“Yes, you can.” His free hand slides down, his fingers finding my clit again, rubbing in tight, relentless circles. “Come on, sweetheart. Milk my cock just like that.”
His words send me over the edge. My release crashes into me, my walls clamping down around him so hard I hear him roar. His cock pulses deep inside me as he comes, his seed coating my walls, marking me in a way that feels primal.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. His chest heaves against my back as he presses a kiss to my shoulder.
Then he pulls out slowly, and I collapse onto the mattress, my body humming, my mind blissfully empty.
Nick stretches out beside me, pulling me against his chest, his fingers tracing lazy patterns along my spine.
And not once do I think this is a mistake.
At least…not yet.
Chapter Three
Samantha
The test sits on the edge of the sink, two faint pink lines staring up like they know something I don’t. Accusation. Promise. I can’t decide which.
It’s been six weeks since that night. Six weeks since I let myself believe in something that felt too good to be temporary. Nick’s touch still lingers when I think about it. The rough drag of his hands and the low sound he made when he breathed against my neck play over in my mind. He’d looked at me like I was the only real thing in the world.
And then he was gone. No note. No number. Just the smell of his cologne on my pillow and the kind of silence that settles in your chest and refuses to leave.
What had I expected? A relationship? A phone number at least? We barely knew each other. A few conversations at the bakery, some electric tension that could've powered the whole town, and one night of the most intense connection I've ever felt with another human being.
That's it. That's all it was supposed to be.
I pick up the test, turn it over, as if the answer might change if I look at it from a different angle. It doesn't.
The thing is, as much as I tell myself it was just a fling, just one night of spectacular, life-altering sex with a stranger, I can’t shake the feeling that it was more. Something in the way he looked at me, like he saw past every wall I’d carefully built. Something in the way our bodies fit together, like puzzle pieces that had been wandering lost until that moment.
God, listen to me. I sound like one of those romance novels Ella's always trying to get me to read.
Except romance novels don't usually end with the heroine staring at a positive pregnancy test while the hero is nowhere to be found, do they?
One time. We had sex one time, and now I'm pregnant. This is the kind of thing that only happens in books and movies, right? Not to practical, responsible, thinks-three-steps-ahead Samantha Baylor. Not to the woman who plans her week down to the minute and color-codes her calendar.
But here I am, evidence quite literally in hand.
I set the test down, grip the edge of the sink once again, and study my reflection. Same dark eyes, same face that's looked back at me for twenty-eight years. But something's different now. Something's shifting beneath the surface, rearranging itself into a new configuration I don't quite recognize yet.
There's no question about what I'm going to do. The decision settled into my bones the moment I saw those two lines, solid and certain as gravity. I'm keeping this baby. Even if I have to do it alone, and it's very much looking like I will.
I have no idea how to contact Nick. No last name, no phone number, no address. It's like he vanished into thin air, leaving me with nothing but memories that feel too vivid to be real and a growing life inside me that's very, very real.
I've thought of him constantly since that night. Every time the bakery door opens, my heart does this stupid, hopeful leap. Every time I see someone tall with silver hair walking downMain Street, I have to stop myself from running after them like some desperate heroine in a melodrama.
And now I'll have to stare at a tiny version of him for the rest of my life. Those same intense eyes looking up at me from a bassinet, asking questions I don't know how to answer.
Where's my father? Why did he leave? Didn't he want us?
I splash cold water on my face, trying to wash away the sting behind my eyes.
I can do this. I've always been strong. Independent. The girl who moved across the country and opened her own business at twenty-five. The woman who survived a bad breakup and came out stronger on the other side.
I can do this.
I have to.
