His Secret Baby: The Agent's Secret Baby

Picking up the tray, Adam followed her back into the dining room.

Josiah’s face lit up. The older man had, she knew, a sweet tooth that was never satisfied. “I’ll have one of everything,” he told her before Adam had a chance to set the tray down.

“I’ve got a feeling he’s not kidding,” Adam commented to Eve in a stage whisper.

Sitting beside his employer, shaking his keys above Brooklyn to entertain her, Lucas glanced in Adam’s direction. “He’s not,” he confirmed.

“Why would I joke about something like that?” Josiah asked. “I have a weakness for pumpkin pie—pumpkin in any form,” he added. His eyes swept over the offerings. He was unable to make up his mind. “It’s times like this that I lament the fact that we have but one stomach instead of four, like cows.”

“You can take some of them with you,” Eve told him. She reached for her daughter, who was still in the crook of Josiah’s arm. “Here, let me take her so that you can eat.”

But Josiah shook his head, maintaining his arm around the baby. “She’s fine where she is, Eve. She won’t interfere,” he assured her.

To prove it, he drew over the pumpkin parfait she’d made and sank his spoon into the center of the whipped cream. Bringing the spoon to his mouth, he closed his eyes for a moment and made a deep, satisfied sound as he savored the taste.

“You know, Eve,” he said, his eyes still closed, “if you ever decide to stop being a veterinarian, you might consider becoming a pastry chef.” He opened his eyes to see her reaction. “I’d stake you to opening up your own restaurant.”

He noticed that Adam was studying him the exact same way he had studied the other man earlier. Josiah guessed at the reason. Adam was trying to figure out just where he had gotten all his money. The answer was a great deal simpler than the man would have dreamed. “The trick is to invest wisely and to know when to pull out.”

“I didn’t ask anything,” Adam pointed out, somewhat surprised at the unsolicited advice that had just come his way.

“Not verbally,” Josiah acknowledged, an enigmatic smile barely registering at the corners of his mouth. “But your eyes did.”

Brooklyn shifted, waving her tiny arms. The scent of the tantalizing spices that had gone into making the dessert seemed to register. She began to fuss.

This couldn’t be comfortable for Josiah, Eve thought. Again she reached to take her baby from him.

“Let me—” Eve started, but she never got the chance to complete the offer.

“You sit and take it easy,” Adam told her. “I can take her.”

He saw Josiah about to protest, but then decided to keep his peace. He didn’t bother wondering what was up. He just took his daughter into his arms.

Chapter 11

Sitting on the sofa, Eve stretched her legs out so that they went far beneath the coffee table. She allowed her eyes to close for a moment. A long sigh escaped her lips. Josiah and Lucas had departed more than half an hour ago, leaving a host of compliments in their wake. Adam had insisted on putting Brooklyn to bed. With the table cleared and the dishes done, there was nothing left for her to do except enjoy the stillness.

Which she did, finding it almost seductive. She stretched out her legs a little farther.

“Tired?”

Her eyes flew open and she shifted in her seat, turning to look at Adam. But he had already rounded the sofa, dropping down on the cushion next to hers.

She smiled at him, infinitely grateful that he was here, taking care of her. Who would have ever thought things would arrange themselves this way? Eight months ago, all she wanted to do was get away from him and the life she thought he represented.

“Yes,” she admitted, quickly adding, “but very satisfied.” She wanted this moment, this contented feeling to go on for a little longer. “It felt good doing that, hosting a dinner,” she told him. “I didn’t realize how much I missed cooking. Not that I don’t appreciate all the take-out meals that found their way into my kitchen,” she interjected quickly. Her eyes searched his face, afraid that Adam would take her initial words the wrong way.

He could almost read her mind. The idea made him laugh. “I wasn’t about to take offense,” he assured her. “And between you and me, your cooking tonight outstripped anything that I brought home this last month.”

He realized his slip a second after it had come out of his mouth. He’s referred to Eve’s house as home. Not her home, but just “home.”

Had she picked up on that? Looking at her, he couldn’t tell.

He supposed in the last few weeks, he had come to think of Eve’s place as home. Her house was where he spent most of his downtime.

Moreover, this was where his daughter was.

Careful, Serrano. You’re just here to look after her, to make sure the scum you’re associating with doesn’t harm her or the baby. Nothing more. Don’t let yourself get caught up in something you can’t handle.

The father of her child. Eve realized she was smiling at him. Maybe it was the afterglow of a successful dinner party, small though it was. Or maybe she was just too tired to keep her guard up, but she was having some very kind, not to mention sensual, thoughts about Adam right now.

Maybe she’d been too hard on him.

After all, he didn’t have to come around all these weeks and help her until she finally got her “mother” legs firmly planted beneath her. But Adam had come through for her with flying colors.

All this after she had, in essence, run out on him.

Don’t forget why you ran out on him.

But he’d changed, Eve silently argued with herself.

She’d tried to cling to the belief that people were basically good and that, if they went down the wrong path, with enough effort, they could redeem themselves. They could get back to the right path again. There was nothing to indicate Adam had brought his old way of life with him or that he was still associating with addicts.

When would he have the time? His days were divided between the bookstore and the baby and her.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Adam observed after several minutes of silence had gone by. Despite her arguing to the contrary, had all this been too much for her? She usually wasn’t this quiet. “What are you thinking?”

Not wanting to admit that she’d been thinking about him, that lately, most of her thoughts were centered on or around him, Eve said, “I was just thinking about going back to work at the animal hospital on Monday. Vera has been pretty swamped and she’s had to close the place on Sundays. I don’t like not being available to my patients one day a week.”

He knew her. If she went back, she’d throw herself into her work wholeheartedly. It was easier to watch over her in her house. A lot of people came into the hospital. An assailant could easily slip in.

“You think you’re up to going back full-time?” he asked. “Maybe you should try going back just parttime for now, work your way back up to frantic over the course of a month or two.”

She’d already made up her mind. There was a place for the baby in the back office. She, Vera and Susannah could all take turns keeping an eye on Brooklyn.

“I don’t like just dipping my toe in the water,” she told him. “I like diving in.”

The smile that came to his lips was automatic. “Yes, I remember.”

Her cheeks suddenly turned a fascinating shade of scarlet. Adam did his best to bite back a laugh. As he did, he felt that same strong, breath-stealing stir whirl around his insides, the one he experienced whenever he would look at her, really look at her and realize just how beautiful she was.

Allowing his instincts to govern him, the way he would during a mission, Adam brushed his knuckles against her cheek. He saw a glimmer of desire flash in her eyes. Considering what was at stake, that should have been his red flag, his signal to back away. Now.

But he ignored it.

Ignored everything but this unmanageable yearning that was holding him a veritable prisoner. With one hand gently touching her face, Adam leaned in and lightly brushed his lips against hers.

Though his lips barely touched hers, it still had the same effect as the first time he’d kissed her all those months ago. He felt as if a fist had been slammed into his midsection, knocking all the air right out of him.

Okay, this was where he had to pull back. He’d had his sample, had tasted how sweet her lips still were and had rediscovered just how overwhelmingly susceptible he still was to her. All his questions were concisely answered.

This was where he needed to cut and run, or at the very least, to retreat. There was no way this could lead to anything except for frustration. And the more he allowed this longing, this need, to build up within him, the more frustrated he’d be. There was no recourse but to leave. The woman had just given birth, for God’s sake. She was literally in no shape to give him what he so badly craved—and that was a good thing because, deep in his soul, he knew she was a habit he needed to kick.

For her sake.

He had nothing to offer her except for bits and pieces of himself and a life that was forever being lived on the edge. If she were part of his world, really a part of his world, she’d be in danger all the time. And he would be worried about her all the time, her and the baby. The first thing he’d been taught was that an operative with a split focus was a dead operative.

He couldn’t let himself go, for her sake more than for his.

So, with supreme effort, Adam drew away, his adrenaline racing through his veins as if he had his back to the wall and was facing down an entire squadron of drug dealers, every last one of them intent on slowly vivisecting him.

Stunned, Eve blinked. Oh, no, he wasn’t going to do this to her. He wasn’t going to stir her up, making her, in the space of hardly a few seconds, mentally forsake each and every one of the promises she’d made to herself just to pull back.

Was he trying to prove something to himself? That he could walk away from her at any time? Or was there more to it? Was he showing her that he still had power over her? That he could still press her buttons, make her need him more than she needed the very air to breathe?

Well, she would be doing the showing, not him.

Very deliberately, Eve wove her arms around his neck, her eyes more than her arms holding him in place. The next moment, she brought her mouth to his. Brought her soul to his, kissing him as if the very world would be doomed if she didn’t.

Damn it, Eve, why are you making this so hard?

Pulling his head back, Adam gently but firmly removed her arms from around his neck. “We can’t,” was all he said.

She put her own interpretation to his words, praying she wasn’t being the biggest fool the world had ever seen. That he wasn’t just toying with her because he could.

“I’m all right,” she whispered, her eyes on his. “The doctor told me that I could … be with you if I wanted to.”

Be with you. What a tenderly innocent way to say it, he couldn’t help thinking. Maybe, just maybe, if he could just have this one last time to make love with her, that would somehow sustain him. He knew all too well that making love with her wouldn’t quench the fire, but at least it could dowse it for a small space of time, allowing him to reapply himself to what he really needed to concentrate on. With any luck, the worthless piece of trash he was dealing with would slip, giving him the name of the head supplier and the department could move in for the kill.

He wasn’t naive enough to think that once this present head of the cartel was captured that would be the end of it. Like a hydra monster, if one head was cut off, one if not two more would suddenly pop up in its place. But with luck, there would be some downtime and maybe, the department could further clean up the streets.

With effort, they might make it more difficult for a new foothold to form in the high schools currently being supplied with narcotics. Any respite was better than none and who knew, maybe in that small time frame the users would see the upside of even partially regaining control over their lives. Maybe they would think twice before abdicating it again, allowing powders, pills and drug dealers to govern them.

But right at this moment, Adam had to admit that he had a great deal of sympathy for addicts. For the first time in his life, he could see things from their perspective because he was addicted to Eve. Addicted to the rush she created in his veins. Addicted to the memory of what was and to the incredible draw of the promise of what could be.

He needed her and could think of absolutely nothing else.

Was she losing the battle? Or was Adam trying to be strong for reasons she couldn’t grasp? Eve didn’t know. All she knew was that she needed him. Badly. It was as if their lovemaking had taken place in another life, a life she needed to get back to.

She raised her eyes to his, silently entreating him. And then, when he made no move to take her back into his arms, she finally put it into words, quietly saying, “Adam, don’t make me beg.”

Her voice was low, but the need she felt pulsated throughout her entire being.

“No begging,” he promised, his own voice husky with longing.

The next moment, Adam covered her mouth with his own, kissing her deeply. In less than a heartbeat, he became lost within her.

Sealed by that physical act alone, they were instantly one. Nothing mattered right now to Adam but this overwhelming, screaming need inside of him, this need that demanded satisfaction, some sort of an outlet before it completely tore him apart.

The moment he silently surrendered control, it was as if someone had suddenly fired a starter pistol in the air, signaling the beginning of this explosive interlude. Adam found himself hardly able to remember how he got from one stage to another. Couldn’t actually recall how his clothes had disappeared from his body. One second, he was dressed, the next, he wasn’t. Had he done it, or had she? He was unclear as to the steps. Similarly, he wasn’t even sure if his hands had urgently tugged her dress from her while she had been similarly engaged with his clothes, or if they simply divested themselves of their own clothes.

He was only aware of movement and shedding. Through it all, his mouth remained urgently sealed to hers as if his very life depended on it. In a way, it did.

And just like that, she was nude. Her flesh was tender and pliant beneath his hands. He felt as if he was on fire just touching her, sliding his palms along her soft, soft breasts, caressing her supple curves and recommitting them to memory.

This was only the second time he’d made love with her, and yet every touch, every pass, teased forth a memory from within him. Her body was oh-so-familiar to him even though, as he trailed his hands along her curves, he felt on the brink of an exciting new adventure.

Over and over again his mouth slanted over hers, kissing the sensitive area along her throat, seeking out the hollow of her neck, the dip in her now-flat belly. Her moan of pleasure in response to his questing tongue set him off the way Adam thought nothing ever could, making his head spin.

She had never told Adam that he was her first lover. It wasn’t the kind of thing a woman broadcasted, even though, in her case, she had never met anyone she’d wanted in her bed. In her heart, however, Eve was certain that someone with Adam’s experience would know. She, on the other hand, had nothing to compare except perhaps the first time that he’d been with her. What she vividly recalled was that she’d been utterly, hopelessly lost in ecstasy.

This time around, the ecstasy had doubled itself so that she could hardly contain the wild feelings rushing through her. It was as close to an out-of-body experience as she would ever hope to have.

She didn’t want it to end.

Something told her this would only be a onetime thing. Last time, there’d been no encores because she’d discovered his secret life. This time around, she had a feeling that the cause for the lack of encores would be his.

But if it came to that, she wanted this isolated moment in time to last as long as possible.

Eve bit down on her lower lip as the first climax suddenly exploded over her, a depth charge coming from oblivion and targeting her. There’d been almost no warning. One moment, there was deliciously mounting pleasure, the next moment, fireworks.

Bucking, raising her hips to absorb every ray of heat, every movement of his mouth over her inner core, she cried out his name and something more. With lightning flashing through her brain, Eve couldn’t even say for certain what it was that she had cried out.

But Adam could.

He’d heard it even though he told himself he’d imagined it.

At moments like this, with control wrenched away from him, it was easy to hear things that weren’t said, see things that weren’t there.

With his last scrap of strength, he forced himself to deny what part of him had thought he’d heard, burying the words “I love you,” even though, with all his heart, he wished he could acknowledge them, press them to his chest and echo them in kind.

Instead, he drew himself up along her body, igniting them both as flesh rubbed against flesh. And just like that, he was hovering over her, looking down into her eyes, his gut tightening. Feeling things he couldn’t acknowledge, wanting to say things he couldn’t say.

It was just the moment that caused him to get carried away, nothing more, Adam silently swore to himself.

Even so, he gathered her into his arms, holding himself back as much as he could while positioning his hips over hers.

And then he was inside again, entering as gently as he could, ever alert for any sign that he was hurting her. That she had, at the last moment, changed her mind.

There was no sign.

Her arms tightened around his neck and she held on as hard as she could, mimicking the rhythm of his hips, determined to feel the peak of the crescendo at the same moment as he did. And then, it seized her, sending a rainbow of stars shooting all through her. She held on as hard as she could, praying that the moment would never end.

Mourning because she knew it had to.

Chapter 12

At first, Eve couldn’t register the sound on the outer perimeter of her consciousness. Still in the throes of the final stages of euphoria, it took her several seconds to identify the insistent, soft buzzing.

A cell phone, set on vibrate.

Since hers played the first few bars of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” a song she vividly remembered from her childhood, Eve knew the buzzing cell phone had to belong to Adam.

The last vapors of her euphoric state evaporated. The outside world invaded this piece of paradise they’d managed to construct. It was to be expected.

But on Thanksgiving?

Because she’d unwittingly stumbled across Adam’s double life eight months ago, unbidden suspicions instantly crowded her brain. She tried to fight her doubts. Harboring suspicions would taint this perfect moment for her. They already did.

The cell phone stopped and then started ringing again. And again. Whoever was on the other end obviously didn’t want to go to voice mail. Eve suppressed a sigh.

“Your phone’s buzzing,” she finally said.

He was aware of that. He’d secretly been hoping that his caller would go away. But no such luck.

It was either his handler, or the reason he was being handled.

The phone vibrated again.

“Shouldn’t you answer it?” Eve asked, wondering why he wasn’t. Fearing that she knew.

Adam turned to look at her. All he wanted to do at this moment was make love with her again.

“I don’t want to,” he told her truthfully.

Was that because he couldn’t take the call with her so close, or because Adam was having the same thoughts about the moment as she was? That it was too perfect to spoil.

Too late.

Shifting, she moved away from him and began patting the articles of clothing entangled and scattered all over the floor, searching for the telltale lump that was his phone. Adam instantly came to life and started looking for the offending cell phone himself. He needed to get to it before she did.

But Eve found his cell phone first. Pulling it out of the pocket of his jeans, she glanced at the LCD screen as she held the phone up to him. “You’d better answer it. They don’t sound like they’re going to go away.”

He glanced down at the display. It said “Private.” That would be his handler.

Flipping the phone open, Adam murmured, “Hello?” as his mind scrambled, searching for a way to get rid of the man without arousing Eve’s suspicions.

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