ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5) (32 page)

Everything was all fun and games in the middle of the afternoon when I was well rested. It wasn’t as much fun at three o’clock in the morning when Cole seemed incapable of getting his fill at my breast.

I was sitting with him in the rocking chair in the nursery—Nicolas finished the nursery and it was just as light and beautiful as he had promised it would be—the breast pump attached to my other breast to simulate the action of nursing two babies. Vivienne was still too tiny to nurse, but they used my breast milk to feed her through her feeding tube. And, hopefully, she would be home in another week or two, so I would have to be used to feeding two babies at once.

But that didn’t make this all fun and games in the middle of the night.

“You should have woke me,” Nicolas said, slipping into the room.

“No reason for both of us to be exhausted.”

“But there is. It took more than just one person to make this perfect little boy,” he said, running his hand slowly over Cole’s head.

“Yeah, it took four,” I said, so exhausted I wasn’t really thinking about what I was saying.

Nicolas laughed.

It was a little surreal, sitting there with my t-shirt pulled up over my breasts, revealing not only both breasts—one with a baby attached, the other with a machine—but my stretchmark-covered, flabby belly sticking out above my boy shorts. He seemed to only have eyes for the baby at the moment, and I was too exhausted to really care what else he might see. I’d been using the treadmill in his home gym upstairs since coming home from the hospital, failing miserably at reaching the four miles per hour I was once able to jog. But with Cole home, there didn’t seem to be time to do more than eat and sleep on his schedule. So, personal fitness was once again on the back burner.

I closed my eyes and must have drifted to sleep because the next thing I knew, Nicolas was carefully disconnecting the breast pump.

“Do you put this in the bags right away?”

I nodded, gesturing to the stack of disposable bottle bags that were sitting on top of the mini-fridge. Nicolas unscrewed the top from the pump’s bottle and poured the milk into a bag before tying it off and putting it inside the fridge with three other bags I’d pumped throughout the day. Either he or Adam would take it to the hospital in the morning for Vivienne.

“Dr. Farley said you can probably try to nurse Vivienne next week,” Nicolas said.

“Really? Are her lungs strong enough for that?”

“He said she will probably continue to need oxygen for a while after she’s released, but he wants her to come home as soon as possible, and that means she has to be nursing at least part of the time.”

Cole was finally drifting off to sleep. I stroked his check gently before tugging my nipple from his mouth. He stayed asleep, so I carried him to the crib, unconscious of the fact that my t-shirt was still tugged up above my chest.

“Do you think she’s ready?”

Nicolas leaned against the mini-fridge and studied me, his eyes slowly drifting down the length of my body. He cleared his throat, his eyes dropping to the floor.

“Do I…what?”

“Do you think Vivienne’s ready to come home?”

“I want her to, and the doctor thinks she’s ready.”

“I just don’t want to push things. If she’s not ready, it would just make her situation worse, won’t it?”

Nicolas glanced at me again, his eyes again drifting over the length of my body. “You make it kind of hard to concentrate, you know?”

I looked down at myself, a blush burning my cheeks as I realized just how exposed I was. I tugged my shirt down, smoothing it over my smaller, but still disgustingly soft, belly. “Sorry.”

“Don’t ever apologize. I definitely don’t mind the peek. But it makes it hard to think of anything other than your beautiful body.”

“Beautiful? More like monstrous.”

“Why would you say that?”

I ran my hand over my belly. “Because it is.”

I turned to the baby’s crib and tucked a light blanket over him before retreating across the room, unable to look at Nicolas, even though I could feel his eyes on me. He followed, stepping out into the hall with me. I turned to go to my room, but he grabbed my wrist.

“You are an incredibly beautiful woman, Ana,” he said softly, the back of his fingers brushing my face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman quite like you.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Nicolas lifted my chin, forced me to look him in the eye. “Do I look like I’m lying?”

“You work with Hollywood actresses. You dated models. How could I compare to them?” I pulled back. “Especially now? I’m just a kindergarten teacher with a grotesquely out of shape body.”

“You are an amazingly beautiful woman who just gave birth to twins.” He tugged me closer to him. “And you are obstinate and frustrating and clever and funny and everything I’ve ever desired in a woman.”

I shook my head, tears welling in my eyes. “You’re just…”

“I’m just what?”

“You feel sorry for me.”

Nicolas groaned. “Why would I feel sorry for you?”

“Because of everything that’s happened. Because I cry at the drop of a hat. Because my mother died and I don’t have anyone but the babies and Constance…”

“And me.”

He pushed me against the wall and slid his hand over my face, burying his fingers in my hair, tugging it to force me to look at him. And then he kissed me. There was nothing friendly in his kiss. He invaded me like a drowning man assaulting the first object to come close to his touch. I had no choice but to welcome him, to respond to his touch or drown myself. But I couldn’t have resisted him if I’d wanted to. He tasted so familiar, felt so familiar, that my lips, my mouth and tongue, seemed to respond to him on pure instinct.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer, needing him against me, needing to feel the heat and the vitality of his touch. He was bringing me back to life, bringing me back to the person I was before everything went insane. Before my mother died, before Aurora died, before I knew I was pregnant. Before I met Nicolas. He was bringing me back to the person who believed that the world was basically good and happiness was just around the next corner.

Nicolas ran his hand over my side, his fingers seeking out the bottom hem of my shirt. His mouth created a hot trail down my chin, along the curve of my jaw until his lips were pressed to my throat.

“I want you,” he whispered against my ear. “I want to touch you, for you to touch me.”

I moaned, even as his hand found its way under my shirt and he began to run his fingers over my belly. I pushed at his wrist, trying to keep him from seeing just how soft my belly was, but he tugged his wrist free, his hand sliding low over my belly as he stared into my eyes.

“Why can’t you believe me?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he dropped to his knees and lifted my shirt, pressing his lips to the center of my belly. I slid my hands over the top of his head, but I didn’t try to push him away again. It killed me not to, but I let him explore my belly, let him run his tongue slowly over the bright red stretch marks that were still healing. He slid slowly down my belly, his tongue dipping into my navel before sliding further down. When he found my surgical scar, a blush hotter than any I’d ever known before burned my cheeks, but I didn’t pull away—and he didn’t hesitate. He ran his tongue along the length of it, then peppered it with kisses. Then he stood again and drew me into his arms.

“How can I dislike the body that made my children?”

And then he kissed me again. I melted into him, more eager than I probably should have been to feel his touch. He swung me into his arms and carried me down the hall, shoving through his door and slamming it with his foot hard enough to make the walls vibrate. And then we fell together onto the bed, the weight of his body knocking the air from my lungs. But I didn’t care. I drew my breath from him, regulated my heart beat from the feel of his. I wanted him in a way I’d never thought possible; I wanted him with more than just my body and my mind.

His hands on my hips and my breasts made my head spin. I lost myself in the sensation of him, tugging at his clothes with a desperation that surpassed his. And when he was inside of me, I arched up against him, tears filling my eyes as he tugged me closer, as he groaned against my ear.

I felt like a completely different person when I was with him. Where I was once shy and reserved, I was suddenly spontaneous and courageous. Where I was once alone and isolated, I was suddenly the center of something important, something basic and more fulfilling than anything I’d ever done before. When he was inside of me, I felt whole for the first time in my life.

I was in love. That realization burst through me on an instinctual level, revealing itself to me in the overwhelming pain of emotion that welled in my chest. I wanted to say it; I wanted to give voice to what I’d probably known from the very beginning but was afraid to admit to myself. I wrapped myself around him and gave him everything I had to give. There was no more in reserve, no more secrets or shame. No more hiding fears and uncertainty. I didn’t hold back anything and, when he looked at me, I knew he wasn’t either.

This was going to be okay. This was perfection and perfection lasted forever.

***

              I lay with my back to him, no longer as exhausted as I was just a short time ago. He was tracing patterns over my side, touching places that tickled and made me slide back against him. He groaned as my ass ground into his semi-erect cock, forcing his head between my thighs.

“You drive me nuts. You know that?”

“Do I?”

He groaned again. “Don’t be a tease.”

“I thought guys like you liked teases.”

He kissed my neck lightly. “Only out of bed.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

He slid his hand over my throat, touching a spot just above my collar bone. “You had a bruise here.”

I reached up and touched the same spot. “When?”

“In the hospital. When you first went into labor.”

I rolled onto my back so that I could see his face. “What are you talking about?”

“You had a bruise here,” he said, touching the same spot with the pad of his thumb. “The same exact shape as my thumb.”

“Oh.” I remembered his hands on my throat, the anger rushing over his face as he accused me of conspiring with Virginia to steal the babies from him. “It was an accident.”

“No. It was intentional. I was so angry…” His eyes darkened as he studied my face. “And then you went into labor, and you were in so much pain. I was so ashamed of myself that I couldn’t hardly look at you. And when I did, all I saw was that bruise.”

I pressed my palm against his face. He pulled back, that shame still swirling in his eyes.

“You didn’t cause me to go into labor, Nico,” I said softly. “It probably would have happened anyway. It was just bad timing.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’d been having the back pain all morning. I just didn’t know what it was.”

“I could have hurt you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Why are you here?” he asked softly. “I keep expecting to wake up in the morning and find you gone.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because people think I killed my wife. Because I turned on you—quite viciously—when I thought you were conspiring to keep my children from me. Because I’m an asshole who forced you to come to LA against your will.”

“First, you didn’t kill your wife. Second, you didn’t hurt me. If you think a couple of bruises—”

“Come on, Ana. It was more than that.”

I rolled toward him and pressed my hand to his chest, the feel of his heartbeat underneath reassuring something inside of me.

“You have a temper, but you’re aware of it, and now you can do something about it.”

He groaned. “Self-help programs don’t work for me. I thought they did, but they don’t.”

“But things have changed now.”

“Yeah. I have more to risk now.”

Nicolas pulled away from me and climbed out of the bed. He snatched his pants up off of the floor and headed to the door.

“Is that what you’re going to do every time something tough happens? Run away?”

He paused with his hand on the doorknob.

“Because, if it is, you’re going to miss a hell of a lot when it comes to those babies.”

He stood there for a long minute. My heart was pounding as I wondered what he was going to do or say next. Then, he slowly turned and looked at me.

“What do you want me to do, Ana?”

“I want you to stay here, to tell me what this is, what we’re doing here. I want to know why you keep shutting me out, pretending that I don’t matter to you when it’s pretty clear that I must matter a little bit. I mean, come on, Nico, why am I still here if I don’t matter to you? You could hire some wet nurse or something.”

“They don’t have wet nurses anymore.”

There was amusement in his voice. I wasn’t sure how I should feel about that. I was laying my heart out on the table—or mattress—to him, and he was joking around.