ.

“Roger that. Is a detective en route?” he asked, wondering why she contacted him.

“Crime scene is en route, but . . .”

The hair on his neck began to stand on end. “But what?”

“The victim didn’t have any identification on her.” He could tell she was working up to something, and his gut clenched. “But she had an ATM receipt in her pocket. We ran a check on the name, and the victim matches the height and hair color.”

He closed his eyes and braced. He didn’t know who was lying dead in a field near Hurricane Creek, but Nettie sure as hell knew and didn’t want to tell him.

“Spit it out, Nettie,” James ordered.

“The ATM receipt belonged to a Susan Elizabeth Montgomery.”

Time stood still as the information sunk in slowly, then it restarted as the implication of what she’d relayed hammered home. “Jesus,” he bit out, then climbed into his truck and took off at a high rate of speed with his sirens blaring.

It took him ten minutes to reach Hurricane Creek. Nettie kept reaching out to him as he drove, her concerned voice amplifying his fear. He pulled to a sliding stop when he reached the murder scene, then jumped out of his truck and took off, heading toward the crime scene tape. As he approached, he kept his eyes on the white sheet draping the victim. He heard voices calling out to him as he made his way toward the body, but he ignored them. He had to see for himself. Wouldn’t believe that Susan was gone until he’d seen her body with his own eyes.

Defying instructions to back away from the body, James leaned over and grabbed the corner of the sheet. But he couldn’t pull it back. Realized he didn’t want to know just yet. Fucking fate had dropped her in his lap after years of searching for the right woman, and she’d be lost to him the moment he confirmed his greatest fear.

“Mayson,” Rob Thomas, the county coroner, called out.

“I need to see Susan,” James finally said, looking Thomas in the eyes.

The coroner looked down at the body, then back at James.

“She hasn’t been confirmed as Montgomery, yet. We’ll run her prints when we get her back to the morgue.”

“If it’s Susan Montgomery, I’ll know.”

Awareness dawned quickly at what James was implying, and Thomas nodded, then walked over and knelt next to the body. Once he had the sheet in hand, he looked up at James and asked, “You ready?”

Portable floodlights had been trained on the field, illuminating the area with white-hot light to fend off the shadows made by the slowly setting sun. The June air was warm, and the heated lamps were making it warmer, but James just felt cold inside as fear crawled like a snake up his spine. He knew with certainty that if it was Susan beneath that sheet, he might never feel warmth again.

With a quick nod of his head, James bit out, “Ready.”

The sheet fell away in slow motion, catching on the victim’s hair. But even with her face partially covered by her long locks of chocolate brown, James knew it wasn’t Susan. The victim’s lips gave her away. After being up close and personal with them on three occasions, they were branded into his mind’s eye.

James turned from the body and closed his eyes in relief.

“Is it her?” Thomas asked.

He shook his head, then took a full, deep breath. His first since Nettie had called him. “It’s not her, thank Christ.” But it was someone’s daughter, and they would be devastated when they were notified.

There was commotion near the edge of the crime scene, and both Thomas and James turned their attention toward a detective in plain clothes approaching.

“You’re not gonna believe this shit,” Dan Pike shouted. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but we just got a call about another body from MPD. They heard about ours, and they’re scratching their heads, hoping we can shed some light.”

Murder was rare in a city the size of Murfreesboro, so two in one night was big news. And considering the first one was linked to Susan somehow, James braced again.

“Who?” he barked out.

Pike glanced at the unknown woman beneath the white sheet, then back at James. “This one has been positively identified as one Susan Montgomery.”

____________________________

Donna Summer’s “She Works Hard for the Money” was pounding out a beat, making it hard to hear. I was sitting with Kari and Jamila having a drink, waiting for Tonya to show up. After three days of sleeping, eating, and contemplating James Mayson, I’d called the girls knowing it was their day off, and invited them to come up to Nashville so I could pick their brains about these so-called rumors. We’d decided to meet at The Electric Company, a nightclub just outside the city limits, for drinks and dancing, before heading back to Murfreesboro. I should have insisted on a diner. No one could think over the music, let alone carry on a conversation.

“What did you want to talk about?” Kari shouted.

“Let’s wait until Tonya gets here. I don’t want to repeat myself,” I shouted back.

Jamila narrowed her eyes, then turned to Kari. “She wants to talk about James Mayson.”

“Does she?” Kari asked, her lips twitching.

I dropped my head back and looked at the ceiling. A disco ball was spinning in the center of the dance floor, casting off prisms of light. They bounced across the ceiling like ghostly orbs, hypnotizing anyone who watched.

“He’s a player,” Jamila shouted at me when I didn’t answer.

I dropped my head and looked at my friends, then asked the one question I needed to be answered. “Says who?”

After three days dissecting James’s every action and reaction since I’d met him, it suddenly became clear that he wasn’t exactly acting like a player. Players were smooth; they flirted habitually until they got what they wanted. And if it didn’t work, they moved on to someone new. But James hadn’t. He was steadfast in his pursuit. I’d been gone three days, and he hadn’t stopped. I’d remotely checked my messages on my answering machine and found his deep voice waiting for me, asking me to call him. And Natalie Freeman, one of the night shift nurses, had left a message saying a man with a sexy voice had called the hospital looking for me. Players didn’t spend that much time in pursuit of sex. Especially if they looked like James. He could have any woman he wanted by smiling at them. I should know, every time his mouth pulled into a sexy grin, my body reacted as if he’d touched me.

“Says who?” Kari parroted my question.

“Yes. Who says he’s a player?”

Kari looked at Jamila.

Jamila shrugged.

“We heard it from Tonya, who heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who said her cousin knew a woman who’d gone out with him in college.”

I blinked. “Are you telling me the rumor about him being a player goes back to college?”

Kari shrugged.

“And he’s how old now?” I asked, feeling like a fool.

Jamila’s eyes lost focus as she thought about that. “Twenty-five, maybe twenty-six, by my calculations.”

Groaning, I dropped my forehead into my hands.

“You know, now that I think about it,” Kari put in, “I don’t think I’ve seen him with anyone in years.”

I looked at the neon exit sign. If I left now, I could be home in forty minutes. He’d been right. I listened to rumors without proof, and I’d tried and convicted him because of it.

I need to apologize for being an idiot.

“Does this mean you’re gonna ignore the warnings and go out with him?” Jamila asked.

Yes. Yes, I am. From the moment I met James, I’d felt drawn to him. Like he was the answer to the question of life. And he mumbled words like, ‘What if you’re my destiny?’ Yes, I was so going to ignore the warnings.

Both of my brows rose. “What do you think?”

“Tonya’s here,” Kari said, pointing behind me.

We all turned to see her rushing toward the table. She waved, then pushed through the crowded dance floor, making her way over to us.

“This place is a crush with people,” she said, letting out a long breath of exertion. “What did I miss?”

“Susan here is gonna forego the warning about James Mayson.”

Tonya’s head whipped around like a trained ballerina, gaping at me. “What?”

“He asked me out,” I shrugged.

“But we told you he’s a playboy.”

“I think the rumors are false.”

Her eyes bugged out at Kari and Jamila.

They raised their hands in a what can we do shrug.

“What makes you think the rumors are false?”

“You heard it from a friend of a friend of a cousin who knew a woman?”

“That doesn’t make it false,” she argued.

“It doesn’t make it true either. So he dated a lot in college. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Sample the wide selection available until you find someone who’s perfect for you?”

Tonya looked back at Jamila and Kari. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. But watch your back either way. Player or not, there are women in Murfreesboro obsessed enough with him they might take your head off if you date him,” she mumbled low, as the music ended. “Which reminds me. You won’t believe this, but on the drive up I heard about a woman who was murdered in Murfreesboro today. Get this, her name was Susan Montgomery.”

My jaw dropped, the threat of women wanting a piece of my hind end forgotten, “What?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Susan Montgomery. If I hadn’t known you were alive, I might have freaked.”

“Do you think it will make the Nashville news?” I questioned, worried my parents might come to the same conclusion.

“No idea. Are you worried about your parents hearing it?” Kari asked.

I nodded. “I told them I was coming here before driving back to Murfreesboro, so I hope they would know it’s not me.”

“You could always call them,” Jamila said, pointing to a pay phone.

I looked at the clock. The nightly news wouldn’t be on until ten p.m., so I had time. “The news won’t be on for another two hours, let’s have a drink then I’ll leave and call them from the nearest gas station. They won’t be able to hear me in here anyway.”

Tonya nodded, then stood. “Drinks are on me,” she said, then took our order and moved to the bar.

“That is so freaky,” Jamila said. “It’s like that movie The Terminator. Have you seen it yet?”

“No, is that the one with the cyborg with glowing red eyes?”

“That’s the one. It came out about six months ago.”

“How is a dead woman with my name similar?”

“Well, this woman named Sarah Connor is targeted by this cyborg from the future. He doesn’t know what she looks like, so he kills every Sarah Connor in the phone book.”

“Does she die?”

“No, this guy Reece saves her. He comes back from the future, as well. Though . . . she’s the only one who survives.”

“That just proves women are superior to men,” Kari jumped in, laughing.

Tonya came running back to the table and grabbed my arm, pulling me from the chair. “There’s a TV at the bar, and they just broke in with the story. Come on, they went to a station break first.”

All four of us pushed through the crowd, squeezing in so we could see the TV hanging above the bar. There was text running at the bottom of the screen for the hearing impaired or in this case, a loud bar. We waited patiently until a blonde woman with perky breasts and voluminous hair turned to the camera. “Police and the Sheriff’s department are dealing with double homicides this evening in and around Murfreesboro. The body of a Jane Doe was found near Hurricane Creek around five p.m., while the body of Susan Montgomery was discovered by her neighbor earlier in the day. Police aren’t saying if the murders are related, or how long the women have been deceased.”

The camera broke away from the Barbie-faced newscaster to a live shot outside the county morgue. I gasped when James entered the shot, looking like hell as he climbed the front steps. His face was blanked of emotion, but the rigid way he held his body screamed he was pissed. Like he wanted to tear someone limb from limb.

“He thinks it’s me,” I shouted over the noise. “James is there because he thinks I’m the dead woman.”

Three sets of eyes blinked. Then understanding bloomed. He wouldn’t be there, looking like a man on the edge, if he didn’t truly care for me.

“You need to call him,” Jamila shouted, grabbing my arm.

“I don’t know his number.”

“Call 9-1-1,” Kari said.

“But we’re in Nashville. I need Murfreesboro. Besides, won’t he know once he sees the body it’s not me?”

“What if she’s been dead for days and she’s unrecognizable?” Tonya threw out. “He may not know immediately.”

We all grimaced at that thought.

“Good point,” I mumbled.

“Then get a move on,” Tonya said, pushing me toward the exit.

“We’ll follow you home,” Jamila added. “If someone’s after you, they won’t get past us.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “Why do you think someone is after me?”

“I don’t. I’m just sayin’ if there’s a cyborg waitin’ to kill you, we’ve got your back.”

Eye rolls ensued, then we headed to the parking lot.

We drove in a convoy to my house and made it back in forty-five minutes. As I passed James’s house, I noted there were no lights on inside, so I assumed he was still at the morgue.

Once we pulled into my driveway, the girls piled out of their cars as I headed for my front door. The lights were off. I’d left them that way to save on my energy bill, but now I wished I’d left them on for peace of mind.

“It’s dark in there,” Kari whispered.

“I didn’t leave the lights on.”

“Maybe we should go to the corner and call from a pay phone,” Jamila said.

“Why are you so spooked? I thought this was just a case of mistaken identity,” I asked, then unlocked my door and reached inside to flip on my outside light. The old porch came alive with a warm glow, pushing the darkness into the far-reaching corners. I felt instantly better.

“She’s just being stupid. If it makes you feel better, we’ll check every room while you call the station,” Tonya said. “Just tell them your name and that you need to speak to James Mayson. That should get their attention.”

“You know in The Terminator movie the same thing happened,” Jamila said, looking a little freaked out.

“Stop. There are no such things as cyborgs,” I admonished.

I started to move inside, but a flood of headlights illuminated US-41 in front of my house. The girls and I turned and watched as a truck pulled into my driveway. It was James. My eyes grew wide as he peeled out of his truck and slammed the door. He said nothing as he approached, but I could tell he was still pissed off.

I started to open my mouth as he climbed my front steps, but I slammed it shut when he put his hand to my chest and moved me into my darkened house, closing the door on my friends without so much as a word to any of them. He locked the door behind us as the girls muttered, “Guess he’s got this under control,” then shouted they were heading out. Before I could say a word, he grabbed my arms, spun me around in a single move, pinning me to the door, and leaned his head into the crook of my neck as he drew air deeply into his lungs.

“I’m not dead,” I mumbled into his throat.

His only reply was to wrap his arms around my waist and haul me deeper into his body.

“I saw you on the news. Knew you thought it was me, so I came home to call you.”

“Twice,” he growled with an edge to his voice. “I lost you twice tonight. I thought God had given me a miracle when you weren’t the first body, only to have my legs taken out from underneath me with the second.”

The world halted and a chill swept through my body as the tiny hairs on my neck stood on end. “Two Susan Montgomerys died tonight?” Visions of a cyborg with glowing red eyes danced in my head.

Though it seemed impossible, James squeezed me even tighter. “Only one. The first is a Jane Doe, but she had your name and phone number written on an ATM receipt, so the investigators went with the assumption that it might be you. I ID’d both women as not being you, then checked the county phone books. There was only one Susan Montgomery listed in Rutherford County and that was the woman who died. I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on, but you’re safe with me until we figure this out.”

That chill turned into icy claws as what he’d said sunk in. “Did the Jane Doe have long brown hair, about my height?” I asked in a broken breath.

James froze, then pulled back and reached for the light switch. My eyes shut instantly from the sudden intrusion of light. “You know this woman?”

I nodded, trying to wrap my head around what he was saying. Sara Watson hadn’t been exaggerating when she said her life was in danger. “If it’s who I think it is,” I began, trying to hold on to my composure. “I met her three days ago when I left for Nashville. She was at the Flying J. She sat beside me at the counter. She was scared, and I was trying to help her.”

My God, she was dead!

“You gave your name and phone number to a stranger?” he barked out.

My head jerked back at the anger in his tone. “Of course, she needed my help.”

“Christ,” he seethed, raking his hands through his hair. “There isn’t enough time in the day for me to explain how dangerous that is, so I’ll skip the lecture for later. Just explain to me why she was scared.”

I closed my eyes and tried to remember everything she told me. “She said she was on the run from her boyfriend. She was dirty and smelled like burnt rubber and dirt. It was clear she needed help, so I gave her some money, along with my name and phone number, in case she needed more help in the future. I would have called you if I thought it would help, but she insisted that the police couldn’t help her, and I was afraid she would bolt if I did. I handled it the only way I could, given how adamant she was not to involve you or anyone else.”

His jaw ticked at my explanation. I expected to be reprimanded further for my involvement, but he let it go for now. “She give you a name?”

“She called herself Sara Watson, but I don’t think she was tellin’ the truth. She wanted to go to Florida to get away from this man, so I gave her money so she could leave. Like I said, I mentioned callin’ the police. Thought you could help her. But she was adamant that I didn’t, so I dropped it. I was just trying to help.”

He stared at me for a moment then his eyes softened, and he drew me into his body. “Do you rescue kittens and help little old ladies across the street?”

“What?”

“Babe, you’ve got a big heart is what I’m sayin’. Your innocence could get you killed, which we’re gonna have to address, but your heart is in the right place.”

I ducked my head at the compliment. “It’s the least anyone would do.”

He tipped my head back with a finger under my chin and shook his head. “Most would walk away. You saw someone in need and went above and beyond.”

I might have gone above and beyond, but it didn’t save her in the end.

Feeling defeated and heartsick for the dead woman, I fell into his chest, breathing in his unique scent of Irish Spring and hay. “I didn’t do enough, though. She’s still dead.” His arms tightened around my back, and I closed my eyes, fighting back tears for a woman I’d barely known.

“We need to get you to the station so you can give your statement, so you’ve got five minutes to pack a bag.”

“Why am I packin’ a bag?”

His eyebrows rose abruptly. “’Cause some asshole killed this Sara, then found the only Susan Montgomery in the phone book and strangled her to death. Somehow he knows you tried to help her and he wants you silenced.”

“I’ll pack my bag,” I answered without question. “Am I stayin’ in a hotel?”

“No. You’re stayin’ with me.”

I jerked my head back, then narrowed my eyes. “I’m not stayin’ with you. I’ve known you two days.”

“Five if you count the days you were gone.”

“Well, I don’t count them. We’ve had three conversations in a two-day period.”

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Why are we havin’ a conversation about how long we’ve known each other?”

“I don’t know. All I know is you’ve asked me out twice and I’ve said no both times, and now you’re tellin’ me to move in to your house. Who does that?”

In a flash James slammed his mouth over mine, silencing my protest. Once again I gasped, allowing his tongue to slip inside. The same spark I’d felt the first time he’d kissed me reignited a flame that had smoldered the past three days, and I moaned deep in my throat from the effect. He only had to touch me, and my mind blanked of all thought. There was no killer. No dead Sara or Susan. Only James and the way he made me come alive.

The lightweight sweater I’d worn over my backless sundress disappeared, falling to the floor in a heap. James ran his tongue along the side of my neck until I shivered, mumbling low in that smooth, honeyed voice of his. “I’ve made you come on the trunk of your car and had my hand wrapped around your breast. I don’t know where this is goin’ between you and me, but I’ve got a pretty good idea. So that means you’re mine. I don’t fuck around with what’s mine. Until this is sorted, you’re in my house, and you’re in my bed. I’m not lettin’ you out of my sight until we know what the fuck is goin’ on. End of discussion.”

I’d like to think I was a stronger woman than I obviously was, but instead of being furious at his high-handed, caveman demands, it turned me on. One moment I was being ordered around by a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal and the next my panties were on the floor.

I gasped, “James,” at the sudden intrusion of his long finger entering my heat. He silenced my reaction with his mouth, crushing his lips over mine in a bruising kiss. Then his thumb rolled the bundle of nerves between my legs, and I lost all coherent thought. I jerked in response to the onslaught of sensations and my back arched as I shattered around his fingers, brilliant light dancing behind my eyes as I came.

“Your tight little body comes for me with barely a touch, and you want to argue we barely know each other? You were made for me.”

He rolled my clit again to prove his point, and I shuddered, clenching him tighter with my heat. I knew then he was right. All those sparks that had ran between us with every touch were a sign. If God made one person for every man and woman on earth, it seemed clear that James was that one man for me.

A myriad of emotions bubbled to the surface at that revelation, flooding my body with warmth. I felt happiness mixed together with excitement for the future, but mostly a driving hunger at that moment. With little warning that I was about to give in, I reached behind my head and released the clasp of my dress. It billowed to the floor, leaving me naked as the day I was born. Then I looked up into his blue eyes and waited to see what my wild man would do.

He drew a deep breath into his lungs, let it out slowly, then hissed, “Fuckin’ beautiful,” as he reached for me. As if I weighed nothing, he picked me up and wrapped my legs around his waist, then turned and headed for my bedroom as I attacked his neck.

He threw open the first door he came to and growled when he found it empty. “Last door on the right,” I directed into his ear.

Five seconds later, my back hit the bed with a bounce and then I was reaching for his T-shirt as he pulled off his jeans. I wanted my hands on his skin, my lips tasting his hard lines and planes, but I knew I couldn’t hold out long enough to explore. I needed him inside me as soon as humanly possible.

James dropped a knee to the bed, then grabbed me under my arms and flung me toward the headboard. Then, without a word, he spread my legs wide and buried his mouth between them. My back arched on contact, and I grabbed his head, anchoring him to my core. The same spark of electricity I’d felt each time he touched me charged through my body, until I felt like I’d fracture into a million pieces.

His tongue played my body with infinite ease, never letting up until I came apart in a blinding light, calling out his name. Before I’d fully ridden out my climax, James came to his knees, ran his thick shaft across my swollen core, and surged to the hilt. I combusted again from the fullness, the shock of it causing a deep moan to spill from my throat as I scored his back with my nails.

“You gonna go out with me now?” James murmured in my ear, as I tightened my legs around his waist. I could hear the smile in his voice. He was so damn arrogant and full of himself, but considering how many orgasms I’d had in the past few minutes alone, he deserved to be.

“You keep making me feel like this, and I’ll consider it,” I gasped and he drove in deeper, reminding me just how good he was.

He slowed his pace, sliding in and out of me until I began to peak again. I clenched around his cock as nerve endings fired in unison, paralyzing me with an overload of sensation. With a bolt of shock that I felt down to my toes and deep within my soul, I fell over the precipice again, and this time he followed, grunting low in his throat as he spilled his seed deep within my walls, clenching me tightly as he lost control.

With a satisfyingly manly groan, James rolled to his side, taking me with him as he came down from his release. He kept his mouth at my neck, placing a kiss there and at the base of my throat without breaking our connection, his fingers brushing lightly across my ass. I felt such deep happiness at that moment. Emotions I couldn’t name swirled through my chest and then settled like they’d found a permanent home.

Needing to feel closer to his body, I started to crawl on top of him so I could drink in his warmth, and that’s the moment I realized we’d forgotten a condom.

Unprotected sex in this new age of acquired immune deficiency syndrome was reckless. Unprotected sex when you weren’t on the pill was irresponsible and potentially life-altering. As a woman, I knew better. As a nurse who’d witnessed the effects of AIDS, I had no excuse.

How could I be so stupid?

I’d gone off the pill when Jonathan and I broke up. It gave me terrible headaches, so I’d tossed them since I didn’t see a need for them in the foreseeable future.

“Jesus,” James whispered into the gloom, pulling me deeper into his body, his tone almost astonished.

I mumbled, “James,” as panic set in. I was too rattled at that moment to remember where I was in my cycle.

Without warning, James rolled into me, taking me to my back, and then kissed me long, wet, and deep. “Did you feel it too?” he asked against my swollen lips, nipping and sucking them as if he couldn’t get enough.

Still reeling from my stupidity, I just blinked in answer to his question.

“Tell me you felt the same connection,” he continued. “Tell me I’m not in this alone.” His voice sounded guarded as he cupped my face and ran his thumb across my bottom lip. The soft but cautious tone caught my attention—drawing me out of my head and back into the moment—and the reverent way he was stroking my bottom lip sent additional sparks to my already revved up system. And just like that, my panic evaporated. I knew what he was talking about. From the moment we met, a part of me felt drawn to him, even when I was running scared in the opposite direction. Now James felt like the missing link I needed to be happy, and he was saying he felt the same way.

His face was shadowed as I looked up into his eyes, but even in the dim light, I could tell he was tense as he waited for my answer. So I raised my hand and cupped his jaw, then leaned up and brushed my lips gently across his, whispering, “I felt it, too. I have since the moment I met you.”

His eyes sparked to life in the low light then turned hungry, and I found myself heading toward bliss for the fifth time in an hour.

It wasn’t until much later that I realized my mistake again.

“Um, James.”

He was currently exploring my breasts, making it hard to think.

“Yeah, baby?”

“We didn’t use protection.”

He paused mid-lick, and I held my breath, waiting for him to erupt in anger. Instead, he flicked my pebbled nipple with his tongue like a cat enjoying his cream.

“I take it that’s a problem?” he asked, looking up at me with a calm exterior.

I swallowed, then nodded.

I expected him to be upset, but he looked almost arrogant for a moment. Then his mouth pulled into a sheepish grin, and he ran his hand gently across my belly. “Guess you really have to go out with me now.”

“This is serious,” I sighed.

“Yeah, it is. But it’s not somethin’ to be upset about.”

I blinked. “How can you say that? We’ve known each other two days.”

“Five,” he corrected.

“Two. Five. What does it matter?”

“It’ll matter to our kid if there is one. They like to know how their parents met.”

My eyes widened. “If there is a baby, he or she will NOT get the true version of events.”

“He,” James stated with authority.

I rolled my eyes. “Or she will be told you asked me out daily for two months, not two days before I gave in.”

James smiled wickedly. “Do I get lucky on the first date in your version of events?”

I gasped. “No. You were a perfect gentleman because I’m a good girl.”

He raised a brow. “Babe, he’s my son. He’s gonna know his old man didn’t wait two months.”

I gnawed on my lip. “This is true.”

“Not to mention, he’s gonna be able to add.”

“Shoot,” I groaned, then came up with a plan B. “We’ll just change her birthdate, then. That way she’ll never know.”

James blinked, then buried his head in my neck and his body began to shake.

“Are you laughing at me?” I groused, poking him in the back.

“Yep,” he croaked out.

“This isn’t funny,” I wailed.

“Then stop bein’ cute.”

“I am not cute! Little girls are cute. Puppy dogs are cute. I am so NOT cute.”

The arrogant man laughed harder.