Chapter 8 8
When he came out, he paused at the edge of the hallway, his hands on his hips. Tipping his head back, he took a long cleansing breath and let it out, smiling as he did. He hadn't noticed her yet.
He looked as if he was measuring himself against the responsibility of fatherhood. She understood that. The day she'd learned she was pregnant with his child, she had done the same thing.
He met her gaze, like an arrow shooting straight toward a target. "Hi."
"Hey," she said. Lord, he was devastating to look at, she thought. In fitted jeans and a black T-shirt that flowed over every contour of his chest and arms, she wanted only to run her hands over that body. A body she'd had only one night to learn.
He moved toward her and her heart skipped an entire beat at that sexy hip-rolling walk of his. Did the man even know how powerful he was? Maybe he did, she thought as he slid down onto the sofa beside her. His face was inches from hers, his gaze making a slow prowl of her features, the neckline of her blouse. Her breasts tightened in instant reaction.
"You keep looking at me like that and we won't be dining on takeout," he said softly.
"I'm starving," she said, and knew she should have kept her mouth shut.
"Me, too. But I'm only hungry for you."
Alana felt herself turn to mush. "Stefan, don't."
"What? Don't be honest? Don't tell you how many times I've thought about you?''
"This isn't helping."
"Denying isn't helping," he said, and leaned closer, his mouth a fraction from hers.
She could feel his breath on her lips. Almost taste him. And if memory served her, and it did, he tasted great. She leaned, and an instant before his mouth crushed hers, her phone rang. She lurched to get it before it woke the baby.
"Hello," came out on a croak and she had to clear her throat. "Oh, hi, Travis."
Stefan's blue eyes narrowed dangerously, and Alana thought that between her disappointment at the interruption and the stupidity of falling into his arms again, this was the bucket of ice water she needed.
"Busy? Well, actually I am." She didn't look at Stefan. "Sure. Bye." She hung up.
"Who was that?"
"A friend."
"How close a friend?"
She didn't mistake the edge to his voice. "I work with Travis."
"Was he asking you out?"
"I imagine he was trying."
"You'd date this man?"
Travis had been asking for a date for a while now, but she'd always said no because she had to take care of Juliana. If Stefan hadn't shown up, she might have said yes in the future. Travis was a nice guy, but she had no intention of falling for him at the moment or anyone else. It would be trading one piece of heartache for another.
But she couldn't resist asking, "Any reason why I shouldn't?"
"Yes, I can barely get you to sit still long enough to speak with me and we have a child together."
And you're more dangerous to me than Travis could ever be. She could barely recall the guy's eye color, but there wasn't a thing about Stefan she'd forgotten. "What is it that you want to say, Stefan? Except contacting my parents without talking to me about it first and proposing marriage."
"You're not even going to consider it, are you?" he said.
"No, but thanks for the offer."
"You act like I did this without thinking first."
She folded her legs under her on the sofa. "It was a gut reaction, Stefan. An obligation. I will not be a man's ball and chain when he doesn't want it."
"Who says I don't?"
"If Juliana wasn't between us, would you have come here first?"
"I've been in-country for three days and two of them I've been here. What the fuck do you think?"
"You want to do the honorable thing. I can understand that. But I don't need you to. Nor do I want to marry a man only for the sake of a child. Marriage is tough enough without going in with such low expectations."
"I don't have those—you do. I'll be a good father."
"Oh, I know you will," she said gently. "But you don't have to marry me to be one. And don't you dare go behind my back to my parents again.”
He moved so fast that she barely had time to move or react. Next thing she knew, she was trapped. He'd moved to damn close on the sofa. So close that she could look nowhere else. See nothing else but him.
“What's so wrong with introducing myself to your parents?” he asked between clenched teeth, “You don't want them to know who Juliana’s father is? Or are you scared they're going to agree with me about us getting married because it's the right thing to do?”
Alana said nothing. She couldn't, and Stefan watched as her eyes glazed and mouth opened as if lust oozed from every pore. Her stare lingered on his mouth. What was she thinking? His mind fogged as her proximity, her scent, her heat flooded his blood with the testosterone that had dogged him since he returned. Damn, he shouldn't have come so close.
“You had no right,” she threw at him, and Stefan ignored the flare that turned her irises to molten metal.
He ignored the urgency of his own needs beating at his body until his muscles screamed with inertia. It wasn't the right time to touch her, he thought. Even as her hands fisted on her hips, a move that tightened the fabric across her full breasts outlining her erect nipples…begging for his tongue?
“If you want to be involved in our lives, you're going to have to learn not to go over my head like that. There are decisions I can make for myself. I've been making them for a while now before you showed up. You can't just come in here and take charge over everything,”
She jutted her chin forward, bringing her mouth only centimetres from his, her breath fanning his face. She looked halfway to orgasm already— panting, flushed, her mouth saying one thing while her body strained in his direction.
Don’t touch her.
Back away.
It took a lot for Stefan to pull back. “Fine,” he said softly, “I didn't come here to argue with you. I won't talk to your parents about anything else without talking to you first, okay?”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay,”
“Shall we eat?”