My Best Friend's Baby (11 page)

His jovial-sounding, humming entrance into
the living room wrecked her getaway plans. Moaning, she stuffed her
face deeper into the pile and inhaled big lungfuls of
fabric-softener-scented air, trying to get a grip on herself. The
last thing she wanted was for Nick to guess how much she wanted to
move things between them to a non-platonic level. How much she
wanted him to do the moving ... and the kissing, the touching, the
lovemaking that they'd ... .

His hand on her bare thigh sent her bolt
upright.

"Wake up, sleeping beauty. Aren't you
hungry?"

If he only knew
. Chloe tilted
sideways to straighten herself and wound up at eye-level with his
groin. She eyed the fit of Nick's shorts, remembered what lay
beneath, and had to fight the urge to lick her lips. The night
they'd spent together had only been the appetizer, just enough to
make her hungry for more.

"Appetizer?" Nick asked.

She whipped her head upward and almost
brained herself on the tray of
bruschetta
in his hand. Her
heart quit racing just as she recognized the toasted bread topped
with tomatoes and herbs. She cleared her throat and selected one,
hoping he hadn't caught her leering at him.

Sheesh. Hormones.

Who was she kidding?
Love
.

Grinning, Nick plucked something from her
hair, making static electricity crackle above her head. Something
white flashed past her field of vision. She recognized it as a pair
of white briefs—
oh, God, she'd been wearing his underwear on her
head
!—and wanted to crawl under the sofa.

"Cute," he said, dropping the tidy whities
back into the laundry pile. "But I like your outfit better without
the headgear."

His gaze skimmed over her clothes—electric
blue shorts and a neon green loosely-buttoned shirt—as though
committing their smooth, washed silk textures to memory. His
scrutiny did disturbing things to her ability to think or react—or
even chew, apparently. A dollop of tomato slipped from her
bruschetta
and plunked down her chest.

He watched it slide beneath her vibrant
green silk shirt with a starving man's look. It gave her an
unreasonable amount of hope for their potential couplehood—far too
much to pin on a half-inch piece of cold tomato. Then Nick shook
his head and blinked, fingers on the temples of his eyeglasses.

"And preferably without tomato sauce, too,"
he added on a grin, grabbing a fluffy blue towel from the laundry
pile. "Here, let me help you."

Chloe sat still, dying to suck in a gulp of
air to bolster herself for his touch, but too filled with
anticipation to move. Frowning, Nick scrubbed at the neckline of
her shirt, lifted the corner of the towel to assess his efforts,
then scrubbed some more.

The ends of the thick terrycloth towel
flopped in her lap, tickling her bare thighs. It was nothing
compared with the friction he'd set into motion with his clean-up
efforts. Her shirt rubbed against her breasts, sensitizing them
even through her layers of silken shirt and silkier bra.

Watching Nick's strong, capable hands at
work, Chloe briefly considered dumping the rest of the
bruschetta
tray in her lap, then abandoned the idea. She had
all she could handle already.

"Wait," she gasped, catching hold of his
wrist. "I think it's clean. Much more of that, and you'll rub me
naked."

Which sounded pretty great, actually, no
matter how much she wanted to groan at having blurted it out. But
there was no way she could stand being touched like this for much
longer and not reciprocate. Not with Nick and definitely not in the
supersensitive state she was in. Biting her lip, she fished her
other hand into her shirt to retrieve the tomato herself.

No dice. The little bugger must've slipped
past her bra. Letting go of Nick's wrist, she lifted her shirt hem
just enough to glimpse a plump bit of red just above her navel.

Before she could move, Nick ducked. His
mouth fastened on the tomato, sucking gently against her skin as he
nibbled it up. Too shocked to move, Chloe stared down at the
incredible sight of his familiar, golden-haired head against her.
His lips puckered on her tender flesh, igniting flickers of
yearning, remembered passion in places lower than the rounded belly
he kissed.

If she hadn't been sitting already, her
knees would've surely buckled. Wowsers! Shivering, Chloe delved her
hand in his hair, wanting to pull Nick closer, to draw him upward
where she could properly kiss him back. His hair buzzed beneath her
roving hands, spiky soft shafts that tickled her palms even more
than the towel had tickled her thighs earlier. She thought of
feeling those close-clipped shafts where the towel had been and was
squirming in her seat even as Nick's mouth popped away from her
belly.

"Got it," he murmured. Then he winked at
her, leaned over to gather up the pile of laundry, and
straightened. "You're good as new."

Chloe boggled as he juggled the armful of
clothes against his chest, smoothed her shirt in place again, and
casually said, "I'd better get these out of the way before I find
you wearing a pair of sweat socks or something."

Sweat socks? He could talk about sweat
socks, after what had just happened? Shivering, she settled deeper
into the couch's nubbly tweed and watched him disappear down the
hallway with the clothes.

Nuzzling her bare belly was
not
the
act of a platonic best male friend, no matter how Nick tried to
pretend it was. Never mind the fact that as friends they'd been
swimming at the lake dressed in less than she had on now. Never
mind that they'd nursed each other through colds, income taxes, and
broken hearts. That wasn't TLC Nick had administered just now. At
the least, it qualified as a pass. So what was she supposed to do
about it?

Before she could decide, he returned,
looking vaguely warm, rumpled, and so much like everything she'd
ever wanted in a man that Chloe felt like sobbing with the
unfairness of it all. He was as perfect for her as she was for
him—except for his disinterest in having children as soon as five
months from now.

I'm lucky as hell not to have kids yet,
Chloe, he'd said. I swear I'd never get anything done.

And if there was one think Nick wanted, it
was to get things done. To accomplish his dream of becoming a great
inventor. How could she stand in the way of that?

She couldn't.

And she couldn't forget her vow to give her
baby a loving home with two loving parents, either.
Buck up
,
she told herself.
He's just a man. You can resist him
.

Suddenly, Chloe found new sympathy for
Nick's what'shernames.

He reached out and tousled her hair.
"Hungry? How ‘bout some grub, blondie?"

"Sure," she said, feeling her spirits
plummet even further as his hair-tousle turned into a brotherly
shoulder punch. "Lead the way, galloping gourmet."

Poor Bruno
, Nick thought later.
Poor, doomed, besotted Bruno
. How had he faced temptation
like this and survived?

Maybe fortitude like that was what made a
man a marine.

He and Chloe had finished the
pasta
puttanesca
, polished off the better half of the
bruschetta
, and moved the party onto his back patio. Out
here beneath the clear dark skies and bright stars of early summer,
Nick could almost believe it was a night like any other they'd
spent together. The pink bougainvillea bloomed along the backyard
fence the same as they ever had. The cicadas chirped just as
constantly beyond that fence, and the citronella candles burned
just as lemony-sharp on the wrought iron table between them.

The difference was, this dark night felt
intimate in a way it never had before. And he'd never before been
forced to watch Chloe savor a dish of vanilla ice cream with
strawberries, bite by slow shivery bite, like he'd been doing for
the past ten minutes. It was enough to make a guy yearn to be a
soup spoon.

"This is
so
good, Nick," she said for
what had to be the fifth time, turning over the spoon to lick a
strawberry remnant from the tip. "Yum, yum, yum."

Yeah ... yum.

The piece of strawberry disappeared between
her lips. Reminded of the tomato he'd nibbled up earlier, Nick
shifted in his chair and tried not to think of what an insane move
he'd made with
that
. "Glad you like it."

Curled up in a patio chair beside him, Chloe
spooned up the last of the ice cream from the big plastic bowl on
her lap. Licking her lips, she let her spoon clatter back in
place.

"Every bit as delicious as the first bite,"
she announced, swabbing her finger leisurely around the bowl. When
she popped her finger into her mouth and sucked off the creamy
vanilla, Nick knew he couldn't take any more.

"Wanna watch a movie?" he blurted out,
taking the empty bowl from her lap as he stood. "I rented Norgon's
Revenge."

"Another monster flick?" Chloe asked,
grinning and shaking her head. "I swear, Nick, you're a little boy
trapped in a man's body."

Just as she got up from her chair, Nick
passed in front of her with his arm outstretched, headed for the
patio door. They wound up nose to nose. Or, more accurately—since
Chloe was a few inches shorter than he was—forehead to chin.

"Oh! Whoops," she said, teetering. He put
his hand out to steady her, then sidestepped out of the way. So did
she—in the same direction.

"Sorry," Chloe said, laughing when they
found themselves pressed even closer together than before. "I'm a
little wobbly these days."

Her hand went to his upper arm, holding onto
him as she explained something about hormones, pregnant ligaments,
and other medical trivia items he didn't quite catch. Her fingers
stroked up and down his arm, making it impossible to concentrate on
anything except the feel of Chloe touching him. Nick had the
stupid, nonsensical urge to flex his biceps, to sweep her off her
feet ... to show her he could be every bit as manly as the Brunos
she was so enraptured with.

He ought to go inside, get away, leave
things as they were between them. Chloe had Bruno now, and to hear
her talk of him, he'd been all she'd ever wanted in a man, even if
things were temporarily off—kilter between them. She didn't need
that mucked up with tomato nibbling and soup spoons and kissing.
Not when she'd found herself a man ‘too special' to talk about,
even with her best friend.

Friend, schmiend
, the rebellious part
of his soul prodded. Bruno was gone and Nick was here and this was
a moment that might never come again.

"I don't mind," he said quietly.

She looked up at him, and the amusement
simmered out of her smile, replaced by something a little bit ...
wilder.

It was all the encouragement he needed.

Somehow, his hand went to the nape of her
neck instead of the patio door. She tilted her head back, closing
her eyes in the flickering candlelight, and although he meant to
kiss her, all he could do was stare in wonder at how beautiful she
seemed.

Her hair glowed like gold, bright as the
candles. Moonlight and shadows chased across her face, highlighting
the curve of her cheekbone, the delicate line of her nose, the lush
fullness of her lips. He ached to taste her. Would she taste of
strawberries, or the sweetness of vanilla?

In the darkness behind them, a warm June
breeze swirled dried bougainvillea leaves through the yard like
whispers. On the same breath of air, Chloe's tropical perfume
wafted toward him, making him groan at the impossibility of
resisting her. Kissing her felt inevitable. It felt right. Nick
leaned closer ... and her eyes opened.

"Whew!" she cried, fanning herself with her
hand. "Thanks to you, I'm good as new. No more wobblies."

She grinned broadly and stepped back. He
actually thought he saw her wink at him as she released his arm and
gave him a brotherly shoulder punch instead. "Thanks for helping me
out, Nick. So, how ‘bout that movie?"

Chapter Seven

Her guerrilla platonic-ness tactic
backfired.

"How 'bout it?" Nick asked, his voice low as
he backed her toward the patio door. He kept his head bent, his
gaze on her lips, and Chloe couldn't have kept her feet from
moving—or her heart from speeding into overdrive—if she'd
tried.

So much for bravado. Or for turnabout being
fair play. Her flippancy deserted her when she felt the glass door,
smooth and cooled by the air conditioner inside, touch her back.
She jerked involuntarily at the contact.

"Easy," Nick murmured. His big hand cupped
her shoulder, keeping her exactly where she was. His thumb rubbed
over her shirt, moving slowly as he watched the slide of silk over
skin. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and tightened
his hand on her shoulder. "We've got all the time in the
world."

He meant it to reassure her, she knew.
Somehow, his words sounded closer to a wish than anything else,
though. Funny, because Nick was far too pragmatic a man to rely on
star-lit wishes or fate or anything else he couldn't hold in his
hands and examine.

Through the patio door at her back,
incandescent kitchen light spilled over his features, making him
seem both familiar and achingly new. This new Nick, this man who'd
touch her like this without even a broken heart and Kahlúa courage
between them ... he was a stranger to her. One Chloe wanted to get
to know better.

"Time?" she asked, feeling breathless. "Time
for what?"

"The movie, brainiac." His voice rumbled
through her, teasing and arousing at the same time. "Can't you keep
your mind on the conversation?"

No. She couldn't. Not with Nick's hard,
muscular thigh wedged warm between her legs, not with his palm
pinning her shoulder to the glass and her heart to the wall. Not
with all his considerable attention concentrated only on her. He'd
moved fast and moved hard, and the feel of his body pressed against
hers made the whole world tilt.