“Luke, can you forgive me?” I looked at him desperately. “I’m sorry. So sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have been honest from the beginning. From the minute I told you about my family. That’s when I should have told you.”

His eyes were set in a hard line. I couldn’t read him. I didn’t know if he was still angry, hurt, or just done with me.

And I knew I had screwed up. But if there was one person in this world who could forgive me it was this man. The one who had held me. Who saw me beyond the lights and the smoke. I waited anxiously.

“This is the hardest fucking decision of my life.” His jaw clenched. “I want you. But you annihilated me. I’m not the kind of man who runs the same play twice just to get obliterated a second time.”

The tear slipped from my cheek. Could I blame him? Could I judge him for not wanting to get hurt again? The pain gripped and seized me. I had flown here to be heard. I told my story and now it was time to pack my sequin dress and start my life over in Tennessee. I didn’t know how I’d leave. How I’d say goodbye to him.

“I’ll go,” I volunteered. “There’s a noon flight I can make.”

I felt sick. If I started to cry now in front of him, I might not stop. I had to get to the guest room and clean up before the tears unleashed on both of us.

“Hold on. I didn’t give you my answer.” He brushed the hair from my shoulder. “I didn’t know how much you meant to me, until you were gone, Alexa. I sat here in this ranch trying everyway I knew how to get you out of my pores. And it didn’t work.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” His eyes landed on me.

“Is that a yes?” I was fighting the tears.

“I should have given you a chance to explain.” His thumb traced my cheek. “I was a dick about it.”

“It’s ok. It’s ok. It was terrible. And confusing. And I feel like my emotions have been all over the place lately.” The tears came anyway.

Luke leaned toward me, scooping me into his arms. It was the first time I’d felt like we were connected again. The heat of his body soothed me. We were going to be ok.

My tears dotted the sleeve of his T-shirt.

His eyes lit. “Emotional?” He tilted his head. “Do you think…?

I unwrapped myself from his arms and stood. “I brought it with me. It’s in the guestroom.”

I walked down the hall to the room I stayed in last night. I barely slept, worried that Luke would send me home. That he wouldn’t be able to forgive me.

I dug through the bottom of my bag and pulled out the cardboard box with the plus and minus sign on the picture.

“That’s it?” he asked.

I nodded. “Are you ready for this? You sure?”

He cupped my face. “Yes.”

“Ok. I’ll be right back.” I walked into the bathroom. I read the instructions five times. I wanted to get it right. I wanted to give Luke what he wanted.

I opened the door, leaving the stick on the counter.

“We have to wait three more minutes,” I reported.

We sat on the bed, staring into the bathroom. What was on that stick was going to change our lives.

“Go check it,” he urged.

I was almost shaking. I pushed open the door and stared at the stick. I stared at it, making sure I read the stick correctly. I held it out and walked back to Luke.

“What is it?” His face was expectant.

“Not pregnant,” I choked on the words.

“You’re not?” He took the stick from my hands. “You’re not.”

I saw the disappointment in his eyes. “I’m sorry. It was a fluke anyway, right? And we were trying not to get pregnant. So, I didn’t think you wanted a baby.”

His gaze lifted to mine. “Not want a baby? I’ve thought. I’ve prayed I got you pregnant. That the fucking broken condom was a sign that I needed to get my shit together. It happened for a reason. Because I was supposed to get you pregnant.”

“You did?” My heart pounded. “You wanted to get me pregnant?”

His hand tugged in my pajama pants. “I do. I want to knock you up so fucking bad.”

“Oh God.”

I dropped to the bed as Luke pulled me on top of him. “This is crazy,” I whispered.

He shoved my pants off my ankles. I bucked when I felt his fingers feather between my legs. He traced a circle over my clit.

“You are going to have my baby, Alexa Wilde.”

I nodded. “I am.”

He spread my legs and pushed a finger inside, curling it toward my G-spot.

“I missed the last three days,” I breathed.

“What?”

“I was so upset I forgot to take the pill.” I groaned when he pushed another finger inside me.

“So there’s a chance right now?”

I nodded.

“Fuck.” He rolled my tank top over my head, feasting on one nipple and then the other. I bucked at the pressure.

He nipped at my neck and licked my throat. His lips covered my mouth and I inhaled him. His tongue mingled with mine. We were like a raging river. The damn was broken and there was no way to contain the current raging between us.

“I’m going to fuck you so hard,” he promised.

I moaned. “Please.”

He flicked my clit, with a playful snap of his fingers before he sat backward on his knees, shedding his shirt and shoving off his pajama pants.

I sighed when I saw his throbbing cock. I ached for it. I loved the thickness. The wide veins. How it stretched my pussy so wide and tight.

“You are going to have my baby,” he growled. “This is how you make a baby.”

Just when I thought Luke had shown me how intense sex could be, he took things to a new level. He reached for a pillow, jamming it under my ass. My hips lifted in the air. His fingers massaged my clit and folds, pumping a finger inside me, before withdrawing it.

I hissed every time he took it away. I wanted something to grasp and clench. I wanted him inside me.

“Like that?’ he asked.

“No. I want more.”

His thumb pressed against my clit while his fingers thrust inside me. I groaned in ecstasy.

“Fuck, Alexa. You’re so gorgeous.” He ran his free hands to my nipples, plucking them. He reached for my hand, drawing it between my legs. “You know how hot it is when I watch you touch yourself.”

I nodded. “I like it when you watch my body. I can be free with you.”

He growled. “I’m going to watch as I pump you full, baby. My cock is going to be buried so deep inside you.”

I whimpered. My cream ran freely from my legs.

“You like it when I talk like that to you.” He touched my juices to the head of his cock and massaged it.

“I do.” I breathed. “I love it when you say how you feel. It’s like when I sing.”

“You’re getting ready to hear me do a whole lot of singing, then.” He grinned, pushing my knees wide, spreading me farther than I’d ever been spread. “Fuck, I love your pussy. Keep rubbing your clit. Don’t stop.”

“Oh God,” I cried. It was so erotic. So dirty. So much fucking fun. I’d never been this turned on. I was ready to explode the minute he slid inside me.

With my knees widened so that everything I had was exposed. The way I stroked myself. The way Luke made my arousal flow with his dirty words. He positioned his cock at my entrance and with a solid stroke slammed into me with powerful force.

“Ohh,” I whimpered. The blinding white light turned to bliss. I rocked as he thrust inside me.

This was how I loved sex with him. Our skin blazing against each other. His cock soaked by my juices. The silkiness of his shaft kissing over my clit. It was beautiful and painful and sinful in so many ways. I felt as if every nerve in my body was a live wire. A singing, floating wire hitting my skin, running through my blood, lighting my core on fire.

“Oh shit, Alexa.” He twisted my nipples, pumping in and out of me, sheathing his cock until it disappeared in my heat. “Watching you like this. God, I could come over and over. Inside you. Just like this.”

“Fuck me harder, Luke. Fuck me until you know I’m going to have your baby.”

He smiled, his eyes darting to the dark place where his body joined mine. I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want it to stop. I wanted us to make a baby just like this.

My fingers strummed over my clit until I knew I couldn’t hold off any longer. The sensations had taken over my body. I was going to spiral and crash into him. Slam into his cock, seize it like a vise. Clamp on it and claim it.

“Yes,” he coaxed me. “Fuck me. Fuck me, Alexa.”

I jolted and jerked my hips, riding him, grinding my heat into him. And then I saw his eyes change. I saw the hunger and lust turn to something else.

He leaned forward and brushed my lips with a kiss.

“I fucking love you,” he whispered.

“Ohh,” I cried. The orgasm shattered through me. I grabbed his shoulders, giving my body to him. “I love you. I love you.”

He pulsed inside me and I knew he was fucking me with everything he had. Rooting deep inside me, planting his seed. Giving me his baby.

The orgasm spiraled through me again. I shook with pleasure knowing Luke was filling me.

I looked in his eyes. “This is the hottest fucking thing we’ve ever done,” he growled.

I smiled. “It is.”

He pushed one last time before rolling off of me. He took a deep breath, his hand landed on my belly.

“I wanted that stick to be positive,” he admitted. “Damn it.”

“I didn’t think I did until it wasn’t. I’m sorry it’s been such a roller coaster.”

“But that was fucking awesome. And until we get a positive stick, I’m fucking you like that every day.”

I giggled. “Every day?”

He kissed my shoulder. “Every damn day. Without Jake in the picture, you and I are the team now. We do what we want to do.”

I curled up next to him. “Ok.”

“And that means this team is making a baby.”

I smiled. I had never been so happy in my life. He tickled the side of my arm. “What happened last night at the award show?”

“Oh, that?”

“Yeah, that.”

“If you look in the trunk of the rental car parked in your driveway you’ll see five CYA awards.”

“No shit.”

I laughed. “Apparently, the votes were cast days before my news story broke, so it had no effect on the results.”

“Damn. I’m sorry I missed it.”

I was too, but I knew it was something I had to do alone. I had to prove to myself that I was strong enough to face my demons and my enemies. Every time I walked on stage last night I carried myself a little taller. A little stronger. I had fight in me I had to find without Luke.

“It’s ok.” I smiled at him. “I’m glad I woke up in Texas this morning.”

He cleared his throat and pushed off the bed, depositing me in a heap.

“Where are you going?” I searched for an explanation.

He stepped into his pajama pants. “I’ve got the perfect place to put those awards.”

I scrambled to follow him, trying to pick my scattered clothes off the floor as I ran after him. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re moving into the ranch.”

I stared at him. “What?”