Chloe's Donor (2 page)

“I don’t suppose you’d be amenable to coming back tomorrow?”

He supported her elbow as they made their way up the sidewalk to the small brick bungalow. “Only if I lock a GPS tracking device around your ankle before I go.”

“Stubborn.” She shook her head and sighed. “Not on my list of desirable qualities in a child.”

He snorted. “Think of it as goal-oriented.”

Her white-brick home looked like a gingerbread house. It had a narrow front yard that was mostly plants, trees, and wildflowers. The shutters were painted sky blue and there was a colorful striped awning over a large picture window.

When they stepped inside, refinished hardwood floors and white walls were the only neutral colors. The sofa was bright red, and the surrounding chairs and pillows were variations on the theme. Colorful artwork leaped off the walls, making the room come alive with dancing images of paint, woven cloth, and bent metal.

“Wow.”

“It’s too much for most people.”

“Is this your work?”

“Unfortunately, no. But artistic talent does run through my family.”

He led her over to the couch. “Sit down, put your feet up and let me get you something to drink.” Before she could object, he propped a pillow under her legs and wandered into her kitchen. He rummaged for a couple of glasses and fixed some ice water. There was a packet of crackers on the counter that he snagged on the way back to the living room.

She eyed him warily, but accepted the drink and crackers. Dev pulled a chair close to her head and leaned his elbows on his knees. His folded hands could reach over and stroke her face if he wanted. More like if she’d let him. “I’m not going to insist on marriage right away .…”

“What a relief.”

“—but I want you to consider it.”

She took a sip of her drink. “Okay. On the one hand, we have maintaining my balanced life and raising my child on my own, without interference. Hmmmmm.” She looked thoughtful while she took another drink of water, then rested the cold glass against her cheek for a moment and closed her eyes.

“On the other hand, we have marriage to a stranger, who admittedly exceeds the clinic’s and most other people’s physical standards. But he’s stubbornly goal-oriented, especially when it’s his goal that he’s after.” She opened her eyes. “I’ve considered it. I’m not interested.”

“You forgot to mention my high-performance sperm.” He couldn’t help the grin that slipped out. It was totally immature for a man of his years and experience to be proud of his mating prowess, but there you go. The surge of pride shot all the way to his cock. This was a first time deal for him and a saint he was not.

“I don’t need any more of your sperm,” she said hotly, placing a hand on her belly.

Too true. This might not be as easy as he’d anticipated. “You’d rather have a drawn out legal battle for custody?”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked with obvious exasperation. “It’s not as if you had any immediate plans for fatherhood. Why can’t you just let it go?”

She knew jack-shit about his fatherhood plans and he was going to keep it that way. “Look, Chloe. My motto’s always been, ‘leave no sperm behind.’ Now I find that a whole shit load of the suckers got shipped to you in a miracle vile. I’m damn sorry you think it’s
in-con-ven-ient
, but no child of mine is going to wonder who the hell his father is and why the bastard couldn’t be bothered to know him.”

“Great. I draw the one man in the universe who wants to assume responsibility for conception, when he didn’t get
any
, much less
good
sex in the process. This has to be some sort of cosmic joke.”

He leaned forward so that he could whisper into her ear. “It would have been hot, no holds-barred, mind-blowing sex.” Satisfied with her quick little intake of breath, he backed away. “Look. I’ve got the next couple of weeks off. I’d like to spend it together and get to know each other.”

She stared down at her glass and absently stirred the ice with a tip of her fingernail. “All right. Why don’t you come to dinner next week?”

In her dreams. “That wasn’t exactly my plan.”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

He took her hand between both of his. “I’ve got a small cabin and some land about fifty miles north of here. Come stay with me for a few weeks.”

“Why should I?”

“We can work this out, Chloe. Marriage would be the easiest solution for the baby. It won’t have to be forever.” No point setting himself up for another gut-wrenching disaster. “In fact, I’d want a divorce after the baby’s born.”

She looked thoughtful. “I’m willing to discuss the merits of marriage on paper, but we can do that without a scenic road trip.”

A name-only marriage had been his plan until he’d met her. Now he didn’t want to miss out on feeling the baby romp around inside of her, not to mention a lot of romping of his own beneath the sheets with Miss Chloe. In fact, tied up in the sheets would be even better. He wanted to tie her down and pleasure her until she didn’t know her own name. Until she’d be willing to take his.

Instead, he took the reasoned approach. “If we’re going to be raising this child together, then it will be easier if we get closer to each other.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Just how close did you have in mind?”

Somehow he didn’t think ‘buried to the hilt’ was the answer she was looking for. “Husband-and-wife close.”

“You want to have sex with me.”

Oh, yeah.
“The thought’s crossed my mind.” He raised his hand and interrupted her before she could object. “I believe in vows, Chloe. While we’re married, I have no intention of seeing other women.”

“I’m five months pregnant. It won’t be that long until the baby is born. Surely you can ...,” A nice warm glow appeared on her face. “... can handle things by yourself until then.”

“That might have been acceptable until today, but once I saw you walk into that conference room, I jettisoned Plan A.” When she looked confused, he elaborated. “The Jerking-Off-for-Four-Months Plan.”

She swallowed visibly. “And Plan B?”

“That would be the Worship-a-Fertility-Goddess Plan.”

Interestingly, the warm glow on her face and neck grew brighter, and she didn’t meet his eyes. “What makes you so sure I want to be worshiped by you?”

The flush on her skin and the soft intake of breath when he drew close were just a few of the clues. Chloe wanted him, all right. Maybe not as much as he ached to lose himself in her hot mama body, but it was enough to take a gamble. His buddies didn’t call him Big Dick Gallagher for nothing. “If you really give the relationship an honest shot while we’re away, and it doesn’t work out, I’ll back off the sex issue and come to some kind of reasonable custody arrangement with you.”

She studied him suspiciously. “You’re making a major concession without me risking much of anything.”

He brought her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips across the delicate skin of her wrist. Her pulse jumped a satisfying notch. “Your risk is that you’ll decide that sex will be a good thing.” He’d make sure of it.

He took the glass from her hand and set it on the end table. She didn’t balk when he touched her cheek with his hand. In fact, as he eyed her wide mouth and leaned closer, her breath caught and her golden eyes widened. “I think if you’re honest, you’ll admit that we don’t seem to be immune to each other.”

He gave her a chance to object and felt a surge of satisfaction when she allowed him to brush his lips across hers. He cradled her face in his hands while he nibbled and sucked on her lower lip, gratified to hear a soft moan. When he felt her fingers touch his chest, he lowered one hand to explore her ear, delighted to hear the tinkle of her earrings before he stroked her neck over her rapid pulse.

Chloe’s hand moved up his chest and around his neck. Dev had to rein himself in as he deepened the kiss, dueling with her tongue. What he really wanted to do was scoop her luscious body onto his lap and pull her onto his rock-hard cock.

He restrained himself from that primitive instinct, but he couldn’t resist something else he’d craved from the moment he’d seen her walk into that conference room. He placed his hand softly over her lower abdomen. It was incredible that his baby – his flesh and blood – was growing inside this gorgeous woman.

Chloe sucked in a breath and leaned back from him, misty eyed and flushed. “Um, that’s not the usual progression of a man’s hand.”

He kissed her lips again. “It makes you unbelievably sexy.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I feel like a mobile home and I look like a blimp.”

“You are so, so wrong.” Dev lifted up her shirt to expose the soft skin of her belly. Her skin sparkled with some kind of faint glitter that was specially designed to suck the blood straight to a man’s cock. He placed both hands on her abdomen before lowering his head to kiss and nuzzle her skin with his face. She smelled like lavender and lemon and sin. When her hand touched his hair, he growled his approval and slid his fingers beneath the elastic waistband of her skirt

His tongue followed his fingers as he pushed the elastic down to expose her entire lower belly, making himself stop at the first glossy curl he unveiled. His baby made a soft mound below her belly button that he could easily encase in two of his hands. He settled soft kisses over her lush, fertile belly while she ran both hands over his short hair. He could smell her arousal.

“God, I didn’t know I could feel like this,” he murmured, a little shaken by the intensity of his need. Jesus H. Christ. His fingers were actually trembling. His erection was pounding with impatience. He had to keep it together if he hoped to bind this woman the only way he knew how -- with passion.

And passionate she was. As he turned his head to look at her, he was dazzled by her responsiveness. Her head was thrown back with eyes closed, lips parted, a delicate flush traveling from her face to the exposed skin of her chest. He knew that if he brushed the swollen nipples pushing against the gauzy blouse, or if he slid his fingers a few inches further south, she would come apart.

He reached for her face with his hands. “You are so beautiful, Chloe.”

She opened her eyes and blushed as she realized how far he’d taken her. “You’ve made your point.”

He scooped her over onto his lap and pulled her to his chest, making sure she could feel his throbbing cock. “For both of us.”

After a few minutes, he pulled back and met her wary gaze. “Will you come stay with me? It’s quiet and secluded – a good place for two people to just be.”
Please, God.

“You take a lot of your pregnant women there?”

He tapped her nose. “You’ll be the first female to cross the threshold.” He put his hand back on her warm belly. “Do you know if it’s a girl or boy?”

“Not yet. Do you care?”

“Nope. Healthy is what I want.”

He lifted her back on to the couch and gave her a quick kiss. “I’ve got a few things I need to go take care of. Give me your keys so I can get your car back to you. I’ll come by and get you around ten tomorrow morning.”

“I’m not going to travel with a perfect stranger into the hills of North Georgia without a mile-wide trail of breadcrumbs.” She bit her lip while she rummaged in her bag for her keys. “As much as I hate to tell anybody about this crazy situation, I’m going to ask my brother to be here tomorrow to meet you. He’ll need the address and phone number of your cabin.” She shook her head. “Knowing Jay, he’s also going to want to see two forms of identification and take your fingerprints.”

“No problem.” He was gong to be fucking busy for the next eighteen hours.

Chapter Two

Later that evening, Chloe phoned her brother with some trepidation. “Jay. It’s Chloe.”

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?” He sucked in a breath. “Is it the baby?”

“The baby and I are fine.” She slid down the couch and propped her feet onto her coffee table. “But it turns out that my anonymous donor isn’t anonymous anymore.”

There was a short pause. “I guess I don’t see the problem.”

“He didn’t give permission for his sperm to be used. And ...."

“This gets worse?”

“He wants me to marry him because he doesn’t want the baby to be illegitimate.”

“That son of a bitch.”

“Jay,” she groaned. “You of all people should understand why I don’t want a father around.”

“Not everyone is like our
pater
.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the untalented kindergarten teacher. He let up on you once he found out how brilliant your art was. “

“Uh huh. After fifteen years of hell because his son was gay.”

“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I forget sometimes.”

“It’s all right. Look. Does this guy scare you?”

“Not in the way you mean.” Ever since the early days of pregnancy had subsided, her hormones had been surging through her body, tantalizing every nerve ending. This afternoon, those hormones had spiked off the chart. She was getting wet again just thinking about him. If she gave in to the attraction, he’d own her.

“When do I meet him?”

“Tomorrow, just before he drags me on a two week trek into the woods somewhere north of Atlanta.”

“Oooeee. A camper you’re not. I almost admire him if he got you to agree to that.” She heard him rustle around for a pen. “But that doesn’t mean he’s taking you anywhere until I get a handle on him. Give me every thing you know about him.”

“Can Robert do his computer magic?”

“Unfortunately, Robert had the bad taste to fall for a jazz pianist about a week ago. But not to worry. He still wants to ‘be friends.’ So I’ll give the ungrateful little shit the opportunity to make it up to me.”

When her brother arrived the next morning, Jay looked his usual dashing self in crisp tailored gray pants topped with a long sleeved pink dress shirt. His sleeves were casually pushed up to three quarter length and his polished Italian loafers were worn, as usual, without socks.

“It’s a good thing you don’t hang out with women,” said Chloe, “because you’d give them a major inferiority complex.”