The Fireman's Baby: A BWWM Pregnancy Romance (4 page)

“You're a very beautiful woman, Laura,” he told her softly, whispering the words into her ear as if it was a secret. Laura felt like it had been a secret or at least something she hadn't understood until now. She was not a little girl searching for a stable man to fit neatly into her life, but a woman—a beautiful woman—with needs and desires and no one to answer to but herself.

When Daniel leaned in to press his mouth against hers, she didn't pull away, but melted into his kiss. That stubble was rough against her lips and the effect was immediate. The wait was almost over and her body knew it. She was so aware of how fast her heart was beating in expectation and how warm his skin was, and her body was so ready to receive him now.

This pressure had been building since her back had been against that fire truck, and she had been imagining his hands all over her.

Now his hands were on her body. They were in her hair and running over that exposed skin on her back. When he slipped one of those spaghetti straps from her shoulder, she became breathless with desire and leaned into another of his kisses.

His mouth moved over hers with force and passion like he was releasing something intense that he had been saving just for her. Laura accepted his lips with an equal appetite and it only served to build a stronger heat between the two of them.

Daniel's mouth moved across her cheek to the sensitive hollow beneath her earlobe and he whispered again, “I don't know what it is about you, but from the moment you walked out into the street today, with your tray of ice water, I feel like there's a magnet pulling me to you; something I just can't say no to or ignore.”

His words were like lava that started flowing through her veins. She knew just what he was talking about because she had felt exactly the same. She hadn’t been able to think of anything but him and this moment when his fingers would be moving over her skin and his mouth would be on her body.

She kissed his cheek, her full dark lips moving down his neck to his collarbone as she nibbled and bit at his skin, her arms slipped around him and her fingers closed tightly over his shoulders.

Daniel's fingers twisted in her hair and he tugged slightly as his mouth moved over her shoulder, leaving a trail of heat and need behind him, and making Laura breathless as his hands slid beneath the thin material of her top.

His fingers were thick and strong and as he squeezed them on her, it felt as if he were setting fire to every place they touched. Laura let her fingers move to the front of his shirt, pulling the buttons on it open and bit by bit revealing the rock-solid wall of muscle hidden underneath it.

She got it fully undone and stopped kissing him long enough to look at him in wonder. She didn't understand how this was happening, but she knew she wanted it to happen more than she ever had with any man. She was sure that there would be no regrets for her in the morning.

He paused in his kissing and looked at her as she gazed at his chest. He smiled a little and chuckled at her, placing his finger beneath her chin. He raised his eyebrows and winked at her, “Turnabout is fair play; now it's my turn.” he spoke huskily as he moved his hand further beneath her shirt and lifted it off of her, revealing the fact that she had not worn a bra.

One glance at her full, rounded breasts before him and he groaned hungrily and leaned toward her to cover them with his hands and mouth.

“I knew you were going to look good, but I had no idea you'd look this good...” he spoke in between kisses down the center of her cleavage.

She felt a blaze rush through her at the knowledge that he had been thinking about her body earlier and it turned her on like wildfire. He closed his mouth around her dark nipples, sucking at them as he massage them with his strong hands. Laura closed her eyes and leaned her head backward. His teeth began to pull at her gently and a soft cry escaped her, making him hold her tighter.

Daniel had leaned her back further against the sofa so they'd be more comfortable, but now he lifted his mouth from her breasts and moved to kiss her lips again, hard and soft and hungry, then he looked at her with heavily hooded eyes.

“Laura,” he breathed thickly, “I want you, God I want you.” he looked into her eyes and the desire there was strong enough to make her melt right in his arms.

She gave him a sultry smile and kissed him. “Then come with me,” she said in a smoky voice.

They went to her bedroom and the sexual tension in the air around them fairly crackled with electricity as they pulled each other's clothes off and began to touch one another in new places.

She couldn’t believe the intensity with which she burned for him. Her body was aching, needing his body inside of her, longing for him to fill her. She knew she would have to hold back just a little if she expected their night of unbridled passion to last long enough to make a memory for her to look back on in time to come. She wanted to savor every single moment with the hunk of raw manhood before her, and it was clear that he wanted to do the same.

Daniel sat on her bed and pulled her to him, laying his hands on her hips and squeezing his fingers into their curves as he returned his hot mouth to her breasts and nipples, biting and sucking at them, driving Laura mad with need.

He slowly laid back on the bed, pulling her with him and turning at the same time so that she was on her back. He moved down to her legs and pushed her thighs apart, looking at her body and running his fingers gently over her core. He slipped them into her slightly, spreading the moisture in her over the outside of her, making her suck her breath in as he did. He lowered his mouth down to her inner thighs, his lips pulling and kissing at her skin as he moved them closer and closer to her... until he reached her with his mouth.

She had to clench the sheets tightly in her fingers to keep from crying out as he moved the width of his tongue along the outside of her slowly, achingly, and then he pushed it into her, tasting her and discovering just what would build up the pleasure in her enough that she would come for him, and she did, gasping for air and writhing beneath his mouth and firm hands, just as she knew she would when his eyes had traveled over her earlier and set her on fire.

She came hard and her body stiffened as every sense was heightened to the fullest. As she came back down off of her high, his kisses on her became soft against her tender skin, and she sighed quietly and opened her eyes to look at him. He was beautiful laying there between her thighs, staring up at her with his ravenous eyes.

She sat up slowly and rolled him to his back, looking down at him with a wicked grin. “It's my turn, now.” she whispered and he grinned back at her as she began to run her fingers along the length of his thick shaft. He sighed happily as her hand closed around him and rubbed at him, but when her lips touched the tip of him and then her hot tongue slid around him and down him, he couldn’t hold back the moans of ecstasy that escaped him.

Daniel curled his fingers in her hair and lifted his pelvis subtly as she took the fullness of him into her mouth and began to suck on him, drawing heat and pleasure through all of his body right to the focal point of her lips. He groaned and began to pump himself into her mouth gently as she sucked and twisted her tongue around him.

She knew that she was driving him wild and it made her body burn hotter for him, turning up the heat for them both until he stopped her, breathless and panting, and in a voice strangled with need, he whispered, “I need you, now!”

In one swift movement, she found herself beneath him and he was pushing her legs apart, desperate to be inside her, just as desperate as she was to feel him in her. In a tantalizingly slow movement, he slid himself into her inch by inch, until she was filled with him and the inferno in them blazed. They rocked together and against each other, wrestling in the sheets, hard and sensuous, their mouths tasting, kissing, biting, their hands clenched and fingers pressed deeply into each other's bodies, building up to a passionate crescendo that they reached together, coming hard together and releasing all of their tension and energy in an explosive orgasm of white-hot flame.

They held each other close, their grips loosening as their hearts slowed and their bodies began to relax, and they laid back in the bed together, sinking into the pillows with smiles on their faces. He kissed her forehead, and then her lips, softly and gently, and looked at her with a sweet smile.

“You are an amazing woman.” he said with a wink.

She leaned in to him and kissed him back, softly. “You're quite the rock star, yourself.” She had done it. She had just had her first one night stand and it couldn’t have been better.

He laid with her for a short while, and then he touched her face with his fingertip.

“I have to be going. Fires to put out and things like that...” he trailed off. Then he slipped both of his hands on either side of her head and kissed her again; he kissed her like he meant it, and then he looked earnestly into her eyes. “Thank you for the best night ever.”

Then like a wisp of smoke on the wind, he was gone.

Chapter4

Alone in her house once again, Laura let the events of the previous night run through her memory with fondness. She walked to the living room and sat down on the sofa, letting her eyes wander to the window as they had done only the day before when all this had begun.

She certainly had no regret for what had transpired between them. Laura had promised herself one night of amazing, unforgettable sex, and she hadn't been disappointed, but she supposed she was a little sorry that it was over so soon.

Laura remembered every word spoken between them and all the ways that their bodies had communicated when their mouths had been silent. She had never been with a man who had commanded her attention quite like that and she had never found a man who had been quite so amazed by her as the captain had been.

People often talk of sexual chemistry and Laura had always believed that to be a myth. When a man and a woman are in close proximity, there is always enough of an attraction for sex to happen, but Laura realized now that this was not what chemistry meant.

Chemistry is when the desires of your body override reason. It’s when you forget yourself in his presence and become someone you never thought you could be, because you’re reacting to whatever it is in him that makes you come alive. It’s when the moment is suddenly more than words and dry conversation, and is filled with heavy glances and meaningful movements which convey so much more. Their meaning is simply understood, because your bodies want each other so badly that they decipher the signs you didn't think you were experienced enough to read.

Laura had never experienced chemistry before, not with Connor or David or Ray or any of the men that she had given her time to be intimate with them.

Among all the satisfaction that had happened with Daniel, there was definitely a little fear that she would never find that incredible chemistry again; that all her time as a confident, sexy, and sensual woman had been used up in one unforgettable night.

She languished over him for the rest of the day. Daniel had been everything a woman could want in a man. He was handsome, confident, and had his life in order. He was a captain after all, but beyond that, he made her feel differently about herself in a way that no other man ever had. He had set a standard for future men and Laura was afraid that she would never hit that mark again. Her sex life had peaked with Daniel and it was a depressing thought.

***

As the days and then weeks went by, Laura tried to put Daniel to the back of her mind, but she would still smile a little smile at certain memories every time she looked at her sofa or when she cooked bad Italian food for one person. She lost interest in looking to date other men and concentrated on her work instead, but even as she stood behind the counter at her little shop, there were times when her eyes would glaze over and she would be thinking back to that one incredible night—to the smile of that one incredible man—and would jump when her thoughts were interrupted by a customer wanting to buy a birthday card for Gran.

About a month after her night with Daniel, Laura began to feel a little unwell and she wondered if it was possible to be pining after a man so badly that it made your stomach swell and nausea rise. She pushed down her restlessness with chocolate and rom-coms, but when she was still feeling bloated and strange a couple of weeks later, she finally reasoned that perhaps it wasn't heartbreak causing her to feel off and began to wonder what else might be causing her discomfort.

It was one evening when she was sitting reading another magazine and eating a pot of noodles that her mind began to wander back to that incredible evening, as it seemed so often to do nowadays. She began to figure out how long it had been since she'd had her one-night stand with the captain. It must have been six weeks or so. It wasn't long after that she had first started to feel unwell.

A sudden clarity struck Laura and she nearly dropped her noodles. She set them down on the coffee table and placed an anxious hand on her stomach. When was the last time she'd had her period? It couldn't be... Could it? She and Daniel hadn't been careful. Laura had stopped taking the pill after her last awful first date. Before then, she had been taking the pill since she was eighteen and had never before had to think about contraception before having sex, but she couldn't be pregnant, could she?

“Oh God,” Laura moaned, running her hands over her hair in a panic and running over the dates in her mind once again. Her friend Emily had gotten pregnant last year, and she found out after she had started feeling sick and bloated, but Emily had been trying with her partner for months. Laura had just been after one night of no-strings attached sex and now there was the daunting and terrible realization that perhaps she hadn't taken enough care to ensure the “no-strings” part.

“Don't panic,” she told herself out loud. “You haven't even taken a test yet.”

Laura quickly got herself ready and picked up her purse, heading down the street to the pharmacy in town. All the while she was talking to herself in her head, wondering what on earth she would do if she was pregnant with the fireman's baby.

She had always been a sensible girl. Sophie had always made fun of her for always thinking so far ahead and being so organized. Laura had been starting her own business when Sophie was still living off of Mom and Dad and going to concerts every weekend. Out of all their friends, Laura had always been the one to have had her head screwed on right. Her life had a very clear plan: 1) Start a business; 2) Buy a home; and 3) Get married.

Having kids was somewhere way down the line on her schedule, if she ever had kids at all. It wasn’t in her plan to be a mother now, not when she was so unprepared for it and certainly not alone.

Laura walked into the pharmacy like a fugitive on the run and kept her head down as she headed to the aisle where the pregnancy tests were waiting for her like a sentence for a crime. She felt like everyone was watching her; like everyone would know that she was possibly pregnant with the baby of a fireman she had slept with one night six weeks ago.

She ran her eyes over all the different types of test: Clear Blue
,
First Response
,
Answer... Every type was claiming to be the most accurate, or able to detect pregnancy the earliest. Laura was in such a panic that she needed to be sure. She scooped six different tests into her basket and then picked up some bubble bath as though that would disguise the fact that she had a basket full of pregnancy tests. Her skin flushed red as the cashier scanned them, one by one and gave her the total. Laura hastily paid and ran out of the shop, jogging slightly towards her house in desperation to know if this was all just some terrible mistake.

Once at home, she rushed to the bathroom and began the process of using each and every one of the tests in turn and lining them up side by side on the bathroom counter and then began the endless two minute wait which seemed to last a lifetime. One by one, the line of pregnancy tests began to reveal their results and with each line that appeared Laura felt herself become more and more terrified. Positive, positive, positive, positive, positive, positive.

Laura sat down on the edge of the bath, gripping the edges of the ceramic tightly and taking a few deep breaths. This was unbelievable. For a few minutes she tried to convince herself that this could still be nothing more than a mistake and it was something else making all those pregnancy tests show positive. She would have to book a doctor's appointment and confirm it.

Deep down, Laura knew that it would make no difference. All the signs were there. She had started to be sick in the mornings, her flat stomach had started to round out just slightly, she hadn't had her period this month, and six tests don't lie. Tearfully, she crawled into the bathtub and tried to figure out what she was going to do.

She would go to the doctor's the next day and if her pregnancy was confirmed, then she would have no choice but to seek out the captain, because there was no way that she was doing this on her own.

The young woman felt so small. She had given everything for one night of supreme pleasure, but all her attempts to be sophisticated, mature, and wild had come down to this and now she simply felt scared. What would Daniel say?

Perhaps he would be mad at her for not thinking about protection, but then again, he hadn't been careful, either. They were equally guilty in this conception, but was he the sort of man who would take responsibility for a young woman in trouble? When she thought once more of his handsome, sculpted body and the way he had spoken and held himself with such utter confidence and conviction in his prowess she wondered how many woman had fallen for his charms and whether she was the first woman to fall pregnant to this man.

It took her a long time to gather the courage to crawl out of the bath, but when she did, she emerged as a woman determined. Laura was not the sort of person to feel sorry for herself and let the world fall apart. Yes, she was afraid. Yes, she was alone, but she was a strong woman who had always managed being alone before. She had been single many times over the years and had still managed to be happy and build a business and find a way to scrape together the money to keep a roof over her head. So she was pregnant. She would find a way to cope still.

***

The next day at the doctor's office confirmed what she already knew, but Laura didn't break down again as she left the clinic and returned slowly home. In fact, her mind was back to its previous way of working: calm, methodical, and level-headed. She didn't let herself give into the panic that tried to curl its fingers around her heart, but began to reasonably ask herself what she needed to do now.

The first thing, of course, was to track down Daniel and tell him the news. Regardless of how he took it, at least they'd be able to make decisions together from then on and that would make it easier. So she went home, took down the address of the local fire station and headed over that Saturday afternoon to find the captain.

She had never been to a fire station before. As she approached, she could see the shutters of the garage open and three fire engines waiting inside with spaces for others which must have been out somewhere extinguishing fires. She entered through those open shutters and tried to find someone to talk to.

To her left she could see the equipment room with its red wire framing, helmets and uniforms all laid out. On the right was the hoist tower where several long hoses were hanging from a tall chimney-like structure to dry and more hoses were lined up in spirals on the ground to be fitted to engines later. Laura took all of this in and then began to step around the engines as she searched for someone to speak with. She could hear voices up ahead and followed them to a large break room beyond the garages where a group of off-duty firemen were gathered eating. She knocked tentatively on the doorframe to get their attention and they looked up at her with interest.

“The reception is that way,” one of the men told her, pointing in the direction she had just come from.

“Actually, I'm looking for someone who works for the department,” Laura told them. “His name is Daniel. He's the captain. He's kind of tall; has blonde hair, brown eyes.”

The fire fighter closest to her nodded in recognition.

“Yeah, we know Dan,” he told her. “But you won't find him here. He's gone with a whole group off to Colorado for the summer to fight the wild fires. Didn't you know?”

Laura felt her heart drop into her stomach and she closed her eyes briefly to steady herself, before opening them again and trying to find another way to reach him instead of panicking because he wasn't here.

“Well, do you have a contact number I could take?” she asked hopefully.

The firemen exchanged glances. A different man spoke to her this time. Laura recognized him as one of the other firefighters who had been there to put out Marie's house.

“You're that woman from that fire we were called to several weeks ago,” he recollected. “Sorry, but you're out of luck. Dan's off the books for the whole summer. You can try calling around the Colorado departments, but he won't be assigned a station as he is here. He could be anywhere and he'll have a different number out of state. I'm sorry, but we can't help you.”

“When will he be back?” Laura asked helplessly.

“It's hard to say,” the fireman shrugged. “It depends on how hot the summer is and how long the fires last. It depends on whether he's giving any training. It depends on whether we need him back here or whether they need him more out there. He could be back in a few weeks, or it could be months, if he makes it back at all.”

“Well, can I give you my number?” Laura persisted. “And will you have him call me when he gets back? My name is Laura. He knows who I am.”

“Look, Miss, I'll hold onto the number, but I don't know how long Dan will be away. If you're looking for a second date, I think you're out of luck,” he apologized.

Laura frowned but still wrote down her number on a scrap and handed it to him.

“Please give that to him when you see him,” she insisted. “It's important.”

She left the station feeling lost and uncertain. Her plan had been to find Daniel, tell him about the baby, and make a plan with him for what to do next, but Daniel hadn't been there, there was no way of getting hold of him for God knows how long and her plan had come to a dead end. Things hadn't gone according to her plans since she'd met that man.