The Pregnancy Test (8 page)

Oh, my God, it was incredible, absolutely amazing. She reached out and clutched Damien’s linen shirt with her free hand, suddenly light-headed.

“Are you going to throw up again?” Damien grabbed her elbows, looking left and right as if seeking help.

Mandy laughed. She was going to be a mother. There was a
child
growing inside her, and she/he was swimming laps back and forth from the feel of it. An almost overwhelming surge of love stole over her for this baby, and she wanted to share such a perfect moment with someone. Had to explain to another person that her whole world was shifting and morphing and she was settling into a wondrous kind of excitement over those changes.

“I’m not going to be sick.” She grabbed Damien’s hand and laid it flat on her abdomen. “Can you feel it, Damien? The baby’s moving.”

“The baby?” he squawked, eyes the size of dinner plates. “What baby?”

Now he looked like the one capable of tossing his tea and toast. “My baby. The one I’m having in approximately twenty-three weeks.”

His mouth moved, but nothing came out. His gaze dropped to her stomach, where his hand was pressed over the coral sundress. Mandy put her hand over his, so he wouldn’t pull back. She wanted someone to feel the same miracle she was experiencing. Maybe it was too early for someone else to feel the movements, but if it wasn’t…

There was a quick push outward, as if the baby had jettisoned off a springboard, and Mandy broke into a smile as awareness dawned on Damien’s face.

“Holy shit,” was his opinion, and he looked a little as though he’d walked into a wall after drinking a fifth of gin, but at the same time his thumb stole over her belly in a little soft stroke.

“That’s amazing.” His eyes locked with hers, and she saw the same wonder in them that she felt. “I actually felt it.”

Tears of joy blurred her vision. “I think I just fell completely in love with my baby.”

“Your baby,” he repeated softly, before pulling his hand back and rubbing his forehead. “Your baby.” He shook his head. “Want to tell me exactly how that is possible?”

Then he quickly held his hand up. “No, wait, that’s not what I mean. I don’t need a detailed description of conception. But…can I ask…who’s the father? Where is he?”

Mandy wiped a tear off her eyelash and knew she needed to explain everything to Damien. This wasn’t a secret she could keep any longer, not when she knew Damien the way she did now. Not when this mutual attraction was undulating between them.

“I was seeing a man for six months. He misused a condom, and when I turned up pregnant, suggested I terminate. When I refused, he offered me five thousand dollars to have my baby and never bother him again. He has two grown sons who are a disappointment to him. He didn’t want to bring up another child, only to have it let him down.” Mandy was still horrified by Ben’s reaction. She had thought she’d known him, but clearly she had been completely wrong.

“Asshole,” was Damien’s vehement opinion.

“Yes.” She nodded. That about summed it up.

Damien took a step to the right, then back. His hands went on his hips. “The flu you had…it was morning sickness, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. It didn’t surprise her he had worked that out already. Damien was an intelligent man, a quick thinker. It was how he was so successful.

“No wonder I didn’t catch any germs from you then. I kept waiting to come down with the flu. I sure in the hell can’t catch what you have.” He shook his head and gave an ironic laugh. “Is this why you’ve avoided me? You didn’t want me to know?”

His finger went into his mouth and he chewed on a corner of the nail.

Mandy wanted to explain herself, wanted to take away the harshness that had crept into his face. “I need this job. I need the health insurance and I need the nine-to-five hours so that day care arrangements will be easier. I didn’t think that the Damien Sharpton I’d been told about would hire a pregnant woman.” And she hoped like hell Demon Sharpton wouldn’t fire a pregnant woman.

But she didn’t believe he would, despite the tension in his shoulders. She wouldn’t have told him if she had.

“You’re probably right.” Damien glanced at his finger and dropped it. “Why the fuck do I keep biting my nails?”

She hoped that was a rhetorical question.

The beach had darkened, and his face was pale against the dark sky. His voice softened. “So why did you tell me now, Mandy?”

“Because I wanted to be honest with you.” She took a step closer to him, skirting the bag she’d dropped in the sand. “And because when I felt the baby move, I needed to share it with someone, and I think that you’re a man who can appreciate what I’m experiencing. Was I wrong?”

She didn’t want to be wrong. She didn’t want to think that her impulsiveness in telling him had been a poor choice. She had told herself now that she was going to be a mum, she had to leave impulsiveness behind. But something had told her to tell him, and she just didn’t want to regret it, not now when she was feeling so humbled and in awe of the life growing inside her.

“You should be wrong.” Damien looked over her shoulder toward the water. He sighed. “There are reasons why you should be very wrong.”

He looked down at her, closed the space between them. Her heart started to pound faster, harder, when his hand cupped her cheek.

“But you’re not wrong.”

She closed her eyes, turned her nose and mouth toward his hand. She could smell the salty tang of his flesh, feel the rough callus of his thumb stroking over her. Without thinking, she pressed her lips into the moist hollow of his hand.

“Mandy.” His voice was hoarse, quiet. Intense.

“Yes?”

But he didn’t speak, and his hand dropped. Her eyes flew open only to see that he was closing in on her, his nose inches from hers, his mouth a hairbreadth away, his shoulders descending toward hers. She only had time to suck in her breath as anticipation spiked between her thighs, made her breasts tingle.

Then he was kissing her, an honest-to-goodness, lips everywhere, tongue-teasing, knee-wobbling kiss. Excitement exploded throughout her body in little spastic lightning bolts of desire.

Mandy dipped her head back, opening her mouth, marveling at the taste and texture of him, so firm, so wet, so eager, so different, and yet exactly what she should have expected. Damien was in control, but beneath the surface of the kiss, beneath his dominating impatience, skittered an edgy vulnerability that was just as appealing as his confidence and skill.

“Ooohhh,” she murmured when his lips moved to her jaw, her neck. Her body felt different, more sensitive, quicker to react, and she wasn’t sure if it was Damien or the pregnancy, or a blissful combination of the two.

His thigh shifted, surrounding her with his heat, and he cut off her moan with another kiss that left her clinging to him like seaweed. Mandy could hear the excited little rush of both their breath, the pants, the moans, the shift from casual exploration to urgent questing.

She ground herself against him, then was shocked that she did. Even more so by the obvious dampness in her knickers and the eager kick of satisfaction at feeling Damien’s thick erection nudging her.

“You taste so good, so damn good,” he said in a hot whisper, thumbs rolling her sundress straps toward her shoulders.

“Damien, what the hell are we doing?” Then she yelped when he brushed her nipple. “Bugger it, that feels good.”

She was certain her nipples had never been quite so
enthusiastic
in her whole life. Just what she needed. She was single and pregnant and her nipples had suddenly become supersensitive sluts looking for action.

“We’re kissing each other. We’re touching each other. And we’re going to go back to your room or mine, doesn’t matter, and we’re going to spend the night having hot, wet sex.”

D
amien watched Mandy’s eyes shoot up to her bangs, a strangled gasp coming out of her mouth. Okay, so maybe he could have phrased that a little more sensitively. But he hadn’t had sex in three years, and he needed to get to someplace private before he tossed her onto the sand.

When Jessica had died, he hadn’t thought he’d ever feel a sexual stirring or attraction to another woman. And then later, when his body had betrayed him, and wanted in an eager, shameful, lustful way, and he might have been tempted to go out and seek some quick company, he hadn’t been able to because they were watching every move he made. Picking a girl up for a one-night stand wouldn’t have worked to his advantage in the courtroom.

Then eventually, he had lost those angry physical urges, until he’d forgotten a time when he’d ever thought of sex as a wonderful, intimate, fulfilling experience.

He remembered now.

Mandy had stirred every one of those feelings back up into a tornado of intensity and want, and he had to have her. He just had to, or the very last vestiges of his soul and sanity would crumple away from him.

“But you’re my boss, Damien, and I’m, well, I’m having a baby.” Even in the dark, he could see her eyes were dilated with pleasure and anticipation, but she was worried. Concerned about the future.

He didn’t give a damn about the future. There was only now and the two of them.

“Correct me if any of my assumptions are wrong, okay?”

She didn’t hesitate, just nodded.

“I’m attracted to you and you’re attracted to me. We’re both a little lonely, but neither of us can get involved with anyone right now. You need me. You want me. I need you tonight, too.” Perhaps more than he was willing to admit. “I want you. Very, very much. And you shared a special moment with me.”

Damien gently laid his hand on her slightly rounded stomach. He had been about knocked off his feet by the strong jerk he’d felt before. And while he was shocked to find out Mandy was having a baby, it had explained a lot of oddities, and if anything, had made her all the more attractive in his eyes.

She wanted to be a good mother. She loved her child. She had rejected that schmuck’s offer for money and was doing this on her own. She had risked the wrath of Demon Sharpton to secure her child’s future.

It told him everything he needed to know about her.

“Spend the night with me, Mandy. Just while we’re here, in Punta Cana, and nothing else matters. Let’s enjoy each other. Let’s appreciate
life
.”

There was a long pause where she seemed to be weighing his words, and while he waited to feel the agony of rejection, the letdown of being told to go to hell, he buried his head in her neck and ran his lips over the soft flesh.

“I’ll spend the night with you, Damien,” she said quietly.

Relief sang through him. Taking his tongue over the shells of the necklace she was wearing, he held her for a second. Just held her.

“That is, if you don’t think it’s unseemly for a mother-to-be to act this way.” Her words were teasing, but there was a level of seriousness to the question, too.

Damien stood up and shook his head. “Not at all. I think it’s damn sexy. I can show you my erection if you need proof.”

She laughed as he bent over and picked up her beach bag. “Let’s wait until we’re in the room for that, shall we?”

“But first we have to stop by the hotel store. Unless you have condoms in your room.” He didn’t want her to worry that he wouldn’t use one since she was pregnant. He had no intention of making her uncomfortable.

She covered her face with her hand. “No, I don’t. God, I think I’m blushing. This is just so unbelievable.”

“But in such a good way.” Damien put his hand on the small of Mandy’s back and herded her in the direction of the hotel shop.

Good thing it was a short walk, because now that he had been given the green light by Mandy, he was more than a little eager. He was on fucking fire.

Mandy hung back in the store, hovering over by the imported magazines displayed both in English and Spanish, her cheeks a charming pink. Damien didn’t feel any embarrassment whatsoever. He strode over to the counter and asked the clerk, “Where are the condoms?”

Why waste even five minutes looking for them?

The man, in his late twenties, grinned at Damien and pointed behind him. “Individual or a box?”

“Box.” No sense in having to repeat this shopping expedition if things went according to plan.

The clerk slapped the box down on the counter, and Damien studied the busty Hispanic woman in a bikini on the front. The carton was bright yellow, the bikini a violent orange, and while the label was in English, the small script was in Spanish. He hoped like hell these weren’t novelty condoms. He wasn’t wearing anything with parrots on it.

“Would you like some Mamajuana, too? Good stuff.” The man pointed to a bottle of what looked like alcohol, shelved next to the rum.

“What is it?” Not that he had any intention of getting drunk. He wanted to remember every second of this.

“You drink it. We call it Dominican Viagra.” The clerk winked. “Helps you last, if you know what I mean. If this doesn’t work, they say you should just go and kill yourself.”

Did he look like he needed Viagra? What the hell. He was so hard he could moonlight as a woodpecker. Damien shook his head. “I don’t need any help, thanks.” He handed over the six hundred pesos for the condoms, which he shoved in his pocket, and turned to find Mandy. She was biting her lip, arms over her chest, staring vacantly at a display of T-shirts.

“Have fun!” the clerk yelled with a knowing grin.

And people thought New Yorkers were rude.

Fortunately, he’d forgotten how to blush. But Mandy looked like she’d spent too long in the sun, so he took her hand and hustled her outside to the quiet walkway that lead to the main lobby.

And kissed her eagerly.

“Damien,” she protested, trying to pull back. “There are people around.”

“No, there aren’t. Not a single one.” The path was deserted, everyone still down at the buffet, and it was lush with foliage, and thick with humidity in the glow of faux gas lamps.

But she was still darting her eyes around, hands pressed on his chest to hold him at bay. So Damien dropped his mouth to her forehead and gave her a soft kiss. “My room is in the first building on the right.”

“Then it’s closer than mine. I’m by the adults-only pool.” But she didn’t move in the direction he had pointed to. She worried her lip, and Damien watched her, waited for her to say what was on her mind. “I just want you to understand that I don’t usually…I don’t sleep around. I thought Ben really cared about me, and well, I’ve never really fancied one-night stands. But that’s all this can be, because I can’t get involved with anyone until I’ve sorted out my own life.”

Damien brushed a hair back that had caught on her lip. “This isn’t a one-night stand. It’s not just about sex. It’s about being together, enjoying each other, if only for a few hours.” It was about loosening the suffocating chains of loneliness and reaching out for something simple and uncomplicated. “But I’m not looking for a relationship either.”

He couldn’t believe he was about to admit this, but he wanted her to understand, wanted her to know what this—she—meant to him. “I haven’t been with a woman in three years.”

“You haven’t been in a relationship in three years?”

“Yes, but I also haven’t had sex in three years.”

Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Oh. Oh, my.” She stroked his forearm. “Since Jess?”

He nodded, not willing to say any more. “That’s been a conscious choice I’ve made, and now I’m making the conscious choice to change that. Let me have you tonight, Mandy.”

There was no way she was going to say no. He could read the acquiescence in her eyes, the way she leaned toward him, stroked his arms and opened her mouth. Her breasts pressed against him as she tilted her head to the side and gave a small, sweet sigh.

“Oh, I’m not a bloody idiot, Damien. I have every intention of doing this—I just needed to make sure we were clear on what it was, and that you don’t think I’m some sort of swinger who sleeps with her boss in the Caribbean on every job she takes.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That definitely wasn’t on your resumé.”

She gave a soft laugh and wet her lips, making him want to suck on both her lip and her tongue, taking turns. “What if I don’t meet your expectations? Three years is a long time to wait. I’d hate to be a disappointment.”

That was a joke. He’d be lucky if he got a full five seconds in her before he exploded. “As long as you don’t have some sort of objection to oral sex, we’ll be fine. I have it in my head that I’d really like to taste you.”

Her breathing quickened. “Funny, that. I had a dream you were doing that very thing to me, and I was really quite enjoying it.”

Damien’s groin tightened. What the hell were they doing standing here then?

“You know, you’re usually much more efficient than this. Move it, Mandy. Before I drop your sundress here on the sidewalk.” And he reached for her zipper.

Mandy had taken Damien’s threat seriously, and a quick two minutes later they were in his room, her beach bag tumbling to the floor as she reached for the buttons on his linen shirt.

She’d seen the way he looked in his swim trunks that afternoon and she wanted to touch that broad chest. She wanted to explore his hard flesh, make him tremble with want. She wanted to draw this all out and enjoy every blasted second of it since she was facing a future of celibacy.

Damien’s own hands were busy unzipping the back of her dress. But whereas she was fumbling, overeager, nervous, he was quiet, studied, intent. Goose bumps rose on her flesh as his fingers trailed over her back. His room was at the end of the hall, remote, the sounds of the resort buffered by palm trees and flowering plants. The whirr of the ceiling fan and the uneven tempo of their breathing were the only sounds in the room.

All her doubts, all her concerns, fear about how she should behave and how he might react to her pregnancy, her body the way it was now, had all evaporated when Damien told her he hadn’t been with a woman in three years. She’d seen it then, what he had been telling her. That they both needed each other, just here, just now, to touch and taste and push on each other in uncomplicated pleasure.

She wanted that. She wanted him.

Buttons free, she spread his shirt and sighed as the palms of her hands caressed hard, warm muscle. “You have a lovely chest.”

His lip quirked up. “What a coincidence. I was thinking the same thing about you.”

Mandy glanced down and saw that with the zipper undone, her dress had slipped a bit, only to come to a crashing halt at her cleavage. Nothing could get past her newly blossoming breasts, and her plump flesh was bursting out of the top of her strapless bra.

“This isn’t my natural state, you know,” she told him, pushing his shirtsleeves down to his wrists. “Every day I wake up to find they’re a bit bigger, like I’ve taken an air pump to them.”

Damien’s thumb ran over the swell above her bra. “I like the end result.”

“Yes, well, easy for you to say.” Mandy gripped his wrist as his thumb brushed lower and lower, skirting her nipple. She gave a sound of disappointment. “But at this rate, I fully expect one day to roll over and have them clap.”

He laughed, expression relaxed and amused. “I love your sense of humor.”

She was about to tell him that back in England, at The Wycombe Abbey School for Girls, she’d been quite the comedic thespian, but she only had time to open her mouth before he ripped her dress down to her waist, and she promptly forgot how to speak.

Or breathe, when his head descended to her chest and his tongue traced above the rim of her overburdened bra. Back and forth it went, as if it was on a leisurely stroll in the park, and Mandy shivered, appreciating fully how much more sensitive her breasts were now. Torn between wanting to just enjoy his teasing tongue and urging him to dispense with her bra and head south to her nipple, Mandy gripped his wrists and squeezed.

Damien lifted his head, and Mandy expected him to shove her dress down, strip himself, and slide right into her standing up.

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

But she had expected Damien to be urgent, to take charge, to rush through to the release they were both seeking.

He was taking charge, yes, but he wasn’t interested in rushing. Which had its pros and cons.

As she tugged his shirt off and dropped it to the floor, Damien pulled the clip out of her hair. He stroked in it and smiled. “I love your hair. It’s just like you. Sort of free, with a mind of its own, but always in control.”

Was that the way he saw her? Mandy thought that was just a lovely way to describe her, even if she felt control was the last thing she possessed. Unable to resist touching him, she smoothed out his dark eyebrows, traced his cheeks, brushed along his lips in a caress that was too intimate, but felt so, so right here with Damien. His lips pressed in a kiss over her fingers and she smiled, knowing she felt as raw and vulnerable as he looked.

“If you think I’m in control, you’re a sandwich short of a picnic,” she whispered to him. “But thank you for that.”