Tabloid Affair, Secretly Pregnant!

“I want you…” Sensation shot through her, making control a thing of the past. “I’ve wanted you…for so long.”

Nate let out a low groan, his hands tightening over the curves he’d once sworn never to touch.

For so long…

This was Payton. Brandt’s little sister. With her wide-eyed innocent stare all but guaranteeing she’d fallen under the misconception he was someone she could trust. Not tonight, she couldn’t. He couldn’t look out for her best interests, not with those breathy moans and little teeth working at his ear while her bare breasts pressed against his shirt. Not with the taste of her sweet on his tongue.

But if she’d been carrying some kind of torch—

He couldn’t ignore what everyone knew. She wanted the happily-ever-after. The down-on-one-knee, white-picketfence, pram-around-the-park fantasy. And while most women wouldn’t make the mistake of imagining him in that role, Payton had a bad habit of seeing him in ways no one else could. God only knew what she was thinking now. “We’ve got to stop,” he gritted out. But the fingers at his waist only clenched tighter as her lust-clouded gaze drifted hungrily from his mouth to his eyes and back again.

“No,” she gasped, reaching for him and sending his body into some kind of lust-induced free fall from rational ground.

No? He’d heard the word before. Could quite easily imagine it slipping past Payton’s lips. Only the context was all wrong.

But then those soft lips were pulling at him, her breasts pushing against his chest and suddenly his hands were moving down the sleek line of her, settling over the bones at her hips and—

Damn it, he didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to have to bring reason and rationale into something that was so good as pure instinct and response, but he wasn’t a kid and he knew all too well about the consequences of diving headlong into a skirt he didn’t belong in.

“Payton, wait,” he managed, ignoring the wounded look in her eyes as he held her still. She needed to understand. “I’m not looking for marriage.”

“Okay.” She nodded, her gaze already targeting his mouth as she leaned into him again, making him wonder if she’d actually registered what he said at all. That was a risk he couldn’t take. He set her back a pace, having to check that the woman driving him past sense was who he thought. Payton. Hot, demanding Payton, with her slight fingers brushing against his navel as she tried to get into his pants. Heaven help him.

“I’m serious. Look at me.” Warm brown eyes, smoked with need, blinked wide as she peered up at him.

He wanted her so much it hurt. And yet, he still couldn’t give in. Not yet.

“It’s not just marriage. What’s been going on with me—Payton, I can’t do a relationship. I don’t want one.”

The pounding of his heart filled the seconds before she answered. Something he didn’t want to consider flickered in her eyes. Remorse. He knew better—but before he could drag his own ass outside to kick it, something new surfaced in her gaze. Resignation. Acceptance. And then the spark of what could only be described as clarity and determination.

“Do you want tonight?”

How could she even ask?

Yes, he wanted tonight. But tonight was all he wanted. Well, that and Payton not getting hurt. Just two consenting adults having a good time with no expectations. Only sometimes good girls like Payton got the wrong idea when they were making out with guys at weddings. Something about the tux triggered those saccharine fairy-tale fantasies and then suddenly they started attributing all kinds of meaning to an event that began as a little sordid groping in a back hallway. Sometimes they thought if they played along, things would change—the guy would change.

But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. And he wasn’t about to let Payton believe otherwise.

Only before he could open his mouth, she was pulling his face to meet hers. “Stop looking at me like I’m some little girl you have to protect.” Her hands drifted lower, running down his chest to settle low at his abdomen again. “See me as the woman who wants a single night with you.”

It couldn’t be that easy. That straightforward. Except the stare meeting his own shone with an intent of purpose he couldn’t mistake.

She wanted him and she understood this wasn’t the beginning of forever.

It was tonight. He had one night—a mere handful of hours—to give her what no other man would dare to.

Oh, yeah.

No more second-guessing. No more wasted time.

Sweeping Payton into his arms, he strode to the bed and tossed her—wide eyed and squeaking—back into the pillows. Followed her down, getting off on the fact he had her naked but for a scrap of silk and those incredible heels that were driving him nuts…and he was still decked out in the full tux minus the jacket. That worked for about two seconds before he was backing off the bed, taking those tiny panties with him. He wanted inside her more than he wanted to revel in some fantasy.

Working the studs free, he had his shirt half off before the sound of her voice halted his actions. “Nate?”

His head snapped up to where Payton lay reclined, one knee sliding slowly against the other. Fighting past the rise of pure lust at the vision of her there for his taking, he sent up a silent prayer she hadn’t come to her senses. “What?”

The pink tip of her tongue slipped in a moist trail across the swell of her bottom lip. “Hurry.”

He swallowed hard. The shirt came off in a spray of onyx studs clattering against whatever surfaces they reached, followed immediately by the cummerbund, pants and the rest. Body taut with need, he rolled on a condom retrieved from his pants, unwilling to be careless with either of their futures, and then he was on her again, losing himself in the feel of her mouth, the press of her breasts and the glide of her knee against his hip as she melted in his arms.

It was torture, but he held himself in check as he pressed his length at her entrance. His gaze holding hers, silently offering one last chance to change her mind.

Maybe it was all the memories he had tied up with her. Or that he couldn’t quite stop thinking of her as the girl he wanted to protect from the guys like him. But whatever nonsense he’d let take seed in his mind, Payton swept it away with one head-back, body-arched gasp of pure need…

“Please.” And then as though that weren’t enough, “Ye-e-e-s-s-s,” when he began to move.

Oh, yeah, he liked the sound of that at his ear as he pushed into the tight clasp of her body. Too tight to thrust hard, he gritted his teeth through the measured penetration, pulled back, only to sink again, slowly taking her deep and then deeper still, repeating again and again until he was buried to the hilt.

Her lips were parted, a suspended breath hanging between them. Looking into her eyes, he held, lost in something too good. Too perfect a fit. Too intensely right.

Her body gripped him with the rhythmic pulse that signaled she was close, and his jaw clenched hard in his fight for control. He followed her every gasp and sigh, learning exactly what she liked, what made her crazy. And when those delicate hands moved down his body, from his shoulders to his arms to his back, clutching at him as if she needed to hold on…it satisfied him in a way he didn’t even want to contemplate.

She was incredible. Coming apart in his arms even as she begged him for more.

Hell, yes, there was more. A whole night’s worth of more. Payton didn’t want to be the good girl tonight, and after six months he needed to be bad.

Chapter Five

PAYTON roused herself from a sated state of lethargy, peeling back her eyelids only to encounter a tangle of curls blocking her view. Shifting slowly, she reached up to shove the mess from her eyes—halting at the slow rise and fall of a chest beneath her cheek.

Nate.

She swallowed down the burst of joyous excitement as images, sensations and whispers of the night before bombarded her waking consciousness.

He’d been so gentle with her the first time. So careful. And then after that—

Her toes curled deep beneath the sheets at the thought of all they’d done.

Everything.

They’d made love, over and over again. Nate waking her with his hands, his mouth. A seductive growl accompanied by his rising need. Nothing planned. Nothing proper or polite about it.

Incredible.

“What’s got you smiling so early?” Nate’s morning-rough voice stroked over her like a soothing caress, bringing her attention to the hard line of his stubbled jaw and the soft amusement in his blue, blue eyes. They were intimately wound together. Arms and legs and bare skin everywhere. It felt good and, though today they wouldn’t be lovers, Payton wasn’t about to rush from the bed or give up the warmth of his body, the steady thump, thump of his heart sounding beneath her ear, or the shelter of his arms around her. She couldn’t. Not yet.

For now, they were comfortably entwined. Or at least they were until Nate reached down her back with one hand and pinched her bottom.

“Hey!” she squeaked, ineffectually trying to pinch back at skin too muscle packed to give.

“The grin. Tell.”

Inching her bum out of pinching distance, she raised a brow. “So desperate to feed your ego?”

“Mmm, so it’s an ego-feeding grin. Tell me more.”

She took a deep breath, weighing the temptation to share her indecent revelation. He’d never judged her before…but this was different. Telling in a way she wanted him to know but was afraid to reveal. After what they’d done last night, she might have finally killed the good girl misconception, and owning up to what had her smiling—the part beyond finally being in his arms—might negate all the progress she’d made. Casting a sidelong glance his way, to that devilish smile and waiting stare, the temptation proved too much to resist. Her eyes squeezed shut and she fessed up in a rush of breath. “I’m thinking you’re the first notch in my bedpost.”

There! That wasn’t so bad. It was freeing, in fact. And—

Her eyes blinked open as Nate froze beside her, every muscle in his body gone taut and his breathing at an abrupt halt.

Her chin pulled back. Not quite the “partner-in-crime” kind of response she’d hoped for.

He couldn’t be insulted. But now that she thought about it, she wouldn’t feel great about being described as a notch either.

“You weren’t a virgin.” The words rasped out more plea than question or statement.

Momentarily stunned, Payton could practically feel his cold dread at the thought she’d saved something so special for him. That the night he’d given her on condition it be casual be so spectacularly significant. That she’d deceived him.

“No!” Her hands flew to the sides of her face as she shook her head in vehement denial. “I wasn’t a virgin, I promise! I meant ‘notch’ like uncommitted. Sex for sex’s sake.” The beginning of her reckless adventure. He didn’t need to know how special being with him truly was to her. After today it would never be an issue again. She wouldn’t let it be. “Don’t panic, please.”

Nate’s relief was a palpable thing, like a rush of air back into the room, the return of pressure with a whoosh.

“I wasn’t panicking,” he scoffed, pushing to one elbow on his side. “Pretty little princesses don’t make me panic. Especially not when they are…” he lifted the sheet for dramatic effect, offering a quick leer at her prone body before meeting her eyes again “…naked.”

Relief washed through her at the ease with which he recovered, but a lingering tension remained and his expression turned serious. Concerned.

“Are you okay about this, Payton?” Catching a wild curl with his finger, he pushed it over her ear. Let his mouth pull into a crooked twist when it sprang free and bounced back in front of her eyes. “With last night being the only night?”

She took a steadying breath. “I am if we go forward as friends.”

In those first minutes after the kiss became real in the hallway, she might have indulged in a fantasy where there could be more. A little longing or hope. But she’d quickly understood it wasn’t a romance in the making. And though a part of her cared for Nate on a level she couldn’t acknowledge to him, there was another part of her excited by the raw rush of her very own too-good-to-feel-guilty-about night of passion. A night only he could give her. Because she trusted him.

“Friends,” he said as if testing the word out.

“Yeah. I’ve missed you in my life. I don’t want to give you up again.”

Tiny lines etched at the corners of his eyes as he held her stare. “Do you feel like you can go forward from here without this—” he waved a slow hand between them “—getting in the way?”

She knew she could. She’d done it for years before Nate walked out of her life. “I can if you can. Even if you can’t tell if you’ve got a virgin in your bed.”

Brows arching high as he let out a sharp laugh, Nate rocked back, pulling Payton over with him. “Be a while before I live that down, will it?”

She squinted at him from her perch atop his chest. “Probably.”

“Then I better steer this little chat back toward the ego feeding.” Settling against the pillow to get comfortable, he prompted, “So tell me how it is I score bedpost-notch status.”

Payton readjusted around him and let her gaze run the length of his pure masculine perfection, complete with one heavily muscled leg thrown over the sheet, and wondered how he could even ask.

“It’s just it was so…intense without being…serious. It wasn’t candlelight and promises of love everlasting.”

“You don’t like those things?” he asked, running a finger down the curve of her shoulder.

Guiltily she glanced away, then forced her gaze back. “No, I do. I’m sure I would—” If she ever actually felt that forever kind of glow, she would probably love it. If Nate had wanted to give her those things…

Only he didn’t and she knew it. The only thing everlasting in their future was the schoolgirl crush she expected would never quite go away. And a friendship if she was lucky. “What I mean is this was so…hot and it’s never been like that for me before. Impulsive. Exciting.” She felt the blush creeping into her cheeks—held Nate’s gaze anyway, needing him to understand. “No strings. No expectations.”

“Hell, if I’d known that I wouldn’t have worked so hard.”

She let out her own laugh then, swatting harmlessly at his chest. “You know what kind of expectations I’m talking about. The long-term kind.” It would be impossible to go to bed with Nate without some kind of expectation. His name was practically scrawled on the ladies’ lounge wall next to the words “for a good time”. “It’s never been so much…fun. So…free. My other experience wasn’t like this.”

This time it was Nate’s turn to pull back. “Your ‘other experience’? As in singular? I mean, I knew your experience was limited, but that idiot was your first?”

“Nate! Can’t you at least pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about? And he isn’t an idiot.” Clint wasn’t perfect. Far from it. What she’d had with him was polite. It was pleasant. But it hadn’t been deep and it hadn’t been passionate. It hadn’t been real. How could it have been when one of the people in the relationship hadn’t actually existed? Not that Clint ever noticed or cared. But even so, it hardly seemed fair to discuss his lack of creativity and vigor with a man so completely out of his league.

“I can’t believe you gave it up to Clint.”

Payton bristled. Some long-ago disappointment—frustrated and immature—reared its head, lashing out. “Well, you didn’t take it,” she snapped. “I had to give it to someone.”

Nate coughed, his brows crashing down. “Thankfully you never offered.”

Yes, probably a good thing since he’d vanished from her life a few days after she’d decided she wanted him to be the one. She’d finally been ready to screw up the courage and tell him how she felt. Only it was too late. The friendship between them had become a casualty of the fallout with Brandt.

Nate’s finger caught under her chin, urging her focus back to his face. “I think it might have killed me to say no. But I would have had to. You were sixteen.”

“You were only eighteen.”

“Yeah, but there’s a big difference between those ages, Payton. Besides, I was leaving for school and I didn’t ever want to come back.”

Because of people like her brother and his friends. Nate knew plenty about being on the wrong side of the talk, just as she did. And right now, she didn’t want either of them to have to think about it.

“Well, I suppose you might have been worth waiting for.”

Propping an arm behind his head, he cocked a wry smile at her. “So glad you enjoyed yourself.”

“The way my life has been going, well, I needed this—you.” She blinked up at him, those soft brown eyes tugging at his heart just as they always had. “You really are quite a lot of fun.”

Leaning in, he caught her lips with his own. His arm tightened across her back, holding her close through this soft, lingering last kiss. Slowly they parted and Payton let out a sigh that feathered over his jaw and neck as she drew away. It was a sweet, quietly satisfied sound that, coupled with the soft press of her breast against his abdomen, the smooth skin of her thigh crossed over his, and the bare heat of her against him, had him fighting the urge to pull her back.

She felt good and he wanted her again. Wanted more fun. More intensity. He wanted to give her more of what she’d never had before. Except he didn’t want to give her any kind of false promise or misconception about the potential for a relationship. And something in those big brown eyes staring up at him said he needed to tread carefully. Payton’s heart was a responsibility he didn’t want to bear.

“I get what you’re saying. And I had a good time, too.” “Had” being the operative word.

“Thanks, Nate.” Her grin spread wide and she closed her eyes indulging in one long, languorous stretch that moved her in a slow slide of flesh as she rolled away from him. His gut tensed as she arched back, rotating her hips in a decadent extension of feminine musculature and pretty pink skin. He should look away. Turn his head. Get the hell out of the bed before he did something stupid, but already his heart was turning over, getting ready to rev with thoughts of consequence quickly dissipating.

Maybe just one more—

And then she was climbing out of bed—dragging the sheet he’d barely had a corner of with her as she cast an impish wink back and darted for the bathroom.

His fingers tingled where he’d almost gotten hold of her. Damn, it was a good thing they were taking this off a physical level. He liked control. After the past six months, he needed it. And Payton, all naked and soft, had an unnerving ability to threaten his.

He glared at the closed bathroom door. He wasn’t following her in there.

The shower sounded, then the quiet thud of the sliding glass door as it closed.

He wasn’t going to take her against the tile wall. Bury himself inside her again. No. Because if he gave in, one more time wouldn’t be enough. It would be again and again. Finding new and creative ways to get Payton’s petite form wrapped tight around him. In his arms. In his bed. But that was all he’d have to offer her. Sex. And right now, the friendship they both needed was more important than that.

So, no. Definitely not. He wouldn’t follow.

Chapter Six

PAYTON stood beneath the hot spray, her body tender from sensual satisfaction, her mind whirling a mile a minute as she began to compartmentalize everything that had happened with Nate. Everything that would happen. She needed to be cool, to make sure he understood she didn’t have expectations about a future together. Or at least a romantic future. Because while last night had been incredible—exciting in a way she hadn’t believed possible and would never regret—it was the going forward that mattered.

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