Ben

Something was wrong. I was going home, and I felt good, but something was wrong. Charlotte’s lips were pressed together, and she wouldn’t look at me. She didn’t look happy at all.

I put on the clothes she brought me and got in her car, feeling like I’d been let out of prison. I was a little shaky, but everything felt new. I’d done some thinking while I was in the hospital, and I’d realized Devon Wilder was right when he’d had the words No Time tattooed on his hand. He’d put it there, he said, as a reminder after his and Cavan’s mother was killed, and he’d put it on his hand where he couldn’t hide it from himself every day. Life is short, and we have no time.

Estelle had driven that lesson home for me.

So I had plans. Most of them involved the woman sitting next to me, driving and refusing to look at me.

“What is it?” I said to her.

“Everything’s fine,” she said.

Shit. That wasn’t good. I was going to have to fish for it. “Are you finished at the Red Cardinal?” I asked her.

She nodded.

“You’re not pissed about it? You don’t need to work two jobs, Charlotte.”

“I’m not pissed about it,” she said. “I hated that job.”

So did I, since she’d had to go home late at night, when bikers could be after her. But at least that had brought her to me. “Are you worried about money?” I asked her. “We talked about the salary. I thought you were good.”

“I’m good,” she said.

No. This was definitely bad. I racked my brain for what I could have done, or said, while half-conscious in a hospital bed. “You know I didn’t mean that crack about selling my house, right?”

She glanced at me. “What?”

“Whatever it is that’s pissing you off. I’m trying to figure it out.”

Her hands gripped the wheel harder, her knuckles going white. “Ben, nothing is pissing me off.”

I had a momentary flashback, like PTSD. This was the kind of game Janice had liked to play: Make Ben Guess. I was always the loser, of course, because I was always wrong. Charlotte wasn’t Janice; I knew that. But I was too damn tired to guess anymore. I sat back in my seat, feeling the pain throbbing from the wound above my heart, and looked out the window.

She didn’t feel the need to say anything else. When we got to my house, I said, “You can just drop me off.”

“I’m coming in,” was her reply.

She followed me in, but she still didn’t have anything to say. What the hell was going on? I’d joked about her dumping me, but now I wasn’t so sure. I glanced at her, standing with her arms crossed, like she was protecting herself. She was wearing a soft knee-length skirt and a light sweater. Her hair fell softly in its loose curls. Her eyes were downcast, her dark lashes against her cheeks, her mouth set in a tense line. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever fucking seen. I’d hoped to come home, clean up, and have some very careful yet very hot sex, but it looked like that last part wasn’t happening, and I had no idea why. I sighed and started to climb the stairs.

That brought her out of her dark cloud, at least for a minute. “Are you in pain?” she called after me.

“I’m ship-shape,” I said. I felt like someone had unscrewed my rib cage and then put it back together, badly. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Still, she didn’t follow me up the stairs. “You’re not supposed to get your bandage wet.”

“Right,” I said, and walked down the hall to my bathroom.

The shower made me feel human again—though, admittedly, like a miserable human. There was no sound from outside my bathroom door. I trimmed my beard so I looked less like a hermit. Then I wrapped a towel around my waist and walked out of the bathroom to my bedroom.

Charlotte was sitting on the edge of my bed. She had kicked off her shoes. She was just sitting there, twisting her hands in her lap.

And now I saw the look on her face properly, I knew she wasn’t mad. She was afraid. Alarm bells went off somewhere deep in my spine, and I racked my brain for something that could scare Charlotte this badly. “What the hell is it?” I said to her. “Did the Lake of Fire start bothering you again?”

She shook her head. She really looked paralyzed, like she couldn’t get the words out. I’d never seen her look like this before, all her ease and confidence gone. She wasn’t even sharp and snarky. “Did someone die?” I asked, steeling myself for the answer.

“No,” she said softly.

“Are you sick? Did someone hurt you? Jesus, Charlotte, help me out here. I can’t—”

“I’m pregnant.”

The world stopped. Just stopped spinning on its axis. Time stopped, my heart stopped, my life stopped. Everything stopped.

She rubbed her palms together in her lap, then pressed them into the coverlet. “I took three home tests this morning,” she said, her voice cracking. “They all said yes. I don’t know how it happened. I’m on the pill. Was on the pill. I guess I can top taking it now.” She took a breath. “I swear, Ben, I don’t know.”

My head was spinning slowly, and my hands were cold. I flexed my fingers, trying to come back into my body. “I believe you,” I managed.

She raised her eyes to mine, and I looked into their dark brown depths, those eyes that had put such a spell on me from the first. “It’s early,” she said. “Really early, you know? It could… go away. Anything could happen.”

I took a few steps toward her. “Is that what you want? For it to go away?”

Because I didn’t. I really didn’t. I hadn’t expected this, especially on top of everything else, but I knew that much. I didn’t want this to go away.

I just didn’t know what she wanted.

“I, um…” She looked away, blinking. “I never thought I’d be a mother,” she said. “But I’ve been thinking about it since this morning, and I think… I think I could do it. I think I could be a mother.”

Fuck, I loved her. There was nothing that could take down my Charlotte: not bikers, not the destruction of her family, not her brother breaking her heart, not even a walking disaster like me. She’d get up every time and keep fighting. Every time.

I took another step toward her. “You could be a mother,” I said. “You’ll be great at it.”

She blinked, and a tear tracked down her cheek. Just one, that she dashed away. “You almost died,” she said. “It was horrible, and it was my fault. And now this… This is so good. What if you’d died?”

That was it. I hooked my arm under her knees and scooted her back on the bed, on her side. Then I got on the bed behind her. I pressed my bent knees behind hers, and I wrapped my arms tight around her, and I kissed the side of her neck, damn the pain that shot through my body. “It’s Estelle’s fault, not yours,” I said.

“You wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me,” she argued. She was tense in my arms, but she didn’t move away, so I held her tighter, not caring about the pain in my chest where they’d cut me open. “If it wasn’t for Jeremy’s stupid idea, and me putting you up to it—”

“I’d do it again,” I said, interrupting her. “I fucking would. I wouldn’t even think twice.” I kissed her neck again. “I didn’t die. I’m right here.”

She wiped away more tears. She didn’t cry easily; she was trying to choke it back. “Yesterday, I wasn’t even thinking of a baby. And now I’m thinking, What if I lose it?”

The thought terrified me too, even though I’d just learned about it ten minutes ago. But I said, “If that happens, then we’ll just try again when we’re ready. You know, with my super sperm.”

She choked out a laugh through the tears.

“There’s no other explanation,” I said, stroking her hair from her temples. “My sperm is just that good. It’s like a weapon. The Pentagon should keep it locked in a vault.”

Now she was laughing more than crying, and her body relaxed against mine. Finally. She sniffed, rolled over onto her back, hooked an arm around my neck, and kissed me.

I kissed her back, and it was sweet and hot and everything I wanted. The world fell away and it was just her and me. Who needed anything else? I needed this bed and Charlotte. Everything that wasn’t those things was just noise.

Her hands moved down to tug at my towel, and then she broke the kiss. “Are you in pain?”

“Not anymore,” I said.

But she pushed me so I was on my back. She slid her panties off under her dress, which made me incredibly fucking hard, and then she climbed on top of me and pulled the towel off. She leaned down and kissed me while I pulled her sweater off, then cupped her breasts through her bra. She gripped me with her knees and rubbed on me, breaking the kiss and sighing, lost in the moment, her hips moving sweet and dirty under her skirt. Then she hitched up and on to me and I was inside her, right where I wanted to be.

She sighed against my mouth as I bit back a moan. She stared to move and I pressed up into her, as deep as I could go.

She dropped her head against my neck. “So good,” she said.

Fuck. I moved my hands to her hips and we started a rhythm, Charlotte moving, me staying deep. Her hands gripped the sheets on either side of my shoulders. We moved slow, Charlotte trying not to hurt me, me figuring out what would make her come. I hit the spot and she gasped softly, moving faster. I ran my teeth lightly over the side of her neck, feeling her shiver. She was so hot I was close to coming myself, but I held on, wanting to see her, feel her.

“Ben,” she said, and I moved one hand between us, stroking her gently. She came with a moan and a shudder, her body squeezing me. I lost my control, pushing up into her, gripping her tight as I came. Damn, it had never been this good. It was only this good with her. Fuck if I knew why, but it was.

Maybe we’d make each other crazy, but this was how it was going to be. Me, Charlotte, and now this baby. My lone wolf days were over.

And that was fine with me.