Let It Snow (15 page)

Someone hailed the lieutenant, who broke away at a jog, kicking up puffs of snow as he ran. Keith followed at a slower pace. She wasn’t looking at him. A pair of bouncing, squealing kids had her attention, the expression on her elfin face a cross between fear and longing. In her letters, she declared there was no reason why she shouldn’t be able to take care of herself and a kid. In others, she confessed to abject terror at the prospect of being responsible for another life.

“Tel,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

She lifted her head and smiled. “Hey. You’re home.”

“Yeah. Where’s my welcome-back hug?”

Breaking away from the crowd, she wrapped her arms around his waist, stronger than he expected. Her high, round belly reached him first, lodging square against his groin. Want rocketed straight to the base of his spine. Keith cupped the back of her head and squeezed her more gently than she clutched at him.

“Fuck, Tel.” All his prepared lines escaped him. He grasped a handful of her hair and held her face to his chest, overwhelmed by the weight of her in his arms, so different from the flimsy paper of pictures. “Damn, it’s good to see you.”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest. Her shoulders hitched on a laugh and she wiggled against his erection. “I guess it is. Maybe it’s a good thing your parents asked me to fill in for retrieval duty. Wouldn’t want to subject your dad to
this
.”

Keith snorted. “He’s not nearly as pretty as you.”

“Pretty doesn’t matter much after seven months in Mongolia.” She loosened her hold and backed away. Blue eyes twinkled up at him, bright with amusement and framed by snow-dotted lashes.

“Monks have their charms.” He reluctantly let her go despite a desire to kiss the snow off her cheeks. “You want to hang out here or take off?”

“Take off. Fireplace is ready to go at home and I’m starting to get cold under this layer of baby fat.” Grimacing, she pulled her coat closed across her abdomen.

Not “your house”, but
home
. Good. He blew out a breath. “Dunno how you can be cold. You look hot.”

“Um. Yeah.” She rolled her eyes.

“Don’t brush me off, Tel. I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

She tucked her chin close to her chest and stared at his buttons. Her playfulness vanished. “You shouldn’t say things at all. I’m not going to be the object of your hero complex.”

Before he could defend himself, she turned away and tried to squeeze through the crowd. Smothering his urge to pull her back and prove he wanted to be more than her hero, he watched her push at the crowd. Nobody paid her any attention, too wrapped up in the joy of reunion. With a curse, he took her hand and drew her behind him. People parted with less resistance when confronted with him instead of the little mother trailing on his heels.

“My car or yours?” he asked over his shoulder when they separated from the crowd.

“Yours. Hope you don’t mind.” Her tone turned wry. “I barely fit in mine right now and my tires are overdue for replacement.”

“I’ll take it in tomorrow.”

“No, you don’t have to. I’ll do it.”

“Yeah, and drive to the garage without treads? I said I’ll do it. You work tomorrow?” The thought of her risking ice storms on bald tires pissed him off.

“Your family will want to see you and I can take care of my own things.” She pulled at his hold.

Keith laced his fingers between hers, trapping her. “Your brother will kick my ass if you have an accident. Do you work tomorrow?”

She sighed. “I have a sunrise class, but the studio might cancel it for weather. I should know before six.”

“Wake me up. I’ll drive you.”

Telly didn’t reply. Keith beeped his SUV’s alarm until he located the flashing headlights. Minutes later, he had the vehicle unlocked. Snow frosted the windows. He threw his pack in the backseat and held the door for her.

She reached inside and produced a windshield scraper. “I’ll just—”

“You’ll just get inside and crank up the heat.” Keith claimed the scraper.

“But—”

“But I’m taller, my reach is longer and I’m not five months pregnant. You’re not so big that I can’t pick you up and put you on that seat.”

She didn’t duck her head this time. Anger flushed her cheeks. “You’re not my brother or my father.”

“Sweetheart, let’s get something clear.” He gripped the door and braced his hand on the roof, meeting her eyes. “I haven’t thought a single brotherly thought about you since you ran me down on the football field and begged for my gym shirt to cover the blood stain from your first period. The only
fatherly
thoughts I have about you involve smacking your ass while you cry out something like ‘Please, Daddy, harder.’”

Her lips parted but she pressed them together without responding and climbed inside. Keith touched the small of her back and kept an eye on her footing until her rear end connected with the seat. Closing her inside, he turned away to hide his grin. Stubborn brat.

Ignoring his persistent erection, he quickly cleared the windows. By the time he slid behind the wheel, the heater was working to melt new snow as it fell. Telly had removed her coat. A form-fitting v-neck sweater stretched over her stomach and clung to the flare of her hips. Her breasts were bigger than they’d been in the last picture. In the dim glow of the overhead light, he could see the pencil-eraser shape of her nipples standing at attention beneath her sweater and bra. Keith tossed his cover on the backseat and gripped the wheel hard, deliberately blanking his mind. “You need to stop anywhere on the way?”

She stared at her hands. “I don’t need anything. Do you?”

“Nothing I can get at a convenience store,” he muttered.

He backed out of the parking space and shifted gears, steady and sure in the snow. Ten minutes later, he merged with the beltway traffic.

“Um…want me to blow you to help you relieve some of that just-off-the-bus stress?” Her tone was light and playful again, an attempt to dispel tension.

Keith glanced at her, making note of the expression that didn’t match the tone. Small teeth worried her bottom lip. While he certainly wouldn’t object to her pretty mouth stretched around his cock, that wasn’t the image of her he’d been carrying since he found out about her pregnancy. “Why don’t you lift your sweater and let me see the baby?”

Telly turned her head and stared at him. “What?”

“You heard me.” Keith focused on his mirrors and the convoy of salt trucks passing them on the left. His shoulders bunched as he shifted gears. Shadow and light from the passing vehicles did interesting things to the planes and hollows of his profile.

He was bigger than she remembered, muscles hardened and shaped by his recent stint overseas. Hugging him earlier, she’d wanted to rub herself against his six-pack abs like an attention-whore cat. She pressed her knees together. Her sex drive was out of control, muddling her head and screwing with her reactions to him. Telly inhaled and side-stepped his request. “Your parents send their love. They wanted to come out to meet you themselves, but it’s been snowing for hours in Columbia. They said they’d call in the morning and they expect you to show up for Christmas Eve Mass if the roads are clear tomorrow afternoon.”

“Morning’s soon enough. Have you heard anything from Trevor?”

She didn’t want to talk about Trevor. “Jamie’s pushing him to step up and take responsibility.”

“Your brother wants to make sure you don’t have to be alone.” Keith glanced at her. “Do you want to hear anything from him?”

“Not really.” She stretched her legs and studied her feet in the dark below the glove compartment. The shape of his erection seemed imprinted against her stomach. “I told you. Accident happened. Trevor wasn’t supposed to be my happy ever after.”

“Feelings change.”

“Not mine. Not about this.” She moistened her lips, too aware of his scent surrounding her, his strong frame just a few inches away. His fierce, clipped words in the parking lot and the way they contrasted with his controlled, even tone now. She didn’t want to talk about Trevor. His face wasn’t the right face. The right face… She studied Keith from the corner of her eye. Between layers of fabric and the dark of the SUV’s interior, she couldn’t see evidence of his physical want, but she knew he was still hard. After such a prolonged period of celibacy, his first instinct must have been for sex. She couldn’t take his earlier hardness personally.

Oh, she wished his arousal was
really
for her. Despite his denial of familial feelings, she knew the truth. Keith wanted to protect her. He always had.

“Like what you see?” His jaw tightened and flexed as he navigated the slippery road.

She gave up hiding her examination and faced him full-on. “I want you to believe me. The feelings didn’t exist in the first place. There’s no way for them to change. You’ve had casual partners without love being an issue. Jamie has too. Why can’t I have had the same?”

“Nobody’s said you can’t. I’m a modern guy. I’m fully willing to share no-strings sex with women.” His lips quirked and he looked away from the road long enough to wink at her. “Instead of keeping it all for myself. It’s better with love involved though.”

“There wasn’t any love involved,” she said firmly. Closing her eyes, she tipped her head against the back of the seat.

Keith turned on the radio, managing to find one station that wasn’t playing Christmas music, and didn’t say anything else. During the drive to Alexandria, Telly dozed and drifted on the edge of fantasy, a recurring guilty secret, reliving the night she conceived. Instead of Trevor’s lean frame, Keith’s sturdier body moved between her legs. “No” became “more”.
He
claimed her and marked her as his with his climax. As she stretched to accommodate his child, Keith’s hands framed her stomach and mapped the ways she changed.

Instead of the vulgar words Trevor had muttered when he came, she heard Keith’s rough, whispered, “Tel.”

He repeated her name, his touch a light caress beneath her navel. “We’re home. Put your arms around my neck and let me get you inside.”

Telly blinked at the dim glow of the SUV’s interior light, reluctant to leave the wish behind. Her sex throbbed, warm and wanting. She blew out a breath. “Did I fall asleep?”

“Yeah.” He disentangled her from the seat belt, his head bent so close she could almost touch his ear with her lips.

“Sorry. I spend half my time narcoleptic and the other half an insomniac. Don’t take it personally.” She should protest his intention to carry her, but he felt good and smelled better. She twined her arms around his neck as instructed and inhaled deeply, drawing in the scent of his skin. It would have been so easy to slip back into fantasy.

“You were dreaming,” he said.

“Was I?” How long could she keep playing neutral?

“Sure were. Sounded like something good.” He caught her beneath her knees and at the middle of her back. Physical power rippled in the solid tension of his chest, hard against her breast and ribs. Swinging her high, he closed the door with his elbow and started for the house. Telly closed her eyes. Keith’s lips grazed her ear. “You said my name.”

Oh God. She hadn’t talked in her sleep since college. What had she said? Flushing, she hid her face in the crook of his neck. “Probably because you were driving too fast.”

“Pretty sure you were telling me not to stop.” He jostled her slightly and worked his key in the lock. Inside, he closed the door with his foot. “You asked me to do something too.”

Oh no
. Mute, she squirmed in his grasp. Keith ignored her struggles and headed for the bedrooms at the back of the house.

“I’ve been sleeping in the small bedroom,” she croaked.

“That futon can’t be comfortable.” He passed the small room and entered the master bedroom. His bedroom.

“Want to know what you asked for?” A firm mattress cushioned her back. Keith's dark form hovered above her, bent at the waist over the bed. His chest rested flush against her stomach, his forearms at either side of her head. Strong fingers tangled in her hair, pulled her head back and exposed the underside of her chin.

“I don’t think I do,” she muttered.

“Telly,” he whispered, “I want to do it.”

Oh.
She swallowed, not certain her voice would hold. “Do what?”

His knee touched her hip and the mattress dipped under their combined weight as he caged her between his legs. “Make you come like you asked.”

Her pulse jumped. She slid her hands beneath his uniform, bracketing his trim waist. Still more layers kept her from skin to skin, but his body heat warmed her cold palms. “Did I ask that?”

“Yes. I damn near drove off the road.” He drew her bottom lip between his teeth.

She creased his flesh with her fingernails, trying to play it cool despite her sudden inability to draw a deep breath. Huskier than she meant to, she quipped, “I suppose this is my job as the welcome-home committee.”

“You suppose.” Keith growled against her throat. His fingers drew through her hair, pulling the curls straight in light punishment. “You suppose wrong. It’d be your job to make
me
come and that’s not what I said I wanted.”

“Umm-hmm. Okay, so how do you want to do it?” Not believing he actually did, but his voice had dropped to a rough pitch that rubbed along her spine like a hot stone massage. Maybe she was still asleep. She was definitely nervous, her pulse leaping as he tasted the hollow at the base of her throat. Keith. With her. She strove for even breathing but was pretty sure she failed.

He kissed her chin before straightening his arms and pushing up to loom over her. “I haven’t had a good meal in months. I figured I’d start by finding out what you taste like.”

“Oh.” Oh God, he was serious. Reasons for saying no flitted in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t latch on to them long enough to sort out what they were. She dug her nails into the muscle at the small of his back. Keith arched away from the tiny pain. His cock rode the lower slope of her abdomen and he stiffened with a curse.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, heat rushing her cheeks. There, that was one of the reasons. “It’s awkward.”